Meadows fourth grade teacher Diane Mosher-Kimsey, right with student Alexis Vincent go over Vincent's 'booksnap,' during a recent class. The students take a photo of a favorite quote from a book, illustrate the quote and share it with their 'Global Read Aloud' community.
Diane
Mosher-Kimsey, is a proud graduate of Topeka Public Schools and is in her 33rd
year of working for TPS. She started in 1985 as a second
grade teacher at Potwin Elementary, moving to Meadows Elementary as the
technology coordinator when the school opened. Currently she teaches fourth
grade at Meadows, it’s her favorite grade to teach. She loves to use technology
in the classroom where she is always learning something new from and with her
class.
“I’ve always enjoyed gadgets. I
started teaching with an Apple 2e computer. The kids loved playing Oregon
Trail, Math Blasters and such. I just love how technology has developed and
changes daily! Technology allows us to go global! My kids are doing video chats
with students in Singapore, they talk weekly with our skype pals in Ontario,
Canada! We have watched turtles on beaches in Australia, visited with National
Park forest rangers at three parks, and learned about the Amazon
Rainforest through skype chats! It’s just incredible how technology has
developed and lets us explore the world from the comfort of our classroom. Kids
love the technology! This is their world! Mine was a fat pencil and a Big Chief
tablet with ditto papers! We have to teach kids where they are and where
they’re going - not where I was and went!
This semester my students took part in the ‘Global
Read Aloud.’ (GRA) It’s part of a global phenomenon that where classes all over
the world read the same book and discuss. The GRA community has written and
shared more lessons and ideas then you would believe! I share one lesson to the
community weekly. It’s beyond a thrill to see other states and countries join
my class on padlets, flipgrids and more! Our very first day to do the GRA we
heard from Singapore, Malaysia, Sydney, four Provinces of Canada and 30 States.
Talk about going global! My kids and I were hooked!! A friend, Tara Martin created
this idea of #booksnaps. My class loves to annotate their reading by doing
#booksnaps! The kids are begging to read, begging to create, begging to write!
That’s what we want isn’t it; kids who WANT to read, write and learn!
We also are studying penguins and Antarctica. We’ve been
watching, via a webcam, penguins in Antarctica on a daily basis and recording
information. The highlight was when we connected with scientists in Antarctica
and discussed their work and research with them, over skype. This all goes
along with the work that we’ve been doing as we’ve compared and contrasted the
research and with the fiction book, ‘Mr. Popper’s Penguins!’
Kids are naturally curious! They love to dive in on
projects and share their thoughts on what we’re doing. It’s their education.
It’s their future! They want it to be relevant to them! I’m a huge follower of
Dave Burgess, who wrote ‘Teach Like a Pirate.’ He has said many things that jump out at me as I make my daily plans. One of my favorites is, ‘Don’t just teach a lesson, create an experience.’ I hope I do that daily, for my kids! Technology makes it easier to do that since kids are curious and want to explore!
The advice that I have for students is this: Own
your education, don’t rent it for the moment, own it for a lifetime! Focus on
where you are going. Never settle on ‘it’s good enough!’ READ, READ, READ!
Daily, READ! And always get a good night’s sleep.”
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