ePortfolio

Casey Marie Kuhlow

MATTC Multiple Subject Candidate (Third Grade Emphasis)
Education 250
July 2016

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
Inspiration Concept Mapping
RubiStar Rubric Planning
Garageband Audio
iMovie Video
Other Technology in the Classroom
Metacognitive Class Reflection
Additional Photo Sources

Introduction
Welcome to my ePortfolio!
My name is Casey Kuhlow, and I am a MATTC
Multiple Subject Candidate. As a future teacher, I
aspire to work with third grade students in a Title
1 setting.
In a world where digital-natives and students
who can text faster than they can type become the
norm in the elementary classroom, I seek to
integrate technology into the classroom. Through
the use of this technology, I hope to underscore
the importance of global awareness, proper
research techniques, organizational skills, critical
thought, and increased problem-solving skills.
While some students in low-income communities
may not have equal access to technological
resources at home, I make it an utmost goal of
mine to teach practical, real-world technological
skills in the classroom. As a diverse range of
modern careers require the use of technology to
be successful, I hope to outfit my students for a
future where they feel comfortable and
accomplished when using a variety of
technological tools and resources.

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Inspiration: Concept Mapping

My Education 251 Classwork:

Collaborative Work

Inspiration is a software that helps students organize and represent their ideas,
knowledge, and questions about a specific subject. It can be used to review material,
create K-W-L charts, organize a summary of a reading, or compare and contrast ideas.
Inspiration also has many templates available, which are highly accessible for both teacher
and student use in the classroom. Concept mapping helps students clearly convey their
ideas, organize their thoughts, and expand on topics they are discussing.

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Inspiration: CCSS and My Classroom

How to Use in a Third Grade Classroom:
In the classroom, inspiration can be used to
collectively write down previous knowledge on a
topic, as well as to brainstorm things students still
want to learn. In addition, inspiration can be used
to help third grade students format a short
paragraph, or compare and contrast different
animals in a science lesson. Students can also use
concept mapping to organize their thoughts on a
particular subject, such as creating maps of an
ecosystems and the animals in that system during
their science lessons.

Applicable Common Core Standards:

Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits,
motivations, or feelings) and explain how their
actions contribute to the sequence of events.
Inspiration could be used to create a list of
character traits for characters in a story, to
compare characters between books, or create traits
for your own characters to write about!

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RubiStar Rubrics
RubiStar is an online tool that helps
teachers make rubrics when they do
not have time to make them from
scratch. RubiStar, along with other
resources such as checklist
planning, can be found at
4Teachers.
RubiStar, along with other resources
on the hosting site, help teachers
integrate technology into their
classrooms with ease. Organizing
and planning through technology, as
well as professional development
tools are available through the site
in efforts to better support special
needs, emergent bilingual, and all of
your students in the 21st century
classroom.
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My Education 251 Classwork: Collaborative Work

RubiStar: CCSS and My Classroom

How to Use in a Third Grade Classroom:
In the classroom, RubiStar rubrics can be given
to students before they begin their projects to
help students identify what is needed to fulfill
the requirements of their project. In addition,
checklists on 4Teachers can be made for this
purpose as well.

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Rubrics and checklists can also be made for the

teachers personal use, to help normalize the
grading scale between students when grading
large projects with many facets to them.
If you have emergent bilingual students in your
classroom, you can also integrate ELD language
standards in your rubric as well!

Applicable Common Core Standards:

3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive
details, and clear event sequences.
a. Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that
unfolds naturally.
b. Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or
show the response of characters to situations.
c. Use temporal words and phrases to signal event order.
Create a rubric for short stories in class!
d. Provide a sense of closure.

GarageBand Audio
Garageband is an audio software that
allows students to work with a full
audio library, record themselves
speaking or singing, create podcast,
and/or create musical songs. You do
not need to be a musician to use
Garageband; the software is incredibly
easy for all age-groups to do with
minimal guidance in the classroom.

My Education 251 Classwork:

Collaborative Work

Garageband is a tool for teachers as

well, allowing them to record their
lessons, present additional audio
material for students with special
needs, as well as store documentation
of their students progress via audio
clips.

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GarageBand: CCSS and My Classroom

How to Use in a Third Grade Classroom:
In a third grade classroom, Garageband can be used in a
variety of ways. One wonderful way to use this software is to
have students recording them read to themselves. You can
keep track of how students reading skills progress, and give
this documentation via USB file directly to the parents at the
end of the year.
Teachers could also use Garageband to have students make
podcasts on various topics rather than write, as well as helping
emergent bilingual students or students with disabilities review
your lessons later (or in advance) by recording them as well.

Applicable Common Core Standards:

6. Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational,
general academic, and domain-specific words and phrases,
including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g.,
After dinner that night we went looking for them).
Have students record themselves having a conversation using specific
words or phrases youd like them to practice!

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iMovie Video Projects

My Education 251 Classwork:

Collaborative Work

iMovie is a video editing software that can be used for a variety of projects, such as creating
educational videos, videos for entertainment, or music videos. iMovie is very hands-on, allows
students to interact with basic editing tools, and encourages students to work with audio and
camera recorders.
In case you would like to use this software in your classroom, please keep in mind that iMovie is
used for the Mac and iOS systems, such as an iPhone and iPad).
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iMovie: CCSS and My Classroom

How to Use in a Third Grade Classroom:
iMovie is a wonderful way to introduce third grade students to
simple tasks such as giving a recorded presentation, a book
report, or a planet report. Students can either be filmed
using the assistance of their teacher, or work with simple
elements of the software to include images, facts, and audio
on academic content projects. For example, students could
give a planet report presentation orally and be recorded, or
could create a planet report project using the iMovie itself.
Applicable Common Core Standards:
7. Conduct short research projects that build knowledge
about a topic.
And
8. Recall information from experiences or gather information
from print and digital sources; take brief notes on sources
and sort evidence into provided categories.
Have students conduct planet reports, or other research
reports, using iMovie rather than Google slides or Powerpoint!

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Other Technology
Google Drive/Google Documents:
Especially useful for projects such as book, planet, or animal reports. Google

Docs acts as a source of centralized information, and helps students practice

organizational skills when collecting research on a topic or organizing their thoughts.
Google Docs can be used to type essays with immediate teacher and peer feedback,
as well as acts as a central place to edit work both as a group and individually.

Other Examples of Technology in the Classroom:

Teamshake app to create quick, no fuss groups for partner work
GoNoodle activities for student brain-breaks and physical education
Class Dojo to communicate with parents, as well as keep track of student points
Chrome Books and other devices for i-Ready assessments and practice lessons
Powerpoint and Prezi for presentation and research projects.
Spellingcity.com as an online vocabulary homework tool
Smartboard Activities for hands-on, collaborative work during lessons,
demonstration of lesson videos, videos, and audio.
Behind the Scenes: Excel and Word to keep track of students grades, progress,
and other forms of documentation. Also a wonderful tool for keeping track of
valuable information about the students (favorite subjects, languages spoken, fun
facts, and other information key to getting to know your students!)

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Metacognitive SCU Course Reflection

This course taught me an incredible amount about constructivism, technological pedagogical
content knowledge, and how I can directly incorporate teaching into my own elementary level classroom.
Before this course, I was very weary about using technology in the classroom. This is because I was
concerned about equitable access to technology, and I want to work in Title 1 schools. After this course, I
now know that I can absolutely use technology to benefit the students in a way that does not require
extensive funding at the school or every child owning their own iPad.
For example, I could use a wonderful program such as Inspiration with the students and jot
down ideas comparing and contrasting ideas in science, history, and other content topics. I can help
guide them using Inspiration in developing small paragraphs, or working with English language learners in
comparing cognates and false cognates. For my students who have disabilities, I can create projects such
as a class Wikipedia page or implement student blogs, which helps the students write to an audience and
feel like they are experts in something. Projects like these are extremely accessible to students, even if
they only have a computer lab once a week.
As the teacher, I can incorporate audio in my classroom, having all students (especially
emergent bilinguals) listen to engaging animal noises during audio lessons, or having students record
themselves explaining how they solved a math lesson. Students can record themselves reading, and I can
track their progress over time. There are so many ways I as the teacher can introduce technology to aide in
the students understanding of the topics I teach. While I previously thought having technology in the
classroom meant having money at the school, I understand this is not necessarily the case!
Of course, I will want the children to be hands-on as much as possible. Such as constructivist
teaching follows, I believe previous knowledge should be build upon, the teacher is merely a facilitator of
knowledge, and that learning is an active and social practice. As this course showed me is possible, I fully
intend on getting my students face-to-face with technology when it is the appropriate tool to help
solidifying understanding of a topic, and I can not wait to do so!
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Photo Sources

(for all additional photos to expand on classwork)

http://courses.educ.ubc.ca/etec540/July03/marinc/majorproject/conceptmapping.html

https://people.emich.edu/jmargerum/edmt330/rubistar.htm

http://www.macworld.com/article/2060742/garageband-10-review-logic-light-is-a-great-tool-formusicians-sorry-podcasters.html

http://a4.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple30/v4/5a/b1/9f/5ab19fee-ea18-866d-c2dc-8be25701eb01/
icon128-2x.png

http://web.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/academic_technology/itss/fits/tools/images/IMovie_Logo.png

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