Heather+H.

Hi! I'm Heather. This is my fifth year teaching, and I've taught 1st, 2nd, and now 4th grade. I teach in Parsippany at Littleton School. I teach all subject areas to my 4th grade students.

5 new technologies to try:
 * Edmodo
 * Creating a blog
 * Animoto to show students a slideshow of pictures of my trip to Muir Woods this summer to see redwood trees, to align with our reading story about Yosemite.
 * Adding my favorite teacher blogs to Google Reader
 * Use podcasts for enhancing lessons in all subject areas

4 ideas to share with others:
 * introduce colleagues to Edmodo.
 * revisit Discovery Education and work as a grade level to align videos and resources with current topics of study.
 * In Plain English videos
 * Voicethread

3 principles of Universal Design for Learning:
 * __Multiple Means of Representation__ - providing a variety of means to present content to students.
 * __Multiple Means of Expression__ - allowing students to respond to content in different ways.
 * __Multiple Means of Engagement__ - variety of options to keep student interest.

<span style="color: #c016d0; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">2 changes in my teaching to reach all learners in the Digital Age:
 * <span style="color: #c016d0; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">incorporate more means of engagement for students by finding ways to tap into student interests to motivate them in the classroom. I feel this goes hand-in-hand with the UDL principle of representation, by providing multiple presentations of content.
 * <span style="color: #c016d0; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Use laptops and Khan Academy math videos for my higher level learners when they finish early during a math lesson=less free time=less distractions!

<span style="color: #c016d0; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">1 BIG IDEA to implement on Monday:
 * <span style="color: #c016d0; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Have students make a podcast as a culminating activity on the differences between vertebrates and invertebrates, and illustrate (possibly with Voicethread).