Grants

Wow!  When I first started teaching, I had no idea how much of their own money a teacher can put into her classroom.  It is overwhelming.  It starts with a little here and a little there.  But those small receipts add up to a big tab.  Adopt a classroom states that teachers spend an average of $1200 per year.  I do it for the same reason I teach, I want children, all children to succeed.  I want to see a non-reader turn into a book worm.  I want to see someone that hates to get out of bed, jump up and wake their parents up so they will take them to school.  I do not want a child to not want to come to school because they don't have the supplies they need.  So, what do I do, I buy some extra supplies to make sure that doesn't happen.  I know I am not alone. 
However, there are some things that most teachers cannot afford to buy for their classrooms.  Grants are the solution. In the past, I have tried to get a Sonic Limeades for Learning grant.  It was easy to fill out and I spread the word to my fellow teachers, students, and community by asking for their 'codes' from their drinks.  Sadly, I was not successful.  This program was geared toward getting your friends and family to donate to your classroom wish list.  My school and my community was a high poverty area.  The codes were not enough to get the science equipment I had asked for.  I hate asking my friends and family to help.  However, when this is available again in the fall, I will sign my new class up again.  The application is simple and quick.  My classroom motto is you never know what you can do until you try.  Even though I tried and failed, there is a second part of trial: failure is when you stop trying. 
Looking at all of these other options, I was relieved to discover many grants that do not rely on asking for help.  They are simply projects out there waiting to find someone to give to.  Target  has a wonderful grant program.  I love to see that there are projects funded in my area from them and they offer grants for fieldtrips and classroom literacy.  Edutopia also has valuable resources to help you understand the ins and outs of grants and grant writing.  Writing a grant can be intimidating.   But there are so many free resources out there to provide us with step by step instructions and samples of successful grants that have been written.  Edutopia offers a webinar and Powerpoint to help gain a better understanding of the grant writing process. 
I am going to keep trying to find resources for my students.  My new school has an even higher poverty rate.  According to DESE, in 2012, my building has an overall free and reduced population of 93%.  This allows me to access even more grants than before.  My goal is for students in my classroom to have access to technology no matter what their socio-economic status may be.  I want to provide them the same fighting chance to be successful in our ever changing world. 

Collaborative technology

Every day we collaborate - with our families, our friends, our students, our neighbors, our co-workers.  We talk and we talk.  Wikipedia defines collaboration as "The action of working with someone to produce or create something".  Sometimes our collaboration seems more meaningful than others - we create an assessment for our grade level, we create a new idea to try in our classroom, we create a friendship by talking to a neighbor.  Then we add the technology part in and somehow I stuttered.  What is amazing is that I view blogs, search items on the internet, post my political comments, watch a video to show me something, and the list goes on and on.  I even see my own children collaborating online with Facebook and Pinterest.  But somehow, I still stutter or stumble to figure out how to use this for my little second graders.  They seem so small and so young and their fingers don't fit on the keyboard.  They don't know how to type.
 
Then I remembered myself telling my students our classroom motto- "You never know what you can do until you try."  Am I walking the talk?  So, now I rewind and look at the websites for collaborative technology with a fresh set of eyes.  Someone has to teach them these tools.  If I look at these sites and say - what can we do as a whole class or what can they do in a group format with assistance.  Now all of sudden, I can find new ways to add this to my classroom.

1.  Voice thread can be used in a second grade classroom in January to have a student read and record themselves.  I would post it to voice thread and then allow other students to come and listen to the book and make comments about the book.  It would open up a great discussion and post feedback to the student reading the book.  Also, it would be a great opportunity to extend my gifted learners and at the same time help my lower readers by having a book read aloud to them while they follow along.

2. ePals   is a perfect sight for many things in second grade.  We can learn about other cultures in other continents, see rocks and minerals from other parts of the world, and gain writing skills along the way.

3. Skype is another great place for learning in second grade.  Our class can learn from so many amazing authors, scientists, and historians about our world and never have the expense of leaving our class. 

Just because their fingers are too small to type doesn't mean they can't collaborate.  At some point, each child needs the first exposure to a new technology.  At some point, the teacher needs to stretch beyond their comfort zone and look at things with a fresh new set of eyes.