Shelly Fryer
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The first blog post that I looked at by Shelly Fryer was called Inspired by Dwayne Reed: Welcome to Room 108. I have included the video from YouTube that is also on the blog where the inspiration came from to create the Welcome to Room 108 video. These videos show the power of music in the classroom and are real inspirations for the learning community. This is a very unique way to connect with learners of all ages. This can make coming to class exciting and get the students really engaged in the learning process. Mrs. Fryer took the inspiration from Mr. Reed and ran with it to create a great ever lasting memory with her students in room 108. Hopefully this will spread far and wide so that other educators and students can have the same experience as these great classrooms.
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The next blog post from Mrs. Fryer that I looked at was Building Relationships with Students #GSPD. The GSPD stands for Global School Play Day and is an event that is designed to build up the classroom community. This an entire day at school that is unstructured and dedicated to playing. This type of activity leads to many imaginative games led by the kids because the teachers are stepping away from the directive of instruction. This is an important day for many children who may be coming from low income families and may not have many opportunities to play with many of the toys and games that they get to on this day. This also helps many students create bonds socially with kids they may not socialize with normally. When the day is coming to an end Mrs. Fryer brought her class back together for a reflection piece. Reflection is so important when it comes to teaching and learning. For the room 108 reflection the students all came together and did a reflection in a class radio show. The students discussed what they liked about how the day went. This was a great activity and got many students who are not usually very talkative talking about the day. This is something that I would like to see more classes doing across America because it really helps the classroom community in positive ways.
The third blog post from Shelly Fryer that I looked at was Technology Projects for Enriched Assessment. The integration of technology into the classroom is a really awesome way to get students motivated and engaged when learning new material. I really like the idea of technology being used correctly and effectively in the classroom. Sometimes I think technology is forced into classrooms just to have it and there not really be a use for it. There was a time that I was doing an internship in a class and there was technology but it was only being used to view videos. It could have been utilized for so much more than just that. I also really like the idea of teachers learning to make, creating and sharing with others. This is a concept that get lost many times especially the sharing part. I was really apprehensive about technology only because I am not real familiar with most of it. However, I am learning a lot now and starting to see exactly how useful technology is when it comes to the future of the educational process. Wesley Fryer has a blog as well and within it there are some great iPad projects from the classroom. The future of education is now and technology will always be progressing so it is very important for us as educators to keep up so that our students get the most out of the learning process.
The last blog post that I looked at from Shelly Fryer was Technology 101 Skills for Teachers. In this Mrs. Fryer is describing her involvement with A+ Essentials through the Oklahoma A Plus Schools. As Mrs. Fryer states "A Plus Schools are focused on integrating the arts into and across the curriculum, but also much more. The focus is not just “art enhancement,” when a teacher adds an art activity to an existing lesson. Quality A Plus essentials integration involves teaching common vocabulary and skills involving multiple subjects, in activities which blend the content areas in engaging activities." This is an excellent program. Further down on the post she gets into how teachers must become more app literate and I can not agree with that statement more. This is an area that I am still learning about everyday and it has been an adventure. Learning the vocabulary of the foreign language of technology is a difficult task to master and becoming enriched with how powerful technology is a great way to understand how helpful it can be when it comes to things like enhancement of classroom instruction, student engagement, and assessment of everything that has been learned. I have included a mini keynote from iPadpalooza 2016 video of Mr. and Mrs. Fryer talking about how important it is to integrate technology into the classroom and for teachers not to feel overwhelmed when learning about this technology for use in the classroom. The picture below the video is an example of how technology has been used in conjunction with art to showcase the creativity of the students. Technology is moving so fast and there are so many outlets that can assist teachers with learning how to best implement it into the classroom. Mrs. Fryer and her husband are one of those outlets and great models for tech in the classroom.
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