First Friends on the Fives - Julie from The Techie Teacher

A few days ago, I put out a call for guest bloggers. I am excited to share my first guest blogger, Julie! I have to admit... I totally fell in love with the design of her blog and it was definitely part of the inspiration for my design. She has some great ideas on integrating technology into your curriculum, and I am constantly impressed!

Hello Fifth in the Middle followers! I am Julie from The Techie Teacher and I am so excited to be a guest blogger for Diane. Fifth in the Middle has been one of my favorite blogs to follow since I started blogging :)

I have been a 2nd, 3rd and 5th grade classroom teacher and this past year I took on the roll of becoming an ITRT, Instructional Technology Resource Teacher. It seems like a totally different career since I now service 4 different schools and do a bit of moving around throughout the week. However, I get to do fun and engaging lessons using instructional technology all day everyday!

One of my favorite technology lessons that is SO simple yet SO meaningful is my Context Clues lesson. Click the image below to take you to this FREE Google Presentation that I use to get the students to realize the importance of looking for context clues when reading AND using context clues when writing.

This presentation is set up to be a guessing game. Nonsense words are used in a sentence and as the slides advance, more and more context clues are added to help the students figure out the actual word. Students use Today's Meet to submit their guesses. Today's Meet is a back channel used for digital communication in real time. Students type their guess in the blue box and wait for me to say the magic word "sparkle" before pressing Say to submit their guess. I like to have both the presentation and the Today's Meet "chat room" on my computer at the same time so I use the Google Extension, Split Screen, to run both websites in one condensed fashion:

Using the Split Screen extension has so many wonderful uses! Movie clip on one side, note taking on a Google Doc on the other side? Voice Recording website on one side, typed up Google Doc script on the other side? Our state tests are split screen so this is a great tool to get the kids use to looking at two different screens.

Side note: If you don't put a website into the split screen browser, the screen will take on the role of a notepad and you can take notes!

To add this extension to your Chrome browser, click {HERE}.

Feel free to stop by my blog, The Techie Teacher, and say hello! I would love to hear from you. Thanks for reading :)