Blog Challenge: Day #2

Share an organizational tip from your classroom.  What is one thing that you do that works for you?

Two summers ago, a teacher on my seventh grade team told me that he was going to start using Edmodo in his classroom.  I decided to sign up, and once school started, I had all of my students sign up for it too (joined my class via a group code).  I have continued using Edmodo this year.  I think Edmodo is great for a number of reasons.  First, all of my students are connected and questions can be easily asked and answered.  I found last year that if any students had questions, they would message me on Edmodo (outside of school hours) to ask me a question, and I could quickly and easily message them back (because I received notifications through the Edmodo app on my phone).  Sometimes, other students even answer the questions, which is really awesome.  Second, at the end of every day, I post homework for all of my classes, so it also serves as a homework hotline.  Finally, (the same teacher gave me this idea), every day I create an agenda for each of my classes.  I post the agenda as an assignment in Edmodo, so students can log in and access the daily agenda.  By posting the agenda as an assignment, the agenda is then put into the calendar on Edmodo.  If a student is absent, he or she can go to the calendar, find the day he or she missed, and open the agenda for that day.

At my school, I was fortunate enough to get picked this year for a Chromebook 1:1 pilot, and all of my students have a Google account through the school district.  I have a Chromebook cart in my classroom, and each student is assigned a certain number Chromebook (corresponding with his or her place in the grade book).  The agenda is created through Google, and again, each day, I post the agenda as an assignment through Edmodo.  Students know to come into my classroom, grab the assigned Chromebook, log into the Chromebook, log into Edmodo, pull up the agenda for the day, and get started.  When I officially start class, students are ready.  In the agenda, I type Common Core objectives that we will cover for the day, the agenda we will follow, and at the bottom, I list any homework assignments that will be due.  The nice thing about using Google Docs for the agenda is that any links that students will need to access (other docs, various websites, flashcard sites, etc.) are listed on the agenda.  I have found that in itself to be a huge time saver since I don't have to write the URL on the board and wait for students to get to the site.  Students can simply click on the link on the agenda, and they are quickly taken to the site.

Agenda Example:


Also, since each teacher in our school has a Google account, I have found that I can really stay organized by uploading all of my documents into my Google Drive.  This way I can quickly and easily access documents, forms, etc.  I also have a Google Site that helps me to stay organized.

Now I know that it says to just tell about one organizational tip, but I want to share some other things that I have found useful in my classroom.

Remind 101
Hootsuite
Socrative