My Journey

Welcome to my journey to create an engaging and innovative classroom.  The job that I hold is my dream job but it has become work.  I realized that I haven't changed with the students and was stuck in the old way of doing things.

The past year I began working closely with my co-worker next door.  We have been doing lessons together, helping each other with behaviors, expectations, weakness and strengths.  I am tech savy and he is student oriented.  I am data driven and he is interest based.  It has made for a great working relationship.

Next year we plan to do more work together.  I learned about Blended Learning and Project-Based Learning (PBL).  This is the first summer that I have sat and read books. I am on book number 3 now.  I have been going to conferences and participating in workshops to learn more.

Each year I state it will be the year that I will blog more.  I struggle with the written word. Getting my ideas across doesn't always work.  After reading The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros, I realized that I am not reflecting enough and that is part of the reason my job has become work.  I hope to use this blog as a reflection piece for me.

I am hoping to use a combination of blended learning and PBL in my classroom.  I work with students who have disabilities at the high school level.  My students are on the Alternative Assessment for state testing.  We work on basic skills, social skills, and community based skills.  As the year goes on I will continue to update my blog and what I have tried.

Your Digital Dad by Kevin Honeycutt

I got this book last year at Podstock.  I finally have had a chance to read it and I LOVE IT.  This book is a quick read and can be read as a teacher or student.  

Kevin has a powerful story and I was lucky enough to hear him speak and have him help me collaborate on ideas and topics after just meeting him.

Kevin's book has helped me find my passion again.  This book talks about life, making choices, and ways to succeed.   This book will be on my shelf to refer to and reread.  Thank you for such a great book.

Podstock15

I got the privilege of going to Podstock this year.  I went to the pre-con yesterday.  I got to learn about makerspaces and meet some new friends.  

This is way out of my comfort zone.  I am staying with new friends that I meet when I arrived.  I am participating in all the extras and having a blast.

I have so many ideas going through my head.  I can't wait to put them into action in my classroom.  I will blog more after learning in sessions today.

Class Dojo

Hey, I thought you might like this cool new education website!

Check it out at http://www.classdojo.com/

 I use Class Dojo in my classroom to help with tracking IEP goals and behavior in my classroom.  I love the easy to setup and once you use a computer to setup your account you can keep your data using any device.  The reports and comments work best on a computer but students and parents can track data in real time with you.

What are the Most Important Skills for Low Level Students to have?

As I go through this year I am struggling with the skills that I should be working on with students.  I teach at a high school level with students who are severe/profound to mild.   I have lots of thoughts but I'm looking for more than just my opinion.

As I work with my PLC groups, we are looking at some different programs and assessments to help us identify what skills our students have but that only tells me what they know.  How do I know what to teach them next?  

I am looking for suggestions and ideas of what you do in your classroom with your students.

Donor's Choose

I am a faithful follower and user of Donor's Choose.  I have had 3 projects funded from wonderful followers and community members who are trying to help out a great classroom.

I am looking for some more people to help us out.  We have a new project going called Learning Organizational Skills.   We only have 34 days left and need another 614 dollars donated.   Please consider helping us!!!

Check out my Google Presentation

So part of our Summer Tech Challenge was to create a Google Presentation.  I decided that I would take this challenge and use it to create more material for my classroom.  I have embed the presentation below.

Google Presentation is fairly simple to use.  It does not have all the features that powerpoint does but it gets the job done.  I like the fact that it searches for pictures that has copyrights attached although this does limit the pictures that you can use.

I wish that there were more options for slides, transitions, and animations.

23 Roles of The 21st Century Educator ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

23 Roles of The 21st Century Educator ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

I think that this is an interesting article. It's short but I believe that we need to start seeing ourselves as these instead of just a teacher.

Go Animate

I have started skipping around in the Summer Tech Challenge.  I was pretty sure that I was done because I didn't see the rest of the challenges working in my classroom.  So I decided that the Google Presentation would be my last one.  As I started working on it I thought oh didn't I see something in the #npsstc that I could use.  That thing was Go Animate.

I started by using the full video maker.  I wanted to make instructional videos on how to do jobs in the classroom.  This didn't work as I can't control the characters enough to really show what needs to be done.  I stopped using Go Animate and went to work on another challenge.  I made a new video using the quick video maker.  To preset this video, students in my room will be starting a classroom economy.  Since it is new it requires us to do some training.  Stay tuned for more about it as it's also part of my google presentation.  Here is the Go Animate video I made to go along with my presentation.

Classroom Economy by Rebecca Topp on GoAnimate


I really like the ease of this program.  I can see students using it for creating book reports and presentations. This program is especially great for those students who have trouble speaking.  If they can type or use pictures to put together sentences the words can be transferred to the program and then the student has full control over the rest of the options.  Great find Mickie!!

Pinterest Addiction

So I was one of those people who went I don't need another thing to keep up and worry about when Pinterest came out. Then my staff said you need to check out Pinterest for this or that.  So I set up an account and started pinning some different recipes to use at school. 

I have really been just pinning things for home and then slowly started pinning things for school. I am now a pinaholic.  I check Pinterest every night before going to bed.  I even heard myself say I wished this app let me pin this.  I like having a place that has several things all in one place and if I need something more than likely I will find it will a little looking. 

I have really enjoyed being a Panther Pinner (pinning for the school district).  I get to see all the things that my colleagues pin and add to the collection.  We have a great group of educators that really care and love their jobs. 

My Adventures with Twitter

I have been on Twitter for a while now.  I don't do much but follow on Twitter.  I tried to participate in the #spedchat but with a new child has made it hard to find time.  I get some great ideas and links to good websites that I ScoopIt.   I have also made a list of Norfolk Public School teachers.  I have TweetDeck on my laptop and cell phone and use Flipbook on my ipad to continue to follow Twitter. 

Tonight I participated in #spedchat again.  It was on curriculum for special education.  I have found a couple of new people to follow and realized that I am not the only one trying to figure it all out.  I am going to make a new list for my sped PLN so that I can send out questions for help when needed. 

10 Skills of a Modern Teacher

I am working on the Summer Tech Challenge and part of the assignment is to blog on this article The 10 Skills Modern Teachers Must Have.  

The skills are in no particular order:

• Establish Real Relationships
• Build Your PLN
• Make Social Media Work For You
• Manage Your Online Reputation
• Know How to Correctly Blog
• Don't Be Afraid of Failing
• Know When to Disconnect
• Know How to Find Useful Resources
• Slow Down
• Understand Where Technology Fits in Education

I have been working with technology for awhile in my classroom. I love how it helps even the playing field for students. I am struggling to keep up with the apps on the ipads and all the different technology for me to use in the classroom.  I have tried and started lots of things but just struggle to keep up with it all. 

I need to work on managing my online reputation. I have lots of things that I have looked at or signed up for but don't use.  I am working on building my PLN through conferences.  I use Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google Reader to help stay up to date with ideas.  

I am always trying something new and it doesn't always work.  The best part is that I have students and staff in my room that are willing to try with me and give me feedback when it doesn't work. 

Adobe Acrobat Pro

This is a program that I use when making my activities in the classroom.  Adobe Acrobat Pro is a program that I think all teacher need if they work with students with special needs or are doing online/digital curriculum.

If you click here you can see a file called Using Adobe Acrobat to Digitize Worksheets that I typed up on using Adobe Acrobat Pro. 

I use Adobe Acrobat Pro to adapt my curriculum that comes as a PDF. I make files that are the books we read, worksheets arranged by level, and a set of worksheets and activities for my smartboard.  In my classroom we use iPads to read our books and do our worksheets on.  The students use iBooks for thier stories and we use PDF notes to do our worksheets.

I can also use Adobe Acrobat Pro to combine the files for each month into one package so that I can open one document and see all the activities I have made as separate files. I can edit each file without making changes to the other files.