Students and Evernote 

• Note taking can become much more simplified with this tool and I would love to have my students take notes and share them for all the class as I feel student learn more when collaborative learning takes place. Note taking may be used in all subjects and in the higher grade levels - 6th grade and above. Additionally, I would like them to also add audio, pictures, even sketches to help them remember the content in their notes. .
• Organizing projects - any type of projects, for any subject but I was thinking specifically research projects. Projects where students have to collect information from many sources and Evernote is a tool that can organize all the information in one place. It can assist students in organizing their research and in turn their thoughts and ideas making it easier for them to complete their projects. This is an idea for teens/young adults in high school. 
• Student Portfolios - I love the idea of portfolios to showcase our students' progress and hard work throughout the year, and now with technology we can have online portfolios. The awesome concept of being able to now add pictures and audio can make online portfolios much more interesting than the good old regular student portfolios. Students can make notes, upload their projects and assignments, add pictures and audio, and then share their portfolios with me and their classmates. I would use portfolios maybe in an 7th grate English course to evaluate student writing. 

Evernote

My Evernote notebook is titled Teaching and my first note is about incorporating creativity in the classroom and some of its benefits. I have to say I loved Evernote, it is very similar to Windows OneNote but better. There are so many creative ways to organize your thoughts and ideas with this tool and that is exactly why I decided to discuss creativity in the classroom for my very first note. Below is the link to the notebook, I hope you all enjoy!

https://www.evernote.com/pub/mvilla2142/teaching

Two Feedly Articles

Setting Classroom Expectations

The article discusses how important it is to set classroom expectations at the beginning of the year. Outlining and communicating classroom expectations will help students develop mature social skills, learn more, and will create an overall classroom atmosphere that’s welcoming and safe for everyone. Developing learning goals collaboratively puts students at the center of the learning process. When teachers make classroom expectations clear, it allows students to take personal responsibility for their learning and behavior and adjust their progress toward classroom goals throughout the year. It’s important that teachers understand and develop two kinds of classroom expectations: behavior expectations and learning expectations. Behavior expectations refer to the rules of etiquette that help keep a class running smoothly. Equally important to student success is learning expectations. When teachers outline what students are expected to learn at the beginning of the year that helps students anticipate their learning needs and enables them to track their own progress. Often, teachers will overlook an equally important set of expectations: those for parents. Providing parents with clear guidelines for acceptable behavior and their expected level of involvement in their child’s education can head off parent-teacher issues later in the year.

http://www.edudemic.com/setting-classroom-expectations/

The Benefits of Creating a Website for your Classroom

This article goes hand in hand with our class; it discussed some the benefits of creating a website for your classroom. Some of these include adding a bit about you on the website so the students and parents can get to know a little about you, the teacher. Another benefit is to use the website to post forms, announcements, events, etc. It talked about the many forms we give to students all year long, and a lot of the times these forms get lost, or squished in backpacks. Communication is key! Another benefit is you can post class notes, and assignments, this to keep an absentee connected, and it eliminates the questions of what is due and when. You can also post presentations, video clips, and other relevant information. By taking the time to post relevant information, you will be saving yourself some time in the classroom. To end the article, some information was provided to plan and build your site.

http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/benefits-creating-website-classroom/

Using Blogger in the Classroom

Distribution

I believe it is really important to not only achieve academic success with each and every one of our students but to also help them be successful in life. There are many hurdles that we all, including our students, have to jump throughout our lives; many situations that our students have to go through that can make them feel sad, discouraged, even hopeless like deaths in the family, problems at home maybe divorce, issues with bullies, and even more grave problems like hunger, and physical and mental abuse. This is a reality and I am a big believer that as educators, it is our responsibility to nurture the whole child in our students not only their academic needs. So, I would distribute in my blog words of encouragement, videos, and other posts that would make my students understand that not only I am their teacher but I also care about them and they have someone they can count on and confide in. I would want my students to feel a connection with me and I feel this is a great way to do this. I am thinking that this type of blog could be beneficial for older children/teens just because they are a bit more mature and they understand more complex issues in life, maybe beginning in about 5^th grade and above (for all my students no matter the subject). Of course younger children also go through these issues however I would reach out to them in a different way.

Discussion

This idea is for 7^th or 8^th grade English Language Arts, I really love the idea of my students having their own blogs for critical discussions on the various books we read through the year. I would want them to critically examine each chapter and have them also comment on a couple of their classmates, I really love the fact that they would be sharing their thoughts and feelings about the content with each other and with me of course. I think this is a great way for me to know if they are understanding and of course also reading the books.

Demonstration

5^th grade Mathematics – students in this grade need to be able to apply mathematics problems arising in everyday life, society and the workplace. I would use blogging to have my students post how they would use a certain mathematical process (one we just went over that day or week) in their lives. I would want them to think and demonstrate in the blog their mathematical understanding.