Hello Everyone!
I have included my thoughts about Modern Classroom Project. Those of you who participated in MCP, I would love to hear from you, because I need to improve. I have yet to figure out how it best works without me feeling like I am leaving children behind or catering to the ones who will not put forth effort.

As my year is nearing a close and I look back at my goal with my grant, I am beyond pleased with the outcome! My grant for personal art supplies has provided exactly what my students needed- safe access to materials without the worry of COVID or other viruses. I paired my grant with another from the Youth Service Center and provided ALL students…Read More

Students are engaged and excited in their engineering studio while completing challenges with amazing materials!

We got our aquaponics system! We are now growing broccoli in the classroom using water and waste from our five goldfish. We also started some broccoli in our outside garden area. So far both gardens are growing at the same rate, but the temperatures are fluctuating outside so this may impact the broccoli plants. The students have been…Read More

My students have received their personal art supplies and are so excited! I am waiting on the arrival of their personal art journals from another grant. I can’t wait to get those to them and have them begin using them!

Resources are on the way for my engineering studio! I am eager to see the increase in student engagement as the new materials are utilized to work through each engineering challenge!

Very excited to have received two grants this year. I will be utilizing Oculus QUEST VR headsets for Science and Social Studies with my first grade class. As well my second grant was written for an awesome piece of technology called an E-Learning Glass. Can’t wait to use and show both of those resources soon!

I am excited about my items coming in even if it has been a trying time getting them. I am currently working one on one with students each day for 30-45 minutes. They are enjoying having their own task boxes and supplies to use at home and school. The students love the File Folder Games. I like that they are laminated so cleaning them is a…Read More

Many items for the grant have come in. A few items have been back ordered and cancelled. On to completing the grant research and excited to post progress this spring.

I am excited about being awarded three grants this year. I am beyond blessed to be able to give my students “school based learning tools” they can use at home. The Traveling Student Totes will allow my students have the tools we use at school. They are very tacticle learners and need some type of concrete learning tool to foster their…Read More

Hello from Knott County! As we all know this is proving to be an incredibly difficult and challenging year for everyone. From virtual teaching to in-person to online instruction and everywhere in between, students, teachers, and administrators have been “dreaming” of ways to make all of this a positive experience. So, as I was thinking about…Read More

I am super excited to launch my grant study this year. I am looking forward to determining if guided reading instruction can be as effective virtually as it is in person. I look forward to leveling the playing field for students who lack the resources to be successful with virtual learning

I am so excited to receive the ARI Learning Innovation Grant. My project is called Hands-On At Home. During this time of virtual learning, I wanted my students to continue exploring Science with hands on materials even at home. This grant will allow my students to receive “Science in a Box” packages which will provide them with all the mat…Read More

Presented on my grant and shared my results. KVEC made working through this COVID crisis to present so easy and efficient. Thank you!

My students love making, recording, and watching their social skills videos. I can see them applying the skills in daily life.

I am enjoying the iPad pro in my speech room. Other than using it for social skills, I am still hoping to find a way to use it for paperless data collection and progress monitoring.

As for the 3-D printing with the special education grant, unfortunately the 3-D printer messed up right before Christmas and I was unable to fix it until Christmas break. This means we did not get to sell Christmas ornaments like we originally wanted. On the bright side, the special ed class did come up and help design ornaments with my…Read More

The demos have been doing great in my lab so far! I have not looked at the raw data for the demos themselves but I can just say, they seem to be working really well and making me able to create a story line around certain lessons.

I received an iPad pro and Apple pencil. We are working to use the ipad to create social skill videos. I hope that students will be able to learn to create actual “movie” about social goals and skills they are working towards!

The students really enjoy using the Ipads, Kindle Fires and Chromebooks to help with their learning. The Ipads and Kindles have increased my students’ fine motor skills and hand eye coordination. It has allowed them to listen to the stories numerous times in order to help them with comprehension and fluency. My 5th grade student enjoys t…Read More

For my grant I got an iPad and apple pen. I have been working with my students to improve social skills. They are recording themselves and each other and watching videos– we talk about what is appropriate and what can be done differently. Some of my students can create trailers and edit the movies. The children are very motivated by this. They…Read More

Trauma Informed Painting

Our project is growing exceptionally well. I, initially, identified 15 students with at risk indicators to participate in the weekly painting activities. The interest in painting grew quickly among the group of students who were referred to extended day programming due to course failures, truancy, and disciplinary…Read More

Opportunities with Ozobots: Coding with Colors
I initially had plans to only use the Ozobots with students in grades 3-6th, however my younger students were very interested in them so we gave it a try! Ozobots are great for all ages from Kindergarten all the way up to 6th grade. I have designed my STEAM lab into stations which allows me to work…Read More

My students have finally begun working on our Raspberry Pi kits. We hit our first major roadblock with them where we do not have a way to represent 8 kits at the same time due to output issues, but we are making due with what we have in the classroom. We are currently doing one system at a time, learning the basics and will continue to grow with…Read More

Thinkers of the Future
As I stand in front of my classroom each day looking at my students I can’t even conceive the future for them. I wonder what unthinkable gadgets will unfold. I question if schools are progressing quickly enough to make significant contributions in the preparation of our students for what is yet to be. Will they have t…Read More

This year has been amazing. Getting to work with Mark on our project has been an eye opening experience. The students got to do some great things in and out of the classroom using the programming skills they have learned.

So excited to gather all this information and data, ready to share at the fire summit. We made some major growth ❤️!

Would anyone will willing to e-mail your Power Point you submitted? I am nervous that mine isn’t in the correct format and I want to make changes before the summit?
mindy.thompson@pike.kyschools.us

My advanced students have received their airbrush kits and have began practicing with techniques. Stay tuned!

My students have used our new A/V equipment to conduct numerous interviews with community members that have attended or taught in one room schools in our county. Now we are staring down the arduous task of editing all of those interviews into one coherent story. The more we learn about our county the more we find that we are barely scratching the…Read More

My speech students have loved using our pretend play toys. They are great for working towards so many goals. My kids often think they’re getting reward time, but are still working on social and/or language goals while we play!

Lego WeDo Robotics! I can’t say enough about how this has been such a game changer in my classroom. Students are strengthening their communication skills and learning to work as part of a team. We look forward to learning to do even more with our tools.

We are coming closer to having our project finished, as students are submitting their interviews of unsung heroes. This has been an enlightening project that has involved not just the students, but people from the community. Students are coming up with innovative ways to use the A/V equipment that we acquired through this grant. We can’t wait…Read More

I feel that every day we are finding new ways to use the Kindles in the classroom, and they are proving to be more useful than we originally ever could have dreamed. Michelle Stambaugh and I attended an Escape Room training a couple months ago (so fun!) and found several different ways in which we could incorporate the Kindles into those lessons…Read More

Hello, Time is running up and so final data collection has began. Our tablets have been in full use and Mobymax practice is helping close gaps. Let’s see how much growth and change that using this holistic approach has made.

Hello! My students are actively engaged in using our Humingbird kits to develop projects that utilize art, robotics, and coding to tell a story. The students have been meeting after school weekly to design their projects and build them with the help of our school librarian Mrs. Christina Howard. It has been truly exciting to see students…Read More

My students completed their engineering challenge as their finals in Earth and Space. Since then, they have done another engineering challenge. I have not taken the data from before and after yet, but as far as their preparation and critically thinking skills, there was a HUGE difference. They thought out what their plan was before they worked and…Read More

My students have used the virtual reality goggles to travel around the world! They are loving it. Students have visited other continents, seen earthquakes, and gotten to see places they would otherwise never get to see.

Hello, from the hills and hollers of Knott County! My students are currently working on the documentary which will feature unsung heroes of Knott County, as well as starting some podcasting within our school community. A huge shout out to Chris Epling and “Gabe” from UPike for coming and helping the kids get started! We have had quite a bit of…Read More

Hello! Our library makerspace is part of a larger initiative including a total of 4 ARI grants in our school. We are making progress toward building, storing and utilizing our space. There are many questions we still have, but are definitely making progress toward the greater goal. We are meeting once a week after school with our Junior…Read More

Hello Everyone! Sorry, this post is so delayed. I am new to the Holler this year and there was a major miscommunication between my partner and myself in regards to posting about our project. However, they say its better late than never so here it is.

Ashland Middle School’s (AMS) project this year revolves around implementing two computer s…Read More

I’m still awaiting my order for my dry erase tables for my classroom. The first set that came in were the wrong size and had to be returned. However, I have been collecting data for my project when my tables come in.

My students are loving the Melissa and Doug pretend play centers in my room. They are showing great social skills with it. They do struggle with playing together vs. parallel play. We also have a hard remaining focused with the toys in the room when we are doing a different lesson. I will have to figure out a way to cover the centers when we…Read More

We are super excited that, because Belinda Lester and I attended an escape room training last Friday, we will be able to use our Kindles to be QR code readers, etc. for our escape room activities coming up! It will take awhile to plan these escape room lessons, but I know the Kindles will be super useful when the time comes.

I have had some…Read More

My students have been loving their white board tables that were purchased through my grant. I have been able to increase my collaborative learning time and my students are more engaged. I have also used the kidney table during remediation with struggling students. My kids were so excited when we received the tables. I try my best to incorporate…Read More

My students have been utilizing the kindles provided through my grant “Kindles for Kids” since late October. They are used in class almost daily and the students are really enjoying them. The students use them in a variety of ways in the classroom and they have been extremely helpful to have.

I was privileged enough to receive two grants this year. One was for a mobile science station with a sink! This purchase arrived just before Thanksgiving! It has been very handy to have in a science classroom.

A Challenge that was unforeseen (In my thinking) was the power source. It does have a grounded outlet that will stop power from going to…Read More

Challenges
My grant project, “Personalized Learning: Engagement on Fire” is underway. I have definitely encountered some challenges. I had found kindle fire tablets on Amazon for $49 each, but was required to order them through a technology company our district uses. The tablets were more expensive, and it took much longer to order and receive…Read More

I received all of the Kindles for my classroom I ordered through the grant last week. The students and I have set them up, established ground rules for their usage in the classroom, and began using them today as we started reading novels in class. The students are loving them!

I received the Kindles for my grant last week. I have them all charged and the FreeTime settings established. I have attempted to download The Odyssey for my Eng I class and get it to download on each device. No luck so far, but I’m still going to work on the settings and so forth to see what these things are capable of! More to come on how we…Read More