Pinterest+Classroom= One Happy Teacher

Pinterest is such an amazing tool to use in the classroom. There are so many cool and well thought ideas at the tips of your fingers. Pinterest really comes in handy when it's time to come up with a creative assignments such as the one I'm talking about today. Being in the process of going to nursing school, I love studying the human body and all its functions. The body is so complex that it's good to learn about it one step at a time.

My assignment for my 1st grade class is: Know your Body

This assignment is for students to be able to identify the important organs and structures  in our body and describe each function that is gives.

To start off my assignment, I had my husband (not an artist) trace an outline of my body 

Once I had an outline, I started locating the major organs in the body by using this website. Once I located the Brain, Heart, Lungs, and stomach, I drew them on my paper body. After I located all the major organs, I drew the bone structure for my arms and legs. (excuse the crooked hip-bones). The final process to this assignment is to give a brief description on what each organ does including the bone structure.

This assignment was really fun! Even though i'm familiar with each organ is always fun to learn about how the body truly works! It's an amazing thing to study! I really hope my students will enjoy this assignment as much as I did.

Way to cool for school

As a former elementary school student, it is so cool to see how evolved teaching gadgets have been come. When I was in school, we rarely used the computer or any fun tools to help us get involved with learning. We used worksheets and textbooks and now students can use pretty much any tool in the book to help them achieve their education purposes! Here are some tools from Web 2.0 that really stuck out to me!


StudentPublishing

This tool is used for students to make their own writings into a professional looking, hard back book. I would love to use this tool for students to really take pride in their writing. I know they would appreciate their writing a lot more if it was in their own personal book instead of on regular paper. Even as an adult, I would love to have my writings in the form of a book. I student can use this tool to keep their hard work for life.

Dogo

This tool is simply used as a search engine. Students are to use this tool to collect information on any subject they need.  I would use this for students when it comes to research projects. This tool has very reliable and kid-friendly resources. This tool also keeps up with the current news so students can know what's going on around us every day.

iNetWord

This tool is used to create documents with different types of formatting, bullets, borders. spell check and much more. You are able to share documents with other if need. This tool always makes sure that your documents aren't over written. I would use this tool  for students to work on their formats when it comes to writing an essay. It's a good tool for them to do their assignments and for me to be able to watch their progress by the shared document. 

Slideboom

This tool is used for presentations. You can use this completely online, you don't have to use a flash drive or email. You can just log into the website and have you presentation right there. I would use this for group presentations. This websites gives you the opportunity to think a little more outside of the box than just your average PowerPoint.

Paperrater

This tool is used to evaluate a paper. This tool checks for spelling and grammar. It also detects if anything was plagiarized within the paper. I would use this tool as a reference to the students. They can use this tool be proof their paper before they have to turn it in.

WritingPrompts

This tool is used for daily writing prompts. This website gives you different categories to choose from. I would use this as a daily writing warm up. This gives the students and opportunity to think quick on their feet and be creative. We used a tool like this one when I was in school and I loved it so much! It really helped me with my writing skills.

Jumpcut

This tool is used to make videos. You can upload and remix your own movies. This tool allows you to upload and share to the public or have a private account. I would use this tool for presentations. I would like to use it for possible history assignments and have students reenact certain historical times. I would also make sure that my classroom would have our own account that way there's no fear of videos being viewed by the public.

EasyBib

This tool is used to create a work-cited page for papers. This cites things for you as long as you provide the information that is needed. This tool put the information in the right format. You can print it out or copy and paste it onto your work-cited page. I would use this tool as a resource to my students so they can see how a work-cited is created.

Webspiration

Tool is basically like a giant notepad.  It's an online visual thinking tool thats helps your capture ideas and organize information. You can share the URL to keep others posted. I would use this to provide information for my students. This could be where I document assignments and important news for my students and parents.

My Studiyo

This tool is used for making online quizzes and polls. I would use this tool to do just that! This is a perfect way for students to think quick on their feet and be ready for a quiz any time.

Social who?

Social media has been running off the charts for the past 10+ years!  At first social media seemed like it was best thing ever invented. You could keep in contact with your best friend who lives miles away, you could snoop on the "popular" girl that you went to high school with and see how her life really turned out, you could do all sorts of things with social media. According to the article that I have posted below, social media really ISN'T the best thing that has happened to us. Social networking causes you to tune out the world that's right in front of you. I couldn't help but agree with these articles even though i'm guilty of having a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, (and many moons ago), a MySpace account. For me, I originally got on the Social Networking train because that’s all everyone ever talked about so of course I had to have one (or 5) as well! But after I went on a few mission trips, social networking was a great tool for me to use to stay in contact with the people that I have met over seas.  It was really cool that I could get on my laptop and chat with people that were thousands of miles away from me. As I started to get more and more into social media, I realized that it started taking my away from the real world. I started to choose snooping on Facebook over studying for tests. I chose to post picture on Instagram instead of letting myself capture my own moments. After noticing my lack of interaction in the real world, I decided to step back from social media. I deleted my Myspace account and a few other accounts. I still use Facebook to stay in contact with my family back at home and Facebook will really be my friend once my husband goes off to military training for four months, but besides that I have tried my best to limit myself to how much social networking I do because I’ve realized that life is so much better if you look up from your phone or computer and see what’s really in front of you.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-scientific-reasons-social-networks-are-bad-society/

http://time.com/9207/social-media-is-making-you-stupid/ 

All about me

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I am Madelyn Marie Masengill Myers. I was born on July 18th 1995. I have lived in Mesquite, Texas my whole entire life until I came to college. My first year and a half at college, I went to Ouachita Baptist University. There I majored in Music Education. After a lot of searching and praying, I decided that I music was more of a hobby and I wanted to just focus on teaching. While making this big decision, I had several other big decisions like finding a wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses, picking a cake, sending invitations because I was engaged to be married. On August 9th 2014, I was officially married to my best friend, Noah.

We went to San Antonio for our honeymoon and a week and a half later, we were back in school. My first semester as an Education Major was fantastic! I loved the teachers, I loved the assignments and the atmosphere but due to some financial issues, I had to leave OBU and transfer to Henderson State University for the spring semester of 2015. While attending Henderson, I felt God pulling me to do something in another direction. For the past few months I have been feeling a call towards the Medical field. I truly believe that God is wanting me to take my passion for people to the next level. I’ve always loved helping people. Whether it be teaching children a game or helping some one while they’re sick, I have always wanted to help them be successful.  This decision has been one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through but I truly feel like God has a place for me in the Nursing program. I know the journey will be long and challenging  but I know once I reach the finish line, it will be the best feeling ever to know that I pushed myself to the max.

So that is how my life is going right now. It seems pretty hectic, huh?  But with this hectic life, I occasionally get to have some free time. During my free time I'm usually watching "Grey's Anatomy". I am so in love with this show. I may be a few years late but this is my favorite show ever!  My husband hates the show so most of the time I can only watch it when he has Army training and he's had a lot lately so i've gotten pretty far in to the show! Another thing that I love to do is paint. I'm not good at free hand painting but give me a stencil and I'm good to go!  Another thing that I LOVE doing is hanging out with my husband! We have been best friends for what seems like forever! Whether it be laying on the couch and watching a movie or going outside for a nice run, we always have a great time together. We recently received some news that he is going to Officer training in Georgia for 4 months and then he also found out that he is qualified to go to Ranger school after his officer training so he'll be gone for the next 6 months starting in March of next year. We still have a ways to go but for now I'm dedicating my time to him because the next thing we know, he'll be gone for half a year. But I know that with God's help we will survive and come back strong!