Truth, Tech, and Teaching

Some exciting news... I got engaged!! I thought I'd share the story here, along with some updates on what's been happening since the engagement. (This is going to take two posts.) But first some backstory on who I will be marrying... I met my fianc é, David, almost two years ago through CatholicMatch.com . (So I suppose technology had a pivotal role in my dating life too.) I had been on the site for about 10 months and I was feeling a little discouraged that all the guys I met were either a) not what I was looking for or b) not interested in me enough to meet me in person or go on more than one date. I had plenty of on-going conversations with guys through Catholic Match's messages, sometimes for 2-3 months or more, but I only met two of those guys in person. When David finally messaged me in late August 2015, I almost didn't respond to him. I was already having conversations with two others guys, and from his pictures he didn't look like the type of guy I'm...

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to participate in an Alpha course at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit with other Catholic school teachers, catechists, DREs (directors of religious education), youth ministers, and others in faith teaching roles in the Archdiocese of Detroit. It was an amazing experience, one that gave me great hope for the Catholic Church and the efforts to revitalize it in Detroit. Alpha is a program for exploring fundamental concepts of the Christian faith. Their website explains it best, so I have quoted their "What is Alpha?" explanation here: "Alpha is a series of sessions exploring the Christian faith. Each talk looks at a different question around faith and is designed to create conversation. Alpha is run all over the globe, and everyone's welcome. It runs in cafes, churches, universities, homes - you name it. No two Alphas look the same, but generally they have three key things in common: food, a talk and good conversation...

After navigating my first year as a K-8 computer teacher, I came to a new appreciation of just how many computer skills I take for granted. As adult (and a millennial) I'm so familiar with the vocabulary, workflow, and technique needed to use a computer that I forget how I learned all these things in the first place. (This is a phenomenon I've experienced many times as a teacher when I need to teach a subject I've never taught before.) I had some knowledge from using computers often in my previous job as a middle school math, language arts, and religion teacher. I generally knew what to expect from 6th-8th graders in terms of what they know and don't know. However, I now teach much younger students too and my first few months on the job were a steep learning curve in how to explain computer skills to young kids, and manage them on the machines - so they understood what to do AND nothing got messed up on the computer. Below are the top skills I discovered are definitel...

Welcome to "Truth, Tech, and Teaching!" My name is Lauren and I live in the suburbs of Detroit, MI. Since my career is in teaching, that will be the primary topic of this blog, but I plan to bring in some of my other interests too - the Catholic faith, books, movies, TV shows, music, color guard/marching band, Michigan State University (my alma mater), youth ministry, and various other randomness. My life tends to be an eclectic mix, but somehow everything seems to connect. At least it does to me. Some background on me: I'm a computer/media/technology teacher at a K-8 Catholic school. I teach all grades in the school, from kindergarten to 8th, and students have computer class with me once a week. (I'm what you call a "specials" teacher, similar to music, art, or gym.) I had each of the 6th-8th grade students create a blog this year to serve as a portfolio for computer assignments and a place to write reflections on the tech concepts they learn. Their blo...

These are my Easter computer projects for 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. All four grades did similar projects on the Easter Story, following the same list of events in the instructions, but with two different tools. 5th and 6th grade created presentations using Prezi , a fancier presentation tool than a simple slide show. 7th and 8th grade created short videos using WeVideo , a free online video editing software (similar to iMovie). These students were given the choice between an Easter Story event sequence I created or the Stations of the Cross (same as 4th grade). See instruction documents below for the sequence. All website links, instructions, and other documents were shared with students through  Google Classroom  and students learned to generate a "shareable" link to their projects and turned them in through Google Classroom also. I taught my 5th-8th grade students about the importance of copyright awareness and proper citation this year and they applied this know...

Continuing my Easter computer class lessons with the projects I did for 3rd and 4th grade. Starting in 3rd grade, my students are given Google for Education accounts, giving access to Google Classroom, Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Drawings, etc. (I'll have to write another post on Google Classroom sometime, but I'll say right now it's an awesome way for me to get assignment templates and instructions to students really easily. All my projects in 3rd grade and up are much more interesting because I have this tool.) The 3rd and 4th grade projects help them reflect on the Easter Story while becoming more proficient with some of the Google programs. 3rd Grade My 3rd graders used Google Drawings for the first time on this project and learned a little bit about the basics of graphic design - neatly arranging text boxes and images to convey a message and choosing eye-catching colors and fonts. They made small posters highlighting five important events in the Easter Story, a...

I have written a series of posts describing the computer class activities I did this year for Easter. As a Catholic school teacher, I enjoy incorporating faith-based topics to teach new technology skills. This post will focus on the activities I did in my Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade classes - Easter themed games, videos, and word processing. Kindergarten At this point in the year, my kindergarten students have just begun to read independently in their regular class and can recognize all letters and many words. I try to give them many computer activities in the second half of the year to reinforce word recognition. But they do plenty of "just for fun" computer games as well to practice mouse control and let them be creative on the computer. Most of the games/activities I use for the younger grades come from  Abcya.com . Kindergarten did these three Easter games: Easter Word Search Easter Egg Hunt Make an Easter Egg Since their computer activities presented o...