The Start of Something New!

Hello friends, family, and most importantly, teachers! Over the past several years Jee Young and I will admit that we have fallen off the bandwagon when it comes to updating our blog. But we are in the process of stumbling back on (the wagon) and a part of that includes a new Instagram handle. You can now find us at twoapplesadayteachers on IG. Look us up, give us a follow! (Please.) We are sharing great ideas and inspiring quotes and are really, really excited to be a part of the instagram teaching community. I have learned this summer that this particular community is fabulous. Teachers are amazing on instagram.

We will continue to write posts, we will! Come back and support us. And leave a comment so we can support you too. This world is better with interaction, don’t you think?

Looking forward to the start of something new.

***Cue High School Musical song that will now be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.***

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I love being a guest!

A friend, and recent co-worker (as of this year!), asked me to write-up a guest post for his blog (which is on our blogroll to the leftttt), Teach Science Right. I talk about the importance of getting connected to the education world via blogs and such. Check out the link and leave some loving comments, it really is the right thing to do : )

Blogging for Beginners: KORCOS edition!

Friday was an exciting day. Jee Young and I were able to present at KORCOS on Blogging for Beginners! Like many presentations involving technology, we had a few minor glitches that made me regret not packing an extra pack of tissue paper in my purse (for the sweat), but overall it went really well. The workshop was packed with teachers ready to learn, and blogs were created!

We covered what is in our Blogging for Beginners tab here on our two apples a day page, as well as gave a step by step process for creating a simple wordpress.com (our platform of choice) blog. These steps are on the KORCOS wiki page.

A few questions that were asked:

Why do you use wordpress?

I have noticed that blogger pages through gmail tend to have problems in Korea. There are times when the page is only in Korean, even if my computer is set to English settings. Also…I have had blogs through both platforms, and I just like wordpress better, I feel that it is very user friendly.

Can you make your blog private?

Of course you can! If you have a wordpress blog, the privacy setting is under the settings tab on the left side of the page when you are at your dashboard. (I believe you can make any blog private through most platforms).

How often do you blog personally?

To be honest, when you first start blogging- it is important to blog often! Jee Young and I take turns throughout the week, and usually take a day or two off on the weekends. My personal blog has suffered a bit due to my graduate class, and this awesome new site, but if you recall from Jee Young’s recent post, she is blogging EVERY DAY. Crazy woman.

There were many more questions… but a lot of them were specific to the person, or I don’t remember them. If you have questions feel free to write a comment (WE LOVE COMMENTS).

I don’t know why no one told me my name tag was twisted backwards^^.

Jee Young also presented on Read Alouds… she may share pictures and her experience from that later (I haven’t actually talked to her about it yet, hehe!)

What are some great professional development conferences that you go to? What are some awesome workshops you’ve been to, or have presented at?

Remember, sharing is caring!

Science: An Easy Way to Integrate Technology

As I was teaching my science unit on the water cycle and clouds last year, I had the urge to integrate technology (I may have been slacking in that department in the fall…and my new year’s resolutions were kicking into high gear). I started looking for a website that I could send my students to in the computer lab. I had this vision of them looking at the different kinds of clouds we were learning about, picking a picture to print, and then creating a booklet with their printed pictures.

I searched and searched, and found nothing. nada. zilch. I began to deflate, when suddenly… it hit me. I could just make my own! I gathered pictures I liked and created a blog:

cloudsforscience.blogspot.com

I had the site bookmarked on the computers in the lab and gave my students simple instructions. They had to read about each cloud and pick one picture (out of three choices) to print. Before we went to the lab we had already learned about these different types of clouds, so this was a good review for them.

This experience made me realize that if you can’t find something you like (I have become very accustomed to borrowing everyone’s great ideas, I guess it’s time for me to share^^), you can create it!

Feel free to use the site (it is designed for second grade), and if have made your own sites, please share them. It’s only polite 🙂

Here are some examples of the booklets my students made last year (sorry for the quality, I took them just now with my phone!):