The Pros and Cons of my first term as a Digital Teacher!

This year I was honoured to become a digital teacher of a year 7/8 classroom. All my students have a laptop each except for two (one special needs and one low learner) who have Ipads. I have a class of 26 (22 year 7's, 4 year 8's,15 boys and 11 girls).

Positives

1. Inquiry learning model PURSUE was a huge success. 
2. Class Badges has been a huge success for rewarding and encouraging positive behaviour.
3. I have managed to make use of a lot of the tools I gained from ULEARN last year to effectively implement and maintain a safe digital environment.
4. Discovered new and amazing websites/resources/tools:

• Classroom Booksource
• Apps for the Ipad (I will link my favourites to this post in the near future)
• Classroom Blogging - P3 have blogged their learning, homework, and ongoing intermediate experiences. They have been assigned a buddy blog from the year 8 digital class who they monitor, make comments (leave feedback and feed forward) and share their work with. 
• Minecraft!
• Thekidshouldseethis - An amazing site full of videos on a range of different content
• Integrating digital learning throughout the curriculum
• Using Google Forms to learn about my class - I was able to discover one of my students was being bullied.
• YouTube Curriculum - A great ready to go lesson pack to teach students digital citizen and other digital skills through YouTube. 
• Readium - A Google Chrome webstore app. Allows you to add as many Ebooks in epub form as you like into your library and access these anytime and anywhere.
• Spotify - A safe way for students to listen to music that they stream onto their computers, this ensures that I know they are just listening to music and not watching YouTube videos.

Minus

1. Google Accounts - These have been a mission to set up and I am still struggling with 3 or 4 students accounts constantly asking for the password to be reset.
2. Students wanting to be on their devices at all times, some struggle with motivation and staying focused when tasks don't require the use of these.
3. Emailing - Students can email any other student in the school, for the most part this has been a great tool however there have been one or two instances where students chose to do the wrong thing.
4. Twitter - I have really been awful with my Twitter account this year, I have struggled to find the time and interest to keep up with it.

I am always interested in finding new and exciting digital tools and resources so please share some of your favourites with me below.