Educator Spotlight - Sonia Hornbaker

Ms. Sonia Hornbaker

Ms. Sonia Hornbaker is a 4th-grade teacher at Ironwood Elementary. She shared the following quote:

“Technology will not replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational.” - George Couros

Thank you, Ms. Hornbaker!

This is the fourth post in a weekly series celebrating the hard work and dedication of the WESD Teacher Technology Leaders throughout the 2020-21 school year!

The Teacher Technology Leaders (TTLs) are a group of highly motivated teachers who provide leadership for their school sites in all areas related to technology integration. This includes exploring new methods of effective technology integration in their own classrooms, leading school and district level PD sessions, and providing personalized support to individual teachers at their site.

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Create an Instagram Story!

One day on Twitter, I came across a tweet from Ryan O'Donnell ( @creativeedtech ) in which he shared a Facebook template that could be used for students to demonstrate their learning. I clicked on the link to his website , and I was AMAZED at all the cool templates he had created for teachers to use for free! I decided to try using an Instagram template during a unit on the planets in our solar system. I wanted students to demonstrate what they learned about the different planets, but I wanted them to do it in a creative way. Here are the directions I gave to my students: Here are some student examples: Student Example #1 Student Example #2 Student Example #3 Student Example #4 I really enjoyed this activity, and I love how students familiar with hashtags were able to create and use them in clever ways! If I was to go back and do this again, I would spend some time working with students less familiar with social media and hashtags and give them some...

First Week of School

We just wrapped up our first week of school! I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know our new 5th grade students! Here are some of the activities we did to start building our classroom culture and learn more about each other: "All About Me" Google Drawing Students learned how to use some of the basic features of Google Drawings by creating a Drawing about themselves. The basic requirements were that they include their name, a picture of themselves, and text/images that describe their personalities or interests. I created an example to give them an idea of what it could look like. I used this activity last year, and I really enjoyed what my students created. However, I decided this year to give them more time to just play with and explore the tools in Google Drawing. I feel like this really paid off because students were able to discover how to use some of the tools and share with each other instead of just relying on me to show them how to use it. ...

Virtual EdTech Coaching Sessions

I'm really enjoying these virtual tech coaching sessions with teachers across our district! Here are some takeaways about coaching virtually: 🤝 Building relationships is still key to effective coaching. I try to look for things a teacher has on their desk or wall that I can see in the camera. This helps start a conversation about something meaningful to the teacher and starts our session on a positive note. ❓ Ask lots of questions rather than jumping in with a solution. I like to ask, "Can you please share your screen and show me how you would typically do/get to ____?" rather than telling them where to click right away. It helps me learn about how they navigate digital tools. 📧 Follow up the conversation with an email. I like to include a short video with a quick tutorial about something specific they talked about during the session. It helps demonstrate that I was actively listening and that I'd love to keep the conversation going and keep working together. What...

Roxi Thompson

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