Welcome to the “Eduporium Featured Educator” interview. Each month, Eduporium highlights the work of an educator who is using EdTech to empower students. We are so excited to share their stories and their work with you! We hope it will give more educators encouragement to try something new. In this month’s profile, we talked to Heather Breton, a second-grade teacher in Rhode Island. Keep reading to learn more about her and her EdTech initiatives!
Heather Breton
Second Grade Teacher, Garden City Elementary School, Cranston, RI
Q & A:
What is your favorite project or activity you’ve done with EdTech?
My favorite project with EdTech is when I had my students work on making stop motion animation movies. We had been working on a fairy tale unit, during which the students wrote compare-and-contrast essays about an original fairy tale and a fractured version of that fairy tale. At the end of the unit, the students worked with a partner to write their own fractured fairy tale. They then used an iPad app called MyCreate to help create their stop motion animation movies.
What advice would you give to people just starting out with implementing EdTech?
I have a couple of pieces of advice for people starting to implement EdTech. My first piece of advice is to realize that things will not go smoothly at first and that's okay. Learn from what goes wrong because you learn more from making mistakes than getting it correct the first time. My second piece of advice is to show the students that you are all learning this together. Students will be more receptive to taking risks when they see that their teachers are also taking risks and learning together.
What skills have you seen your students gain using EdTech?
Since using EdTech in my classroom, I've seen my students’ collaboration and problem-solving skills increase. They feel very comfortable working together on activities. They also love to be "tech"perts and help each other when technology problems arise.
What interests you most about Eduporium?
What interests me most about Eduporium is getting a chance to read the blogs and explore new tech products. I enjoy reading the weekly blogs because they are full of helpful advice and they allow me to explore new, up-and-coming EdTech products.
Do you know of an educator who is doing exciting things with EdTech? Recommend them (or yourself!) as an Eduporium Featured Educator by emailing info@eduporium.com with a short blurb about how you’ve used EdTech tools to empower your students! Find out more about how Eduporium can revamp your classroom, library, or makerspace by heading to www.eduporium.com. Sign up as an educator and start saving with your discount when you purchase technology on our store!