Techie by Nature

     What if you never had to draw another anchor chart? What if you had your students create their own anchor chart to assess understanding of a particular concept?       These are just a couple of questions that have one simple answer— INFOGRAPHICS      Infographics are “graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly.” (Turner and Hicks, 2017)      Take a look at the infographic I created to strengthen my argument for the impact and need of early childhood literacy.       Pretty cool, huh? Although elementary teachers are very familiar with creating anchor charts, infographics are a newer way for students to discuss ideas and information. Having students to create infographics allows teachers to assess what students may already know about a topic and helps students sharpen their persuasion and research skills.            Using infographics in the classroom also helps those students that may have a difficul

     We often think about older students when it comes to digital writing, but we cannot count out our younger students too.       In this age of technology, where kids are born knowing how to navigate a smartphone before they can walk, how do we meet our standards AND the ever-changing needs of our students?  It’s simple, we use technology to meet them where they are and help them gain important skills about HOW to use the technology to make strong digital arguments and connections.       Students are constantly bombarded with ideas and information from a variety of sources. How do we teach our students to know how to separate fact from fiction? First, we must teach them to analyze a piece of text critically. We should, as educators, already be teaching our students how to analyze and think for themselves, but how do we do this with younger students?      When beginning to teach the writing process, I like to have a mini-lesson beforehand about perspective. I use the story of The Thre