Hilary+Carson



**Hello! My name is Hilary Brooke Carson. I am a senior at Clemson University studying Early Childhood Education. I was born and raised in the Columbia, South Carolina area. I am a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority as well as several honor societies. I also enjoy reading, being outside, and traveling. I am currently doing an internship in a kindergarten classroom at Summit Drive Elementary. I will graduate in May and plan to teach in the Columbia area. I would love to have the opportunity to teach kindergarten, but I know I will enjoy teaching no matter what grade I am placed in. I have always had a passion for children and I am so excited to have the opportunity to positively impact their lives.**

= Hilary Brooke Carson's PLN =

**__ClassTools.net__** **ClassTools.net is a website that provides instant access to free educational games, activities, diagrams, and templates. Some specific items I saw on this site that I feel would be great tools for the classroom are a countdown timer, a random name picker, templates for venn diagrams, hamburger diagrams, jigsaw diagrams, timelines and many more.**

**__Second Grade Shenanigans__** **This is a blog that I found that describes in words and pictures different activities to do in the classroom, as well as organization and classroom management techniques that are designed for a second grade classroom. This blog is written by a young and creative second grade teacher.**

**__Growing Kinders__** **This is another blog, similar to second grade shenanigans but based on activities and techniques specifically for a kindergarten classroom. This particular blogger has been blogging for about 2 years and has extensive amounts of good material on her site. One thing I really like about this blog is that she has her postings listed by keywords/topics on the side bar making it easy to find previous postings about a specific subject area or topic.**

**__Babbel__** **Babbel.com is a site that is used to learn another language in an interactive way online. I found this site as one that would be especially useful with the growing amount of ESL students in the classroom. Making an effort to learn at least some of your ESL students' native language will make a huge impact on your relationship with them, as well as create more of an opportunity to facilitate home-school communication.**

**__Cool Websites for the 21st Century Teacher__** **Finding this website was like striking gold. This website includes links to TONS of sites, tehcnology, gadgets and tools that have endless possibilities for the classroom teacher. On this website I found Babbel and ClassTools.net. In addition to these sites some others I found to be particularly interesting and useful are dabbleboard, an interactive whiteboard application, BrainPOP**, **a website that has lesson plans and ideas grouped by subject. The list is long and appears to be updated frequently. This site is awesome!**


 * While creating my PLN I stumbled upon so many new websites and resources that I know will be of great use to gain knowledge and insight about teaching, as well as technology to integrate into my classroom, so much so that I added FIVE of my own resources. I discovered how much of a resource the internet and social networking can be as useful tools for professional development. The most interesting thing I discovered was the website called "21st Century School Teacher". I am certain that I will be able to use dozens of applications and sites that I have discovered and will continue to find from that compilation. **

= ** Blabberize! ** = media type="custom" key="10855858" width="90" height="90" align="left"

This tool meets the Guiding Principle 1 that states that classrooms should be places where enjoyable learning occurs. This assignment combines a new and fun concept with English Language Arts. It also meets Guiding Principle 3 stating that effective use of language should extend students thinking. This activity provides students with a creative means to experiment and use language effectively. In addition to Guiding Principles 1 and 3, this activity also most closely fulfills number 8. This principle states that an effective ELA curriculum utilizes all forms of media to prepare students to live in an information-rich society. Along with the Guiding Principles, use of this tool could cover the second grade standard 2-3 helping students to use word analysis and vocabulary strategies by analyzing the poetry used in the Blabberize. It also could be used to help generate ideas for writing as stated in standard 2-4. This activity could be used in a manner to give students freedom to experiment with language and technology in fun and interesting ways, while also providing means of supporting informational content.