Melissa+Horton

====My name is Melissa Horton. I am a senior Early Childhood Education major at Clemson University. I plan to attend graduate school next year for Early Childhood Special Education and then I hope to work as a preschool special education teacher in a Title One public school in either Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, or Illinois. In my spare time I enjoy spending time with friends and family, watching sports especially baseball, soccer, and college sports, and hiking or just relaxing in the mountains.====

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The Inspired Apple is a blog written by a first grade teacher who shares ideas and projects she has done in her class for other teachers to see and hopefully be inspired to use similar ideas and projects in their own classrooms. @ESchoolNews is a Twitter account that I follow that gives up to date information about technology and resources for teachers. I have followed this website for a while and they give a lot of useful information. @Myresourcecloud is another Twitter account that I follow that connects teachers to resources and other teachers' ideas to help teachers stay up to date and in the know about technology and other current issues in education. Kelly Payne is a children's and school advocate that I follow on twitter as well. She gives a lot of information about issues affecting children and schools especially in South Carolina. From my PLN I have learned in general that having a lot of resources and ways to follow and keep up with these resources is extremely important and helpful. I have learned specifically from Kelly Payne about a lot of the issues affecting SOuth carolina schools. Since I am not from South Carolina originally I know very little about what is truly affecting South Carolina schools but following her has kept me up to date on some of the most pertinent issues affecting education in South Carolina.

Blabberize
Image from @http://comebacktomewhenyoucan.tumblr.com/post/4601845762/winnie-the-pooh-this-is-the-best-part-of-the

Poem- "Us Two" A. A. Milne (1927) from //Now We Are Six// by A. A. Milne media type="custom" key="10841037"

Blabberize could be a very valuable tool for teachers to use in many subjects but it has a lot of implications for English Language Arts. The Guiding Principles for the South Carolina English language Arts standards talk about technology, variety, and oral language being used in effective language arts lessons. Blabberize is especially effective because it uses technology and allows children to work on many components individually. Also it can be used with any thing someone has to say, whether it is reading a poem or story from class or something they wrote. Finally since children are speaking they are practicing oral language skills which are essential to reading and writing development. Blabberize also has a lot of applications when it comes to specific standards. Almost all grade levels have a standard about students creating responses to texts through a variety of mediums (for example ELA Standard K-1.8). Blabberize could be a medium students could use to create personal and creative responses to literature. Also most grade levels have a standard referring to creating written works to entertain others (for example ELA Standard K-5.4). When students create a Blabberize and it is then shared with the class they get to see their piece of writing actually entertain others bringing that standard to life for them. Blabberize is a great tool for teachers to use to help their students' development in English Language Arts.