Katie's Blog

  I mage: Porsche Orland Park "Everyone sees you in your car" said one of my former classmate several decades ago when asked why getting the newest car was such a big deal in southern California.  I went to a university in Southern California with a lot of southern Californians.  There was a lot I didn't understand as a Midwest person who grew up in a lower/middle class household and a comment like that seemed so foreign and backwards (I know a bit judgey but most 20 years old are).  When I think back about this statement what I realized was that for this student her social status was based on what you could afford and that can be seen in what car you were driving.  Since that time there has been a shift in social status and it is now evaluated by your social media account.  How many followers do you have?  How many likes did I get on this post?  Did anyone share our post?  While I love that I can be connected with my cousins across the pond,...

  Image:  Memes.com When I became a teacher one the practices that I have really devoted my time on is reflection.  Reflection is really taking a deep look at myself and thinking about what I did well, what I could improve upon and how I could do that.  I feel that I am a good teacher with tons of amazing ideas but taking those ideas and transforming them into something useful and meaningful to students is biggest hurdle for teachers.  I continue to think that I am a jack of all trades in my teaching and life.  I have a class that incorporates four different topics into one to create a class that will relate students to the real world and not only learn the engineering design process but apply it.  The above meme is one that I used in the past and I think that it represents how I am seeing the change in technology and how it affects my student's lives.   General Technology Use in the Classroom Technology in education will be a consistent no m...

  Image: Personal Photos Google Search I started with just a simple Google search of myself and my name.  One of things that is difficult is that potential names involve both my nick name (Katie) and legal name (Catherine) with a maiden (Waldron) and married last name (Brennan).  That meant that I did multiple searches with a few different combinations.  I also have a somewhat common first name and nickname with a somewhat common last name.  The name is is probably least common is my last name.  Image: Personal Photo I started with my social media user name: keightbrennan.  Under this search, Keith Brennan was the most common link provided by Google.  I searched through a good number of pages and nothing really came up.  Next I search for Catherine Brennan.  Catherine is my legal name and what is used for all official doucments.   The first page of searches were for Catherine Brennans that were professors, real estate agents, l...

Image: Apple.com Technology has allowed teachers and schools to transform the classroom so that content and information is now more accessible to all students.  Since I am part of the exploratory schedule for my school I see almost all of the students in the school. One of the most common occurrences in my classroom is for students that have vision problems.   Many students with vision issues have a larger screen that allows them to zoom in when needed.  The students' assignments were given electronically so they could zoom in as well as highlight certain sections to read the text.  Another example of accommodations involved testing and the ability to use a laptop rather than an iPad.  I also work with students that are non-verbal.  These students are provided with a talker iPad.  These iPads have a program that allows the user to hit a series of buttons to put together a sentence or phrase so their thoughts are said to the other person.  This do...

Imgage:  The Teacher Challenge When I reflect back on the changes in education from the time I started until now it is pretty amazing.  When I started my educator career I worked in a private school with very limited resources.  If I had the connection that social media affords me today during my first year my teaching would have been differently.  I had a student with some oppositional defiance behaviors and parents were in the process of getting a diagnosis.  The principal was devoted to all of the students but felt that spending more time in the school was the answer for any issues.  I would have more tools in my tool kit if I had access to different professional learning networks that would have made a world of difference.   What is a Professional Learning Network? According to  Edutopia.org , Professional Learning Networks or PLNs are "network of connections that educators create and engage in aimed at enhancing their professional develo...