More benefits of Showbie

Late summer I posted about using Showbie in the classroom. I've been using it in my classroom for almost a year now. A new feature I use now is an assignment called Notes to Mrs. Moyer.

I opened the assignment from the first day of school and I have it scheduled to be collected the last day of school. I can use the assignment to send my students notes or they use it to send me notes. 

When I've been absent, and while at home I'll get alerts on my iPad notifying me changes have been made. I'll look and students will be sending me messages. They tell me what classmates are acting out for the sub and what they are doing. Other ways they have used it is to tell me something they are afraid others will hear, like someone bullying them or bothering them.

Now that I've been on maternity leave for 6 weeks, they have been using it to communicate with me when they are missing me. I get cute little selfies of them with their friends, notes of how they miss me, they want to check up on me and the baby, or they want to share news going on in their life. It has been a great way for me to not completely abandon my students.

Be sure in the settings to turn on email notifications. The emails can be annoying, but they proved very helpful to me. They help with knowing students sent a message if I missed the notification on my iPad or if a student deletes a comment you can still see it in the email. :) For example, a student called me a curse word in Showbie and sent me the message to then delete it. I may not have received the notification on my iPad or seen the message on their iPad....BUT I received an email letting me know they posted a note and exactly what they posted. So this proves those emails are helpful in monitoring your students fully on Showbie. 

Maternity

This school year was pretty intense - second year teaching, pregnant, and mom of a toddler. I've been on maternity leave since the end of March. It was a relief to be done teaching - I felt I wasn't a great teacher at the end. I just sat around and taught, made the students come to me, and didn't circulate. It was best for us all if I left early. Finally, April 8th, I gave birth to my handsome son.  He came out at 9 lbs 3 oz. and 20.5" long! Yes, my son was that big.
                                      

Since then life has been a big adjustment. It is much different having two children, rather than just one. I really have to think through my plans, where we are going, and what we need. I wouldn't trade it for anything though.

My son will be a month old here in a few days time, and I'm starting to get the itch to teach again. I finally visited my classroom yesterday for the first time - I wanted to wait until they were done taking Session II of ISTEP. Being back in my classroom and seeing someone else in charge made me really want to be back in there. Unfortunately, my maternity leave ends 3 days before school is over - would you honestly go back for 3 days of silliness? So that means, I will just start planning for next school year and ways to improve lessons from this year. I already have a few ideas in my head - be ready for me to blog about them in the weeks to come! Also, at the end of June I have iPadpaloozaIN. Make sure to follow along to see me blog about my experience there!