Introduction

Welcome! My name is Erin Meehan-Browning and I am a teacher at Elmwood Elementary School in Naperville Community Unit School District #203. I am excited to start my tenth year teaching in Fall 2017. I started my teaching career in first grade. After teaching first grade for 4 years I transitioned to teaching full day kindergarten. I loved the excitement and energy of kindergarten! Most recently I taught second grade for 3 years. I am excited to start a new adventure in fourth grade in the fall!

I graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 2008 with my B.S. in Educational Studies. I later attended National Louis University and earned my M. Ed. in Math Education. I loved the challenge and collaborative environment of my graduate courses and am excited to return to the role of student. 

I look forward to building my confidence with technology through these courses. Currently I feel a little intimidated by technology that I am unfamiliar with. However, I am always excited about the potential of new tools and usually find I am pretty capable once I get my feet wet. This is especially true as I transition to fourth grade in the fall. In my past teaching experience, my students have had access to iPads. With a 1:2 technology ratio at best, I was excited to have my students use PicCollage, Canvas, Explain Everything, and My Story. However, there were limitations to how we used technology as students had to share their devices. I am excited the next year my students will be 1:1 on Chromebooks. However, as I have not experience with these devices I am a little intimated about how to make the best use of the devices and the technology available. 

I feel that through this year my confidence has started to build. I think a combination of the information I have learned through these classes, combined with the 1:1 chromebooks in my classroom has really helped me to improve my tech usage in my classroom as well as my confidence in using technology. I feel that I have really pushed my limits and challenged myself to use technology I had been intimidated by through the assignments in these classes. I have learned that just trying something sometimes can be the biggest hurdle. There have been several projects that I have completed, that although not perfect, have encouraged me to continue to explore and use different technologies in my classroom. I can't wait to see how the next two classes will help me to continue to improve my use of technology. 

Having taught a variety of grade levels, I have had the opportunity to see what EdTech looks at different ages and what amazing things you can do even with some of the youngest students. I feel that one of my EdTech successes was with my kindergartners. We had been working hard on retelling fiction stories to include title, author, characters, setting, problem, and solution. With the support of the TIS at my school we taught my students how to record each other retelling their chosen book. Then, with some teacher support they were able to upload their videos to Canvas and comment on each other's videos. My students were so proud of their work and that they were able to share it with their peers and family at home.

However, as with everything in the classroom (and life), even the best ideas can turn into horrible failures. My most memorable EdTech failure looking back is now also my funniest EdTech moment. While teaching second grade, my class had earned a reward. We voted as a class and decided on "Bring Your Device" day. The students were ecstatic and I was looking forward to trying some new tech activities I had recently learned about. I sent out permission slips and got them all back in a shockingly timely matter. The morning of our "Bring Your Device Day" all but 3 students brought a device. I was ready and provided them with devices. Then chaos ensued. Every device was different, with different logins and passwords that I did not know. The wireless network was overloaded and we could not get any devices on. There were tears. Lots of tears. It was an epic disaster that now I can only laugh about. Hoping that 1:1 next year will be better!