Shelly Fryer
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Shelly Fryer is an incredible third and fourth grade teacher. Positive Tomorrows (@ptokc), a private school in Oklahoma for homeless children. The more I read her story, the more admirable she became. She has been teaching for 20 years and has been incorporating the iPad in her classroom since 2013. Shelly has a passion for teaching her students; she hopes to instill a love for learning and a sense that their voice matters in the world. Her work has also been featured on NPR’s website in an post titled, “A School That Provides The One Constant In Homeless Children's Lives”. In 2015, she was named a PBS Digital Innovator for her inclusion of technology in the classroom. Not to mention her Maker Space is a wonderful area where her students can create things they’ve never even imagined they could make. It’s truly extraordinary! She is an overall spectacular teacher and I encourage you to visit her website for a lot of information and the great heart behind the screen.
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Another link on her website that I found to be really creative was the song she created with her class called “Welcome to Room 108”. It was originally inspired by Dwayne Reed’s “Welcome to the 4th Grade”. As someone who values music in the classroom, this story was after my own heart. Wouldn’t it be so neat to incorporate music into your classroom like this? The students sound so engaged and enthusiastic to be included in this video; they even sang it, too! I just thought it would be so amazing to make one of these at the end of every year and play it at the beginning of the following year so that your new students can see all of the fun your previous students had. It really inspired me to find a way to integrate music into my future classroom!
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Fryer also has a strong connection with building student connections and relationships. It’s very clear that she really cares for the well-being of her students. In her post titled “Building Relationships With Students #GSPD,” she discusses some of the ways she creates a wonderful classroom community. One I found especially interesting was her Room 108 Podcast. I really personally connected with this activity because I absolutely love listening to podcasts! She and her students come up with various topics to talk about. I’ve listened to a couple of the episodes so far, and I find them to be so incredible. These kids are definitely realizing that their voice is important and their voice can and needs to be heard. Her school has participated in “Global School Play Day” (@GSPlayDay) for a couple of years now, and they have had great success with it. The Global School Play Day is a day dedicated exclusively to, well, play! It’s just as important for students to work as it is for them to play, so why not have a whole day dedicated to it? I implore you to check out this post in particular. You won’t regret it!
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Shelley Fryer also has a wonderful post on her website called “Technology 101 for Teachers” that I found out to be extremely helpful. Technology is really being included into the classroom more and more every year and I feel like I can never learn enough new information when it comes to technology. This post not only tells the importance of integrating technology into your classroom, but it also lists some apps that Fryer uses in her classroom. She stresses that technology should be used to enhance the creativity of her students, and it really shows when you see the artwork her students made. She has so many wonderful examples and resources for you on this post, from having the students scan QR codes in order to read a book, to having a live webinar guest speaker. I found many awesome ideas that I hope to integrate into my future classroom someday! You should definitely check this post out.
I have learned so much from Shelly Fryer's website. Although the process of becoming a teacher can be intimidating, her blog and website inspire me to become a great teacher. She truly does care about her children and it is evident in her work. I hope to become as motivated, creative, and compassionate as her when I become a teacher! And now that I have viewed her website, I have some tools to help me become the best teacher I can be. Thank you so much, Shelly Fryer!
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Disclaimer: All of the images and videos I used in this post are ones I found on Shelly Fryer's website and they all belong to her. Even more reason to check out her website!