At TCEA, our incredible members are what drive our organization. While we support educators on their journeys to advancing teaching and learning with technology, they are the ones out in the field truly transforming the future. Each month, we like to recognize one of our members and shine a spotlight on the exciting things they’re doing to revolutionize education. We hope our readers can gain some good ideas, tips, and strategies from reading these success stories.
Angel Herring winning the Kroger Classroom Champ Award in 2017.
Today’s member spotlight focuses on an ESL kindergarten teacher in her 12th year of teaching: Angel Herring. In addition to being a well-respected TCEA member, she’s also a board member of Kindergarten Teachers of Texas and member of the teacher organization Delta Kappa Gamma. Angel is also no stranger to being recognized for her fantastic work. In the last two years alone, she’s won the Kroger Classroom Champ Award, GPISD’s Excellence Educator Award, Kindergarten Smorgasboard’s Golden Apple Award, and the Technology Eagle Award. Read on to learn more about Angel and how she engages her young learners with technology.
The Power of Early Learning
The kindergarten classroom can be a chaotic place full of noise and excitement for learning. For Angel, this just means that her days are filled with joys and challenges. She finds great happiness in creating a foundation of education for her students. Angel explains: “We start with learning letters and numbers. We cover all the subjects every day and incorporate technology as often as we can. By the end of the school year, the students have learned at least 36 sight words and can read on level 4.”
To Angel, the best part of her job is seeing her students’ be successful at learning something new. “They are so happy with themselves, and I rejoice with them when they succeed and master their tasks at hand.”
Early Tech for Tiny Tots
Just because her students are young doesn’t mean they can’t experience positive effects from the thoughtful integration of technology in the classroom. This school year, her district bought Clear Touch Panels for each school, and she was chosen to participate in the pilot program. She’s excited about the options for interactivity, saying “The students are loving the different activities we are doing with it.”
Angel was also able to secure a grant from the Kindergarten Teachers of Texas to get Bee-Bots for her classroom. These easy-to-use, friendly robots are perfect for little learners just dipping their toes into robotics.
Angel’s Best Tech Tips
Angel recommends TCEA’s Elementary Technology Conference (formerly Tots and Technology), which she has attended for the last four years, as a great place to discover new technology and best practices for the elementary classroom. “It has a wealth of resources and great presenters,” she explains. She also is continuing her career focus on technology by participating in TCEA’s Campus Technology Specialist Certification .
One of the tech tools she most recommends for other teachers is Bee-Bots, and she encourages teachers to find creative ways to incorporate them into their lessons. Her favorite apps are Doodle Buddy, which lets students fingerpaint without the mess, and Kahoot, which makes learning fun with cool quizzes and games.
Want more of Angel’s best tech tips? She recently started a blog called Technology Tips for Teachers and runs a Facebook page Technology Tips for Techie Teachers in Elementary, where you can find great resources and ideas.
To learn about other innovative educators transforming education, you can read some of our previous member spotlight posts here, here, and here. Do you know a TCEA member who deserves a little spotlighting? Email me your suggestions at smeyer@tcea.org .