About Me

My name is Tricia Hepler. I am originally from Pittsburgh, PA. I attended college at Clarion University and decided to stick around the area! I just finished up my ninth year of teaching. I began my teaching career at Punxsutawney High School. where I taught Spanish I and II. After that first year, I was hired at Keystone Elementary to teach second grade. I spent five years in that grade level, and then there was an opening in fourth grade. I moved up to fourth grade, where I spent three years. As the school year was winding down about a month ago, my principal discussed with me the idea of moving down to kindergarten. The enrollment coming into fourth grade wasn't as high as it was in past years, and they were going to have 3 fourth grade classes instead of 4. A fifth grade teacher was retiring; two kindergarten teachers were moving up to fifth grade...and this all put me in the perfect spot to move down to kindergarten. Honestly, I was not sure about the move at first, but now that I've had time to think about it and process it, I have warmed up to the idea. One fact that could be both a pro and a con of moving to kindergarten is that my husband and I have three boys at home...a five year old, and three year old twins. My five year old enjoys looking at the educational apps on my school-issued iPad, and so I've been taking some time this summer to find apps that are "kid approved" and would work for kindergarten.  That leads into the reasoning behind why I chose this particular class and what I hope to learn. Before receiving my school-issued iPad, I had no experience with mobile devices, other than watching other people use them. I feel that I caught on quickly, but I know there is always more to learn. I hope to learn how to more effectively use my iPad (for my students) and newly acquired Android smartphone (for me) for educational purposes. I hope to become aware of other forms of mobile technology that can be integrated in a kindergarten classroom. I would like to see how other teachers use these forms of technology in their classroom, discover new apps to use, and further branch out into other such realms. So here's to learning! :)