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Watch me flip, watch them...learning?

Bad puns aside, flipped learning has a lot of potential for increasing student motivation, engagement, and learning.  I played around with flipping my class a few years ago and learned a lot of lessons.  I found that I was not able to make it out of, what Todd Nesloney called, Flipped Class 101.  I created the videos, the students watched them at home, and we did activities the next day in class.  I also struggled with creating the videos and trying to stay ahead of my students.  Between moving schools and then staying home when my daughters were born I did not have an opportunity to try again and go to another level.  However, I definitely had ideas about what I wanted to do differently and where I wanted to go next.

The two biggest changes I wanted to make was improving my videos and improving the activities we did in the classroom.  As a beginner, most of my videos were VERY boring.  I created powerpoint presentations and then narrated my way through them.  I would want to make videos that are more interactive and include opportunities for students to try and solve example problems on their own.  I found that when they just had to listen or write down sample problems, miraculously they had no questions the next day.  I know that if they had to try and solve a problem and come in the next day with the answer, I’d have a lot more actually asking about questions they might have had.

The other biggest issue I had was what we did in class.  While we did a lot of practice, application, and I was able to work with a lot more small groups, the activities were not very sophisticated and did not really require a lot of critical thinking.  In the future I would want to incorporate more inquiry and PBL into the classroom time.  I also would want to open up my timeline so that students are able to progress through the content as they mastered it, rather than on my schedule.

I used LearnZillion when I was not able to make my own videos.  I liked that their videos are Common Core aligned already.  For example, this video on dividing fractions.

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1:1 Chromebooks could be THE answer

Of course the answer I’m referring to is that of the age old question, “how do we improve student engagement and learning?”  Well, 1:1 Chromebooks might not provide the ultimate answer (nothing by itself really will), but it certainly seems to be a huge step in the right direction.

I am in a school based position and therefore have very little to do with the decisions made at the (bloated) county level.  However, we do have some decisions open to us at our school.  We can decide what types of technology and hardware we can purchase for our school.  Because we have become a GAFE district, I am beginning to wonder if the Chromebook is the way we need to go when considering new technology.  My biggest fear is what happened with our SmartBoards.  We have spent tens of thousands of dollars on putting a SmartBoard in every room and I’m sad to admit that they have become fancy white boards.  I don’t want whatever technology we purchase in the future to have a huge learning curve in terms of implementation (one of the biggest complaints about our SmartBoards is teachers don’t feel like they received enough training to use them effectively) or to become quickly obsolete.

After reading some others experiences with Chromebooks, it seems there are a lot of advantages.  One of the biggest advantages that struck me was the comment from a teacher in the Leyden district who said that because of the functionalities of the Google suite, they have moved from a mindset of “turning in” work to “sharing” work. This is a huge nod towards the idea of collaboration, one of the 4 Cs on which our district is focusing.  The other huge advantages seem to be time and money.  Some of the statistics are staggering.  I reached out so some people from the Leyden district and asked whether they had done any implementations at the elementary level and if so how it was working out.

There do seem to be quite a few logistics involved when implementing a 1:1 Chromebook initiative.  Many of which, I will admit, are extremely overwhelming.  Like I said, I am a school based position, so if our district went this route, I would not be involved in many of these logistics.  However, I would be an integral part of the team if our school went with this option.  My strength is not the technical/hardware aspect of technology and so considerations regarding bandwidth, operating systems, etc are a little scary.  I would definitely need to put a lot of time in to learning and training of these aspects.

I think though that there are many considerations beyond just logistics.  I appreciated this principal’s reflections because they were more about the “real world” implementation than the “figuring it out” part.  He addressed ideas such as setting SMART goals to measure success and justify their decisions and the idea that kids CAN be responsible with these devices.  However, what I really liked is he talked about the fact that these tools don’t replace good teachers.  They also don’t automatically elevate a teacher’s abilities.  They are a tool that can enhance instruction, but teachers need time to become comfortable with them and can learn from each other how to best implement them in their classrooms. Arthur C. Clarke said it best, “Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer should be!”

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Learning Scoop.It for curation

Since starting as an Instructional Technology Facilitator there have been many paths I have taken to help my teachers integrate more technology in their classrooms.  By far the biggest request has been how to use Google products, especially Google Classroom.  While I have certainly learned a lot on how to use basic features, I would like to learn more to help my teachers get the most out of the suite.

GAFE & Classroom on Scoop.It

I chose to use Scoop.It as my curation tool as I wanted to challenge myself to learn a tool that I am not very familiar with.  I had to read a few get started articles but was able to begin curating content pretty quickly.  I also installed the Chrome extension to be able to quickly snag resources in the future.  I will admit the “tile/picture card” of the layout is a little overwhelming for me.  I normally use Diigo and appreciate the simplicity of text and list views of my links.

Many of the sources I found were basic ideas and how to get started with Google apps and Classroom.  This is helpful because many of the teachers I work with have not used Google Classroom and are only superficially familiar with Google products like Docs, Sheets, etc.  The 5th grade team at my school has been using Classroom since ~Oct when our BYOD program rolled out (only 5th grade this year, we open it to 3rd & 4th next year).  I would like to work on finding some more advanced ideas for them.

I definitely have a lot to learn in terms of the functionality of Scoop.It.  I can curate content all day long, but using it to connect and share with others is the next step for me.  I often feel like because I am new to this type of position that I don’t have much to offer.  Someone has already done it and probably done it better than I could.  So I need to work on finding my voice and a network that fits for me.

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Intro for EDIM 510

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Civil Discourse: a lost cause?

This year is an election year and so it’s to be expected that some harsh words will be exchanged on both sides.  However, this year our society is getting an up close and personal view of what happens when civil discourse is flung out the window.  Whatever your political stance, most can agree that Donald Trump has said some inflammatory things.  His platform of “telling it like it is” has pushed his fans into believing that not only should we get to say whatever we want, but we should shut down those we disagree with.

As educators we need to take these experiences to heart.  I have always firmly believed that our duty is to make an impact on the next generation.  There is no better place to start in my mind, than teaching the lessons of civil discourse and communication to our students.  

Children from a very young age are taught (for the most part) how to say please, thank you, and down where I live yes and no ma’am.  We try to teach them how to use I-Messages when their feelings are hurt or if they’re in a fight, but these feel as false as the forced apologies so many adults require of children.  What we need to do is no different than what we do for their academics.  We need to provide them authentic experiences to practice discussion and communication.  Elementary students can start small.  They can discuss books and classes in a classroom discussion post or a blog.  Linda Yollis is exactly right in that teaching students how to write comments on other’s work is a critical skill.  It’s easy enough to write an opinion post, even for children.  But disagreeing with someone constructively is a learned skill.

I know teachers are pressed for time.  The first thing they might say is they don’t have time to do those things with all the content they have to cover, especially when students are assessed on that content.  I have two responses to this.  The first is that it is possible to do both!  There are a myriad of content topics in many subjects, but especially in social studies, that lend themselves to debate and discussion.  For example allow children to learn the content in the course of preparing for a debate.  Visit blogs on scientific topics and interact with the authors.  

The second response is one that is probably not popular when our very jobs are on the line.  At some point we need to stand up for what’s right for our students, our society, and our integrity.  We all know that it’s more important a person can converse respectfully and productively than if they can recite the Periodic Table.  So at some point, as educators, we will need to do what’s right in our classroom despite what the politicians require.

I have to hope that we have not lost all ability to converse in a civilized manner.  Every year we take baby steps towards reducing societal ills.  And a big part of that reduction are the teachers who keep in the back of their mind that they are impacting the future every day.

 And because I need to laugh so I don’t cry:

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Where do you find the majority of your teaching resources? When I was a teacher, most of my resources came from my grade level team or searching lesson plans online.  Unfortunately I no longer have a school based team to share resources with since I am the only ITF at my school.  I’m finding that I have to reach out to people at other schools and even in other cities to discuss what we are doing and what has been working for us.  Professional conferences, district meetings, and online connections (especially through Twitter) are becoming more and more valuable as sources of information and ideas.

Who do you look to for support and research for new ideas? The main people who support me when it comes to new ideas are the other members of the curriculum support staff at my school, especially the librarian/media specialist and the instructional resource teacher.  Both of them have similar roles in that they are there to help staff improve their instruction and they are also very committed to moving towards more innovative instructional practices.  When it comes to new ideas, trends, research, etc I definitely turn to my virtual PLN, namely Twitter.  I have found if I am looking for the latest research or ideas this is where to find it.

What challenges do you face as you try to incorporate new ideas and research with your students? My challenge isn’t so much incorporating new ideas with students (since I don’t teach students), it’s getting my staff to incorporate new ideas.  Unfortunately we do not have a culture of forward thinking and innovation at my school.  So many of the staff are resistant to change and letting go of control.  Trying to get buy in for professional development or new ideas is something I struggle with every day.  It’s hard to change a culture if admin isn’t on board.  Fortunately there are a few in the building who are excited about new ideas and I am using them to get my foot in the door with the rest of their teams.

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Mobile Device Videos

One of the strengths of the teaching profession is that many of us are completely willing to share what we have done with other educators so that we are all working together to benefit our students.  The following videos showcase how teachers are successfully using mobile devices in their classrooms and provide a model for how others can use them as well.

Devices in the Classroom by Daniels Run

This is a really great video because it is a long list (in video format) of ways to use a device in the classroom.  I like that it is more open ended because it gives people watching it the opportunity to figure out how it will work in their individual classrooms.  Plus it doesn’t focus on one particular device or tech tool that I might not be able to have or get in my school/room.  Sometimes all it takes is a general idea to run with.  In addition, each of these ideas aren’t subject or grade specific.  So it really is a great resource for the most amount of people possible.  If there were any idea in the video that I wanted more information about, I’m sure I could search for that specific idea/strategy and find more detailed videos, but this is a great jumping off point.

Getting Started with Mobile Devices in the Classroom

This video is specifically geared towards teachers starting out with mobile devices in their classroom.  I really like it because it focuses on creating capability in the teacher by telling them what to think about to be able to choose their own devices and tools they use.  It doesn’t just come out and say, “do this then that”.  Along the lines of the proverb, “Teach a man to fish...” it gives teachers the knowledge so they can do what works in their own classrooms.  This video is a great repository of tips and things to consider that some people might not have thought about.

Teaching With Tablets

This is a really great video that shows the real experiences of a school as they adopted using tablets in their classrooms.  They describe how they started by getting the teachers on board through staff development and teacher tablets to practice on and how that progressed into teachers having collaborative conversations about how they could use the tablets in the classroom.  What’s especially powerful in this video is they go on to interview students about their experiences with the tablets.  I think this could be something valuable for teachers who are resistant to technology to see as it shows first hand how much the technology impacted students and their learning.

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App/Tool Evaluation

I will be evaluating the Splice app.  After taking the Digital Storytelling course as part of my EDIM Master’s program, I have wanted to work with a class to begin a digital storytelling project.  Evaluating this app will help me get started with that.

Splice allows users to edit and create videos through recorded video or images.  Users can also add audio from Splice’s free database, their personal iTunes, or record voice/audio into the project.  Once finished, users can save their video to the device or share by email or on various social media platforms.

For me, the best way to learn something is by doing so I installed the app on my iPad to test it for myself.  I started by recording a test video.  Next I had to open the app and add my video.  This took some time.  Once I opened the video, pop ups appeared on each screen identifying what the tools/buttons were.  Unfortunately, these only popped up once and I did not take the proper time to read them.  If I have multiple students/groups taking turns on a device, only the first group would get this help.  So I could foresee quite a bit of pre-instruction teaching how to use the app and monitoring to answer questions.

I tried making some trims/cuts to my video as this is something I would expect my students to do.  While a little cumbersome, I did appreciate that you could zoom in if you press and hold to get more precise time measurements.  I also played around with adding a second video clip.  This was fairly easy to do as was deleting clips.  My only complaint is the waiting while the app updates the video after a clip/trim.  I did not play around very much with the transition editor but that is a feature that students could use in their video or even photo slideshow.

The other thing I would expect my students to do is add sound and/or narration.  This was also fairly easy and students would be able to edit any recording they did.  I didn’t see the ability to add prerecorded sounds so students would have to be ready to create those sounds/narration as they’re editing the video.

I will admit, I’m not a big fan of the touchscreen interface, but I know kids are way more used to that and it probably wouldn’t be a problem for them.  There is a searchable help database, but it takes you away from the project.  I personally like to be able to have the help information open as I do the task I needed help with, but that’s just me.  Also the help database would only be suitable for older grades (4 and up) as I think the reading comprehension would get in the way for younger grades.  The app does have an external website, but there is no more than basic advertising information on it.  An external website with video demonstrations would be a great addition.

This is a pretty easy app to use and something I think would be suitable for a wide grade range.  Younger grades, 2nd/3rd, could use Splice’s basic features while 4th and up could take advantage of some of the more advanced editing features.  I like that you use the same device to take your video and edit so no worrying about how to get the video clips from the recording device to the editing platform.  This would be difficult for more than 1 or 2 kids to use simultaneously as they would have to gather around the one device (iPad).  I think if I were using this in a group project I would try to assign roles so that some kids were responsible for the directing/acting and others were responsible for the editing.  Overall this is an app that meets my needs and lines up with my intended function.

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Evaluation Guide

I chose to focus on evaluation of content apps.  Right now at my school, most of the teachers, with the exception of the 5th grade team, are interested in using their iPads for content apps.  This is a quick and easy way for them to integrate technology and feel like their kids are still doing something productive and educational.  Don’t worry, as the instructional technology facilitator, I am slowly working on getting them comfortable with incorporating digital activities that focus more on 21st century skills or as our district is emphasizing, the 4 C’s, collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking.  These are more of the skills, I feel, that the creation apps tend to require.

After reviewing the various checklists and rubrics, I decided to take the rubric modified by Tony Vincent and add a couple categories that I felt were important to create my own rubric.

I added in a row to evaluate the authenticity of the app.  However I didn’t want to just consider whether authentic learning opportunities were available but also whether the app felt like you were learning through a game or app or if it was just learning with a theme slapped on top.  This probably comes from my enjoyment of board games in my personal life.  Some of the best board games have the theme and gameplay intricately linked so that the game play makes sense within the context.  The worst games on the other hand are just a “roll the dice, move a marker” type game with some sort of theme slapped on.  All the versions of Monopoly are a great example of this.  While it may be fun to play Harry Potter Monopoly, the game play of Monopoly has nothing to do with the world of Harry Potter.  So it was important to me to evaluate how well built the app is and whether it’s theme and structure is tied in well with the learning.

I also saw on some other checklists considerations of the technical aspects such as cost, ads, and whether we can even use it.  I also thought this was an important category to add to the rubric.  It doesn’t matter how great the app is if we can’t afford it or use it on our devices.

Other than that, I really liked the simplicity of this rubric.  Many of the checklists were long and visually overwhelming and I often times have a hard time seeing things in black and white so a checklist of yes/no frustrates me.  I think in the future I would probably modify this rubric to include a section for basic app info such as intended age/grade, single/multi user and also a place for teachers to jot down ideas for how they would use it.

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Bloom’s Idea

When looking at the list of thinking skills in Bloom’s Revised Digital Taxonomy, I immediately focused on Analyzing.  Even though this is not one of the highest level thinking skills, it is one that my students seem to have more trouble with than the others.  In the past when we have tried to analyze data, they are able to come up with generic observations such as “there are more of x than y” or “as x increases, y decreases” but are not usually able to make deeper analyses such as the causes of the trends they notice.  So this skill is one I would want to focus on.

There are a couple ways I would want to approach this skill with students.  The first is I would want them to spend time exploring some digital sources of data.  This could either be census data, environmental data, food consumption data, political opinion data, etc.  There really are a thousand different possibilities here.  I would most likely gauge the interest of the students I had at the time and determine what type of data might interest them most.  For the sake of this example, let’s say we focused on data related to food consumption in North Carolina (our home state).

After we spent some time looking at the data and actual numbers, we would generate a list of questions about the data.  My guess is initially these questions would be pretty basic, like where is the most beef eaten or who eats the most sweet potatoes.  Then I would work to guide them to more “interesting” questions such as why there might be differences in the data or what other trends might correlate with this data.  My hope is we would even get to the point where the kids realize they want to go out and find more data to help them answer some of these questions. 

Once the kids have started asking some of these questions, we could go in a couple different directions.  The first would be for them to conduct their own data collection and analysis on the topic we’ve been reading about by creating some sort of digital survey.  The second would be for them to create some sort of presentation with digital visual representations of the data.  We could even add an authentic element by thinking of who we would want to share this presentation with.  The students would spend time using some digital tool to create graphs, charts, and other illustrations to not only help themselves visualize and understand the data, but also to help others.

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#edtech transformative... still love sharp pencils.

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Ideas for the Use of a 6 Word Story

This was such a challenging assignment, I loved it!  I am a wordy person by nature, both in print and verbally, so to summarize an idea down to six words definitely required me to spend a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to say.  Even though this is stating the obvious, the power of the six word story is forcing kids to slow down and really decide what they want their message to be.  Every word has to mean something.

There are a lot of different ways I could think of to use this in the classroom.  I definitely like the digital image component of it, so I would keep that along with the six words.  Whatever writing prompt was given students could either take a picture, create a picture (perhaps using a digital image creation site like Canva), or find a picture (getting a chance to practice image citation).  Writing prompts could include:

write your autobiography/memoirs

write the biography of a real person (a historical or contemporary figure from social studies, an author from language arts, a scientist from science, etc)

summarize a lesson or unit as review for an assessment

summarize a novel

do a book review

advice for next year’s class

an advertisement

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Creation Reflection

I had a difficult time choosing a tool to use to create my Using Mobile Devices in the Classroom presentation.  There are so many options that it’s hard to know which one to use.  Even though there are many presentation tools, I think their differences sometimes make them better suited to different situations.  I do much better when I see how someone has used a tool and then think of my own ideas from there.  Interestingly, that type of professional learning was the number one choice in a technology survey I sent out to the teachers at my school.  

In the end I chose to go with Piktochart.  This is a website I had found before, but have not had a chance to explore.  I’m really interested in creating infographics with students, so I’m glad to get the chance to work with this tool.

For the first time using Piktochart, I decided to go with a premade template and put in my own information and pictures.  Using this with the kids, I would definitely have them do that the first time as well.  It gave me a good opportunity to learn how to use all of the editing tools without starting from an overwhelmingly blank canvas.  Since I was listing different ways to use mobile devices, I found a template that also listed a numerical amount of something (in this case 3 tips for new years resolutions) so the information would more easily fit in.

One of the biggest challenges I know I would have with students when doing this type of project is their use of images.  They are 100% used to copying or saving images from an image search however they want without any kind of citation or even the thought that they should.  Teachers spend a lot of time talking about bibliographies and citing sources but I know for a fact the ones in my building don’t mention image citation.  We would have to spend time teaching them how to cite their sources and how to find images that are free to use.

In the end, I really liked this tool.  It was pretty easy to use.  Next time, I definitely want to work on designing my own layout and adding all the cool graphics and fact based information that infographics are known for.  I started playing with a tool called Canva at work the other day and happened to see that it was on this list as well.  Looks like a great complement to Piktochart.

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Ideas I have for the use of mobile devices in my classroom

Here is a link to my Infographic if the below image does not appear.

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Assessment Reflection

I used the website Survey Monkey to create a brief survey.  It was three multiple choice questions.  In hindsight it probably would have been better to include different types of questions to get practice.  Taking other people’s surveys was pretty easy and allowed me to see various possible question types and layouts.

One of the benefits of Survey Monkey seems to be the large amount of pre-existing content and customization tools to use.  The templates and the question bank really provide a lot of options for people creating a survey.  Based on the survey templates it definitely seems like the target audience is organizations looking to gather feedback or opinions about their services and products.  I could really see how a marketing department would benefit from these pre-made options.

However, as a tool for classroom assessment I will most likely use Google Forms in the future.  All of the teachers and students in our district have Google accounts so it’s readily available, not to mention the convenience to attach a form directly into Google Classroom.  In addition, many of the “Premium” features in Survey Monkey, that you have to pay for, are free in a Google Form.  For instance, being able to direct people to different questions based on how they answer.

All in all, Survey Monkey is a great tool and if you did not regularly use Google products, I could definitely see it being a good option.  But it doesn’t have enough features for me to make the switch.