Story Builder

This morning, while waiting for a conference to begin, I took a look at my Feedly. I've been super busy lately, both at work and home, so I had not explored my RSS feed in quite some time. I Evernoted several strategies/apps, but one blog post immediately caught my eye. iLearnTechnology has a great, indepth post all about Google Story Builder. I immediately thought of several ways that my faculty could use this in the classroom for quick assessments.

Here's a quick video tutorial:


Here's a sample one I created to share with my faculty: http://goo.gl/FlftoD

I do wish that Story Builder had the option for an embed code as well as a link to the finished video, but it's still a nifty little site! Best of all, it's iPad friendly!

How could you use this in the classroom?

Smore: A Fabulous Online Flyer-Creation Tool!

Have you checked out www.smore.com yet? It's a great website to use for creating engaging flyers. It's free to use and allows you to create dynamic flyers, rather than just a static PDF file. You can easily add videos, websites, pictures, and even surveys just by dragging and dropping each type of item onto your flyer. If you want to delete a section of your flyer, simply drag it off the screen and then it's gone! Here's a quick video from smore that tells a little more about it.


A Cupcake Story from Smore on Vimeo.

How could you use this in your classroom? This would be a great communication tool to use for parent flyers, extracurricular clubs, school newsletters, etcetera. I used Smore to create the flyer below, to share a few apps with my teachers as a continuation of my professional development session that week. I've also used it to create flyers for my gym, to let members know about our holiday hours and to share some healthy holiday recipes.

What are you waiting for? Go to www.smore.com and sign up for your own free account. Be creative and start sharing!

LEC 7.1 Reflection: Personal Learning Plan for Online Coaching

LEC 6.3 Reflection: Technology & Assessment

This module has explored the use of technology tools for both formative and summative assessment. As you think about how you will implement formative and summative assessments in the online and blended environments, what are some of the factors you need to consider?

As in the traditional classroom, I think it is important to use a variety of formats for both formative and summative assessments, in order to best reach student needs. In the online and blended learning environments, there are many additional considerations that are not concerns for paper and pencil classrooms. One of the first concerns that comes to mind is that ideally, these assessments, formative and summative, should be device agnostic. Even if the school has a specific program that provides students with devices, if they are working at home it is very possible that they will be using a different OS than that of the school. I myself have been frustrated with e-learning courses when I was not able to use my tablet for the assignments, and had to switch back to my PC. 

Feedback is another major concern. Ideally, the tool used for assessment should have feedback either built in natively, or the instructor should be able to give feedback easily via his/her chosen LMS. For example, Socrative, Google Forms(with Flubaroo), Edmodo Quiz, Infuse Learning, etcetera all have methods of feedback that are quick and easy for both the teacher and the student. The timeliness of feedback is vital to the success of the student in any classroom, but moreso in the online environment, when the student is not getting daily feedback in a traditional classroom setting. 

Technical support and back up are also both important items to consider. Without proper technical support, either from the LMS or within the school, it can be extremely frustrating for teachers attempting to implement the online or blended learning scenario. It is important in the blended learning scenario to have a back up plan in case something goes wrong when attempting the online assessments. (The website is suddenly blocked, the wi-fi goes down, students do not have their device in class, etcetera.) Flexibility is key in the classroom, whether the classroom is virtual, blended or traditional. 

LEC 1.2 Reflection: Personal Learning Goal

Prompt:
Considering the online learning self-assessment you took this week, and thinking about your reasons for taking this course, what is your highest priority learning goal for this course? What are some specific skills, strategies or tools you are hoping to learn more about?

My highest priority learning goal for this class is to learn and expand my repertoire of effective strategies and online tools that my teachers will be able to easily use next year as they move towards a blended learning classroom. More specifically, I would like to learn more and investigate how a blended learning classroom could be successful in a high poverty school where many students do not have internet access outside of school.  How can we cross this “digital divide” to help our students reach their learning goals? In my opinion, blended and/or online learning is even more important in high poverty schools, as many poor students are not afforded the out of school learning opportunities that their well-to-do counterparts have. 

My goal this summer is to learn tools and strategies that will give my teachers the best chance for success with the blended learning model. I know that if I cannot find workarounds/strategies for students without internet access at home, it will be hard to convince any of my teachers to try it. I have some this past year who researched “flipping” their classroom, but were unable to make plans that would accommodate all students. I also look forward to learning new tools and strategies that I can implement in the technology professional development I teach at my school. This coming year, we are planning to do more targeted/personalized professional development by meeting with grade level departments, rather than full faculty meeting professional development. My principal, literacy coach, media specialist and myself will meet and plan our initial PD - from there we will use their feedback to further personalize their professional development. 

According to the TOoLS self-assessment, I am an excellent fit for online learning classes. This makes sense to me, because I have always been a self-motivated learner, and have a strong background in technology which makes online learning easier for me. The only negative tendency that I noted in my self assessment(which is one I often struggle with), is my occasional tendency to procrastinate. I hope and plan that my procrastination will not show up this summer, as I am involved in this and one other online course this summer, in addition to attending several days of training and a national conference this summer. Thankfully, my procrastination is usually balanced my tendency to make lists and plan out my week’s work. 

I look forward to learning more about online and blended learning throughout the eight weeks of this course! 

Formative Assessment - Google Docs

What's that you say? A formative assessment that grades itself? Miraculous!

We are lucky enough to live in a era where many technology tools exist that can make our lives as educators a little easier. Some of my favorites include Socrative, InfuseLearning, and one of the simplest, Google Docs. If you're not familiar with Socrative or InfuseLearning, keep an eye out for my upcoming posts about these two wonderful tech tools!

Last week I did a tech tutorial with my teachers on using Google Docs for grading. A few of my more reluctant technology users told me that there was "No way technology could make her life any easier." After we finished, she wanted to know when I could come work with her to create her first quiz!

Getting Started
You need to create a Google Drive account. If your school district is like mine, you'll need to create a separate account using your school email address. Our email system blocks emails from non-school email addresses, so Flubaroo would be unable to email you students their results.

1. Go to https://drive.google.com
2. Sign out of your personal Gmail account(if you are currently signed in)
3. Click the Sign Up button in the upper right hand corner.
4. When on the Sign Up screen, select "I prefer to use my current email address" under the Choose Your Username box.
5. Fill out the form using your district email address.
6. Google will send a verification email to the address you provided. Once you verify your account, you're ready to go! 

Flubaroo

Flubaroo's website does an excellent job of explaining how to use it in conjunction with Google Forms. Check out their intro video here:

Here's a link to their user guide: http://www.flubaroo.com/flubaroo-user-guide
Flubaroo User Guide
In addition to its uses in the classroom, it's also a good way to find out how much your faculty/staff know about a particular topic. We used this in a faculty meeting to gauge the knowledge level of our staff on a particular topic. Try it out - let me know what you think!

Padlet Rocks!

Wallwisher was one of my favorite websites to use in my classroom. I used it for a quick exit slip, class discussions, vocabulary review, etcetera. It was quick and easy to use, easy to set up, and I could control the level of privacy for each board I created. 

This year Wallwisher became Padlet, and all sorts of fabulous changes have occurred since the name change! If you don't know about Padlet, here's a brief description from their site:

"We give you a blank wall. 

                                       You put anything you want on it, anywhere.
                                                            Simple, yet powerful." 

It really is that easy! With its updates, Padlet now lets you choose the format of the board, change the background patterns, privacy settings, and my new favorite - you can now export your boards! Check out the nifty Share and Export menu they've added.

You now have the option to share via social media, embed it on your website, or share via QR code. Once you have collected all of your responses, you could also print it, or export it as an image, PDF, Excel, or CSV file. Also, Padlet now updates in real time, so you no longer have to refresh your browser to see new posts from others. This website works on any device with internet access. 

To get started, go to www.padlet.com and sign up for your free account. 

Here's a Wallwisher/Padlet I had my teachers complete as an exit slip for a PD session. 

Let me know if you use Padlet in your classroom in the comments. I'd love to hear how others are using this wonderful tool! 

Tools for Teachers: Paper Slide Show

This is not a web 2.0 tool, however, I think it is an excellent option for student projects. Essentially, students work in groups to create a slide show using sheets of computer paper. This is recorded on a Flip Camera or smartphone. As a teacher, you only have to supply the topic, markers, and paper. The students do the rest! The beauty of this project(in my opinion), is that you do not need constant access to a computer lab. For those of us who are in schools where the labs are in high demand, this is a wonderful thing! My students are very engaged, and it's been a good way to reinforce those collaborative skills we work on throughout the year.

One of my classes is currently in the process of creating paper slide shows on Feudalism in Medieval Europe. Each group was assigned a different level of the pyramid. You could use this format of presentation in almost any subject. For example, in math, you could have students explain a particular type of problem and how to solve it as part of the end-of-course review. In science, you could have them create paper slide shows about biomes.


Below, I've posted a sample slide show I created for a course earlier this year, and also a video from Youtube that explains how to make a paper slide show.


How to Make a Paper Slide Show:

 Sample Social Studies Slide Show:

Tools for Teachers - BigHugeLabs

This week I was introduced to a great free online tool in my tech tools and instructional strategies class.  Bighugelabsis a website that has many applications in the classroom. I was in a room full of middle school, elementary, and high school educators and all of us came up with ideas of how to use it in our content area. The website actually has several different areas that could be used in a classroom setting. Badge Maker, Magazine Cover, Map Maker, and Motivator were my favorites.

Also, you can use all of these without registering for the site, but they do have the option of signing up for a free educator account. The educator account would give you the capabilities to download your students' creations, pre-register them without email addresses, and gives you ad-free access to the site. I applied for my educator account today - I'll update later to let you know when I get confirmation.

• Badge Maker - Students can create badges with pictures and short descriptions. This could be used for many subjects - historic figure studies, character studies, math, science, foreign language, etcetera. The badge maker gives you the option of including a large chunk of text, which some of the others do not.

• Motivator - I thought this would be a good source for short, simple statements/descriptions.

• Magazine Cover - this is similar to Badge Maker, but has small text boxes that could be used to short facts or adjectives describing the topic.

 If you haven't used it, I highly recommend you check it out. I'm looking forward to using it with my students soon. I think the BadgeMaker would be great for studying the historic figures of the Renaissance!