Lest Week in Tech - Technology Innovation

This is one of my favorite teachers, and this boat school is an innovative solution to a seasonal problem. One might wonder why we don't have these innovative schools in America. Probably the same reason we don't go out back and teach in the dirt with sticks. we just don't have to. Schools are designed to maximize the teaching we do. Could there be a better design, possibly, but not for the teaching we do currently.

Technology is thought of as a disrupter in education because it comes into the design we already have and makes it possible to change. Many people see this change as computers teaching students. it isn't.
For about 100 years there has been a belief among behaviorists that if we could build a smart enough machine, that it could take the place of a teacher. Many believe and have believed that computers will fill that role.

Tools like Plato have been around for about 40 years and they haven't disrupted schools. Actually, it has been assimilated. Massive online courses were going to disrupt education. The year of the MOOC was 2012. It was the ultimate school choice. It hasn’t disrupted higher education. Instead is seems to be morphing into a college prep for connected students, at least in America. It has been assimilated and is coming to high school.

The reason these tools have not disrupted education is because they don't actually make any changes in education. When we look at technology in education if we are looking at completely upending our entire system we are looking for too much. The change, the disruption, is more subtle.

The real disruption with technology in education is the ability to transform traditional education. The R in SAMR. The "goal directed transformation" in the Arizona Technology Integration Matrix. Some would go so far as to say it is a transfer of power from teacher to student. I would say it is taking the responsibility of learning off of the shoulders of the teacher and putting it squarely onto the shoulders of the students.

edit - I realize the title might be a bit misleading as this post was written to be a follow up to a notification to the teachers I work with that my position has been eliminated. Thus my last week in tech with them

My Week in Tech Integration - Discussion

Classroom Action

The school year is coming quickly to an end. I’m trying to get some summer thoughts moving. One of the things I want to do is get an idea of how comfortable teachers are with the actual tech skills you need as a classroom teacher. I’ll probably send out a survey soon, I’m waiting for the boss to approve it.

The other thing I need to do is get an idea of what sort of PD you might want to come to over the summer and when best to present them. Please let me know in the comments or via email, but I also have this on my survey.

I was watching some students take a practice test earlier this week. They were using technology (phones mostly because they were juniors and seniors and didn’t have Chromebooks). What if we combined Padlet (Middle school teachers had a lot of fun learning and playing with this tool, 6th grade, 7th grade, Exploratory) with a phone or screen capture tools on a computer, to solve the practice problems and post them to a Padlet for discussion.

The discussion should not be about who is right, but how elegant is the solution? Why would you choose one method of solving the problem over an other? Etc…. A lot of the stuff I saw on the internet this week had this theme of a debate or discussion. For an example, using math debate in classroom

http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/mtc13.pd.math.deb/encouraging-debate/

I remember a blog post years ago about using bell ringers to create a debate. The teacher would collect bell ringers on index cards and grab one that was wrong (not telling who it was of course) and put it on the overhead and discuss why or what thinking could have led to the wrong answer and how to correct it.

---

Today without an overhead I might ask students to put the answer on a Padlet or document camera anonymously and then pick one to discuss. I’m seeing more and more centers, maybe I just wasn’t paying attention before. The devices are one of the centers. See this one girl. She is concentrating intensely. This activity is writing practice so no you can’t substitute with technology.

  

These other kids, not so much. 

 

This is a good lesson, that is why I choose to feature it. It is great to bring in leveled work for practice, but we can do intense creation on the computer as well. Yes there is a tech hurdle. We can work through it, we should work through it. If we never ask our students to do intense creative work on the computer we are short-changing our students and ourselves as teachers.

From the Web

We think we know how we learn, but there is a lot of undiscovered territory out there.
One thing we do is attempt to find patterns so we can do things automatically, without thinking. Like riding a bike.

What if you changed what it means to ride a bike?

As I was watching this a 3rd grader says, “I saw you watching Smarter Everyday. … I’m subscribed” Be warned you'll have to be smart if she's in your classroom next year.

It turns out that there is an #etcoaches chat. I’ll have to try to participate next month. here is the storify from last week. https://storify.com/ruckus2/etcoaches-april-2015-chat I really wanted to point out a few highlights.

1. Most coaches estimate that only 5% to 15% of our teachers actually implement what we introduce.
2. While superficially introducing a lot of apps in a short period of time is popular, no one thinks it is a good strategy. Instead we need to carve out time to let teachers play and practice using apps in actual lessons. Then we need time for the coach to follow-up, and create individual goals for each teacher.
3. Trudacot is a great way to look at your current lesson and determine how well technology (or learning) is integrated.

Finally, Google Education on Air, two full days of speakers on education. An all-star cast including, Michelle Obama, Michael Fullan, LeVar Burton, and others.

This Week in Tech - Writing and Games

Last Friday I visited a Maine Township High School. I didn't have time to write about my week. I'll put a reflection on what I learned there early next week. Today some classroom stuff from last week and this.

Writing

Working with letters and fluency in writing seems to be the theme. Not long drawn out essays, but the very beginning. How do our interactions with letters and numbers influence our learning. I love how this kindergarten teacher not only organizes her ipads by letter, but she went through the trouble of making individual backgrounds for each ipad.

    

Then there is this student working with numbers in three different ways - at the same time.


I’ve seen a couple of teachers teaching handwriting. Wouldn't it be nice to bring it back on a computer? Here’s how Might be a fun project for extension or fun way to practice handwriting. If you name everyone's personal font on a classroom computer they could write reports in their own handwriting. Finally, of course there is a long essay, but wait it isn’t. These older students were making alphabet books. A letter with a sentence and a picture, researched online and written on a Word document.

 

Stuff from the web:

Game based learning. At first it meant answering questions in some sort of competitive electronic worksheet. We still see it a lot. It isn't learning, it’s practice. Ask your kids how to cheat, if there is learning going on that’s what they learn. The nice thing is it is possible to pretest students and track their scores so they are at least working on problems in their wheelhouse. Next, we had a game reward system. Level up and stuff. Learning is more like a scavenger hunt. Fun, but can easily devolve into just another reward system. With prepackaged tasks and such it still doesn’t have much student input. On the other hand people are taking into account easier entry points and motivation. Think Angry Birds, a game with no instructions but gets harder and adds new challenges along the way. Now if we could harness that process for teaching multiplication or something that would be awesome. Perhaps, Angry Birds led us to games that are intentionally made to feel more like games and less like academics. Problem based learning for the gamer set. Included with these games are commercial games that were not created for the education market, but have found a niche, like minecraft. The difficulty here is connecting to formal learning. Games built for the educational market start with a standard and try to teach. It often makes the learning boring. Consumer games start with a story, they know they have to hook a person and make them want to come back. Their problem is connecting to formal learning usually doesn't happen, at least without help. Just like technology in general, it isn’t about what technology you use, but how you use it. There is a place for educational games that teach to standards, or more correctly let students practice. On the other hand there is also a place for games that allow students to explore and play in less formal ways. There is no one right way to use technology or games in the classroom.

Three great articles on games in the classroom 
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/04/07/students-choose-learn-063/3/
https://synapse.pub/empowering-high-schoolers-to-build-from-the-perspective-of-a-high-schooler-84ace316e472?section=published
http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/30/three-awesome-educational-games-hiding-in-plain-sight/  

Speaking of projects vs practice

The work for some projects takes less time than the actual creation of the vehicle to present it. This often happens in school. Sometimes by design. The time spent working and the organization helps students understand the connections between the different parts. A visual and tactical clue of how things are connected. So why is it in the technology world we don’t expect students to create. Instead we spoon feed them information and practice. Think of technology as the Swiss Army Knife of classroom tools. You can cut, paste, copy, color, write, share, or just about anything you can do hands on. Stop trying to figure out the tech and start trying to figure out how to make something.

My Week in Tech Integration 4/3/2015

I love when teachers change school from, "maybe someday I'll be able to do that", to "I can do that, I might even be able to do better". 

Some of the art teachers in the district use Art Sonia (artwork created from kids around the world can be shared and enjoyed by everyone). It can be a lot of extra work, but also has some advantages. Here we see one of our great art teaches showing students how to connect clay together. 

Last year when doing a similar project she would show students pictures of clay gargoyles to stimulate ideas. This year she also searched gargoyles on ArtSonia and used shared student work with her students. The conversation changed from, "I'll probably never make a gargoyle in real life", to "I can make something like that."

The skills learned in Art are of course transferable. The facility to use pens and other tools in art help us to concentrate more on what we are writing and less on how to write. As we practice coloring, drawing, writing letters, words, and finally sentences all of these skills combine to form writing. A higher level skills that allows us to think. 

While everyone knows that art is useful in education, it is very hard to quantify just how important, The science of learning is slowly evolving. The research is slow and often disregarded as lacking in rigor. 

The gold standard in research is generally considered a double blind study or a large and representative population. Think of a large drug study where thousands of volunteers of various ages and backgrounds who all have the same ailment. Half the people take the drug being tested and half take a placebo and nobody knows who gets what until after the test is completed. The results are carefully considered and written about, then completely different groups do a similar studies. Finally, if they all get the same or similar results we can say this drug works. 

Education is not like that. No two teachers are the same, even if they are asked to read a script exactly the same there are so many variables, like; class size, testing schedules, home life, nutrition, personality, mix of students, etc... that the results almost always end up as inconclusive or a very small effect, over time. At least that has been my impression as I periodically check in on the What Works Clearinghouse. 

That doesn't stop research of course. Lately (past 10 years or so) there seems to have been more of a push to look at underlying human functions and design learning based on that "brain" research. This isn't new really, B. F skinner built and sold learning machines in the late 50's and early 60's and he wasn't the first to think of it. According to Audrey Watters many of the technology revolutionaries today are just repeating these past mistakes. 

All that being said and done, there are some generalities we can say about effective teaching. 

1. When students care about an activity they do better. 
2. When we create we are more involved and tend to learn more
3. We put more effort when we know our peers are going to be looking at our work
1. Parents and teachers don't count
4. There is a zone of proximal development ( Lev Vygotsky ).
   
    If the activity is too easy we don't learn anything, but if it is too hard we give up before getting the chance to learn. 
1. This has less to do with the material and more to do with how it is presented and supported. We regularly present language arts, science, and sometimes math at appropriate levels for students.

What does this mean in the classroom? Here are three examples from this week. 

Some student work I found on the copier. 

When students ask about us, and they always do, don't be afraid to share. I have no picture, but I walked into a classroom on Wednesday and the teacher was cutting up grapefruit she brought back from Florida, which led to a quick impromptu lesson on fractions. 

Use technology to help create not practice. On Thursday at the middle school we talked about using Google Presentation to create vocabulary lists. 

Try this method of creating flashcards. (Can be individual, small group, or whole class)

1. Students create one slide with the word
2. Students create a second slide with a picture and definition
3. Put a cool transition between the slides
4. Put a cool transition before the definition comes up (so the picture is kind of like a clue)

Students can search the web for the picture or they could use Google Draw to create the picture, or even draw the picture by hand and upload it to the slide.

After this activity is done students who need extra practice can be asked to upload the best definitions and pictures to your favorite flashcard web 2.0 tool. So that everyone can use them to study and quiz each other.

Online flashcards

• https://www.studyblue.com/
• http://quizlet.com/
• http://www.cram.com/
• https://www.memrise.com/

My Week in Tech Integration - Spring Break

It  is Spring Break in our school district so no visiting classrooms for me. Instead I’m preparing presentations and researching.

I read this article and thought it would be a thought provoker for teachers coming back to school. It is long and a bit rough at first, I think the author missed the opportunity to truly define why we need good teachers in the digital age, but with some help perhaps we can get there.

The Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher — The Atlantic (My annotated version https://diigo.com/07gohq)

I’ll start with the end, “There is a profound difference between a local expert teacher using the Internet and all its resources to supplement and improve his or her lessons, and a teacher facilitating the educational plans of massive organizations.”

Often tech companies and privateers try to hype the cost savings, which is code for getting rid of expensive teachers. What they fail to realize is it has been possible to record the best teachers and deliver the recording to students for well over 50 years. It has also been possible to have students take quizzes and tests on that material. I myself took a telecourse for credit at community college way back in 1986. The newness isn’t the delivery of content or grading of tests, it’s the ability of teacher to be there with the content.

[Teachers are] “shifting from content expert to curriculum facilitator”, but not really. Yes we can bring content in from the best, most interesting teachers, but that doesn’t mean we sit back and manage behavior in the classroom. The best classroom teacher can now switch from the time consuming task of delivering content or grading tests, to working with small groups or individuals. Helping students make sense of the content.

“Teachers like me are uploading onto the web tens of thousands of lesson plans and videos that are then being consolidated and curated by various organizations” This is a good thing. The more we share our lessons, the less for profit companies can charge fees for decent lesson plans. Skip Teachers Pay Teachers and go to a union shop like http://www.sharemylesson.com/teaching-resources/

Next the author shares some great examples of how edtech companies are taking the labor out of preparing for teaching. It is almost like the traditional teaching job is being split into two or even four jobs, curriculum/subject matter expert and presentation/facilitator. As long as we don’t try to change the job of teacher into reader of scripts or security guard who forces students to sit still and be quiet during the canned lesson it is alright.

    Listen Current, a website that curates the best of public radio, including current events, and offers the three- to five-minute clips alongside a full set of lesson plans and worksheets.

    I found Edmodo. … I signed up just to see what it was all about. Within five minutes, I found a great lesson…

    Activate Instruction is already creating a free and open online tool that is "similar to Wikipedia" and will "help put resources and curriculum in one place that any teacher can use."

    "I don’t ever write my own lesson plans anymore.” ... the materials are usually inexpensive or free; are extremely well made; and often include worksheets, videos, assessments, and links to other resources. Time and money savers. I don’t have to write the lessons and I don’t have to let a textbook dictate my lessons. I can even get rid of textbooks if I find enough lessons with resources.

His conclusion, that I shared earlier, mirrors mine.

There is a profound difference between a local expert teacher using the Internet and all its resources to supplement and improve his or her lessons, and a teacher facilitating the educational plans of massive organizations.

Bonus - tech tools for use in the classroom

Stolen from Ryan Schaaf

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/smart-tools-for-digital-exit-slips/

1.     Google Forms
2.     Socrative
3.     Plickers
4.     Twitter
5.     Geddit
6.     PollEverywhere
7.     ExitTicket
8.     VoiceThread
9.     lino
10.     Padlet

My Week in Tech Integration 3/20/15

I get to see less and less each week, I think because I get busier with individual teachers. a special thank you to Mrs. Kallieras for inviting me to teach a couple of fun lessons on Scratch.

Kids teach each other

It doesn't matter whether I’m in a high school classroom or middle school, or even elementary school. Kids are always leaning over and helping each other quietly.

I spent some one on one time with an English teacher and we discussed some google add-ons, apps, extensions that might be useful in her classroom

English

easybib

draftback

kaizena

Pro-writing aid

My draftback video

Classroom practice

I also spent some time talking about Google Classroom and HaikuLearning. Some topics I think I will be spending a lot more time on  in the coming weeks. As more technology enters the classroom and teachers find more innovative ways of using that technology we need the tools that support us.

Google Classroom is great for assigning and collecting work, but is kind of limited after that.

HaikuLearning, is a true learning management system. It allows us to transform our classrooms in ways that allows teachers to differentiate, extend, and re-mediate as needed.

Nothing of course is a single silver bullet to fix everything, but knowing what the tools are and what they can do is the first step.

My Week in Tech Integration 3/13/2015

Question of the day

Question of the day - What would you do for a student who consistently failed to do work in school or homework, yet always had a good excuse?
Please answer in the comments. 

 State Projects

Students in 4th grade had some fun projects last week, but they weren't finished in time to share.

I listened to a few classroom discussions over the last couple of weeks. It was interesting seeing how students and teachers naturally pulled information from outside of class to relate to the books. A few high school students even discussed with former students, which led me to wonder what would happen if online discussions were opened up to former students or across classes?

This leads me into this great article on 5 Highly Effective Teaching Practices, from edutopia. 

1. Teacher Clarity
2. Classroom Discussion
3. Feedback
4. Formative Assessment
5. Metacognitive Strategies

When we talk about technology in the classroom, we aren’t talking about replacing the teacher or the content with a shiny electronic device. What we are talking about is taking these effective practices and making them possible. 

How Technology Helps with Effective Teaching Practices

1.    Teacher Clarity

Learning goals and explicit criteria for success are not just posted on the classroom whiteboard, but live on the classroom page where students and parents can refer back to it over the corse of the unit.

2.    Classroom Discussion

How can we extend the discussion beyond the classroom? Open the discussion across classrooms? Create smaller discussions, small groups can keep a record of what they discussed. Small groups can share with each other final points.

3.    Feedback

Teachers can leave voice or written feedback on google documents. Teachers can read and comment on online discussions. Self grading quizzes are very common across several platforms. It is even possible to create video quizzes. There are of course hundreds of computer learning programs that will tell students if they are right or wrong, but useful feedback is teacher driven and usually personal.

4.    Formative Assessment

Quick self graded quizzes, Kahoot, electronic check ins, anything that replaces the 30 half sheets of paper we used to grade. When reviewing answers for a test create a poll for each study guide question and submit live on the projector and discuss each question. Gauging understanding with Socrative or a quick poll.

5.    Meta Cognitive Strategies

When we find ways to put more of our content online on a learning management system what is to stop students from working ahead, especially if the learning goals and criteria for success are clear? If students continue to move beyond the class it becomes easy to allow them to create an individualized learning objectives. When they create this within the learning management system it becomes possible for teachers and parents to monitor progress. 

The Case Against Technology in the Classroom

I both agree and disagree with this article. I agree that teaching students to use technology is not the purpose of technology in schools. I disagree that technology is not a useful tool. It is all nice for wealthy tech leaders to fixate on social aspects of learning especially when the kids they are socializing with are the kids of other silicon valley tech leaders, but for the rest of us technology, used correctly, can eliminate barriers of distance and time. 

Resources from Teachers and Classrooms

Girls and code https://www.madewithcode.com/ 

Google drawings graphic organizers. 


 socrative - A great way collect students thoughts. 

 URL shortner Shortens long URLs and makes a quick QR code. 

 Are you looking for EdTech stuff? A great resource is edshelf.

 Rubistar - for creating rubrics http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ 

Videos

StoryTime 

Can you imagine doing this in LA class to get the elements of a story. 

My Week in Tech Integration 3/6/2015

I spent a lot of time in extracurricular classrooms this week, one teacher spent the first 5 or 10 minutes of class just asking students about what they were doing what they accomplished in other classes and clubs. Obviously she did it a lot because they were ready and willing to share and some of the comments were updates from previous weeks. When they got to work though it was all business.

Posture was mentioned a couple of times lately. I love how some of the elementary classrooms have big rubber bands under some desks so kids aren’t constantly tapping their feet. And last week at the ICE conference a participant brought up the Alexander Technique for Musicians and how slouching actually takes more energy than sitting up straight. Because if you relax you just fall to the floor.

I read The History of the Future of Education from Audrey Watters

My thought for the day. What is the difference between an overhead projector and an SMARTboard?

I used to use remind.com in my classroom and I know a few teachers at the high school also use it. It is a great tool for communication with students and parents. We know it’s working when students are complaining that some teachers use it too much. If you have students who are constantly missing assignments being able to send a group text to students and their parents without sharing phone numbers is awesome. Plus you can schedule texts for an optimum time. I always sent mine around dinner time.

Do you know about the Camscanner app? Some teachers like everything to be electronic so they can annotate and keep a copy in their google drive or Haiku dropbox. Some students prefer to write by hand. Camscanner allows you to take a picture of a piece of paper and turn it into a PDF and upload it to your Google Drive. Now that the first draft is written and feedback given the second draft can be typed.

I’ve been showing off Learning Management Systems to the middle school teachers. No one has said it is required, but I have always thought it was an invaluable tool for putting responsibility for learning onto the shoulders of the students. And as we are almost one to one in the middle school I would almost consider it necessary.

The power of a LMS in the classroom is not for the low students, or for the recalcitrant students, it is for the smartest and hardest working students. The student who takes decent notes, does all assignments, and has decent grades. The student who could be moving faster and works independently, but waits patiently for the entire class. This isn’t even a gifted student, just an average student with a good work ethic.

When this type of student is given an LMS they can work at their own pace, usually slightly faster than average, and still take time to explore topics of greater interest. When they get stuck they won’t be so far ahead that they are stuck alone and have to wait weeks for the rest of the class to catch up. Maybe even a regular conference with the teacher will be all they need, because certainly they won’t spend months working alone, maybe just one unit they are more independent than another. At any rate the teacher is checking progress reports and formative assignments regularly so they know what the student is doing and how well they are progressing.

Meanwhile the teacher still teaches class as normal, but has time to work with smaller groups of students. They in turn move faster because they have more teacher time and more individual instruction.

How does it work?

Students who show evidence of independent learning can do more in the classroom on their own leaving the teacher more time to work with students who are not as independent. Formative assessments like self grading practice quizzes or video quizzes with educannon or EdTed can be assigned for homework, or as bell ringers. This quick formative assessment shows they have a strong grasp of the concept and then can choose to do some independent or small group work in the classroom. While the teacher can spend more time with other students. It becomes possible for students to move at their own pace and/or get more in depth learning on a concept without extreme burden on the teacher.

An LMS can help with that recalcitrant student also. If your content is online it removes the excuse of “I was absent” or “I missed that lesson”. If the homework is online students can never forget it. If the discussion is online (at least partially) everyone can participate. If parents have accounts they can always stay up to date with what is happening in class. If alternative content (youtube, Kahn Academy, LearnZillion, Alex, etc...) is made available students can choose to learn in the way most suitable to them. Shared notes and other resources can be attached to each unit. As they say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink, but we can take away excuses.

Finally, an LMS is great for the future. Digital projects and portfolios can be linked to students and brought with them to high school. The classroom walls are in effect removed. Students can learn when they are most comfortable learning, they can come back and revisit (ok they won’t), they can..., well it’s a tool, it won’t create utopia in your classroom, but it can help.

We looked at four learning management systems. They are:

HaikuLearning is great and several teachers use the free version. Some teachers even ask why we all aren’t using it.



Google Classroom is free. To be honest it isn’t a classroom. It is more like a place to assign and collect work. It syncs great with Google Drive (obviously) and can be used in conjunction with another LMS just for assignments.



Schoology is kind of like the facebook interface. It has it’s own calendar. you can create courses and groups, send messages, and add resources. The app center allows you to bring in web 2.0 functionality into your classroom. Like Backchannel Chat, or TurnItIn. There may be an extra cost for some apps.



Edomodo is very similar to Schoology. It is free and you can add apps, many of which are extra. You can also easily create quizzes and add resources. It also possible to connect to google Drive.

Fun in the classroom

Counting with counters and the iPad

A mystery of missing chocolates.

More counting, which bag has more? Put your guesses in the comments.

Smartboard being used for attendance

Students gathering information online

And some students playing with static electricity

My Week as Tech Integration 2/27/15

I was asked to do a bit of research on online comic creation sites.



My first thought was to share the comic book dissertation. Comic book readers have always bristled at the idea that comics are not a true literary form. This just steps up the quality to the nth degree. I grew up reading comics, but I was never as serious as most comic book lovers. I just liked the stories. I hated that they just never seemed to stop. No purpose, no end etc….I watch the movies that come out now, but I don’t get too worked up about them, the stories aren't as good, more snark and less human frailty. The life lessons like “With great power comes great responsibility” Uncle Ben from Spiderman are lost.



Using comics in class.

PIXTON

Pixton is usually recommended as the cadillac of interactive comic sites. It does seem to have more options than the rest. http://www.pixton.com/comic/sbjamh97 This comic took me about five minutes to create from scratch.

When you click the pencil button on the top right

you are taken to a page where you can create a comic or a character. If you create a character it walks you through the process with almost no words necessary, even non-readers can do it.



If you choose create a comic you are immediately given the choice between beginner and advanced. I choose beginner. The beginner process allows you to choose from stock backgrounds, characters, and speech bubbles. The advanced process gives you a blank slate, but allows you to add backgrounds and props just a bit at a time. Unless creating the scenery and characters are important I would stick with the choice of beginner.



I did not examine the pricing structures. For a one off assignment this seems to work fine and allows you to send a link of your work to the teacher. Plus you have a range of privacy options which is great.

MAKEBELIEFSCOMIX

I liked makebelievfscomics, very basic and easy to get started.  It took me even less time to make this comic. http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=23207637C1547204



With makebelievefscomix (easy to misspell) you don’t even have to sign in to create a comic. Head to the comix creation page and get started. You have only the basic three panel scheme and you cannot create personalized characters, but for young kids this is the choice. Literally everything for creation is on one page. Click next and you can review, print, and email.



STORYBIRD

Storybird, is not a comic creator, but a book and poem creator. I like it because it allows you to choose great art and then write a story. Or if you like  you can upload your own picture prompt. It took me about 15 minutes to create this picture book. http://storybird.com/books/dancing-before-the-sun/?token=rbkaj6m3w3 It is also easy to share, plus commenting with moderation is built in.



As a teacher you can easily create a classroom and add assignments for students (free).  Students can write a poem, a short picture book,  or a long form chapter book. As a teacher you can choose the type of book they write for their assignment, you can add some pictures or art for a prompt, and set due dates.


GOOGLE DOCS

It is very easy to forget about Google Docs. Opening a blank document it is easy to insert a drawing (which can be a picture with a textbox overlayed). If we create a table and add these drawings into the cells we have a simple comic strip with text boxes instead of thought clouds.  The pictures can be a simple hand drawing that we take a picture of with our phones and upload to Google Drive, they can be pictures from the internet, or even snapshots from our webcams.



ICE 2015

ICE is the Illinois Computing Educators annual conference. We are lucky to have such a large and vibrant community of technology educators in Illinois. They also love to share in the knowledge, the notes from almost everyone at ICE2015 can be found here.

Effective Presentations for 21st Century School Leaders
I spent two days this week at the ICE conference in St. Charles, IL. My first all day session was Presentations for Administrators. Lot’s of good suggestions. (shared notes)

• When watching a video open a back channel like todaysmeet.com and have students discuss the video while watching.
• All presentations should probably start on paper using basic creative writing 101 skills. Tell a story don’t read bullet points from a slide.
• Seven Tips for Storytelling

1. Stories are about people.
2. Let your characters speak for themselves.  
3. Audiences bore easily.  Make people wonder what will happen next, always throw up obstacles.
4. Stories stir up emotions.
5. Stories don’t tell: they show.
6. Stories have at least one “moment of truth.”
7. Stories have a clear meaning.
8. Finish with a STAR moment (Something To Always Remember) Nancy Duarte

• A good presentation will kind of look like this

Tuesday was three distinct activities. A half day program on Google for students with mild to severe disability, a few short speakers, and EdCampAfterDark.

I tried to put some of these practices into my presentation on helping students make better presentations. A new tool - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Google for Students with Mild to Severe Disabilities
I love these Special Ed programs because most of the tools can be used in the regular classroom, they just don’t have to be used. (shared notes)



Speech to text

Nothing on the market today seems to match the accuracy and functionality of Dragon Dictation software. If however, you have a chromebook or don’t want to pay there are still options.

• Read&Write for Google Docs (free for a year subscription for teachers)
• Previously we pushed out a speech to text chrome extensions to D2 called SpeakIt. You may have noticed it reads a webpage when you highlight the words. Read&Write is much more advanced.
• Read&write also helps convert text to speech and predicts the next word when writing.
• Dictanote A speech to text writer. Also recognizes foreign languages. This program and most like it probably uses the same speech to text engine as when you talk to your phone. It isn’t great or fast, but works pretty well. This also means it can tap into google Translate and allows you to speak in any languages they have (a lot).
• Use Hello sign to have parents sign forgotten field trip forms etc.. up to 3 per month free.
• Workflows When working on a building it might be nice to add workflows so everyone knows who is doing what and who needs to sign off on what.
• Using a single google doc for repetitive notes. Create a table of contents at the top, use bookmarks or headings to create links to days. I’ve put my blog post drafts on a Google doc on this manner so you can see.
• If you use headings 4thor insert > bookmarks you can create hyperlinks within a google Document. Then you can insert>table of contents to create a quick hyperlinked table of contents anywhere in your document. Or add the hyperlinks one at a time to the top.
• This is great if you have regular meetings on the same subject or student. Instead of creating dozens of documents and maybe losing one everything is there and easily found.
• Distance measurements on maps or Map a work-out
• You can add several flags on a map and ask students to measure distance, create directions etc….
• Adding pictures to Google forms and spreadsheets. When you click insert > image on a google form or spreadsheet you can search online or your computer and add a picture. This can be great for students who make grocery lists and need pictures.

EdCampAfterDark
I used my new better presentation skills to create a quick presentation on HaikuDeck about HaikuDeck. A great little web and iPad tool to break out of the worst PowerPoint mistake (too many words on a slide).



THINGS FOUND ON THE WEB

DOE clarifies student privacy policies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deo2F19DK_o



3:36 using websites and parental consent in class.

6:30 using free apps - This site may help with terms of service https://tosdr.org/

The official government website on student privacy http://ptac.ed.gov/.

Using Ted-Ed in Your Classroom

At first I was just going to send out this Ted-Ed Lesson for the Science teachers in the district, but then thought better of it. (Be careful before you start watching they are very engaging shorts for each element.)

Then I realized it has been a while since I have shared the Ted-Ed resources. I love how they have created a simple resource that can so quickly and easily be used to engage students, and even make them think. like this one.

The concept is simple start with a video and then ask some questions, all in four or less steps.

1. Watch
2. Think 
3. Dig Deeper
4. Discuss

Like the Dan Meyer's three-act lessons (More from Andrew Stadel here) the technology (videos, online discussions) isn't there to teach or assess it is just there to spark curiosity. 

The best part of Ted-Ed is the ability to take any video, either a current Ted-Ed, a youtube you found, or something your created yourself, and quickly add your own questions and discussions. I've created a quick example (it took all of 15 minutes) just to show you what you could make for your classroom. So if you have a few minutes, watch my lesson and then start the discussion, here or there, it doesn't matter.

Technology Integration in the Elementary School

I think this just about sums it up. 

Poetry and Math

I love going to visit elementary schools, they do so many cool things and the kids are just so much fun. They aren't shy that is for sure, I had several kids volunteer to show me what they learned today.

The teacher here has her children working on half a dozen different exercises at the same time. As the students finish their pencil and paper work they can read a book, order numbers, create math sentences, or use a variety of iPad apps.

In the old days, when I was a kid, if we finished our work we either read a book quietly or did the "extra" worksheet. Differentiation on skills was just not that personal.

I think we all know that apps are great at adding the sounds and visual elements that make learning more exciting for the students. http://youtu.be/6-QuYYtRUpo

The can read words with the teacher  http://youtu.be/1vGRX8Rl4ek

Read a story independently http://youtu.be/dJTPQHEYTKM

She can quickly change levels for the student http://youtu.be/1QhnXWXKPZ0

The self check with computers is also one of the big bonuses. 

Tech tools are great, but students still need to touch and make contact with objects. Apps are great for bringing leveled content to students. This allows them to practice a skill at the appropriate level. But sometimes we just need open ended play to learn and explore. It also helps when two students of different levels work together, they can teach and learn from each other. http://youtu.be/W9DUbC5o2Uc

The students in this class have the option to use technology after they had finished some writing (one student actually was writing his poem in Word) This allowed students to transition from one activity to another at different times without disrupting the entire class. I like how the teacher didn't have students put away their electronic tools, they just closed the covers and left them on their desks because they would be going back to work on them soon enough. It isn't just a wasting time activity until the real teaching begins, it's a powerful learning tool that for a moment does not need to be used.

The activity may not seem like it included technology, but now that it is recorded and on youtube students can see how well they did and reflect or comment. http://youtu.be/-M9ilIEwWcE

Presentation tools

Examples of presentation tools

Powtoons

http://youtu.be/Y3umfuC_oFk?t=23s

Glogster

LIke an online bulletin board only more versatile. glogster allows you to add pictures, voice, video, and text over a background of your choosing. A great way to ease students and teachers from traditional to virtual. 

http://dendari.edu.glogster.com/introduction-to-abraham-maslow/
http://dendari.edu.glogster.com/digital-citizenship/

VoiceThread

Great for classroom discussions and presentation. Start with a visual prompt and ask students to respond or give students and topic and ask them to present using their own pictures. 

https://voicethread.com/?#u955405.b1225685.i6606885

Haiku Deck

This is basically powerpoint and just works on the iPad and the web, but it solves the two most common problems in student presentations - too many bullet points, and stolen or uncited pictures. Each slide limits you to a title and one line or text, it them suggests pictures based on the text. all the pictures supplied by HaikuDeck have the citation already embedded. 

 

http://www.haikudeck.com/p/U58iexoexX/title

Smore

Create flyers for any occasion and share them easily. Printing is also an option. 

https://www.smore.com/1ffx

Narrable

Tell a story with your pictures. You can record a voice comment on each picture. 

https://narrable.com/app#narrables/rsi1v6

Prezi

The original non-linear power point replacement. The movement around the screen can give your presentation a deeper meaning or it can make everyone seasick. 

http://prezi.com/anqr19uyxr2l/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

SlideSpeech

Slide speech reads your speaker notes for each slide giving your presentation a voice of its own. It also helps keep presentations short and to the point. 

http://slidespeech.com/s/gielhRyaen/