I did it! I finally did it! After a year of harassment from my middle schoolers, I have created an Instagram account. I toiled over what my first post would be and landed on a picture of my newly created account. I found 20 of my friends and favorite news outlets to follow so I am off to a good start. Until I get the hang of Instagram, this account will be professional and private. Goal for tomorrow.....find the privacy settings and hide.
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I had fun creating a digital story totally on my cell phone. I help students all day long to create and edit digital stories on their iPads. It was interesting to turn the camera on myself and experience their anxiety and satisfaction of a completed story about myself beginnings in teaching. Snuck in my autographed picture of Bernadette Peters. She started my love for musical theater, leading me to a career in education, and a job that allows me to work with a brilliant group I call family.
I have been part of a mobile device experiment for the past five years. I have been teaching in a district where all middle and high school students are issued an iPad Air to use and do their work. I call it an experiment because over the past 5 years , each year we have learned something new or had to change our approach to reflect technology innovation. In the beginning I thought using mobile devices in the classroom was a fantastic idea. Now, I'm not sure it is for every teacher or student. With all students having a hand held access point to anytime information, teachers have learned to change their teaching methods, how they manage student work, and assessment strategies. I interviewed Joe Addis who just completed his National Board renewal for science. Mr. Addis is learning to evolve as a teacher in the world of mobile devices. Listen as he discusses the district expectations for iPads in the classroom and his strategies for managing the devices in his classroom. Students are expected to have the device everyday in all class but Mr. Addis has begun to incorporate digital assessment features, so it is pertinent that all students have the device ready for use in class. Mr. Addis spoke about challenges for both students and teachers using mobile devices. In the 5 years we have been providing iPads to middle school students in my district, we have seen a change in behavior issues for students. Middle school is a trying time for students and parents. Adding an open portal to the world, via the iPad, can cause behavior at home and school for many 6th through 8th graders. Many times the negative changes in behavior or organizational structure can affect academic success. Mr. Addis shared his challenges for students and teachers that he has experienced since mobile devices have been introduced. I have experienced a slow steady stream of parent frustration with mobile devices introduced into their homes and their students academic life. I have found that parents are divided into two groups, the ones who want to help and monitor academics, and the others who are seeing changes in behavior and don't know how to monitor online use. Mr. Addis shares how parents can monitor academics through the district PowerSchool and Schoology (LMS) portals. He also talks about the importance of setting the expectations for mobile devices with parents from the first day of school and making them aware of the school policies. Our students are filtered 24/7 for inappropriate content and are blocked from Apps higher than a 9+ rating. We our district initially began providing iPads to students, their was a mindset for open access to web content, app store, and no device management structure. Wow, have we learned some lessons! Through this experiment, I have learned that providing teachers with digital content and a structure for digital workflow is the only way to help teachers and students move beyond using the iPad as just an internet browser. I also agree with Mr. Addis that parents need more help and assistance transitioning into the world of mobile devices. Whether it's a phone provided by parents or an iPad issued at school, parents need to better understand digital citizenship, online safety, and academic monitoring to make mobile computing successful at home and school. We have seen great success this year from the gradual release of the Apple App store to students. Using what we have learned from the last 5 years and parent and teacher feedback, 6th grade students only have access to a school approved app catalog where only apps used in the classroom are available for download. The Apple App Store is not active on 8th grade student iPads. This has deemed successful among teachers and parents and given students time to learn how to manage work digitally and be responsible for the care of the device. Mr. Addis is collaborating with his science team to create digital formative assessments using the district provided LMS, Schoology. The team found a need to provide more performanced based task in their instruction and on assessments. Mr. Addis is working to have students use the iPad for in class assessments to determine if hands-on labs and videotaped experiments have an effect on student data for performanced based questioning. Below you will see screenshots of mastery data in the Schoology system. Because the science classes used digital formative assessment in Schoology, they were able to analyze the data the same day, determine areas of weakness, and take steps to improve instruction for the next day. His collaboration with the science team is really doing whatever it takes to make students successful. I appreciate Mr. Addis sharing his thoughts and work with me.
Quizizz was shared with me awhile back but I've recently had the time to run it through its paces. The found it very similar to Kahoot and made for a great option for digital formative assessment. Quizizz makes for an engaging assessment for students with fun meme's, timed questions, and a leader board. I like that students receive points for correct answers, even more points for the fastest answer, but do not lose points for incorrect answers. Creating the questions was simple but you only have one type of question type, multiple choice. You can use two to four answer choices and add images which can raise the complexity of questioning. The subscript and mathematics toolbar is fantastic! I was able to put in algebraic expression with little difficulty. The most positive aspect of this web 2.0 tool is the homework function. Teachers can assign assessment questions for homework where students can still interact in a game style with points values, funny meme's, all the while teachers can collect item analysis. I also like that this tool uses join codes for each individual assessment or game. One drawback with the join code is relying on students to use their real name. Needless to say, I had several Clinton's and Trump's taking my quiz on Slope. The reports tab is very detailed and covers all the item analysis a teacher would need to resort or level students. You can get details as individual and class answers. Reports can be downloaded or print as an excel spreadsheet. I do not care for the short timing out of accounts. They do not have an app but going through Safari on the iPad was not an issue for students. In my study of the site, I used different tabs to join games as a student and each time I returned to my teacher account, it was timed out. Overall, Quizizz is a useful tool for engaging students and worth adding to the teachers toolbox In an effort to separate behavior from academics grades, this year we implemented behavior report cards that are sent home at the end of each quarter. We have five Habits of Scholarship (HOS) each student knows with one simple sentence, "I am a tenacious leader who communicates and collaborates with integrity. Each HOS has indicators that help students and teachers understand what that habit looks and sounds like at Meadow Glen Middle School (MGM). We have spent 2 years investigating and piloting several systems for reporting behavior to parents. We now have a way to create final report cards for parents. BUT....and it is a big but.... teachers are struggling to manage the daily record keeping needed to calculate a true score for the HOS report card. That is where Class Dojo comes in. I prefaced my review of class dojo so you would understand why I chose to investigate this web 2.0 tool. Teachers has gone the paper pencil clipboard method to track students behavior but with 23 indicators it is hard to manage and time consuming. I took Class Dojo and created two classes,. One for my student class to record and show data and one with faculty names to model ClassDojo during our weekly professional development session. With my students, I had to know if Class Dojo was to juvenile for middle school. I was pleasantly surprised that the system was respected and student were eager to hear the ding of a rewarded point. I projected the class on the board at the end of class for all students to see their points. I only used positive rewards the first day. Day two, it got real. I projected the class view on the board and had the settings only sound for positive. I chose to personally redirect students and let them know I was subtracting points instead of using a sound notification. Best features for me were the ability to customize all of the skills to represent our Habits of Scholarship and the fully functioning app. I was able to walk around the room with my phone and simply make behavior without picking up a clipboard or pen. App was seamless and kept track of all the data I need for entering scores on report cards. The data can be exported individually or by class and printed or spreadsheet. Perfect for parent conferences or students portfolios. In the bells and whistles section you can find a timer, random picker, and a class stories feature. What teacher doesn't love an on screen timer?! This kept me on task more than the students. I used the random picker to keep the class engaged during a group activity. Definitely a feature I will get great use. Though the entering of students names was nothing more than a copy and paste, having students join the class was a few more steps. Students don't have to join the class but if you want to send them messages, share posting responsibilities with the class, or view their own data, they will need to complete the steps with the provide join code. Parents can join the same way, with a unique join code that connects them to their students data. I hope to model the ease of Class Dojo for recording classroom behavior to my teachers during a professional development meeting and use the faculty as the class. I think Class Dojo is the solution for a overloaded teacher needing to motivate, encourage, and document student's behavior or Habits of Scholarship. This tool could not have come at a better time. The 8th grade team has been looking for the perfect presentation method for our Take A Stand expedition project and Easel.ly has won the bid. Our 8th grade will complete a PBL project called Take A Stand that is anchored in the text, To Kill A Mockingbird. Students are given the opportunity to take a stand for an injustice in their community like Atticus in To Kill A Mockingbird. Our team has struggled with how we want students to show their learning, i.e. documentary, PSA, slideshow, pamphlet, or giving them an open option to create. Because students are 1:1 iPad, we need to offer a digital platform for creating their research findings. All the teachers liked the look an infographic provides and easily printable for display. Allowing for groups of students to collaborate on a single graphic put Easel.ly over the top for our team. Easel.ly has a simple and an even easier App platform. When they say they have 1000's of templates, they mean it. I previewed several and inserted all the options from the features. The site was intuitive and was able to insert media and images. I was disappointed that a PDF was not an allowable file format. It allows you to see your infographic in a portrait, landscape, or mobile view. I got to the bottom and felt out of space to add more. Was happy to see I could extend the infograph simply by pulling the background down further. Happy to say this is the cheapest teacher account pricing I have found. In working through the assignment and contacting support, I was offered an educator's coupon. Consider contacting support before purchasing and asking about discounts. I have used other infographic creators before (Piktochart) but would recommend Easel.ly as well. I didn't see drastic gaps in features or ease of use between Easel.ly and other infographic sties I have previewed. I look forward to using the Easel.ly site with my 8th graders as a presentation tool for their Take A Stand PBL expedition. Look for blog updates to this expedition project! I value the square footage on my Google Chrome Bookmark bar so I have tried out many bookmarklets in my days. I consider my bookmark bar a friend and I use it often. When I investigated several of the suggested bookmarklets and the ones I already have saved, I realized my newly installed Diigo bookmark was really an extension. As I am familiar with bookmarklets I took my research a bit further to understand the difference in a bookmarklet and a Chrome extension.
I found that browser extensions are tiny software application added to a browser and are running whenever the browser is opened. Bookmarklets are more streamline and only perform when you click on the bookmark to activate. I had both Diigo and Pinterest installed as extensions to my Chrome browser. I am considering deleting the Pinterest extension in order to keep things moving faster. In my blog reading I also found that some extensions can collect information from my browser use. Google already seems to know more about me than my husband. I think I will stick to bookmarklets and keep my information sharing to a minimum. My new favorite bookmarklet is The Printliminator. I have already suggested it to my teachers, as printer ink and paper supplies are a constant battle within the budget. Printliminator cures the wastefulness that todays highly visual websites can cause when printing from webpages. With a simply click you can remove unwanted images or text and print only the portions of webpages you need. I have found it most useful in eliminating distractions for struggling students new to research, as well as, saving on my ink cartridges. I also added Bitlink as a bookmarklet through last weeks research on URL shorteners, along with Playposit, a digital formative assessment tool I'm currently test driving. Tried out several URL shorteners and one seemed as good as the other. I did like that Goo.gl tracked the clicks on the link but those links are all public. I found inspiration for this assignment from my investigation of Symbaloo. I have started a webmix for my 7th grade students to help them on the research of their Expedition project. Though the webmix has just been created, my colleagues and I will need to share the link with students in a fast, simple fashion. Below you can find the original link and the shortened link using all the URL shorteners recommended. Original Link- https://edu.symbaloo.com/mix/7th-whatsthecost Shortened URLs: Bit.ly- http://bit.ly/2eJtCAo Goo.gl - https://goo.gl/a340Ij Ow.ly - http://ow.ly/H3sY305YNzQ I love QR codes and encourage my colleagues to use them often. I am reminded how useful QR codes can be each time I enter a stale in the restroom where I am presented with a code linking to the Bully Report from the counseling center or upon entering a classroom students are tracking their own Habits of Scholarship with a QR code that links to a Google form created by the teacher. I use QR codes when working with teachers to create lessons but have not found a personal need for a QR code....until now. I keep a digital appointment calendar in Google, where students and teachers can make their own appointment to meet with me for instructional coaching assistance, leadership meetings, or other technology needs. I created a QR for the link to my appointment calendar and made a sign for my office door. Now anyone can scan the code, choose an appointment time best suited for their schedule, and it will appear on all of my digital devices for me to attend. For the purposes of posting to the web, I created a separate Google appointment calendar as a sample.
I investigated all three of these curation tools because this is an area of need for my teachers, and me…. where to put all the “stuff”. I tried EduClipper during my last Wilkes course and did not find it user friendly within the timespan for the assignment. At the time, the tutorial videos online were limited. This go round I had the Untangling the Web text as my guide. (Dembo & Bellow, 2013) Figured out a few things I was doing wrong and the text gave meaning for the reasons behind the layout and functions of the site. I appreciate the purpose of EduClipper for collecting sharing evaluated materials for education purposes. I also appreciate the leveled privacy settings so that teachers can allow students to share as little or as much as necessary.
Dembo, S., & Bellow, A. (2013). Untangling the Web: 20 tools to power up your teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, A SAGE Company. pp.17-24
Symbaloo is an old tool I moved away from after a quick introduction from a DEN friend. I used it once or twice but at the time, I had no immediate need for this type tool and it got dropped from the favorites list. This evaluation gave me the opportunity to dust off the old account and take it for a spin. I have found a new need for curating with Symbaloo and the layout is perfect for students and teachers needing to access resources. I have planned to use Symbaloo to curate resources for the 7th grade Expedition, What’s the Cost? My 7th grade colleagues and I have collected over 30 links to videos, articles, and websites about ethical consumption of materials in over 10 different countries. Currently they are sitting in a google folder shared with students but Symbaloo proves to be a more visual, organized place to curate items. The grouping is new since my last experience with Symbaloo. This is perfect for organizing my links by country and I can color code depending on the project, all with easy access to students. I’m excited to start getting to know this old friend a little better!
Pinterest is a tool I use personally for collecting and organizing resources for home and work. I can get lost for hours pinning everything from lesson plans to bathroom paint color. I find Pinterest easy to navigate, organize, and I like the multitude of categories. I understand sharing my pins with friends is neat but sometimes I want to keep ideas and planning just for myself. This is why I have taking advantage of the privacy settings and Private boards. Because of the social aspects and some inappropriate material on the site, Pinterest is blocked for students. From working through the site this week, I realize I need to find more people to follow. Variety of the spice of life (and your lesson plans) and I need more variety in my Pinterest home screen. I will continue to use this for my PLC and personal needs.
I am not an avid Facebook user and average 3 visits a week. Because Facebook is familiar, I approached my evaluation from the website and not the mobile app. I RARELY access FB through anything other than my phone so viewing the website was refreshing and enlightening. I started with my profiles because FB is always asking me to complete or update the profile page and reset a few of the security features to make my profiles less viewable to just anyone. This is a great place for a parent or a students to visit when setting up or considering levels of protection from unknown users access a child's FB page. You can turn on and off the photos uploaded and what information from the profile is revealed. Ever have that inside joke with your work friends and you want to post a funny picture to your FB page but you realize only a quarter of your friends will understand? Not so funny anymore, huh? Problem solved, create a specialized group within FB and personalize your posts for just that group. On the left side in the webview under the friends sections, you can label each friend in your list with things such as Work, Family, College, Supper Club, Kickball team, etc. I spent an obscene amount of time sorting friends but now I can personalize my posts. I live work, so there are no separation of accounts in my world. Everything I post is appropriate for family and work but not all of my information needs to be shared between the two groups. This new facebook gem allows you to keep your life separate (private vs. public, aquaticence vs. close pals, professional vs. family) but under one umbrella or account. Teachers can use this function to group and post to professionals but still stay in contact and have access to family and friends. Did anyone else know about these customizing functions? Am I the last to the game? I also found how to add more groups and News to my feed. It is amazing how much I was missing because I was using the mobile app exclusively. I might use FB more now that I can make professional and personal life separate with these functions. |
Amy DentInstructional Coach, tech geek, news junkie, and passionate about learning. Archives |