Really enjoyed teaching with Mr. Krause, College English teacher! I thought we did a great job of presenting content together. Each of us added relevant information in a timely manner to keep the presentation lively!
When done correctly, team teaching is a "whole lot of fun"!
Please join us in the High School Social Studies Learning Lab for the first Lunch N' Learn on Tuesday, September 9, 2014. Bring your lunch and enjoy a relaxed atmosphere while learning! We'll explore at how to utilize the two different learning spaces in the high school and how to check them out!
A Lunch: 11:35 AM B Lunch: 12:05 PM C Lunch: 12:35 PM
Don't worry about being perfect when you "speak to the sub" through a digital tool.
Include pictures or video! This will greatly reduce your typing time when "writing up lesson plans"
Include audio! It is so much easier to speak your lessons versus writing them.
If you want to use a combination of typing, voice, or video combine them all into a Google Doc for a cloud based link that can be added to Aesop Online.
Include a QR code created by Google URL Shortener and it would be easy for the substitute to obtain the link using their smart phone. Use shortened link for description in sub plans. This picture can be
Scan The Picture! Need a Scanning App? iPhoneAndroid
Tools Google Drive: Any video recording, audio recording or picture of any document can be uploaded. If the blue sharing button is clicked and the settings changed to "anyone with a link", the link can be pasted into the "Notes to Substitute" section. Include a small note stating, "copy and paste the link below into a new tab on your web browser" and substitute teachers can view your digital documents.
Cellphone: If you own any smartphone (iPhone/Android) you can use the camera app to either record a video or take pictures of information the sub will need to see. Use the Google Drive app for uploading the picture/video to the cloud. Share the link containing the content. Don't forget that using the Skitch app can annotate the information on the picture. Get Skitch for iPhone or Android. Video Link
iPad/iPod: Using the camera, consider talking through the content that you want the substitute to cover during your absence. The video below was uploaded to YouTube and unlisted. However, with the ease of Google Drive, simply upload the video and share the link associated with the video.
iPhone/Android YouTube Capture App: With one click, record your lesson or instructions for your lesson and send them directly to YouTube.
Flip Camera/Bloggies: These cameras are available for checkout from the library. There are plenty to go around. One touch record, USB connection, one hour record time, upload video to Google Drive.
Digital Camera: Most digital cameras take photos and videos. If you can snap it or record it you can upload it to Google Drive.
Laptop (SMART Recorder/Screencast-o-matic.com): If you would like to be present in the classroom, but not physically there, create a video recording of your computer screen using the SMART Recorder or Screencast-o-matic. SMART Recorder
Screencast-o-matic
Google Presentations: Similar to PPT, but so easy to share with teaching using a public link. View the three part series to making great presentations.
Vocaroo: One click audio recording only. No username and password needed. Example
Friday presented a great opportunity for our school district to send eight teachers and administrators to East Leyden High School. We were provided a day long opportunity to witness the implementation of Chromebooks to all students. Every student has one Chromebook. The school is also a Google Apps For Education District.
Superintendent stated some time ago that we (Leyden School District) was either going to implement Chromebooks sooner or later, but they were going to implement them
Visited North Carolina who implemented Chromebooks with district, staff, and school board. After the visit the Board of Education stated, "knowing what we know now, we can't afford to not do this"
Chromebook removes a ton of logisitcs
They are in their first year of integrating Chromebooks
Homework is always present through the cloud
Some distractions occurred. Twitter and Facebook needed to be blocked
Observed Chromebooks being utilized in different ways
Some students were checking email while teachers were teaching
Went "all in" with this initiative
Created mandatory parent meeting
3,500 Chromebooks To Students
260 Teachers
Bought "Loaner" computers and have plan for their use
Expected that students charge Chromebooks each night
We need to go "all in" if we are to accomplish true transformation. All in with whatever device we choose
Pulaski School District is incorporating so much of the transformation of learning with a small amount of devices at this time! Yeah, for teachers!
The best thing I saw was the creation of the "Tech Support Internship" (TSI)
90 high school students helping staff and students with tech support
Students also learn five strands of tech certification
We need to implement this as soon as possible
iPads still need to be utilized! The creation piece of the iPads is above and beyond what a Chromebook can do. My opinion.
Ideal setup: Every student has a Chromebook with iPads available in some fashion for supplemental use. Someone really needs to slam a Chromebook and an iPad together so that everyone gets each operating system and all the functionality. Then the perfect device would exist. Wait it does, kind of!
Promoting yourself as a professional educator or providing a "here's my content" from my class can take many forms. You could use one of these tech tools to promote a high school department, complete with staff information. The tools could be used for proclaiming the great information found in a class. A group of teachers could promote their class in just a few simple steps. In addition, anyone of these tools could be used as a tech tool to instill classroom concepts. Maybe an about page is used for a historical person or a historical event! Finally, are you starting to create a classroom digital presence? Are you blogging about your instructional techniques?
Below you will find some great tech tools that may help to promote yourself & your classroom content as an educator!
Last evening I attended a training session for volunteers who will be working for a company throughout the football season. The company is a worldwide leader in providing services for people who attend sporting events and national parks.
While I was there to learn the ins and outs of my volunteer position, as soon as they stated their philosophy for us to follow, a blog post developed in my head.
As a service to our teachers in my district, I will be a Technology Integration Specialist. I will be introducing, co-teaching, and supporting teachers using technology to enhance how the content is taught by teachers and learned by students.
With that being said, my entire focus during my time as a tech integration specialist will be...
Following through with this will allow each teacher, who receives support from me, to know that I will provide as much information about the tech tool that I can find. Teachers provide content, I provide supporting tech tools that can enhance the learning experience. No matter what the level of comfort using technology the teacher may be at, I will spend as much time with the teacher as needed. I want the teachers to know that I care about their technology integration experience and want it to be the best it can be. If it is, more experiences are likely follow.
So with that, I will do everything I can to help teachers with meaningful learning experiences which provides them with the eagerness to continue to learn and use a technology tool to enhance their content.
As of today, our classroom sessions have ended. It has been one amazing and engaged school year!
389 Blog Posts 60,775 Pageviews 859 Published Videos of iPad use and our classroom 19,521YouTube video views
Let's look back at the most popular blog posts of the year.
Number 5 with 652 views: QR Code Check OutNote: this post was the first post that really showed me the power of Twitter. You can read the post for details, but I saw a tweet, had an idea, put it into action, and BOOM it blew up on Twitter and this blog!
Number 4 with 2,581 views: Creation Apps Used On The iPadNote: Received an email from a fellow teacher and shared the answers to her questions with the world!
Number 3 with 2,588 views: Teaching Teachers Who Will Use 1:1 iPads in 2012Note: It truly has been an amazing experience to share my lessons learned with others. It really isn't about what we do, it's about changing the culture of education.
Number 2 with 3,923 views: 8 Burning Questions About iPads in Class (Answered!)Note: This was my first major post to hit the thousand view mark. It really taught me the power of blogging and how if a blog post has good content, it can be beneficial for so many people.
and the Number 1 blog post with 4,303 views is...(drum roll) Google Docs on the iPadNote: At the time of this post, Google Docs was working very well with iPads. Now, that's not the case. I hope it gets better, soon!
While those numbers are staggering for me as just a teacher who is trying to give back to the educational community, the real numbers that I cling to are...47, 30, 3, and 1 .
47 - Students 30 iPads 3 Educators 1 Amazing School District
I really felt like we met the needs of ALL children. The quiet who can provide a view and voice through apps and online discussions. The loud who can shout there thoughts through creative apps! The creative who can flourish through daily displays of their talent. The shy who can have a voice to the world through blogging. The film stars who love getting videod about a technology or academic find that they can share. The list can go on and on and on.
For the sake of our children, whether your classroom has 1 digital device or millions, think differently, help less, and demand students to think and create more. This was evident in the student responses to "What was the best learning experience of your year?" See the responses below.
A special thank you to all the readers of the iPaddiction website and the friends that I have made through Twitter! So many ideas so many times implemented!
As for the future, my district has allowed me to become a Grade 6-12 Technology Integration Specialist which means I will have the awesome opportunity to work with teachers to transform their educational settings with technology. The possibilities of the future are enormous, and I will continue to share everything!
I asked each of our students the following question,
"What was your best learning experience of the year?"
I created the entire movie on an iPad with iMovie and can't be more thrilled with the result. Not only by their answers, but by the quality of the video.
Some students gave detailed answers, some shortened them up. Either way, I am thankful I took the time to ask! My advice would be Vicki's advice, "Take one day to LISTEN to your students talk about their best learning experience in your classroom this year."
This idea came to me this morning. Create an assessment using Explain Everything. It's Pythagorean Theorem which always works better with real pictures. Upload to YouTube. Create Google Form for completion by student. Embed all into classroom blog.
The whole process took less time than copying and pasting into a paper copy.
Seriously, Awesome!
BYOD
On a side note, student walked into class today with a broken arm.
The arm he WRITES with...
No problem with the iPad Whiteboard app...
Finally, when the class is over I simply change the blog post to "Revert to Draft" and it is removed from my blog. Students are absent, when they return I will "Publish" it again. EASY!!!
I have been looking for reason to use MadPad Hd in our school. Sure, it's fun, quirky, and creative, but how can I apply it to education?
I decided that to review the concepts students would create a one minute video describing specific math terms from our "factoring quadratics" unit. Terms that needed to be included were...
root
vertex
factor
symmetry
Zero Product Property
generic rectangle
Quadratic Formula
Standard For for Quadratics
Radical-Square Roots
MadPad Hd allows for the creation of twelve 5 second clips. Students would use nine of the recordings for the math concepts above. They needed to create legible written explanations (specific examples encouraged) with the term at the top of the explanation. Three of the remaining twelve recordings can be for whatever they want. Creativity is a must! To finalize each of the twelve recordings, the students needed to think of one word to speak or one sound to record to associate with the term.
As one student stated:
...and one student demonstrated:
...the time could not have been better spent. Students loved using the app because it was a unique tech tool that provided a new experience with "old" concepts.
New tech tool review concepts...
A student demonstrating how to record a clip...
A student's recording...
Who knew reviewing for math concepts could be so much fun...
This lesson typifies my year. I have concepts that I need students to experience. Use a tool to get the engagement, thinking, questioning, and creativeness fibers in students' bodies moving. This was not only engaging for the student, it was wonderful to hear questions asked be students about the concepts as they were creating.
OUCH! Could I never go back to a review where students complete 30 problems in silence. Lord, I apologize for thinking that 30 problems in silence was a great way for students to review. Nevertheless, that was then (10 years ago) and this now. Let the creative fun begin!
Day 2 Brought This
Some Final Products From Students
Students uploaded their final products to DropBox...EASY!!!
"Being Less Helpful" (credit Mr. Meyer) rings loud and clear in today's learning activity. I did guide the students with six questions that needed answers, but failed at giving them everything.
Check That.
They have everything: access to the knowledge of the world (iPad/internet), previous days learning factoring of quadratic equations, the value of the Quadratic Formula, 150 applications on the iPad, a mind to question, and each other!
What More Can A Person Ask For? Besides a really fast car!
Watch the learning experience unfold through the video that was taken!
I like having the ability for students to have real pictures and experiences in math class. The availability of the internet ALL THE TIME through our iPads or BYOD provides great opportunities. Today, students completed an assessment on percent of increase or decrease. I used a real example from Overstock dot com for students to determine the amount of percent they received as a discount. In addition, students needed to discover how much gas prices have increased from the 1970s until today.
Students also had extended learning. I was able save the district some money because I uploaded a PDF of a previous learning opportunity to Google documents. This created a link for students to view the problems and place the work in their own notebook or digital tool.
Our students recently dissected a worm and used the Skitch app to label all the parts. There was something about the color that the students liked in the app. As you can see, students utilized it to the fullest. These pictures were posted to the students' professional portfolios.
Teaching percent of discount from our book can be BORING! The text book gives us all the information and students regurgitate the steps to solve.
In our class, we had a small discussion about the two different ways to find the percent discount. Students can either subtract at the beginning or subtract at the end. After some direct instruction of about 5 minutes, students reflected on the process through a blog post.
After that, students were introduce to the great resource of Amazon.com. This is a useful site in that they give you "the original price" lined out and the "discounted price" in red. We viewed two different items and had students find the discount in percent.
After students had two problems with their partners to work on, it was their time to shop.
We did not complete the process, as students still need to take a picture of their item and reflect on the process in their blog. Tomorrow, we will finish!
Next time you have mathematical problems, consider making it as real to students as you can. Helping less and making the students think is a great tool that the iPad can facilitate!
