Success Is Messy: Nearpod Works To Perfection

Yesterday, I was reminded of how successful things happen.  Mr. Anderson attended a PLC day at Adlai Stevenson High School and noticed that the presenter engaged the audience with PearDeck.  Unfortunately, PearDeck comes with a price we are unable to pay.

When Mr. Anderson approached me about the concept, I initially thought that the presentation tool of questions in Google Slides would be an adequate solution.  We found this could be a tool, but being a single teacher in a classroom proved a little challenging to monitor those questions.  A teacher needs to toggle back and forth between the presentation and the question/answer window.

As we were talking, Nearpod came to my mind.  It quickly became clear that this was the perfect tool that would serve his Anatomy students in their learning experience.

• Upload a presentation from Powerpoint or Google Slides
• Upload images or PDFs
• Once a presentation is uploaded, add "activity cards", "polls", or "questions"
• No sign up required by the students.  Simply display the code that they enter into the Nearpod app. Quick, Simple!
• Teacher begins to present.  Immediately the presentation shows up on a student's device.
• When it's time for an activity or question, students interact on their iPad by writing, drawing, typing, highlighting
• Students share their creation back to the teacher
• Teacher discusses some responses by the students

Lectures are not always necessary, however when they are the correct delivery for the content, Nearpod became a great tool for our this teacher.

In a 30 minute discussion, Mr. Anderson and I did exactly what the right arrow above states.  We went around in circles, backwards at times, but eventually found the tool that serves him best for his content area at this time.

After his experience during the day, Mr. Anderson introduced the tool to his Biology team.  Teachers learning and then teaching teachers!  It was a great learning experience.

View The Images From Class

Mitosis Project & Explain Everything Student Reflection Survey

As many readers of iPaddiction know, I have been in a three week process of learning with the Biology teachers and integrating the Explain Everything app.

All of which have been documented:

Step 1 - Teaching Teachers

Step 2 - Teaching Students

Step 3 - Exporting the Project 

Step 4 - Lesson Reflection

Step 5 - Student Reflection

An additional piece of data needed to come from the students.

I utilized Google Forms to acquire information to students on the final day of production with the Explain Everything app.  Students completed the survey on the iPads.

I was in the process of using Piktochart to create an infographic of the details but realized I didn't have the time to create a detailed infographic of the data.  Instead, I used screen shots of the "Summary of Responses" from the spreadsheet in Google Forms and placed them quickly on a Google Draw palette.  The information is here or below.

Some thoughts after viewing the results:

• Students REALLY enjoyed using the iPads and Explain Everything
• Three questions had over 63% of the students liking/enjoying the Explain Everything learning experiences over a traditional lecture/multiple choice test.
• Students may not have "learned the content better" because they didn't feel like the teachers spoon fed the information in a lecture format.  Students were given the basic information of mitosis with the option to become "proficient or advanced" via self learning while creating the Explain Everything product.  This was different for students.

Some free response from students to the question "In what ways did you feel you used your brain more to know the content using the iPad versus a multiple choice test?:

• The iPad gets kids interacting with technology.
• You have to know how to present the information instead of just filling in blanks and bubbles.
• I had to put things into my own words.
• I feel like in order to create this presentation we really had to be educated and know what we were talking about.
• You had to find things out for yourself, as well as figuring out how to do some of the things you wanted to do.
• You got to be more creative and think more about the topic.
• Personally, I am a hands on learner so using the iPad and explaining it to someone else helped me more than just memorizing and forgetting.

While it may have taken a few minutes to have the students complete the form, it certainly provided some insight in moving forward.

Mitosis Project Reflection Time For Biology Teachers

Today was reflection time with our biology teachers.  Forty minutes of uninterrupted time with the teachers guided by a Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse Coaching Tool designed by Krista Jiampetti.

Our Reflection:  

Our reflection time was truly beneficial for the establishment of success, things to consider, and student reactions.  We, the biology teachers and myself, were truly blessed with uninterrupted time to talk through the learning experience from start to finish.

I should be able to add more student creations along reflections on the rubric after student creations have been assessed.

View one student creation: 

I am truly humbled to have been a small part in this entire process.  I feel that the entire "peer coaching" model was followed with successes and failures.  Our biology teachers and students were tremendous to work with during the process.  

Step 1 - Teaching Teachers

Step 2 - Teaching Students

Step 3 - Exporting the Project 

Step 4 - Lesson Reflection

Step 5 - Student Reflection

Exporting, Reflecting and Follow Up With Biology Teachers and Explain Everything

As we progress from Coaching Teachers Through Using the Explain Everything App and Large Group Instruction in Biology with Explain Everything, it is now time to export the projects to student's Google Drive and share the final product with the teacher.

Each teacher has placed this on their board with the teacher's email being placed where the blacked out marks are located.

In addition to exporting students will be reflecting on the process of learning utilizing technology.  A Google Form will be completed by each student within the next two days.

We will also be evaluating each student's creation via a rubric that has six aspects of mitosis content and two aspects pertaining to creativity and communication skills.  The teachers will be analyzing the mitosis aspects and I will be contributing to the evaluation of the Creativity and Communication Skills.

A fantastic discovery by one group of students, Inserting GIF into Explain Everything, has surprisingly been taught to a number of groups throughout the mitosis project!

On Friday, the biology teachers and I will meet to discuss the good, bad, and changes that need to be made to improve the entire process.

Step 1 - Teaching Teachers

Step 2 - Teaching Students

Step 3 - Exporting the Project 

Step 4 - Lesson Reflection

Step 5 - Student Reflection

If you are interested in another "complete digital workflow" process of a techcoach, @techchef4u created Project Planning to assist with getting the word out about what takes place during this entire process.

Coaching Teachers Through Using The Explain Everything App

A week from now, the entire population of Biology students at Pulaski High will be describing mitosis using the Explain Everything app.  To coach the teachers on the intricacies of Explain Everything, I

• Demonstrated the tools on Monday with the expectations that they would create a storyboard for their personal creation during the day on Monday.

Note: one of our teachers's children became ill and she was unable to be at school on Monday.  No problem, she used her personal iPad and another device to join in the learning through a Google Hangout!

• coached them through their creation on Tuesday while using the Explain Everything App.

Next Friday, I will be utilizing our school's Large Group Instruction area to demonstrate features of Explain Everything to all of the biology students .  This should take about 15 minutes or less.  Students will then formulate their storyboard in their classrooms so that during the next class period, they will start creating using the Explain Everything app.

Below is the Protein product that one of our biology teachers, Ms. Thut, created.

This was the first time that the entire process of coaching teachers using a technology tool occurred in this sequence.  Teacher's time is very precious and not taking an entire prep period to discuss technology integration was a benefit.  Extending the learning for teachers over the course of two days was also a benefit.

I'm looking forward to teaching the tools of the Explain Everything app to the students knowing the teachers know the tech tool because of a personal learning experience.

Some might say that we use the Explain Everything app too much.  We do use it numerous times, but as students become  MORE familiar with the app, the technology tool becomes invisible.  Students and teachers don't think twice about using a writing utensil because it is essentially invisible.  The thoughts, ideas, and solutions that come from the writing utensil are what matters!  So it hopefully will be with technology tools!

Step 1 - Teaching Teachers

Step 2 - Teaching Students

Step 3 - Exporting the Project 

Step 4 - Lesson Reflection

Step 5 - Student Reflection