Changing The Narrative - Communication, Critical Thinking, Creativity

Spending the entire day teaching the "tips" about GarageBand to over 250 juniors was a tremendous honor.  The U.S. History team of Mrs. Schartner, Mr. Krause, and Mr. Rodal want students to develop a 3-5 minute radio show.  As they progress into the era of the 1920's, students will see that radio was the "window to the world" for almost every American household.

As I worked my way through the presentation below, students were given three opportunities to "play" instruments, record voice, and record multiple tracks of instruments.



The content of the U.S. History curriculum is so important.  My teaching role allows students to experience additional learning opportunities while experiencing the information.

My main focus was NOT ANOTHER project, but an opportunity to develop the skills that will help them during their time in high school and after they leave.  I addressed their "attitude" as one more thing to do by changing the narrative.  It's not another project.  They heard me say that this is a tremendous opportunity to get better at skills that employers continue to seek from our students.

Communication.
Creativity.
Critical Thinking.



As always, the impact of the message is undetermined at the beginning.  I'm not a motivational speaker.  I do know that my message is helping students to view learning opportunities in our school differently.  In my time of co-teaching technology tools, GarageBand engaged students to the end of the learning time and beyond better than most tools.

All of this became even more validated for me because of the podcast I listened to this morning.  Education with an Edge, Mike Smith of The Bay  Visit It

Ideas & Learning Through Voice (Teaching Teachers)

Great days of learning! 
Voice Recorder Pro
GarageBand

PHS Autos - Building A Library of Skills

Students are starting to creating their video library of skills using images, video, and voice over.  Essentially, students are critically thinking about the steps to accomplish a task (in this case it was a brake job), creatively thinking about the content and how they want their video to be viewed, and sharing it to the world!

We really want students to choose the tool that they want to create with based on what they think their skills.

Here's the presentation of tools:



View some of the final products:

Student 1

Student 2

Post It Notes App and The Modeling That Brought Me To It

Yesterday, we had a meeting.  The meeting concluded with writing suggestions for moving forward on a Post-it Note.

This morning I received this image from our leader.

I like how Mrs. Uelmen modeled the use of an app!  It sparked my interest as to what and how to use the app.  Currently, the Editor's Pack of the app is free!  I like how the app captures only the note and not the surrounding parts of the picture.  I like how the creation of boards can be exported to almost everywhere via the sharrow on the iPhone/iPad.  I exported the note to Notability so that I could annotate the groupings of notes.

I see some potential in this app.  I also appreciate modeling of the app by a colleague.  It's always important to use the tools that know work.  Using instead of always preaching about tools is an effective way to motivate others to use the tools, much like it motivated me to investigate this app!

Flipboard Magazine Resource For Journal Reflections in Communication in Writing

In the past, one printed article was handed to the students for a "response journal" in Communication in Writing class.  Students read the exact, single article that was given to them from the teacher.  Reflect and apply it to their life and the assignment was complete.

With the implementation of Flipboard we accomplished two objects:

1.  Introduce students to a tool (Flipboard) that can provide quality written and visual resources to get them interested in topics they love.
2.  Create a quality magazine developed by the teachers that centers on  articles based on Communicating in the Workplace.

Introducing Flipboard reminds of the times in elementary school that we

used Play-Doh.  The teacher always let us "create whatever we wanted" for about 10-15 minutes and then it was time to develop a clear product based on teacher direction.  The way Flipboard sets up their "Get Started" page on a mobile device sucks users in because the students get to choose the topics they love.  As soon as they are done choosing topics based on their interests, Flipboard immediately populates riveting articles and resources to view and read.

Even the most reluctant students get sucked into the greatness of Flipboard.

While students choose one article to reflect on via the magazine that
Mr. Mentink created they respond to questions on paper.  (Created by Mr. Manning)
View Action Photos

View Flipboard Magazine.

Mindly iPad App For Organizing The Creative Process

Mindly is an amazing tool that we will be using in a wide variety of subjects so students can organize their thoughts.  It fits directly with the "creative" c in our four c's.  The tool was originally going to be used for THE WRITING PROCESS, but today's Lunch N' Learn will demonstrate that it can be used for any process!

A new digital workflow process that I used was the customized YouTube thumbnail above which was created in Canva using their templates.  If you haven't tried Canva, I highly recommend it.  I've been using it since 2013 for a variety of digital graphics.

The Sharrow

Today's lunch n' learn focused teachers attention on "The Sharrow".

Made With Canva.com

The Sharrow is iOS's gateway to collaboration and creativity.  Every app that has options to connect with other apps can easily make it happen by finding the sharrow.

We looked at how PDFs are going to be placed into the best digital note taking app, Notability and other productivity and creativity apps.  

We also reviewed the options for images including the positives and negatives of students having access to AirDrop.

Positives:  Collaborating on research with images, pdfs, and websites.  With the collaboration of items, students could then create their own "show what they know" item based on the research of many.

Negatives: We realize that students could snap pictures or share completed PDFs via AirDrop.  This will provide us great opportunity to discuss digital citizenship.

Remembering the "Sharrow" and it's many ways that it opens the door to productivity can enhance the educational experience.

Notability App For Notes

Today's Lunch N' Learn Topic was the Notability App.  I described settings, features, and digital workflow to and from the app for efficient productivity.
View The Presentation

iPadU - Keynote & Instruction Recap

iPadU was July 4-6, 2016

It was an amazing presenting and learning experience for myself and 120 other professional educators!  I truly appreciated the opportunity to present, but more importantly the opportunity to learn from all of the enthusiastic and passionate educators!

My keynote presentation centered around a title of Individual, Incorporated.  

After presenting the keynote, I was provided the tremendous opportunity to conduct six different learning opportunities for teachers.

Sifting Through The Massive Amounts of Information Using Flipboard



Explain Everything: Progressing While Advancing



Adobe Draw To Promote You and Your Content



The Sketchnote Process



Workflow: The Undisputed Productivity King



You Can Do That On The iPad?!

One of Three Things Happens To All Educational Information Acquired In A Learning Environment

Lately, I've added a few more podcasts to my learning network.  Because of this, "The Sport of Business", especially episode 49, has provided me with some thinking material.

Matt Scanlon, Business Mentor and owner/operator of CrossFit Memorial Hill in Kansas City, MO recently stated in a podcast that three things happen to businesses.

• The Business Closes (goes out of business)
• The Business is Sold (or acquired)
• The Business Gets Passed On To Someone Else (as a legacy business)

Over the last week, I have been team teaching with Mr. Todd Rodal, allowing students to learn, comprehend, and present information based on four groups.  Students need to meet the objectives, but have choice in how they learn the information and in how they present the information.

Because of my recent team teaching experience and "The Sport of Business" podcast, I have added important information to designing lessons.  Of course, collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and creativity are always prevalent while designing learning opportunities.  However, combining that with one of three things that happens to all educational information acquired in a learning environment may drive designing a lesson to new levels.

• Students Disregard Content Closing It Out Of Their Brain
• Students Ask More Questions To Dig Deeper Into A Concept
• Students Pass On The "Amazing" Information That They Learned To Someone Else

Think about that!

Students take the information and disregard it!  They can't see how it relates to ANYTHING in their life.  To a greater degree, they start asking questions, because they are somewhat engaged and intrigued by the information that they would like to know more about it!  Finally, the information is so amazing, the students have asked so many questions to know more about it and feel motivated, compelled even, to tell someone else about how great the information is so that the information can be utilized by other people in a positive way.

The next time it's "lesson design" time, consider how the "three things that happen to all educational information acquired" will influence the educational experience for students.

Come to think of it, what are you going to do with the information in this blog post?

Innovative Ideas: Objectives Met Through Choice In A Flex Mod Diversity Class

Through a conversation, I reached out to Mr. Rodal, Social Studies (Diversity Class), to provide an opportunity for students to meet specific objectives while choosing the product they create.

It's always a balance between "old school" education which entails read this, listen to this, and answer questions that somehow shows you understand the objectives that need to be met, and the "new school" movement that allows for students to meet objectives while choosing the path to acquire the information.  In addition, providing students the opportunity to "show what they know" in a creative fashion.  I say "balance" because this class is "transcribed" with a technical college which, in my opinion, is of the "old school" model for learning when comes to this class.

The objectives met with choice!

Mr. Rodal's students will

• Discover the four main groups to study in a flex mod large group
• Know the objectives that need to be met 
• Propose (through a Google Form) why they should be able to study the group during a flex mod large group (partners are acceptable)
• "Pitch" to their peers in a flex mod small group what their final product will be to display that they "know the objectives."
• Peers provide feedback to each "pitch person" during flex mod small group
• Students work during flex mod labs with students possibly not in their lab group through a collaborative technology tool.
• Students "polish" the product during second flex mod large group
• Students produce a "final product" showing objectives being met during a flex mod large group.

Students will be held accountable for "work time during the work day" during flex mod PLT (personal learning time) by acquiring signatures from monitors.

We would like technology to be used because of the skills we are seeking to master other than just the objectives.

All the resources can be found HERE

Creative Methods For Bringing Characters To Life in College English

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"!

 

Book Creator App on iPad Export as Movie and eBook

Book Creator App on the iPad which we have used since 2014, will be our creation tool of choice to create both videos and eBooks for "7 Minute Workouts" developed by students.  We chose the app because it can be published as an interactive eBook (suitable for the iBook app), a PDF, or a movie.  All of this can be sent to our Google Drive for sharing!  We also wanted the ability to have words, images, drawing, and embedded video.  Lastly, we wanted to try a different creation tool.  Readers of iPaddiction know that Explain Everything is a go to app, because it's that good!  We'll allow students to use this app to broaden their creativity toolbox. 

The Movie

The ePub Book that can be opened in iBooks. At this time, we are not sending books to iTunes so the iBooks are not interactive.

The PDF book that can be opened anywhere. Video examples of exercises won't work.

During the day, I team taught with Mrs. Logue and Mr. Karcz.  I taught two of the classes while Mrs. Logue observed.

During the third class, Mrs. Logue taught the entire technology piece.  I supported her a few times during her presentation.  However, she did a great job of teaching with confidence.  This was a perfect demonstration of the gradual release teaching strategy.

Goose Chase - Scavenger Hunt For The Masses

Update - Bottom of Post!

Goosechase.com is a fantastic tool that works on mobile devices (iOS or Android) and on computers.  Combine collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking into one "mission" learning experience.

While Goosechase allows for a "recreational" free option, it is intended for only friends and family. To Goosechase's credit, they understand school budgets are tight.  They have provided a "request for classroom license" option which allows K-12 or College/University students to use one game per request.  Requests are unlimited and does provide a way for educators to use the tremendous tools of Goosechase without purchasing anything.  Please note, that the request needs to be made in advance.  Allow for plenty of time before the game is played.

*Note: We are finding that emails get mailed quicker if a game does not have a password.  I suggest that you send the email a day or at least a night prior to the learning lesson.
*Since we are not one to one, we are asking our students to get the app on their phones.  No one has objected yet.

View how it works via presentation



View how it works via video

Thank you Ms. Slusarek for creating the video and for trying this with your students!

Get Chasin'

Mrs. Jessica Moseng, high school physical education, incorporated this today (May 4, 2016).  Video and images of students "getting physical fitness without knowing it" occurred during the entire time!

Watch and view the happenings!
View more images!

Choose Objects To Be Creative

Listicle Series: Why I Arrive At 5:13 AM