Tag: one to one

E-Learning Day Excitement

Molly Sand on

Long story short, my school had an E-Learning Day last week due to a fire in the art department.

For more details click on this link: https://www.sctimes.com/story/news/local/2019/11/05/south-junior-high-fire-tuesday-afternoon-cancels-school-wednesday/4170500002/

I went into this day frustrated by having to do more work than I would if I had the chance to teach in class that day. I was overwhelmed with the idea of learning more new things because this year is full of too many learning experiences. But as the day began, I realized how much I enjoyed the freedom e-learning provided.

I uploaded an e-learning folder with the materials for each of my classes on Schoology.

Materials included:

  • E-Learning Day Check In (used for attendance)
  • PDF assignment
  • Assignment dropbox

I had not used the feature for asking students a question before and found a lot of use for it by creating my check in questions. I plan to use more check in questions to start my reading class because I need a better routine for starting class.

For the check in, I asked my students to write a few sentences about how their day off was going and what their plans were. I provided them with two sentence frames.

My day is going ____________________________.

I am going to ______________________________.

On short notice, this was the perfect way for my students to engage in the class to be counted as present.

The PDFs were of two worksheets from my reading class’ review packet. We were going to do them in class, so I thought this would be a great way to gauge how many students understand how to complete and turn in assignments on Schoology.

Well, I got my answer. Half of my class completed the check in and only ONE student completed and turned in the worksheets. I am not sure if my directions were not clear, but I chose to keep them simple in the hopes of preventing confusion. I guess I was wrong, but am unsure.

By the end of the work day, I decided to develop a discussion for class the following day about E-Learning Days. Our students had not been exposed to this kind of learning yet and I felt they needed to express their thoughts/questions. The reflection lesson went over well and I was able to address many questions and issues that came up when they were working at home. I also provided them with a few minutes to complete the check in and finish their worksheets on paper.

Before future E-Learning Days, I plan to teach my students how to export the PDFs into Notability, go over how to use Notability, and how to submit assignments from Notability into the dropbox on Schoology. Overall, I am not feeling more confident in E-Learning Days and will develop clear and concise directions for the assignments.

Airdrop for Amateurs

Molly Sand on

Again, I am a few steps behind when it comes to using different pieces of technology in my classroom. This week was one full of exploration. I made the brave decision to embrace the one-to-one technology available and so far it has been a positive decision. They have been working on a video project for a week and a half. It is finally time to wrap up and turn in their final projects. I realized turning in videos could be complicated, so I taught myself how to use Airdrop on my laptop for students to turn in their TV commercial projects.

I was hesitant to use this technology because my students have misused it so many times before. My only experience with Airdrop before this week was for writing up students for airdropping photos during class and disrupting instruction.

After today, I will only use Airdrop for students to submit projects. They were able to airdrop their video from iMovie to my MacBook Air. It only took a few minutes depending on how long the videos were.

Here are some simple directions:

1. Open Finder

2. Click Airdrop on the left side

3. Turn on Bluetooth

4. Select who can Airdrop to your device

 

Airplay Adventures

Molly Sand on

It has been an exciting week working with Airplay. I might be late to the party when it comes to using this in my classroom, but better late than never. Airplay has offered a lot of help when it comes to avoiding the technology mishaps I shared earlier this week and allows me to move freely around the classroom.

I am able to change slides, show videos, help students, and more all at the same time. Maybe not entirely the “same time,” but you know what I mean. I can do more than when I had to sit next to my laptop with all of the cords connected hoping the screen would appear.

My only concern is that I do not know how exactly this system works. My students were excited for this technology to be available, especially with them making TV Commercials to present soon. One of them asked how Airplay works and I could not give them a decent answer.

The media specialist set it up for me on the classroom computer and showed me how to connect my laptop to it, but did not explain the details of how it works. I will continue to look into this for my students.

One-to-One Technology Pros and Cons

Molly Sand on

One-to-one “is applied to programs that provide all students in a school, district, or state with their own laptop, netbook, tablet computer, or other mobile-computing device. One-to-one refers to one computer for every student” (The Glossary of Education Reform).

As a teacher in a one-to-one school, I struggle to embrace the technology available. In my school, students are given an iPad to complete schoolwork on. Many students also use these for personal use. This can cause issues with how to appropriately use the iPads.

My students are not yet productive technology users. We stick to a more traditional classroom for my seventh graders. But my eighth graders, they are required to bring the iPads every day to complete notes and assignments. The maturity difference between seventh and eighth grade can be demonstrated by how they use their technology. The seventh graders are personal use focused, whereas the eighth graders are school focused with some personal use. A year makes an extreme difference in how students use their technology at school.

One-to-One is definitely has both positive and negative impacts on schools. Some of the pros and cons of One-to-One in my school are below. There are many more, but I stuck with five for each.

Pros of One-to-One:

  • Students have access to new technology and the apps used by the school everywhere
  • Wifi Hotspots are available to check out (may not apply to every school district)
  • Students are able to develop appropriate skills for using technology
  • Introducing students to technology they might use in a career
  • Reducing paper copies

Cons of One-to-One:

  • Not bringing iPads to class or school
  • Not charging iPads for school
  • Using technology for games instead of schoolwork
  • Access to non-educational sites
  • Breaking the technology

With access to technology 24/7, my students are expected to follow school policies when using the device and treat the device with care because it is school property after all. I think I would like to incorporate more technology use for in class work with my seventh graders, but I will need to take it step by step.

Edpuzzle for English Language Learners

Molly Sand on

Hello all,

Today, I will be discussing how to use Edpuzzle and more specifically how to incorporate it into a 7th grade language arts class with students identified as English Language Learners.

According to Sylvester and Greenidge, “A digital story is a multimedia text consisting of still images complemented by a narrated soundtrack to tell a story or present a documentary; sometimes video clips are embedded between images.” Edpuzzle is a format for digital storytelling. Digital stories motivate students to be more engaged throughout listening to and creating a story.

Edpuzzle is a new addition to the more familiar teaching model, Flipped Classroom. The Flipped Classroom Model is where the educator shares predetermined digital resources with students through a platform outside of the classroom, and related content is also taught through the same outside platform asynchronously (Cabi, p. 203).

Cabi discusses four important components needed in a lesson to be considered as a Flipped Classroom lesson. These components include restructuring the learning environment to be more flexible and consider the needs of individuals, not only the whole group. The next component is developing a learner-centered approach and providing students with opportunities and activities to enrich learning. The third component is for educators to track student progress closely and monitor the level of the content. The final component focuses on giving feedback and assessing students’ knowledge (Cabi, p. 203). As you read this post, you will learn about how Edpuzzle aligns with the four major components of the Flipped Classroom Model.

Edpuzzle is available for both educators and students to use for free. Educators and students have access to limited storage on the free plan, but can upgrade to a paid plan for unlimited storage. It can be used to enhance any kind of lesson from science to math and writing to reading. My experience with Edpuzzle, as I have mentioned in previous posts, is limited to using it as a student. I enjoyed majority of my time interacting as a student, but felt as if my time could have been more productive if the instructor allowed certain features to be available to students. I will speak more on those features later on in this post.

According to Leslie Mischel, video lessons have been “incorporated into the flipped classroom, massive open online courses, and other learning sites, such as Lynda.com or Khan Academy, to allow individuals to learn about topics of interest at their own pace.” Edpuzzle gives educators and students access to videos from Khan Academy, YouTube, National Geographic, Ted Talks, Veritasium, Numberphile, and Crash Course. The videos being used in my lesson will be from YouTube. They are audio readings of the novel Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.

I chose to rework these recordings with Edpuzzle because my co-taught language arts class has various learning abilities and language proficiencies. The features allow for differentiation and scaffolding for all of my students. This is important when working with not only English Language Learners (ELL), but also when working with all students.

As you can see in the images below, Edpuzzle provides a simple and inviting appearance for those who may be intimidated by adding a new piece of technology to their classroom.

Edpuzzle offers videos in various content areas to be edited to fit any lesson. Educators can use this tool to add a voiceover to videos from the site or uploaded videos. There is a feature to crop videos and add questions or notes to enhance the comprehension of the concepts in the lesson.

I will be displaying how I will use this form of technology in my co-taught language arts class. I will be enhancing their learning experience by providing stop and check comprehension questions throughout the audiobook reading of Number the Stars.

I decided to focus on adding questions to the audiobook reading because my students are at various levels for reading. Some are comfortable reading long series like Harry Potter, whereas others might struggle to read graphic novels, which contain few sentences per page. By using the quiz tool, I am able to insert open-ended questions, true or false, or multiple-choice. I have developed stop and check comprehension questions for chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, and chapter 4. I will continue to add questions and notes throughout the rest of the novel. With these questions, I can engage and track my students comprehension while they listen to each chapter.

In this video, you will be able to view a screencast of how to insert a question to a specific point of the video (Video Link).

In ISD 742, we utilize Schoology for our classes. It is a platform for engaging with students and other staff, similar to Facebook or Twitter. Edpuzzle is now available on Schoology for posting the content to different classes and creating assignments. For example: As a class, we will listen to the audio reading of chapter one, discuss what happened, and who we have been introduced to in this chapter. Then for the assignment, students will be able to access the video on Schoology to re-listen to the chapter at home and answer the quiz questions when they appear on the video.

I realize my different learning levels and styles in my classroom can impact how my students will complete this type of an assignment. Keeping that in mind, I chose to turn on the ability to skip ahead in the video, as well as closed-captioning. This will cater to differentiated instruction because students can read the captions and listen to the voice reading at the same time. They will not be required to re-listen to the entire chapter, but will have the opportunity to choose which parts they need to re-listen to in order to answer the questions accurately.

In this video, you will see how a student can skip ahead to a question instead of re-listening to an entire section of the reading (Video Link).

Edpuzzle tracks students engagement with the videos and their overall results. One of the reports indicates which students watched the assigned video, how accurately they answer the quiz questions, and whether they watched the video before the due date or not (Mischel, p. 285). With this information, I will be able to provide informed feedback to each student. They will have access to their score sheets and I will conference with them to ensure they understand why they received a certain grade.

To recap, Edpuzzle provides a flexible learning opportunity for all students, differentiates for individual learning needs, effectively tracks student progress, and encourages educators to provide detailed feedback. I believe this kind of technology will enhance my students understanding and engagement while reading a novel.

Work Cited

Cabı, Emine. “The Impact of the Flipped Classroom Model on Students Academic Achievement.” The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, vol. 19, no. 3, Nov. 2018, doi:10.19173/irrodl.v19i3.3482.

Mischel, Leann J. “Watch and Learn? Using EDpuzzle to Enhance the Use of Online Videos.” Management Teaching Review, vol. 4, no. 3, July 2018, pp. 283–289., doi:10.1177/2379298118773418.

Sylvester, Ruth, and Wendy-Lou Greenidge. “Digital Storytelling: Extending the Potential for Struggling Writers.” The Reading Teacher, vol. 63, no. 4, Jan. 2009, pp. 284–295., doi:10.1598/rt.63.4.3.

 

Teachnology Reflection 6

Molly Sand on

My rough draft was just that. Rough. I am still unsure of my exact goals of how I want technology to be incorporated into my classroom. Currently in one of my classes, the students are not able to use their iPads except strictly for their current project. We allowed the students choices for completing their speech project. The choices included:

  1. Google Docs
  2. Google Slides
  3. Notability
  4. Notecards
  5. Notebook

My co-teacher and I thought this would be better than assigning one form of completing the project. Unfortunately, the students have little experience with all of the above choices. To model how to write notecards, I utilized our DocCam and described the steps as I wrote out my own speech. This seemed to benefit them because they were able to see the model, listen to the steps again, and reread the instructions.

Then I showed them how to write their speeches using Google Slides. I clearly labeled my slides for each section (Introduction, Category 1, Category 2, Category 3, and Conclusion). I also included images to demonstrate the three items required for their speech. With the slides presentation, I gave them an example of how to give their speech using technology in the classroom.

I think as the year goes on, as long as we continue to model the behavior and set clear expectations for technology, we should be able to let the students be more creative with the iPads.

Teachnology Philosophy Reflection 5

Molly Sand on

After reading “A Community of Voices: Educational Blog Management Strategies and Tools,” I started thinking about the relevancy and need of using Edpuzzle in a co-taught language arts classroom with ESL and mainstream students.

I believe Edpuzzle will be an asset to my classroom because of the features it offers and content available. The only set back I have currently is the amount of free storage. I have almost met the limit for free storage and as a teacher, I do not have the funds to create content outside of this current project. I was able to develop chapters 1 through 4 of the audio reading for Number the Stars. If I want to continue to use this tool, I will need to purchase more storage or figure out a way to save the video quizzes I have created and move on to more content.

The need for a technology that is easily accessible and is user friendly is important in an integrated classroom. The various learning styles and levels complicate many lessons. We do a lot of starting over from scratch with our co-taughts and this can cause frustration for mainstream students in a co-taught. With Edpuzzle, I am hoping to relieve some of those frustrations because the videos will be posted to their Schoology class page and they will be able to work at their own pace.

The Edpuzzle videos will allow students to reread (re-listen) on their own time and answer stop/check questions to gauge understanding of the story. I think using this form of technology is relevant for mainstream and ESL students to aid in individualized education.

Teachnology Philosophy Reflection 4

Molly Sand on

There is mainstream teaching and then there is co-teaching. Yes, they both have teaching in the name, but they are different approaches being used in many schools. I am a teacher, but I co-teach four out of the five classes i teach. According to the U of M, “Co-teaching is defined as two teachers working together with groups of students; sharing the planning, organization, delivery, and assessment instruction, as well as the physical space.”

Co-teaching can be difficult at times and other times i am grateful to have another adult in the room to back me up. One thing I have learned about my co-teachers is that I am the most tech savvy out of the two co-teaching pairs I am a part of. My co-teachers are older than me and have not used certain programs or software, such as Edpuzzle.

Since I share my language arts classes with a co-teacher, i will need to teach not only my students how to use Edpuzzle, but also my co-teacher. She gets lost when using technology and I have had to remake many lessons because formatting or software was not compatible or pleasing to the eye. I am glad I started working on my videos for Number the Stars ahead of time because I should have them all finished with enough time to teach my co-teacher the new content.

Teachnology Philosophy Reflection 3

Molly Sand on

Reflection prompt: What theories, readings, and experiences have shaped your perspective on using technology in the classroom?

I am working in a school that is one-to-one and the technology available to students comes in the form of an iPad. Through my experience in this school I have come across many difficulties. Students have used their iPads for non-school related tasks and this has hindered their understanding of why the technology is important for their learning.

I would like to help my students to understand how to use their technology appropriately and effectively for their learning. I have started reading New York Times Articles about technology in the classroom. They wrote a series of articles about this topic in 2012 and in the first article they prompted students to comment about the following:

“Students:Tell us about the ways that the teachers in your school use technology, and how well you think it enhances what and how you learn. What mix of traditional teaching and teaching with emerging technologies do you think would be best for you as a learner? Why?” (The New York Times)

Some students preferred digital note taking because it eliminates messy handwriting. Others expressed how older teachers have difficulties with using technology and incorporating it into their lessons. The comments were interesting to read through and I suggest you do to learn what some students think when teachers use technology.

The NYT prompt can be used during the technology expectations review most schools participate in doing each year. It can be used as a way to receive feedback from students and how a teacher can incorporate more or adjust how they currently use technology.

I expect through this class and these reflections I will be more comfortable using the iPads more often in my classroom.

Teachnology Philosophy Reflection 2

Molly Sand on

As a first year teacher last year, I was overwhelmed with the opportunities technology provided my classes. I admit I did not use technology as much as I would have liked to, but I first needed to be a “regular” teacher before I introduced more media into lessons.

My overall goals as a teacher using technology include the following:

  1. I would like to incorporate assignments to be completed online only. This would teach my students not only how to save paper for when it is absolutely necessary, but would provide a new learning space for them to grow.
  2. I would like to instruct a mini lesson on how to Google properly. I have noticed many of my students do not know how to use this search engine to their advantage yet and I want to help them get there. There are times when they will not be able to get help on an assignment or project and may need assistance from a Youtube video or an image from google images. Without the proper tools to search, their assignment might might be incomplete.
  3. I will be introducing Edpuzzle videos into language arts and will be tracking the progress of my students ability to comprehend the novel Number the Stars. I have started adding ‘stop and check’ questions to the audio readings of the chapters. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 are works in progress, but I think you will be able to see the benefits of asking clarifying questions while using an audio reading.

Over this next week, I will be looking at new ways to introduce technology into my language arts and reading classes. This will include apps for reading books, watching videos for further understanding a concept, and creating a speech about themselves to share with the whole class.