Category: #DigitalCitizen

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To Blog or Microblog?

Many teachers are very familiar with and involved in maintaining blogs for their classrooms and students.  However, the advent of microblogging through platforms like Twitter can enhance or simplify your blogging habits!  Read how!

What is Microblogging?

We recently wrote a post that explored the in’s and out’s of Twitter for teachers.  If you haven’t had a chance to read that yet, we recommend you start with that article first!

Microblogging, according a journal at the University of Stuttgart, can be explained in the following definition:

“Social networking and microblogging services such as Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ allow people to broadcast short messages, so-called microposts, in continuous streams.” [source]¹

So, while Twitter is not the only microblogging platform (see article that compares 10 others), we will be referring to Twitter as our main classroom tool for the purposes of this article.

How Microblogging with Twitter Works

Microblogging for your class can be very effective in conjunction with a classroom blog as it gives you a place where students can access your feeds, links, etc.  However, that does not mean additional efforts–in fact, this approach will likely save you precious blogging time!

If you already keep a classroom blog to post pictures, homework, and general tidbits about what’s happening at school, chances are that you have experienced difficulty in posting content consistently or on the same day the pictures, activities, and videos actually happened.  It may be easy enough to snap some pictures in the moment with your phone, but those can be easy to forget in the shuffle at the end of the day–and even when you do remember, it can be tough to scrounge up the time to upload your photos to your computer and then a new blog post, complete with a description!

Instead, consider how the above situation changes with the tool of Twitter microblogging:

  1. Open your Twitter app on your mobile device
  2. Next to “What’s Happening,” snap your photos within the app
  3. Add a quick, 140 character phrase describing the discovery, instantly creating a feed that looks like this (thank you for sharing, Catherine!):

If you don’t have a classroom blog, you can simply give parents and students your handle (@_____) and have them follow you with their own Twitter accounts (and for this reason, we highly recommend that you keep a separate Twitter account for your classroom than for your personal use).  If you do have a blog, then you can further spread the word by using a widget to upload your Twitter feed to your blog homepage, which can be especially helpful in reaching those who don’t have Twitter accounts! Below are steps to create your widget:

  1. Click on the Settings icon at the top right corner of your Twitter page.
  2. Select “Widgets” from the menu on the left-hand side of the page
  3. Create and personalize your widget.  There are several choices for what your feed will reflect.  One option is to display posts for a specific hashtag (especially perfect if you have created a unique class hashtag that you include in each of your Tweets!):

Twitter feed--#pypchat

If you have a class Twitter account, you could also display your own feed.

Once the widget is created, inserting it into your blog varies according to your platform.  Click here for a great WordPress tutorial!  For others, you may need to copy and paste the widget code into the HTML of your site–many have an HTML widget you can insert for this kind of purpose!

When to Blog or Microblog

→Blog

  • Giving instructions
  • Explaining a project
  • Sharing reflections
  • Sharing any media you want embedded into your blog (ie, Prezi, video, etc.)
  • Reminding students of several upcoming events (perhaps in a list)
  • Posting archived Tweets or entire class Twitter debates that you don’t want to get lost in the shuffle (Storify is a great resource for this kind of archiving!  See this article for ideas on how several educators make use of this!)

→Microblog

  • Sharing student lightbulb moments, questions, and discoveries
  • Sharing short reflections on student–or your–learning
  • Giving quick reminders of individual assignments or events
  • Posting pictures and videos you take in class
  • Sharing links to any media or websites that have the Twitter share icon (which is just about anything!)
  • Sharing (and actually having) Twitter debates–just remember to have students include your unique class hashtag in each of their tweets!

This combination can make for a powerful and efficient solution to reaching parents and students effectively, but remember to work for a balance that will maximize and save your precious time!

Photo Credit: Kārlis Dambrāns

Sources:

1. Lohmann, S., et al. (2012). Visual Analysis of Microblog Content Using Time-Varying

Co-occurrence Highlighting in Tag Clouds.

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Considering Flipped Learning for Your Classroom

You’ve probably heard the buzz around Flipped Learning online or around your school.  If you are contemplating implementing this teaching approach, we would encourage you to carefully consider several areas addressed in this article.

The Gist

When teachers flip their classrooms, they flip around their use of classroom time and homework time.  To sum it up quickly:

  • Traditional class structure:  lessons during school → practice during homework.
  • Flipped classroom structure: practice during school → lessons during homework.
AJ Cann
AJ Cann

Click for an Infographic that gives more details on certain aspects of a flipped classroom: Oer Research Hub Flipped Classroom Infographic

The Reasoning

  • Efficiency and relationships: Proponents frequently submit these as two principal benefits of Flipped Learning. With the lectures transformed into much more efficient, shortened videos, teachers can dedicate class time for more personalized interaction with students.  This in turn can also better enable differentiated instruction (see youtube video below)

  • Revolutionizing Homework Time: Homework critics have long asserted their view that student practice at home without any teacher guidance is an ineffective, frustrating use of students’ time.  Flipped Learning has the potential to address this frustration when that practice time is instead brought to the classroom (source)¹.
  • Data Support:  Formal studies examining the effects of flipped learning have yet to come, but many positive experiences have been shared.  For instance, Clintondale High School reported that when their teachers used three 5-7 minute lessons per week to flip their classes, math and English failure rates dropped from 44% to 13%, and 50% to 19%, respectively.  They also had a sharp decrease in discipline cases. (source)².
  • Actually a Time-Tested, Old Idea?  Others bring up the point that Flipped Learning is just a modern strategy to implement a proven, John Dewey-coined pedagogy: centering the learning more around the learner than the teacher (source)³.

Some (free!) Resources

Homework Side of the Flip:

Teacher-made resources
  • Screenr:   Records a video of what you do on your computer screen (ie, a PowerPoint, Prezi, or Word Document), while simultaneously recording your voice as you explain the content.  Easy to share through Youtube or embedding.
  • Educreations: Records your voice as you draw your lesson.  You can also prepare the slides before you start recording your voice to be more efficient through your lesson.
  • Sophia: Allows you to bring in content such as PDF’s and Google Documents.  You can even attach quizzes to your lessons!
  • Youtube: Great if you want a full-blown video with your face.  Make sure the lighting and sound are high quality, though!
Already-made resources: (for details on each of these, see our article on Common Core-aligned resources for teachers)
  • Khan Academy
  • Better Lesson
  • LearnZillion

Classroom Side of the Flip

  • ExitTicket.org: Particularly if you have a 1:1 mobile devices due to a BYOD or other program (see our post on tips for a BYOD Classroom), you can check for understanding at the beginning of each lesson before proceeding to better enable differentiation.  Click here for an article on how one educator uses this!
  • Respond to questions inspired by homework lessons: Start the lesson with exploring student-raised questions that came up during the homework.  To allow you time to consider and prepare for those questions, you can even include in the homework assignment for students to email you at least one question.
  • Require students to take notes: This approach would be especially appropriate for older grades.  Just make sure you model to them effective note-taking while watching a video (see article addressing this practice).

5 Ways to Encourage Student-Centered Learning in the Flip

1. Understand Flipped Learning’s Direct Instruction Design

The official FLN (Flipped Learning Network) definition of flipped learning says, “”Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space…” (source)⁴  In other words, flipped homework videos are intended almost exclusively for direct instruction use.

For this reason, we strongly encourage every educator to be extremely selective in when and how they choose to flip lessons.  If many of your class lessons are already inquiry-based, only use flipped learning on the occasion direct instruction is needed–or perhaps, even after your inquiry lesson to extend and reinforce the big ideas students discovered.  If most of your lessons are currently direct instruction, we feel that flipped learning is just one step in how you can approach your teaching in a way that reaches more learners, and on deeper levels. (see points #2 and 3).

We have seen articles mentioning that one benefit of flipped classrooms is that students who are absent won’t get behind (source)⁵.  However, this perspective suggests that students wouldn’t miss much if they had to skip the classroom inquiry time–that the teacher-centered, direct instructional videos would be sufficient.  However, we maintain that it is critical for teachers to possess the reverse perspective if they are to cultivate a student-centered focus.

2. Don’t Depend on Flipped Learning Alone to Inspire!

To illustrate this point, we would like to reference a few educators that have discussed the topic of Flipped Learning in the context of inquiry-based instruction:

  • In his April 2013 Ted Talk, “3 Rules to Spark Learning,” educator Ramsey Musallam said the following:
    • “Questions and curiosity…are magnets that draw us towards our teachers, and they transcend all technology or buzzwords in education. But if we place these technologies before student inquiry, we can be robbing ourselves of our greatest tool as teachers: our students’ questions. For example, flipping a boring lecture from the classroom to the screen of a mobile device might save instructional time, but if it is the focus of our students’ experience, it’s the same dehumanizing chatter–just wrapped up in fancy clothing. But if instead we have the guts to confuse our students, perplex them, and evoke real questions, through those questions, we as teachers have information that we can use to tailor robust and informed methods of blended instruction.” (source)⁶
  • Edna Sackson, author of blog WhatEdSaid, shared her perspective:
    • “It’s not so much about flipping as about rethinking altogether. [emphasis added]. Learning isn’t linear. It’s not a step by step, one size fits all process. It doesn’t go in a sequence from remembering to understanding to analysing… and finish with creating. And it doesn’t necessarily have to go in the reverse order either. It depends on the learner and on the situation.” (source)⁷
  • Many individuals discussing flipped learning promote the idea of moving lower-level Bloom’s Taxonomy skills (remembering, understanding) to the homework lessons, and higher-level skills (creating, evaluating) to the classroom (source)⁸.  However, educator Shelley Wright suggests flipping Bloom’s Taxonomy as well!  She writes, “Here’s what I propose. In the 21st century, we flip Bloom’s taxonomy. Rather than starting with knowledge, we start with creating, and eventually discern the knowledge that we need from it.”  (source)⁹

3. Start With the Why

Gavin Llewellyn
Gavin Llewellyn

Author Simon Sinek gave a TED Talk a few years ago about what motivates people, stemming from his “Golden Circle” model.  He explains that what has always set apart innovative and inspiring leaders, such as the Wright Brothers, is that they they focused on their beliefs or their Why, rather than the How or What.

This concept absolutely applies to how we approach learning.  Think about your Why as a teacher:  is your end goal for students to just pass your class and move on in the system, memorizing your content just long enough to pass your tests?  Or do you hope for their sights to be raised in wonder and possibility, taking their learning further by building upon it throughout their lives?  If we focus only on results, then all of our most carefully-constructed worksheets, projects, and activities will stem from the How and What, and will likely lead to very little.  However, if we focus on the Why first, we will find increased levels of student ownership and engagement as they set their own visions higher.  (check out Edna Sackson’s post on Differentiating Learning for additional ideas for raising our own sights in this approach!)

4. Design Homework Videos to be Accessible & Useful to Students

Particularly in higher education levels, we have seen examples of teachers and professors approaching the homework side of the flip in ways that can be overburdensome and/or ineffective for students.  For example, creating videos that are especially lengthy may work in isolation for your class; however, if a student has multiple instructors who have flipped their classrooms, it may be prove overwhelming for students. Additionally, one benefit of flipped classrooms is students’ ability to pause, rewind, and replay the videos as needed to better absorb the information.  Therefore, if your 1-hour video is one among several assigned in an evening, students will be less likely to thoroughly engage, regardless of their age  Jonathan Bergmann, a pioneer in flipped learning, recommends no more than 1 ½ minutes per grade level (source)⁸.  On the other hand, instructors should also take care that the content of their video adequately covers the concepts to be practiced in class.  Finding the balance between these two ideas will come with trial and error, so be sure to seek student feedback as you do so!

As you consider how to make your videos as practical and engaging as possible, don’t forget about accessibility, either!  Many students prefer to access flipped homework videos via smartphones, so make sure the platform you’re using is available on both desktops and mobile devices!

5. Have a Realistic Troubleshooting Gameplan

  • No internet, computers, or mobile devices at home?  This is becoming a less frequent problem all the time, but it still exists!  While we have come across several potential solutions to this problem, (including burning videos to DVD’s or flashdrives, using the public library, using the school computer lab after school, or watching with a friend or borrowed device), not every idea will be practical at your school.  To guide your search, seek your students’ input to find out not only what they would prefer, but for how many of them this is an issue.  Consider factors such as your own time constraints for burning DVD’s or how many computers are even available for students at your school.  You may need to take an alternative route altogether and watch the videos during class.  See the video below to see how this works:

  • Some students don’t watch the homework videos?  Establish a formative assessment each day to check for understanding, whether it’s ExitTickets.org, emailed questions, or note-taking.  If you have computers in your classroom, you may decide that students who missed it can watch the video in class, but make sure you still have measures in place to encourage accountability (ie, the students would then have an extra assignment based on the practice they missed).

Photo Credit:

Dan Spencer (featured image)

AJ Cann

Gavin Llewellyn

 Sources:

1. Goodwin, Bryan & Miller, Kirsten. (March 2013). Evidence on Flipped Classrooms Is Still Coming In.

2. Knewton. Flipped Classroom Infographic.

3. Hertz, Mary Beth. (July 2012). The Flipped Classroom: Pro & Con.

4. Flipped Learning Network (FLN). (2014) The Four Pillars of F-L-I-P™

5. Bergmann, J, Overmyer, J., & Willie, B. (2013). The Flipped Class: What it Is & What it Is Not.

6. Musallam, R. (2013). 3 Rules to Spark Learning.

7. Sackson, E. (2012). Learning Isn’t Linear.

8. Raths, D. (2013). 9 Video Tips for a Better Flipped Classroom.

9. Wright. S. (2012). Flipping Bloom’s Taxonomy.

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Unlocking Twitter’s Classroom Potential

If teachers want to truly prepare students for the future, we must accept that social media is not going anywhere.  Read on for tips on getting started in Twitter as an educator!

“Isn’t Twitter just another mundane way to micro-share everything in your life?”  “Twitter just seemed too complicated with all the symbols and rules.”  “Even if there are educational resources on Twitter, I just don’t have the time to join another social media website.”

Do any of these thoughts sound like you?  If so, you’ve come to the right place, because we’ve been there, too!  This article is designed to help you understand its benefits as an educator, as well as to provide basic steps and ideas to get started–all from the perspective of a fellow educator!

5 Reasons You Should Join Twitter As an Educator

#1: Professional Development:

We very purposefully place this reason first!  Resources like Twitter are the reason professional development is increasingly becoming a personalized experience at schools.  Once you establish yourself with few educational hashtags combined with tools such as TweetDeck (see Simple Steps below), you will instantly have a wealth of current topics and resources to explore. For example, check out the screenshot that I randomly took of my own Twitter feed below:

Tweetdeck screenshot

Just glancing at the feeds, you can see resources and conversations ranging from math fact apps, to tips for using QR codes, to ideas for supporting inquiry!  Many professional development days at schools currently involve the entire staff listening (often halfheartedly, especially if it doesn’t apply to them individually) to a couple of admin-selected trainers.  Envision PD instead becoming days when the staff breaks into groups to spend the day truly exploring their areas of professional interest/needs–reading/discussing articles and contacting experts online with questions.  Twitter has the potential to revolutionize each teacher’s development as professionals not only on a school-wide basis, but on a personal basis as well!

“The Twitter shift puts each educator in control of her own professional development with self-direction and personalization of content at any time…during planning periods or outside of the school day…If I want, I can get a daily dose of professional learning to go with my early morning cup of Joe. Through the Twitter platform, I discover best practice, research, solutions and ideas delivered to me in 140 characters or fewer, for just in time learning.” ~Meg Ormiston [source]

#2: Relevance

The relevance with regards to using Twitter goes beyond just relating to our more tech-savvy students (although that can be quite significant as well)!  It goes back to what we described in professional development above.  Twitter is an incredible vehicle for teachers and other educational experts to quickly and effectively share their most innovative and valuable ideas.  If we continue to “go it alone,” despite the ready availability of such a goldmine, we will quickly lose touch with the growing possibilities within our own field.

“Social Media is here to stay. Its form may change, and certainly the applications we use will not remain the same, but the idea of openly exchanging information in whatever forms it is produced is not going away. As educators we can use it or lose it. If we don’t start to understand and use this technology soon, we will lose the opportunity to harness it, because we will be irrelevant. We don’t need social media to teach, as much as we need it to learn.” ~Tom Whitby [source]

#3: Help Students Recognize Global Society

As long as our discussions regarding current events and issues throughout the world remain within the confines of our own classroom, such ideas will continue to seem remote to students.  Once we use Twitter to communicate with individuals actually involved in those issues and/or living in those places, students will begin to see themselves as real participants in a global community.

“Educators who participate in Twitter networks are well placed to support students in the use of relevant digital technologies because the Twitter community shares knowledge, resources and expert advice.” ~Tania Sheko [source]

#4: Transparency

Resources like Twitter provide educators with heretofore unheard of levels of genuine, global collaboration.  We are perfectly poised now to share what works and what doesn’t, to seek and receive feedback when we’re stuck, and to showcase examples of great student learning.  This last ability in particular can create increased community connectedness as parents truly witness and participate in their children’s learning.  Classroom learning today looks drastically different than it did a generation ago–it calls for increased focus on process over product, on problem solving skills over memorized facts, and on student ownership over teacher control (see more ways learning has changed).  Parents, administrators, and fellow teachers need to see the benefits of such changes in order to cultivate understanding and support; in other words, we need transparency across the board to further improve teaching and learning practices!

“…they started with the why, and then created a vision for sharing beyond the walls of the classroom. Their purpose was to share with the community the great things happening in classrooms in the three-building prek-8 school district.” ~Meg Ormiston [source]

#5: Professional Development

Wait, did we say that already?  Yep.  It’s that important.

“Imagine if every teacher shared just one of their best sources with other educators, who in turn could tweet them out to the tune of 700,000 tweets in a half hour. Everyone would benefit. The idea here is to get educators familiar with the concept of connectedness and its possibilities…” ~Tom Whitby [source]

Simple Steps to Get Started

Twitter is less simplistic than other social media platforms when it comes to maximizing its use, especially in a professional capacity.  However, it is well worth the time invested in establishing your own Professional Learning Network (PLN–check out our article on building PLN’s here).  We have included some simple steps below to help you get started!  Also, be sure to check out the 13-page Handbook from plpnetwork.com, which breaks down definitions and steps in easy-to-follow detail.

  1. Twitter handbook--plpnetworkSet-up a username using the @ symbol (called your Twitter handle)
  2. Upload a picture and short bio to help potential followers know who you are!
  3. Find hashtags that interest you!  Some of our favorites include #edtech, #edchat, and #comments4kids.  Click here for a fantastic list of other educational hashtags recommended by PLP network!
  4. Download TweetDeck!  In our view, this is an essential tool to manage your time on Twitter, because it allows you to easily scan through happenings in your favorite hashtags, as well as your own notifications and news feed.  Just add columns by hitting the + icon, or by searching for individual hashtags/people and clicking “Add Column.”
  5. Start following individuals and leaving comments to grow your network.
  6. When you start creating Tweets, if you want to share a link, be sure to use URL shorteners such as Bitly or Owly to conserve your precious 140 characters!
  7. Start participating in educational Tweetchats, which are scheduled at live times for people to have discussions.  Many hashtags schedule regular Tweetchat times for their followers to have live discussions (ie, #pypchat schedules every other Thursday at 7pm Eastern Time), and keep an eye out on educational blogs you follow for their scheduled chats!
  8. Check out the Infographic to the right for additional information and details, as well as the PLP Handbook!

Practical K-12 Uses

If you teach at a BYOD school (Bring Your Own Device) or in another circumstance in which mobile devices are 1:1, the ways for students to use Twitter in the classroom are broader.  Below are some specific ideas.

  • Debates: Your students can engage in a voices-off debate in which they must articulately craft their responses into 140 characters.
  • Research: The possibilities are endless in collecting both secondary and primary resources on Twitter–particularly since experts on virtually every topic are available to give short responses to tweets.
  • Build their OWN PLN:  Students can begin networking with other individuals and experts who share their interests, well beyond just a pen-pal capacity.

On the other hand, if your students are very young, if your school does not use BYOD, or if, for any other reason, you are the only person with access to Twitter in the classroom, there are still incredible and practical ways for you to use it!

  • Microblogging: Download the Twitter app to quickly snap photos, upload videos, and post Tweets on amazing classroom happenings with your mobile device! Add your own classroom hashtag to each post to keep them organized in one place!  (Read our article on when and how to blog vs. microblog!)
  • Parent Involvement: Not only can you boost parent involvement through microblogging, but you can also host your own regular Tweetchats using your classroom hashtag!  Simply share with parents the above steps to get started on Twitter, and then give them the date and time for your chat!  You can either set the topic in advance to generate interest and ideas, or you can have an open forum for questions on homework, school events, projects, etc.
  • Facilitate Student Research: You don’t have to let students’ inability to personally tweet hold them back when it comes to their research!  When students generate their own questions and consider who would be knowledgeable on the topic, you can act as their Twitter research facilitator by sending tweets to experts on their behalf!
  • Seeking feedback for student work: This is similar to the above idea, but with the additional idea of sharing all student work! Using hashtags such as #comments4kids–designed specifically for sharing student work with other classrooms–you can share their essays, questions, blogs, and more, with the added benefit of receiving feedback from other classes around the globe!

Happy Tweeting!  We’d love to hear your success stories in the comments!

Featured Image: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

Sources:

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10 Tips for BYOD Classrooms

BYOD or “Bring Your Own Device” is becoming more commonplace in workplaces and conferences, but what about in the classroom?

Important Logistics

Since many students possess one kind of device or another (laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.), implementing a BYOD approach at school has the potential to address the financial concerns of funding and maintaining school-wide technology.  However, according to an article¹ by Sharo Dickerson, several essential considerations must be made before implementing such an approach:

  • Network security & systems (Make sure the school can handle the additional bandwidth!)
  • Established policies for teacher & student safety (see some examples & this fantastic Edutopia mini-handbook!)
  • Financial support for students who don’t own a mobile device
  • Apps or other software that the school will make available for all BYOD devices at the school to enable effective classroom use

Same Old Learning with Shiny New Gear?

Even when all the above procedural concerns are managed, introducing BYOD could quickly go the way of 1:1 laptop programs without care.  According to a recent study¹, “Computers in K-12 classrooms are mostly used to support the same textbooks, curriculum, and teaching practices that continue to represent traditional classroom settings” (Norris & Soloway, 2011).  Many administrators and teachers, such as Jennie Magiera², experience the pitfalls of assuming that just the presence of technology in the classroom will motivate and inspire learning to higher levels.  During one of my student teaching experiences, I witnessed first-hand a classroom that was packed with all the latest technology, including 1:1 student desktop computers, an interactive whiteboard, and Activotes–yet it still felt the same as most traditional 20th Century classrooms.  Even the high-tech interactive whiteboard was used like a regular whiteboard or, at best, a projector, with ordinary lists of math problems on the board to be solved, or Basal passages for students to read together.

So what do we do to help BYOD avoid the smoke and mirrors of other failed techno-integration attempts?  According to the Dickerson article, it’s essential to include an “adaptation of constructivism in redesigning curriculum and content delivery.”  In other words:

Bill Ferriter
Bill Ferriter
  • The creator of the above picture, Bill Ferriter³, explains that kids aren’t motivated by the technology itself, but by its potential for further opportunities to expand their learning horizons.
  • Jennie Magiera, explains in her article² her realization that she would need to “break down to rebuild” in order to foster real growth.
  • As Wolf Creek Public Schools have introduced BYOD, they are focusing on the “pedagogy before technology,” with the mentality that “It’s not a tech goal; it’s a learning goal.”
  • Edna Sackson, author of popular learning blog, WhatEdSaid⁴, describes 10 “Big Ideas” for deeper learning, including ownership, collaboration, creativity, problem solving, curiosity, diversity, flexibility, relevance, connection, and change.

The common denominator in all these examples of higher level learning with technology?  Technology has the potential to dramatically revolutionize 21st century learning; we can’t expect that to happen with same-old 20th century teaching strategies and mentalities!

Ideas for Authentic 21st Century Learning

As you implement a BYOD or any technology approach in your classroom, you will need to consider the unique needs of your students.  However, we hope this list will give you some ideas to help students authentically use devices to enhance and customize their own learning:

1. Twitter (Click here for our article on Twitter for Teachers!)

Make a unique hashtag for your class that will enable you to post questions, comments, links, or even just regular announcements.  Students could also upload thoughts on their learning using this hashtag, both in and out of the classroom!  You can even use the hashtag to organize TweetChats during class for students to experience a dynamic debate that eliminates the need to “take turns talking.” (Tweetdeck is a great resource to easily view all Tweets within a hashtag). In addition, you could use existing hashtags such as #comments4kids to publish student work and ask questions to engage with a real audience!  (See this free Twitter handbook for teachers for more ideas for classroom use, as well as information to get you started if you’re a Twitter newcomer!)

2. Skype

In the classroom, Skype is a close relative to Twitter in that both have the potential to truly take learning beyond your 4 walls!  Check out our article that goes over how Skype Virtual Field trips work for some specific ideas!

3. App Selection

To help students really utilize technology as a learning tool, choose apps that are “Creation-based over Content-based!”  My article on Practical Student Blogging also lists several resources that include creation-based apps, with Educreations being one of my favorites! Also see apps sorted by topic in my Edutopia post, “Visualizing 21st-Century Classroom Design.”

4. Differentiated Learning

Do you have students who have an IEP accommodation to have a scribe during writing?  Help them discover and use speech-to-text apps such as Dragon Dictation or Evernote, or Google Apps add-ons like Text to Speech with Google Drive!  Do you have students who struggle with remembering assignments or time management?  Help them learn to manage their time with apps like Due or again, Evernote.  Meeting every student’s diverse needs can go from being an elusive ideal to a truly attainable undertaking when we “use technology creatively” (WhatEdSaid article) in the classroom!

5.  Student Blogging

Have students keep digital portfolios of their work and progress throughout the year using blogs!  Check out our post on student blogging for specific ideas to get you started. 2016 edit: Also be sure to check out Seesaw & our privacy-friendly alternatives to blogging.

6. Google Collaboration

Turn writing assignments and other projects into more effective collaboration as students work together in real time in Google Drive!  With their work already online in highly shareable files, they can seek for feedback not just from their classmates, but other peers around the school or even the globe!  We feel strongly that this kind of technology use will empower kids with authentic problem-solving skills as they learn how and from where to seek real feedback (ie, not just their teacher)!

7. Presentations

Thanks to technology, the mediums for presentations have stretched well beyond dioramas, posters, and essays.  Perhaps students will want to make a Toontastic puppet show on their iPad. Others may want to create a Youtube video instead.  Still others may opt for a Prezi (see our post on replacing Powerpoint with 3 highly collaborative, interactive resources).  Whatever the case, with so many options at their fingertips, be sure to give students more autonomy in constructing and displaying their thinking with their BYOD devices!

8. Enrich the scientific process

From digital microscope apps to the simple camera features of devices, students can take scientific learning to a new level.  For example, you can have students take daily photos of an experiment’s progress to create time lapse videos (idea from this WhatEdSaid article), which would help them analyze their data in new ways!  Additionally, students can use Twitter and Skype to ask for feedback from experts or other classes around the world on their findings, or simply to communicate their results!.

9. QR codes

Turning any device into a barcode reader/creator is easy with QR codes!  As you consider the many suggestions available online for their classroom use, remember to hunt for ideas that give students opportunities for ownership and connection–in other words, be picky!  One idea we found that could help fit this purpose include printing and posting some codes around the classroom that take students to various photos or videos to provoke their thinking at the beginning of a unit.  Another idea involves students making QR codes for their research findings that they then post together in the classroom or virtually on the class blog!  Be sure to ask for student input for their use in class as well!

10. Revolutionize Exit Tickets

Rather than sort through exit tickets or assignments after students have gone home with misconceptions, check their progress during learning activities and projects using the program, Exit ticket!  Because you can see their understanding right away, you can adjust your approach to better address their needs.  The program is available on virtually any device with access to a network, thanks to compatibility with Android, iOS, and desktops.

Photo Credit:

Jeremy Keith

Sources:

1 Sharo Dickerson Article

2 Jennie Magiera Article

3 Bill Ferriter Article

4 Various WhatEdSaid articles

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3 Tech-Savvy Powerpoint Alternatives

We’ve all snored through text or slide-heavy Powerpoints before.  The next time you have to create a presentation, consider some of these more engaging alternatives!

These 3 resources each explore the what (how the resource works), the when (uses in the classroom), and the how (how they can replace Powerpoint)!

Thinglink

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What

Take any image and turn it into an interactive dream as you link in videos, pictures, articles, and comments!  They work particularly well if you have a classroom blog or other website your students can access.  The Thinglink above contains more links with details on introducing you to this fantastic resource.

When
  • Introduce yourself to your students in a fun new way!
  • Instead of assigning your 30+ students to all make Powerpoint reports (taking endless hours afterwards presenting in class), assign them to make Thinglinks, publishing them to a class account or on the class blog!
  • Rather than taking class time to go through a Powerpoint, give them a homework assignment to explore a new Thinglink that gets them thinking!  You can just put up an image with questions for them to start wondering and thinking (see example below), or include multimedia to really familiarize them with the subject before doing further study in class!

How

Say you want to present to your students information on documents and systems that helped influence the United States Constitution: the Magna Carta, the Iroquois Confederacy, the Mayflower Compact, and the Articles of Confederation. With a powerpoint, this would be a very linear discussion, covering each topic consecutively, perhaps with videos sprinkled throughout.  With a Thinglink, however, you can link all the videos, media, and thinking questions into one image, and then publish it to a classroom blog or another platform your students can access.  Students can then explore all the links in a manner that best suits their learning–re-watching videos that were confusing for them, or reading articles at their pace that give them even more information!  Check out an example of how we put this together below.

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Prezi

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What

A Prezi is a zoomable presentation that engages viewers as it flows from idea to idea in unexpected, animated ways.  The video above chronicles the development and benefits of using Prezi as it goes through an actual Prezi!

When
  • You can embed a Prezi into your classroom website any time you want your students to be able to explore a concept at their convenience.
  • Great when you want to help your students really “be there” with regards to your big idea in presenting.  The Prezi below does a beautiful job of this!

  • Especially amazing when you want to teach about anything connected to timelines.  Check out the Prezi below for an example of what we mean!

How

A Prezi can be used exactly as you currently use Powerpoints–in fact, it even has a feature for you to upload existing Powerpoint slides into a Prezi template!  Only, then, you get to play with the 3D templates and zoomable features to help bring it to life!

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Skype Virtual Field Trips

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What

The definition of what makes a Skype virtual field trip is confined only by your own imagination!  Watch this video on Skype’s education page for a wonderful introduction!  Connecting through Skype, you can interview activists, have docents show your students around museums, or even take students on virtual road trips (see that field trip described in more detail here, along with 4 other amazing examples)!  An article from Scholastic explains how it provides “customized curriculum” and “global connections.” You can either pick existing lessons from Skype’s page on classroom use that you can schedule right away, or connect with other teachers around the world with similar project goals using your Skype account and profile!

When
  • Meet classes with whom your class is quadblogging
  • Give students an opportunity for authentic learning experiences when budgets for actual field trips are tight!
  • Explore other cultures as you connect with people and places outside your own country!
How

Forget making a Powerpoint with the who, what, when, where, and why of wolves in North America: Schedule a Skype interview with an actual wolf expert for students to interview and learn from after they have prepared some questions!  Not only does this dynamically bring learning “off the page,” but it hones students’ communication skills as well!

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Photo Credits: Photographer (featured image)

Sources: Ways to Use Thinglink in the Classroom

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Practical Student Blogging

If you’re like most teachers, you have 47 other tabs open besides this one: your grade-book, email, lesson plan resources, and a couple articles on stress management.  So how can you implement student blogging without tipping the scale?

Blogging Benefits

The countless benefits of student blogging are likely what led you to this article today!  Some that we at the Honors Grad U family have witnessed through experience include:

  • Authentic audience: Parents, teachers, peers, and even fellow students across the globe can view, comment, and contribute to the learning!

  • Developing practical tech skills: Besides the obvious benefit of typing practice, blogging is a perfect tool for introducing and practicing skills from copying and pasting to simple HTML editing to maintaining various digital accounts.

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  • Multimedia Literacy:  Growing up, we all made dioramas from shoe boxes, wrote 5-paragraph essays, and crafted posters.  However, 21st century students can and need to also become fluent in an ever-expanding pool of digital resources.  Blogging gives them practice in creating and sharing pictures, Youtube videos, Educreations, Thinglinks, Infographics, Prezi’s, and much more!

  • Engaging Assignments/Projects Through Student Choice & Variety: It can be difficult to keep the passion burning when you introduce a persuasive writing unit.  However, when you also introduce the idea of also including persuasive imagery, as well as actually sharing their work with their intended audience, suddenly things get much more intriguing and personal for each student!

  • Simpler Teacher/Student Collaboration: You’ve experienced the dredge of writing comments on dozens to hundreds of assignments–and that’s only after deciphering questionable handwriting!  Once students have posted various artifacts to their blogs, you can easily type feedback–and depending on your platform, that can even be made private!

  • Easily Accessible Digital Learning Portfolio: Say goodbye to clunky binders with half-ripped-out pages from September by the time you get to March!  If you just consider the use of a few tags, you can already imagine how much easier it would be to navigate the archives of a digital portfolio.

Simple Steps for Success

  1. Pick a Platform:  Spend time exploring your options, privacy needs, and budget.  Most platforms are free on a basic level, but if you want more storage, you’ll want to consider budgeting for your account.  You can even try talking to your administration for some budgetary help, especially if they want to purchase a group package for your school!  Kidblog, WordPress, and Edublogs are all common options that allow you to add users with you as the administrator and moderator!

  2. Permission: Make sure you discuss your school’s privacy policies with your administration before you get started, especially if you’re the first teacher at your school to start student blogging!  You may just need to make a permission slip from parents for each student, or you may find that media permission slips have already been submitted to the school!

  3. Carve out class blogging time: This is probably the hardest step of all!  However, if you are an elementary school teacher, just a weekly 30-45 minute time slot should be enough to get them started!  For secondary levels, you may be able to do more at-home blogging assignments, but you’ll still want to establish at least a little class time for modeling how to use the resources (see below).

  4. Internet Safety & Respect:  Before students enter their blogs for the first time, make sure they are all familiar with basic safety rules, including sharing their personal information (this website is full of teaching ideas).  Also, practice proper etiquette in commenting on paper (see lesson ideas here), before launching into the real deal!  Creating and signing a class blogging contract for future reference is always a plus, too!

  5. Establish clear expectations:  Decide what’s most important to you for their blogs.  If you expect capitalized titles, tags for every post, and a reflection, make sure it’s clear from the beginning.  Let students know you won’t publish any posts missing basic expectations (but make sure they are reasonable for your students’ level as well)!

  6. Choose a few resources: While you’ll definitely want to introduce them one at a time (see below), spend some time beforehand identifying and familiarizing yourself with the main resources you want to teach your students to use.  We recommend choosing one resource for each subject you want your students to be able to exhibit.

    1. Math: Educreations is fantastic resource that allows students to explain their thinking as they draw while also recording their voice!

    2. Reading: You can use Audioboo to have students record their reading skills throughout the year!  Particularly for younger students, it would be powerful for them to literally listen to their progress from September to May.  For a free option (Audioboo maxes out after 3 minutes), you could also use Youtube, even covering up the camera so it just records their voices.

    3. Writing: Obviously, the simple text of a blog post is a great way to share student writing throughout the year. However, you can easily liven things up by introducing a word cloud maker like Wordle.  Not only would it add some beauty to their published piece, but it can also help students visualize their most common word usage in essays!

    4. Art: Older students will likely already be familiar with Photobooth to simply take pictures of their art pieces, but you may need to spend time teaching younger students how to take and upload photos to their blogs.

    5. Science/Social Studies: Thinglink allows students to collect several online articles, videos, and photos into one beautiful interactive presentation!

  7. Introduce one at a time:  Even if it takes several months, it is worth teaching and  practicing just one resource at a time!  Before moving to the next resource, thoroughly familiarize them by allowing them to explore several examples, create a few of their own on their blogs, and collaborate with one another’s work through commenting.  We’ve also found it effective to print and display a board of step-by-step guides for each resource for students to reference in the future.

  8. MODEL, MODEL, MODEL!!  Every chance you get, model how you would like them to use each resource.  Using your own blog account, create multiple examples of each resource for them to reference.  Remember to also model quality comments on their own blogs throughout the year!

  9. Make sure it’s accessible to parents: One of the most rewarding aspects of student blogging is to watch parents connect authentically with their child’s work!  Make sure links to student blogs are available on your classroom blog, and/or email reminders to parents after students have finished blogging projects!

Additional Ideas

Once you get into a groove with blogging, here are a few other ideas to consider to keep things exciting for your class:

  • Student Blogging Challenges: Websites like this one offer wonderful challenges for students to tackle in their blogs!  You can always get creative and craft a few of your own!  For high schoolers, this can even be in the form of working on scholarships, such as our very own Honors Grad U Scholarship, as students share their progress on their blogs!

  • Quadblogging:  This is one of the best ways to connect globally with classrooms just like yours!  Four classrooms form a quad, with each class taking turns being the  highlight classroom, while the other three visit their blogs and leave comments!  One member of our Honors Grad U family has experienced connecting with classes from the U.K. & China!

  • Consider social media: Another way to break down your four classroom walls is social media, including Twitter (Click here for our post on Twitter for teachers)!  Educational hashtags can allow your students to quickly find feedback from around the world.  For example, #comments4kids is specifically intended to post links to student work for others to leave comments!

  • Badges: www.classbadges.com is a fun way to motivate students to work to visually earn various achievements!  You could also use them in conjunction with your student blogging challenges!

Hopefully, these steps allow you to tackle student blogging in a manageable, practical way!  Leave a comment if you have any questions or additional ideas as you get started!

photo credits: DeathToTheStockPhoto (featured image)

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Teacher Resources: Ever Heard of Reddit?

Where can you find a community of all different types of teachers who can post all kinds of resources? Ever heard of Reddit? Science, Math, English, College, Adult Ed, Art, and an almost unlimited supply of teachers can be found in this Internet community, and we’ve got a few suggestions of our own…

Reddit, directly from Wikipedia’s definition, “is a social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of links or text posts.” What does this mean for teachers? It means you now have a one-stop hub for all teaching resources you could need, not to mention worldwide feedback! Another great use for the resources on Reddit is to involve your students. There are a number of educational pages that students could use to reach out to others. See our lists below!

Don’t have an account? One of the best features about Reddit is that it takes just seconds to register an account. In the age of sharing personal information, it’s relieving to see a website ask for only what you want your username to be and what you want your password to be. Registering with an email is optional.

Don’t want to register? Fine! You can browse the site all you want, and unless you want to comment, nothing will be restricted if you simply want to “lurk.”

Now that you’ve joined the community, it’s important to understand that Reddit is divided into subreddits, which are communities of people that fulfill a particular niche. So you’re a teacher, hmm? Allow us to suggest a few subreddits to get you started:

  • /r/education: “The goal of r/Education is to provide a community in which educational stakeholders can participate in meaningful, reflective, and thought-provoking discourse about educational policy, research, technology, and politics.”
  • /r/AskAcademia: “This subreddit is for discussing academic life, and for asking questions directed towards people involved in academia, (both science and humanities).”
  • /r/highereducation: “A place to discuss and share articles related to higher education.”
  • /r/matheducation: “Anything math related that is useful for education, teachers, or students, with emphasis on usefulness for teachers, such as good internet resources, or ideas for how to teach a concept.”
  • /r/ScienceTeachers: “A place for science educators to collaborate on and contribute tips, ideas, labs, and curricula. We seek to encourage the sharing of interesting studies, experiments, videos and articles that will interest students of all ages and promote science and critical thinking in their lives.”
  • /r/teachingresources: “A place to share all your most amazing and useful resources. If we use this well, it could become a very efficient and effective way to enrich many classrooms with everyone else’s resources.”

And more:

And tons more–literally anything you could think of!

Now, get out there and contribute to the education of the masses!

*Obligatory NSFW warning, warning*: Reddit can sometimes have less-than-savory content. Most of the time, this is marked by NSFW, which stands for “Not Safe For Work.” That means you shouldn’t open that link or comments while at work, or you could violate the rules your employer likely has in place regarding Internet usage. You might also see NSFL, which stands for “Not Safe For Life,” meaning gore. If you still want to experience Reddit without these tags, take a look at the Reddit Enhancement Suite. It’s a completely free, open source browser extension that allows you filter out NSFW tags.

 

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Featured Image: Kyle Garrity