After recently completing my first official week of virtual learning, I learned a lot about student needs and how to best connect with them. The first few days of my lessons (writing prompts, vocabulary words, etc) were very similar to the ones I would have assigned in a traditional classroom. The assignments went "well enough" but it only took a few days to learn that students need more interaction and excitement when learning from home otherwise school and learning in general could get pretty stale. Enter gamifiation...gamification is the process of adding game-like elements to education with the hope of encouraging the participation in learning.
Blog about how you incorporate gaming, gamification, game thinking into your class. How? What are your objectives? Consider the following:
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Google Forms is a great tool, I have used the service before but had barely scratched the surface. After some research and tinkering this session, I have a much more complete understandings of Forms and it's capabilities. I have to admit that I did have a lot of trouble with the Google Forms Add-Ons. I am not sure if it was beginners error but I was having the most difficult time syncing up the add-ons with the form. It seemed that the function would work as I downloaded but when I sent off the form it did not seem to work properly. With a bit of help from my techie son, I was able to move ahead with two new add-ons.
1) Google Form #1 (Basic): I have used this previously when doing Touro action research. I found it easy and valuable, I am considering using it at the beginning of next school year to do student interest interviews so I can get to know my students better. 2) Google Form #2 (Advanced Summary by Awesome Tables): Google Forms does a good job of including data charts but Advanced Summary does an even better job. Advanced Summary documents all of the data in one place using colorful and easy to understand graphs, I would recommend this add-on for future action research. 3) Google Form #3 (Easy QR Code Generator): I have always wondered how this works, turns out we can all make QR codes for free with the Easy QR Code Generator. The QR code that I created is linked to the a Google Form. As long as you are logged into your Touro account, the QR Code will take you there with a simple scan of the code from your phone. Easy QR Code Generator could be particularly useful if you were sending home a flyer and wanted participants to easily find the survey (or any other content). How can/Should social media be used to help you develop/collaborate/communicate as a professional? What are the critical issues to consider?
After reading the Edweek article titled "My Favorite Teachers Use Social Media" I reflected on the professional benefits of social media. The student in the article explained that the power points that most classroom teachers use are outdated and are one of the main reasons that a student's mind wanders during lecture. I believe that many educators think that social media can help their teaching practices simply by gaining knowledge and sharing ideas with other educators. Based on recent readings, it seems the best use of educator social media is actually to connect and relate to their students. After learning about FlipGrid in 702, I have begun using the website to rave review from my students. I have seen some of my students blossom when expressing ideas that they usually have difficulty sharing in words. As far as critical issues with the school use of social media, I do my very best to make sure school technology such as Google Classroom and Flip Grid are not used beyond their intended use. I try to always turn off the comment sections or freeze a FlipGrid topic to not encourage student use beyond the school day. What would you do if you were to come across an inappropriate post made by one of your students outside of the school. Do you address the post and, if so, how? Whom do you involve in the conversations? What considerations must you make in determining your course of action? When dealing with inappropriate posts outside of school, I believe I would contact my administrator in a similar fashion as Patrick Larkin from the reading on Edtechteacher.org. Communication is key, so I would email the information to my administrator and most likely the school counselor. It is important that any key players are aware of the situation. If the situation was small-scale, I would tell my administrator that I would like to personally speak with my student in hopes that it would be a teachable moment. This could be an opportunity to express and explain about the dangers of social media from a trusted (hopefully) adult. From there I would also contact the parents and share about the experience and next steps. I would then send the administrator and counselor a follow up email explaining how/if the situation was resolved and encourage them to continue the communication if they felt it would be beneficial. It's that time of the year again, CAASPP! I use CAASPP vocabulary and sample problems throughout the school year. I typically print hard copies of the sample problems and practice tests. Over the years, the results have been solid but methods have definitely not been innovative. Time for me to get with the times and start using online CAASPP IAB's. IABs stands for Interim Assessment Blocks which are short chunks of content specific sample problems, an example would be editing, brief writes or listen/interpreting. This tool will allow for me not to print out hundreds of practices pages by preparing my students digitally. Students take IABs through the CAASPP website, all they need is their login/user number. The main reason that I want to begin using IABs is because I will be able use the data to view the strengths and weaknesses of my class and individual students.
One of my collegues is a CAASPP wizard so I set up a meeting with him for a crash course (see linked notes below). To begin the practice of using IABs myself, I logged into the system and set up a mock session which worked very well. I wouldn't say that I am proficient at this time but I am definitely comfortable with the interface now. I did run into an issue with regards to student logins, it seems that the login cards are not fully available at this time. Fortunately, my administrator was already in the process of setting up login cards and even offered to come in and run a practice session with my class in the next week or so. To gain confidence, my plan is to start with the Number and Operations in Base Ten Math IAB which is content from Trimester 1. I believe that IABs are the right tool to improve my CAASPP scores. I believe students will get comfortable with the CAASPP interface and question formats prior to the actual test. I will also use the data from my class IABs as part of my morning "Math Minute" to fill in exposed gaps. Kriner's Personal Learning Plan Kriner's To Do List IAB Meeting/Research Notes Based on the ICARE Common Core State Standards, Common Sense Media readings, and my own personal experience, proper citations are a very important skill for students to learn. Common Sense Media states that "in a world where anything can be copied, pasted, and even claimed as one's own, it's critical that kids learn to correctly cite sources."
A Digital Literacy skill that leads to proper citations is paraphrasing. Each year when my class does state reports I run into the problem of cutting and pasting. To alleviate the situation, we do paraphrase work called Paraphrase It! in which students are given a short paragraph to adjust, and reword. The students enjoy the short daily lesson, some even think of paraphrasing as a word puzzle. Here is a link to the resource. Once students are comfortable with paraphrasing, I introduce a Digital Literacy lesson relating to citations. The best tool that I have found to teach citations is a writing strategy called R.A.C.E. which also happens to support CAASPP writing skills. The R.A.C.E. writing strategy can be incorporated anytime a student is asked to used text evidence and details to support their answers . They are to R-Restate the Questions, A-Answer the Question, C-Cite Evidence, E-Explain Why Important, Sum it Up. R.A.C.E. teaches students how to use fact based-evidence to support their ideas by referencing applicable sources. Here is a link to the resource, there many others online as well. I enjoyed reviewing the Session #3 resources and I look forward to reading about techniques from other 702 folks and how they promote Digital Literacy in their own students. Social media is here to stay. I recently asked my fifth-grade class if they have a social media account and about 80% of them raised there hand. It seems children are beginning earlier and earlier, making a strong focus on Digital Citizenship so important. Over the years, I have done a fair job of teaching my students about the internet but I believe that I can do more. Making class discussions personal and relateable is the key.
3 Examples of Personal, Digital Citizenship Opportunities 1. Last year, my District suggested that we use the grade-level lessons from Common Sense Media. One issue that I encountered is how to fit another curriculum into the school year. I decided to focus on social media, apps, websites and the internet at the beginning and end of the year because there seems to be the most available class time, so far this has worked well. Common Sense Media does a great job of focusing on topics such as media balance, gender stereotypes, digital friendships, cyber bullying and online news. I have found that students really like discussing media because it is unique from the typical school content, they think it is cool. I will continue to use Common Sense Media as part of my fifth-grade teaching curriculum. 2. I have a Bachelors of Arts in Journalism with a Focus on Public Relations and Marketing. I tell my students this because I previously worked in Public Relations in San Francisco where my job was to create excitement and exposure. This experience has led me to frequently discuss persuasive advertising techniques in hopes that students will be able to see through product efforts to skew their judgment. They have even created their own persuasive advertisements which I have shared in this session's lesson plan. 3. Dialogue makes things personal. I sometime allow my students to play 20 questions in which they can ask me any (school appropriate) question that they like. The kids love it and I love that they get to know me better. In the future, I think simply talking with students about social media including their excitement and concerns will give me the opportunity to connect with them and hopefully give them a healthy perspective regarding Digital Citizenship. I plan to open that door more frequently, it is so important. |
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April 2020
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