I have always been intrigued by people talking about gamification in their classroom. I always assumed it meant that the entire class was gamified all year long and the students were always on the computer playing games and earning digital badges. I also pictured a classroom that was completely driven by a product like class craft.
After reading some of the material from this week, I realized that I incorporate some games and gamification in my own classroom. My students love competitive games like quizziz and Kahoot. These are not game based learning but they are gamification tools that are very simple for a teacher to implement in the classroom. I even used Kahoot with the parents who came to my back to school night. I also LOVE to create extension padlets for my students full of digital games that students can play to help master content. Brainpop.com has some excellent science games very similar to icivics that was shown in class. I often have students playing games such as "matter sorter" or "the blood typing game" to learn about the science content that we are covering in class. Gaming is definitely in our students blood. I cannot think of a single day of school where I have not heard students talking about some new video game they play at home with their friends. The most current one I hear them playing with each other is "fortnite". The majority of them also have a competitive spirit. I think gaming has a place in the classroom but I am not sure if an entire classroom or class should be gamified. I do think some gaming is great, so that kids can have fun while learning or not even realize how much they are learning. I think everything should be used blended together so that nothing gets stale or old. Kids love when teachers mix things up.
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The tools that I chose to explore were snagit, flipgrid and voicethread. In addition to these three I have been regularly using edpuzzle in my classrooms and it is such a valuable tool. One thing I want to try at the beginning of the school year is to create some screencasts about different online procedures for my students and then import them into edpuzzle to embed some checks for understanding. I subbed in a classroom recently where the teacher knew that they were going to be absent and had created the entire lesson as a screencast with directions for the students to follow while the sub was there. It was an incredible lesson and she was not even in the room!
In my role as the technology coach on our campus, I utilized Snagit VERY often. I have the full version on my school desktop and it is SO helpful when creating tutorials for my students or help sheets. I can take a screenshot of my computer screen and lay arrows and callouts over the top of the image. I am so used to Snagit and since I have the full version, it is hard to compare other programs to it that are very limited. It is almost second nature for me to use it on my school computer. I have even learned how to create GIF's using Snagit. There was an Snagit chrome extension in the past that was really awesome but it has gone away. I love Alice Keelers QuickShare chrome extension which takes snapshots of your desktop and automatically imports them into you google drive and they are readily available to bring into any of the google suite products. Flipgrid seems like it is so popular among teachers that I follow online but I have yet to catch the "flipgrid fever" as they call it. I tried it once with my students and it had mixed reviews among my students. I designed a lesson for right after spring break where I am going to give it another try before I decide if I want to pay for the full version. Another goal that I have is to have student create screencasts or voice overs that demonstrate their knowledge. I think the tool I would choose to do this is screencastify since it is so simple to use on our school chromebooks. I also really enjoyed using voice thread on a recent project (thanks Emily!) and I am waiting for the perfect assignment/project to use it with. I think a video on flipgrid or a screencast is a perfect assessment to evaluate student learning. It takes a lot more effort for a student to be able to explain something verbally than to type it out. I think students need a lot more practice in this 21st century skill! One thing I have pondered for a while is creating a mini screencast for each day in class so that students who are absent or parents could quickly understand what is being asked of the students for the day and what content was covered. A 2 minute screencast could never capture all of the directions for a project but it is a lot better and probably faster than typing it out. I think that once parents and students got used to that format it would be really helpful and would eliminate a lot of confused students and parents. I think Google Forms are one of the most versatile and powerful tools in the Google Suite. Once you get the hang of google forms and how powerful they can be, I can honestly say they almost become addicting.
I can honestly say I use Google forms for almost everything in my class. I use it to get to know my students at the start of the year, I use it to get student feedback after a unit. I use it for quizzes and tests. I use it to collect lab data from lab groups during the day. I use it for students to sign up for topics or groups. I create short assignments where students watch a video and then respond to a series of questions. I am quickly able to sort through 160 students and read their responses so much faster than opening 160 google docs or any other program. In addition to using Google Forms with students, they can be very powerful for teachers to use for their own needs. When I was the technology coach at my school last year, I had to log all of my hours and the needs of the teachers. I created a google form that I had on my phone and easily accessible on my computer where I could quickly log in the date, time and activity that I worked on with the teacher. This then created a spreadsheet that was shared with my principal who could see who I was supporting. Our school also uses Google Forms for attendance corrections and disciplinary actions. It truly is such a versatile tool. I am hoping to give AutoCrat a try since I have never used it before. I am pondering creating some type of digital badge that could be emailed to students when they finish a digital citizenship lesson. I would love to hear how teachers have used AutoCrat or some helpful tips for getting started because it seems a bit intimidating. Educators and Social Media
It took me a long time to come around to using social media such as twitter as a professional. Sure I had facebook and a few other social media accounts that I used to keep in touch with family and friends and follow things that interested me. I could not see how having ONE more social media account would benefit me. To me it seemed like just one more thing I was going to have to keep updated, follow, check etc. but I was SO wrong. I started using Twitter as an educator a couple of years ago - mostly just lurking, but there was SO much to learn. You can never get completely caught up with all that there is to read on Twitter but even if you just have a couple of spare minutes and read one link a day you can learn so much from other educators online. I have tried to get more teachers at my school to become more active on Twitter but most are still stuck where I was before I started using Twitter. Even though I have been on Twitter for a while, this was my first week actually participating in a twitter chat and it was really fun! I will say that I am not sure I have the time this school year to participate in such chats with balancing work, my masters and time with my family. I do think I could make the commitment in the upcoming years to participate more. With all of the transitions that have been happening with the science standards in California, Twitter has been a great place to see ideas that other science teachers are sharing. I think some of the critical issues to consider would be making sure you have permission to post pictures of your students. Our school recently released a list of students who's parents had asked for them not to be photographed (This list was generated at the beginning of the year) and I had already posted images of one of the children on the list. I felt awful, but the list had not been shared with us at the time. I now try to take a lot of my student pictures without faces, or showing the backs of their heads if possible and removing and student names from work samples. Having a child of my own, I want to respect a parents decision to not have their child's picture or name posted online. Students and social media As a middle school teacher, I am well aware that the majority of my students participate in social media of some form. We spent time last year as an entire staff to implement 2 days worth of digital citizenship lessons to our students. 7th grade focused on digital footprints. I think the lesson was a great idea, but it was never revisited. Almost our whole student body follows each other on snapchat and LOTS of rumors and cyberbullying goes on there. Sometimes parents will come in and report the bullying that has gone on online outside of school. I am torn on whether this is the school's responsibility or the parents responsibility. What is a child was bullying someone not at our school online? I had a student last year who had an exponential amount of followers on instagram and had a public account. She shared this with with me during our digital footprint lesson. Her family had been in the news for a tragic accident which led to a lot of students and people online wanting to follow her. She admitted that she did not know who more than half of her followers were and they were able to view pictures of her all the way back into elementary school. A quick google of her name also led to a long list of results including many pictures of her. It made me feel sick to think about the damage that these kids could be doing to their digital footprints. I definitely think early middle school is the place for a strong unit on digital footprints. The tool I chose to review is Quizlet.com I recently tried out this tool in my classroom this year after hearing teachers and students rae about how much they enjoy it for reviewing content and vocabulary. The best part is that I have been content using the free version this year and so have my students. I know there are so many edtech tools where the free version just does not cut it when you have 150+ students in a middle school teaching load. Here is what Quizlet can do:
What worked/not well with students:
Digital literacy is a true passion of mine in the classroom. I am interested in it so much that I designed my action research project around it last semester. I truly feel that digital literacy and citizenship needs to be taught in every classroom. It is the collective work of all teachers that will help our students successfully be able to navigate, make sense of and safely use the internet.
I can use my personalized learning plan from this week as an example. I was excited to try out some of the ideas that were shared this week in class so I added them to my timeline. Specifically I wanted to try/learn creative commons and also the EasyBib add on for Google Docs. I will need to first explore these tools on my own and then I will present them to my class as a part of a content related project or lesson. For example, my students will be writing a letter to an alien next week about the states of matter that we have here on earth and how these compare to what this imaginary alien has on their own planet. Students will be typing a letter in google docs for this. I am going to ask them to include pictures in the letter and I will be showing them creative commons and linking it in the directions so that students will have a chance to practice using it. I will also be having them all add the EasyBib add on and requiring them to cite their images or references in a works cited. By doing these two small additions to my project that I was already planning to do, I am providing my students with an opportunity to practice new skills and to talk to them about the proper use of images found online. I think that when students see more and more of their teachers including digital literacy and digital citizenship in their core classes, it will become natural for the students to do things like use creative commons or be able to properly evaluate the credibility of a website. Some of the data from my action research first semester led me to believe that students know a bit about some of these digital literacy skills, but when not held to that standard, they will always take the easy way out and do things like copy and paste images straight from google image searches. I appreciated the nudge in class last week that as teachers we should always be modeling this for our students by citing where we have obtained images in our presentations and giving credit to the creator of the content. Som Creating positive digital citizens has been a top priority for me in my classroom. The novelty of having computers in every classroom has worn off for our students and it is time to get serious about teaching them how appropriately to use these powerful tools appropriately in the classroom. Students know how to physically operate a chromebook, know how to use keyboard shortcuts and edit docs and slides with ease. However my students struggle with evaluating media, appropriately using things they find online and using materials they have found online to back up a claim they are trying to prove. Outside of class, my middle school students are struggling with keeping a positive digital image/footprint and realizing that what they post online can be seen by others and can sometimes be permanent.
My action research from last semester involved helping students to learn how to evaluate websites online, but I found that many students already "knew" how to do this, however chose not to because they did not want to spend the time. Some specific things I want to try this year with me students:
Educational technology can most definitely support personalized learning. There are many tools such as edpuzzle and quizlet that allow students to demonstrate level 1 and 2 knowledge with quick or even instant feedback. If a student has mastered the concept they will receive positive feedback and know that they can move on. If a student needs more time, they can be directed to videos or lessons to review the information and then attempt the quiz/assessment a second or third time.
Education technology also allows students CHOICE. There are so many different ways that students can demonstrate their mastery or knowledge of a concept. Students can verbally explain something in a flipgrid video, create a collaborative interactive presentation, create a kahoot activity for their class and so much more. I have seen students take so much more ownership of their final product when they get to choose how to show me what they have learned. I have also witnessed much more motivation when they know that their classmates will also be viewing their final product. I have often utilized padlet for students to display their final products from a unit. There is so much more effort put into the projects when their classmates will also be the audience for their project and not just the teacher viewing their work. This was a great quick read and a breath of fresh air after a challenging year for me of piloting several different science curriculums. All of these curriculums seem to do very little in the area of personalization and innovative intentional use of technology. This year has felt like a giant step backwards and I am excited to make some positive changes in my classroom again this year after a rough first half of the year. I am ready to see some creativity, fun and meaningful learning in my classroom again! Link to Article |
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April 2018
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Photo used under Creative Commons from Theo Crazzolara