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ETCN EdTech & Instructional Blog Table of Contents
ETCN EdTech & Instructional Blog Table of Contents
Unlocking Instructional Gold: Dive into High-Impact Strategies with Real Teachers
Unlocking Instructional Gold: Dive into High-Impact Strategies with Real Teachers
Ever wished you could be a fly on the wall in another teacher's classroom to see those innovative strategies in action? Your wish is our command! Dive deep into 16 vibrant and transformative instructional strategies seamlessly woven into both in-person and virtual classrooms. From the captivating 'word stories' to the versatile uses of Canvas for differentiation and assessment, to the interactive allure of Jamboard, there's a treasure trove waiting for you!
Let your curiosity take charge:
Engage with the 'question of the day', feel the energy in 'speed dating' sessions fostering conversation, or challenge your learners with 'critical thinking cards'. It's not just about viewing, it's about reflecting, exploring, and adapting these strategies to suit your unique classroom context. Dive in, reimagine, and revolutionize your teaching toolkit today!
Digital Literacy Guides for Educators
Digital Literacy Guides for Educators
I have stumbled upon three amazing resources on digital literacy. The Digital Resilience Instructors Guide is an ebook that covers all things digital literacy. Accompanying it are two fantastic resources that illustrate what each term looks like in action in a very easy-to-understand manner. Learn about everything related to how computers work, keyboard shortcuts, workflows, and so much more. Check them out!
Artifical Intelligence Literacy - Understanding AI and It's Implications for Teaching, Learning, and the World
Artifical Intelligence Literacy - Understanding AI and It's Implications for Teaching, Learning, and the World
What's All the Talk About ChatGPT?
What's All the Talk About ChatGPT?
Gradual Release - I, Do, We Do, and You Do with Google Slides
Gradual Release - I, Do, We Do, and You Do with Google Slides
Feedback Strategies - Six types You Can Implement in Your Class
Feedback Strategies - Six types You Can Implement in Your Class
Thinking Routines with Google Slides and Jamboard Using Research-based Strategies
Thinking Routines with Google Slides and Jamboard Using Research-based Strategies
6/10/2022 - The Technology Integration Matrix and the Digital Promise Learner Variability Tool
6/10/2022 - The Technology Integration Matrix and the Digital Promise Learner Variability Tool
6/3/2022 - End of Year/Term Activities from Teachers Around the World
6/3/2022 - End of Year/Term Activities from Teachers Around the World
5/27/2022 - Integrating Other Tools with Canvas - Embedding and App-Smashing for Multi-Modal Learning
5/27/2022 - Integrating Other Tools with Canvas - Embedding and App-Smashing for Multi-Modal Learning
5/20/2022 - Creating Assignments and Assessing Student Work and Progress: Assignments, Feedback, and Communication
5/20/2022 - Creating Assignments and Assessing Student Work and Progress: Assignments, Feedback, and Communication
Creating assignments and providing students with feedback and communication is at the heart of teaching and learning. When students create a work product that reflects the skills and content they have been taught, the feedback we provide them can help them further amplify what they have learned as well as learn from mistakes and errors they’ve made to further improve.
On Canvas, we certainly can do this we can create an assignment to the feedback loop, which can bolster our student learning. The goal of this post is to demonstrate how to create assignments and then provide students with feedback, which can be multi-modal text, audio, or video feedback. First, we will begin with creating assignments followed by discussing feedback and the grade book. Recall this is the fourth blog of a series that discusses how to utilize Canvas as your LMS to teach within any classroom setting.
Introduction: Why a Learning Management System? Why Canvas?
Getting Started with Canvas - Important Navigation Toolbars and Management
Building Content on Canvas - Pages and Assignments
Assessing Student Work and Student Progress - Feedback and Communication
Integrating Other Tools Into Canvas
Throughout this article, take a look at all of the photos illustrating each of these features for creating assignments and providing feedback. The explanations along with the photos will help demonstrate the trajectory of how to use these various features to create assignments and provide feedback.
Creating an Assignment
To create an assignment on Canvas, go to your toolbar and click on “Assignments.” Then, click on “+Assignments.” Once you are creating a new assignment, you will notice that the interface to create the content for the assignment is the exact same as how you create content on pages. You can add and embed slides, docs, and sheets from your Google Drive, add audio, video, hyperlinks, tables, and much more. Here, you will be able to create the assignment name and add content relating to the assignments directions and frontloading any content necessary for students to digest before moving towards students creating their own work product.
Once the assignment directions and frontload content are created, you can then set how you would like the students to respond. You will decide if it's a graded assignment, a rubric, or upgraded. Additionally, you will determine how you would like your students to create content to demonstrate their skills and content knowledge they are working on in class.
The submission type is important as it determines what you will require students to turn in to receive feedback. A simple text entry, a URL entry, media uploads/recordings, student annotation to a PDF, file uploads, or integrating external tools to templates from Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets can be utilized for students to create content.
As discussed, the external tool connects applications such as Google Drive, Docs, and Slides to Canvas, which can be created for each and every student as a template to respond to versus having students to create and upload their own content.
Once the type of content you would like your students to respond to for the assignment to demonstrate their skills and content knowledge to then receive feedback, you can then determine how many attempts they have to receive feedback as well as how you would like to assign it. You can assign it to groups, individual students, or the entire class. Additionally, you can set the due date and when and how long the assignment will stay active for students.
Providing Feedback
To provide feedback, we can click on the assignment itself or the gradebook, which brings us to a screen that looks like this. On the left side, we will see the assignment, and then on the right hand side, we will see options for providing student feedback, including giving them points for a grade. What’s amazing is that you can provide a multitude of modalities for feedback, which include text, audio, and video.
By clicking on the audio icon, you can do speech to text, which can be done for longer text comments.
When you click on the media icon that looks like the play button, you can record audio, video, or upload your own media as feedback.
The Gradebook
Besides providing feedback directly on the assignment, the gradebook is a place where you can see all of the assignments, points/grades, and access feedback easily. On the gradebook, you can click on each student or assignment. This will then allow you to view and review all of the students work or all of the students work and feedback you’ve provided under the assignment.
When we click on each student’s name on the left, you can see their profile, which allows you to see all of their grades and assignment, see what their participation looks like, and see all of their analytics. Last, you can also send them a direct message through Canvas using this option.
If you click on “new analytic,” you can see the student’s activity on Canvas in terms of minutes on the course pages, their course grade, and the communication records you have had with your student.
5/20/2022 - Building Content on Canvas: Pages
5/20/2022 - Building Content on Canvas: Pages
Creating content on Canvas, especially for pages, is very similar to creating content on Word or Google Doc. Many of you know to use the content toolbar to write and create content on a Word Processor. Essentially, it is very similar on Canvas! The goal is to show you the various similarities each tool uses to create content, which many of us are familiar with. This helps us with the ease of use with the EdTech tools we utilize to create content for our classroom instruction as many are very similar.
Introduction: Why a Learning Management System? Why Canvas?
Getting Started with Canvas - Important Navigation Toolbars and Management
Building Content on Canvas - Pages and Assignments
Assessing Student Work and Student Progress - Feedback and Communication
Integrating Other Tools Into Canvas
It’s all about the content creation toolbar. Let’s see some comparisons below between Word, Docs, and Canvas.
Using this content creation toolbar, you can create pages and assignments on Canvas, which are the two of the main mechanisms you can use to create instructional content for your students. The content creation toolbar does not change throughout your use of Canvas. Ultimately, the options that change are the additional content you want to add when uploading assignments through either a file or the Google LTI integration (using a document or slideshow previously made and uploading from Google Drive). Keeping the content creation tool the same on Canvas allows you to easily transition from doing various actions on the learning management system, which ultimately helps with learning the platform and its ease of use.
Final Thoughts - Creating Content is Very Similar Across Platforms
Overall, creating content across platforms can be done in very similar ways. There may be a few steps that it takes us to open these various tools, but once we are creating the content, the toolbars have many of the same options we can choose from to create the content. I recommend taking some time to dabble and play with the content creator toolbars on Canvas. You can do just as much as you can on Google Docs and Microsoft Word, which is amazing! The more time you spend, the better you will get building out the content for your classes. Over time, you become much faster in creating the content as you are using the tool more often.
In my experience, much of the technology we use in education has many of the same functions to create content we can use to amplify our instruction and student learning. Once you know how to use one or three content creation toolbar interfaces, you know how to create content on ten to twenty different tools. Hopefully, by looking at these various content creation toolbars shows a brief preview of this pattern we see with EdTech tools we can use in our classrooms to amplify our instruction, content, and student learning!
Further Learning
To learn more about how to create content on Canvas and navigate its functions as a learning management system, go to our ETCN EdTech Website’s Exploring Canvas Asynchronous PD session. Additionally, visit our ETCN Canvas page on the website for step by step tutorials on how to utilize Canvas for your classroom as well as build it out of its content for your course.
5/13/2022 - Getting Started with Canvas: Important Navigation Toolsbars and Management
5/13/2022 - Getting Started with Canvas: Important Navigation Toolsbars and Management
Canvas has a wide range of important navigation toolsbars that help you manage your course. Each is important in helping us organize content, navigate content creation, and manage how you would like students to utilize the course contents of your class. The goal of this post is to provide you with a summary of each of these important toolbars to help you navigate and mange your course.
The Canvas Home Toolbar
The home toolbar is on the left hand side of your course once you enter. It has a number of options teachers and students can click on for them to access various components of the class. Every link with an eye with a dash inside means students cannot view it unless given authorization. You can give authorization by going to settings and clicking on the settings button and then on the navigation option.
The most important links on this toolbar is home, pages, assignments, modules, grades, announcements, people, and settings. Home provides teachers and students the opportunity to go to the home page you’ve created for the course. The page link takes teachers to content pages they’ve created. Like pages, assignments takes teachers to build assignments and students to complete assignments. Grades takes teachers to an interface to provide feedback and give grades and allows students to view their grades.
Modules and Toolbars Associated with Organizing and Sharing Content
Modules help you organize content for your course. When you click the module link on your main toolbar, you will see several options. These options include naming the module, publish the module and content by clicking on the green checkbox, and edit the module and organize content by clicking on the three dots.
After you click on the editing three buttons of a module, you will see the following options. They allow you to organize your content, copy the content to other courses, send content to collaborators or a sandbox course, and interact with Canvas Commons.
Going further, if you click on edit, you will be able to organize or order content within your module. From pages, and assignments, to quizzes, you can move and order the content to fit whichever order you would like.
You can also send pages, assignments, quizzes, and entire modules to fellow educators in your department, school, or consortium. By clicking on send to, you can type in the name of the teacher you would like to share that particular piece of content to so they can add it to a course or a sandbox course.
Like the send to function above, copy to allows you to copy assignments, pages, and quizzes from one course to another. It could be a newer course, an additional course, or a sandbox course. This ultimately allows you to reuse content over and over again for the future.
Conclusion - Organization and Sharing Amplified
Throughout this post, we focused on learning to navigate various toolbars, organize content, and share content. Ultimately, this will help us keep our courses organized for our students as well as utilize our content for collaboration and the future. Last, do not forget our previous post on Getting Started with Canvas, as it discusses the in’s and out’s of getting started on the LMS.
Further Resources on This Topic
More tool bars involve creating content on Canvas. In a previous blog post, we discuss creating content on Canvas and its content creations toolbar similarities with Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
5/6/2022 - Intro to Tango: Creating Interactive Step by Step Directions for Students
5/6/2022 - Intro to Tango: Creating Interactive Step by Step Directions for Students
Tango is a revolutionary Free Google Chrome Extension that automatically creates a written step-by-step guide in real-time without the need for video recording or writing down your own step-by-step guide. Tango transcribes the actions you make with your mouse, URLs, and screenshots, which can all come together to create the step-by-step guide. Ultimately, this is an easy-to-use and game-changing tool that can help you amplify how you provide written instructions for your students to come back to again and again to support them in their learning.
Getting Started with Tango
Get the Tango Google Chrome Extension
Sign Up for a Tango.us account
Video Guide: How-To Video for Tango
Includes how to Add the Tango Google Extension
Provides a Step by Step Example of How a Step by Step Guide is Created.
Tango Step by Step Direction Examples
Here are several of my Tango Interactive Step by Step Directions for you to review:
Application for Students and Instruction
There are a wide variety of applications for students in your class. They can be shared as PDFs or direct hyperlinks to students, which can be housed on Canvas or a website for students to always have access to. Below are a number of the following to think about:
Tech Instructions
Directions for Assignments and Projects Involving Tech
Assignments/Project Directions
Finding Things Online
4/29/2022 - Getting Started with Canvas Blog Series - Introduction: The WHY
4/29/2022 - Getting Started with Canvas Blog Series - Introduction: The WHY
Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Canvas provides opportunities for educators and students to interact with each other within digital and physical classroom settings. Ultimately, we want to provide opportunities for our students to access instruction, curriculum, and content whenever they have access. Whether they are synchronously in class or asynchronously, we want to provide students with access points to all of these facets. By building it into an LMS like Canvas, we are working towards providing greater equity and access. Additionally, we are creating systems to help us foster and build classrooms and instruction with the goal of making the job of teaching much easier. While at the beginning of anyone’s journey with an LMS may seem difficult, with a bit of time and frontloading the work, it will ultimately become easier over time and will take less time for preparation and planning.
As we start using Canvas or we are building our skills further using this tool, the goal is to provide opportunities and examples for you to see how it works and to utilize Canvas efficiently and effectively to meet your teaching needs along with your students' needs. Throughout this five-part series, we will describe how to use Canvas and deliver instruction to students within any classroom setting (in-person, online, or in a blended format).
Introduction: Why a Learning Management System? Why Canvas?
Getting Started with Canvas - Important Navigation Toolbars and Management
Building Content on Canvas - Pages and Assignments
Assessing Student Work and Student Progress - Feedback and Communication
Integrating Other Tools Into Canvas
At the end of this series, we hope this series of blog posts will help you not only learn many of Canvas’ many tools and features but to also make teaching and planning easier for you now and in the future.
Why a Learning Management System?
An LMS is like an airport for you and your students. It helps you direct your students to a central location to then go on many different learning journeys. The assignments, assessments, and content we create and place on our LMS provide students with these many journeys. It ultimately is a single hub where they can be directed to various places where they can receive instruction and feedback from their teacher.
Additionally, an LMS gives teachers the opportunity to add content that can be long-lasting. Not only can it be utilized now for this group of students, but it can also be used for future students. Content, assignments, and quizzes can be used again and the future as well as refined. Over time, you will have a repository of content, assignments, and assessments developed for your students.
Last, LMS’ can be placed for interactivity. Students can collaborate with their peers and teach on tasks to help them build the skills and content knowledge they need to complete the course.
Why Canvas?
Canvas is an LMS that provides many options and opportunities for teachers and students with its many features. Included below are its many features:
Content pages
Interactive assessments
Assessments
Discussion forums
Blogs
SpeedGrader
Learning analytics
Student Communication
Integrations: Google, Youtube, Pear Deck, Nearpod, Flipgrid, etc.
Many of its features are very similar in how to use them. Once you are able to create a page on Canvas and organize it within a module, you can do nearly the same process with assignments, assessments, discussion forums, etc, which allows for ease of use for teachers and students as they create content and interact.
For the next blog of the series, we will jump into Getting Started with Canvas and how to navigate its various toolbars and managing the platform.
More Helpful Information on Canvas
Learn more about Canvas by watching this video introducing Canvas and its many tools. Also, our consortium provides a wide range of Canvas Resources and Supports. Check out the list below as well as the four other posts of this blog series to help you in implementing Canvas as well as learning many integrations and strategies of how to use it with your students.
4/22/2022 - Building Your Own Personalized Professional Learning Pathway
4/22/2022 - Building Your Own Personalized Professional Learning Pathway
There are many ways for us to build our capacity and learn as educators. More so than ever before, we have a multitude of different opportunities and pathways to learn and grow. In my growth as an educator, I have curated many resources that have helped me grow in my practice. Having a wide range of opportunities that I can access is great to build capacity and learn something new. Additionally, I like to have options as I am in a different mood for what type of modality I would my learning to look like for that day.
The purpose of this post is to provide thoughts and resources to help you formulate your own personalized learning professional development pathway. Throughout this guide, you will find avenues that can amplify your practice. We will be cover seven pathways you can utilize to personalize your learning:
ETCN PD Opportunities
Adult Learning Education Resources
Twitter & Twitterchats
Education Blogs
Podcasts
YouTube
Education Themed Books
Take a look at some great curated resources to help personalize your learning pathway!
ETCN PD Opportunities
Within our consortium, we had a wide range of professional development opportunities at school sites, professional learning communities, and consortium-wide professional development events. In our consortium, we provide resources within the Around the Net newsletter, our ETCN EdTech Website, ETCN Teacher Talk Podcast, and Instruction and EdTech blog. There are a multitude of resources and pathways you can learn at your own pace or within a synchronous live PD event.
Archived PD
How We Learn
Podcast/Blog
Canvas Support
Adult Education Resources
In Adult Education, there are a variety of resources to help support teachers in building their instructional toolkit. CalPRO provides online courses, resource guides, and teaching tool resources. OTAN is the leading adult education supporter of the effective application of technology. They give online workshops, tutorials, and the Technology and Distance Learning Symposium conference. Each of these organizations provides many opportunities to continue to grow and learn within the context of Adult Education.
Twitter & Twitterchats
Twitter is one of the best platforms where you can connect with educators from across the world to learn and grow from one another. You can not only view the stream of Tweets, but you can also follow various lists of educators who are experts in various areas (i.e., ELA, EdTech, etc.). Additionally, you can follow #hashtags related to topics and trends you may be interested in by going to https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ to search and curate the Tweets. Last, you can participate in real-time chats with educators related to a specific topic and respond to their thoughts.
Twitter - Getting Started with Twitter for Educators
Twitterchat - The Basics
Twitterchat - How to Participate
Education Blogs
For a quick read and overview of a topic you want to learn more about, there are education blogs that are easily accessible. Blogs provide opportunities for educators to reflect, provide tutorials, put research into practice, and describe what’s working versus not working within their classrooms and schools. Included below are a number of blogs that provide a plethora of information on a wide range of topics related to instruction, leadership, EdTech, and more.
Podcasts
While grading, driving, planning, or writing emails, podcasts are a great way to listen to content that you may be interested in learning and applying to your practice. From instruction, EdTech, leadership, equity, grading, to education research, there are a wide range of topics you can choose from. Find your own! Or, create your own as it’s a great way to interview and learn from educators locally as well as from across the globe.
YouTube for Tutorials and Inspiration
YouTube is a fantastic resource to look up various tutorials on how to do a specific tech technique or instructional strategy. Use the search bar and you can look up a wide range of topics that may help you. Besides tutorials, podcasts and interviews with educators are also posted, which can be nice additions to your playlists to watch to learn something new.
Books
Books are another resource and gateway to learning information that can be transformational to your practice. Education-themed books are a great avenue, but also are inspirational, motivational, and self-care books. Each and every one of these books can not only improve our practice but also us learn about other important facets that can make us better educators and people. Whether it's a physical book or an ebook, they provide an amazing opportunity to take in and find ways to support ourselves and practice. Rowman Littlefield, DBC, EduMatch, Solution Tree, ASCD, and Corwin are some great publishers to look at for education books.
4/1/2022 - Strategies that Can Be Used With and Without Tech
4/1/2022 - Strategies that Can Be Used With and Without Tech
Strategies power everything we do in the classroom. Instructional strategies are the drivers of how we teach students to learn. For this post, the goal is to share a number of strategies that build our instructional toolkit. These strategies can be utilized with or without EdTech tools, which makes them great for any classroom setting. Many of these strategies may be one’s you are already familiar with and using while others maybe not. Take a look and review the strategies and think about how they can be implemented within your classroom and lessons.
Kagan Cooperative Learning Strategies
Kagan Cooperative Learning strategies are an assortment of strategies that help engage students as well as put students in the position to collaborate. They can be used throughout your lesson plan for formative assessment, engaging students, and cooperative learning.
Project Zero Thinking Routines
Besides Kagan’s Cooperative Learning strategies, I recommend checking out Harvard Project Zero’s Thinking Routines. In a similar manner, Project Zero provides us with a series of scaffolds and steps for us to direct our students to process, consume, and then produce a work product of their learning. There are about fifty strategies to review and analyze.
Integrating Strategies with EdTech - An Example
Each of these strategies discussed can be integrated with EdTech tools to amplify student learning. Using a combination of Zoom, Canvas, Google Slides or Jamboard, we can take many of the strategies and create opportunities to use them within any classroom setting. For example, we can a strategy like Rally Robin with Google Slides. Each student pair is given a slideshow with their names labeled. Then, they have editing access to the slide. Once they have access, they can then collaborate and write down together a list of adjectives or words to describe a character, story, etc. To deploy the slides, they can be linked on Canvas, Zoom, or email for students to access. Whether you provide the instructions in-person or live synchronously online, directions can be provided for our students to engage in these strategies and EdTech tool integrations.
One great resource to help in integrating these strategies is to use the 1200 Jamboard templates provided by TCEA. For each of the strategies provided, a template on Jamboard can be used to help facilitate the strategy within any classroom setting.
Conclusion - Strategies Are EdTech Tool Agnostic
Instructional strategies and tool agnostic because they are teacher driven and the teacher can select the best tool, if needed, to amplify the strategy being used. Sometimes an EdTech tool is not needed. Sometimes it is needed. Altogether, its up to the teacher as they weigh factors relating to whether or not an EdTech tool is needed to further augment the strategy.
Hopefully, this set of strategies is helpful along with the example of how the strategies can easily be integrated with EdTech tools within any classroom setting. Ultimately, our goal is to always evaluate our instructional and tech integration toolkits to see what we are doing and how we can further expand and refine our practice of strategies that help students learn!
References
Kagan, S. & Kagan, M. (2009). Kagan Cooperative Learning. Kagan Publishing: San Clemente, CA.
3/25/2022 - Using QR Codes and Integrating It With Strategies to Amplify Learning
3/25/2022 - Using QR Codes and Integrating It With Strategies to Amplify Learning
QR Codes provide a signature for someone to access the content. Think of it as a shortcut to access the content. It is very similar to a hyperlink, but it can be displayed in our physical and digital worlds. It can transform physical and digital environments. In this same way, it can transform our classrooms and our instruction. There are many ways QR Codes can be integrated into our instruction to amplify student learning, which is the goal of this post. First, we will outline how to create QR Codes. Then, we will discuss how to use them. Finally, we will outline strategies in the classroom QR codes that can be utilized and deployed.
How to Create QR Codes
To create a QR Code, go to one of the three following websites. You will need content that the QR Code will act as a hyperlink to. Generally, a link to a Google Slideshow, document, Canvas page or assignment, PDF, or YouTube video is needed first. Once that link has been copied, you can use a QR Code generator.
Or, create them in Canva. See this video to learn how!
You will copy and paste the link of where you will want the QR Code to direct your students. Once you do this, click the generate button and a QR Code will appear. Once it has appeared, copy it to your clipboard and then copy and paste it into a document that you will want to print. If they are QR Codes you want to use for a long time, be sure to laminate the document they are printed on.
Note: You can also have your QR Codes digitally and they can function in the same exact way as they would on a physical document.
Using QR Codes
To use QR Codes, you will need a mobile device with a camera. You will need to open up the camera function. Then, you will place the camera over the top of the QR Code to scan it. Once the camera has scanned the code, it will direct you with a hyperlink to the content it is a shortcut to.
Instructional Strategies to Integrate QR Codes and Other Uses
Now, we will be discussing a number of instructional strategies as well as other uses of QR Codes by educators within our school communities. Overall, the goal of each is to amplify student learning and disseminate as much information and content as possible to augment what we are doing to do for our students.
Vocabulary Practice - Digital/Physical Flash Cards with QR Codes
One strategy can be the creation of flashcards with QR Codes. For multilingual students, hearing and/or seeing the vocabulary word is a great way to help them build their vocabulary and fluency when saying that word. Using vocabulary cards is what we call retrieval practice, which should be used in mass practice and then spaced out over time. Over time, students will practice less and less after a major frontloading of practice sessions.
Read Aloud Activities
Read alouds are a powerful way students can practice listening and reading. Providing students with a piece of paper of an excerpt of the text or the entire text along with a QR Code they can scan with their phone for a read-aloud allows them to practice these skills. For in-class and asynchronous practice at home, this is possible. A recommended location to place the QR Code on your handout is at the very top of the document along with directions related to the task assigned.
Note: If the text you are using is a novel, look up whether the novel on YouTube has a read aloud of the text available you can turn it into a QR Code.
Free Read Alouds of Texts
QR Code Generated Digital Portfolios Using Flowcodes and Flowpages
QR Codes can be placed onto resumes, cover letters, and even on someone's phone so they can network in addition to providing more information about themselves to share. On a digital portfolio platform like Wakelet, we can easily create a digital presence to share content on one’s self with others. The link directly to that Wakelet page can be turned into a QR Code and placed in physical and digital spaces others can scan. Another platform that does this is called Flow Pages, which allows users to build a landing page that is associated with a unique QR Code.
Station Rotation/Scavenger Hunts
A fun and engaging strategy QR Codes can be integrated into is station rotation and scavenger hunts. A QR Code can be placed at various stations or places throughout the room where students can interact as they complete a specific task. Students scan each QR Code as they are directed to move from station to station. The QR Code directs them to the task and content they will need to complete each task.
In-Classroom Fieldtrips
Similar to Station Rotation and Scavenger Hunts, students can be given QR Codes taking them to places on a map. Using Google Earth on the web, we can create QR Codes taking students to specific locations on Earth. From buildings, cities, monuments, national parks, and more, the opportunities are endless.
Share Resources with Others
Last, we can use QR Codes to share resources with others in physical or digital spaces. We can place QR Codes around our classrooms and buildings for students, faculty, and staff to scan. It can be for events, digital field trips around campus, the sharing of resources, and more. Additionally, we can place QR Codes on our digital presentations, which can be scanned by those attending in-person or online to retrieve further information and content.
3/10/2022 - Strategies to Integrate with Google Jamboard
3/10/2022 - Strategies to Integrate with Google Jamboard
Google Jamboard, like Google Slides, has many opportunities to integrate various instructional strategies to amplify student learning. Google Jamboard is an interactive slide that can act as a template for many strategies and activities in your classroom (see this blog to learn about how to use it). Like slides, it has an ease of use for students and teachers alike. Coupled with the many templates we can create or add on various applications like slides, Canva, and Adobe, the opportunities are endless to set up Jamboard with instructional strategies to amplify student learning.
The goal is to illustrate a number of instructional strategies integrated with Jamboard and provide the steps on how to implement them. They are routines and protocols to ensure that we put our students in the right positions at the right time. We will cover a number of strategies relating to the following:
Activating Prior Knowledge
Reading Comprehension
SWBST Chart
Brain Dump
Main, Idea, Key Detail, & Summary
Summarization and Reflection
Let’s dive into each of these strategies we can integrate with Google Jamboard!
Activating Prior Knowledge & Reflection - KWL Chart
For this strategy, you begin your lesson by asking what students know about the topic of the lesson. Then, you ask a follow-up question with what they want to know. You will then leave the Jamboard for the duration of the lesson. After the lesson is over, you will return students to the Jamboard to complete the final column relating to what they learned during the lesson. On another note, while you do each of these protocols of the strategy, you can do a think, pair, and share or a wide range of other cooperative learning strategies.
See, Think, Wonder
Another strategy to activate prior knowledge and develop conceptual frameworks is the see, think, and wonder strategy. To begin, present students with multimedia and have students observe and analyze what’s happening. Ask students to first think and process what’s happening and then describe what they are seeing. After writing down what they see, they are then asked to think again and write down any connections they have towards what they’ve observed. Finally, students are asked to write down what they further wonder about what they have observed and discussed. Throughout each of these sequences, students can discuss what they write with pairs, groups, or even the entire class. It’s up to you as to how long you want to spend on the strategy and each stage of it.
Reading Comprehension Strategies
Above is the SWBST Chart, which can be used by a group or pair of students to complete as they read a story or article. Students can add images, text boxes, and sticky notes as they read the story to diagnose its major elements. You can scaffold this chart if you are doing guided reading, or you can have students jigsaw the story if you want them to read it in parts. Ultimately, it depends on what you would like to do and how you want to sequence using the strategy and SWBST chart for the reading.
The next strategy relates to brainstorming about a story or article students are reading. Each corner represents a different question relating to who, what how, where, when, and why. Students can place everything that they remember about the text through their annotations and paraphrases, which can then be dumped. This can be done individually or within pairs, groups, or the entire class for a mass brainstorming session to occur. Overall, these braindumps can help students see a variety of different perspectives and can be utilized to even predict what the text could be about if it’s not being entirely read in one lesson.
Another strategy can involve breakdown the various elements of the story or text by having students first review the main key details of the story. Then, in this same exercise, have them identify the main idea and then write a summary of the text. A curveball you can throw to students is to write the summary of the text within a word count range, which can help them work on their summarization skills.
Combining Multiple Reading Comprehension Jamboards
If you would like to divide up students into groups and pairs and have them utilize various strategies and graphic organizers to complete regarding the text they are reading, you certainly can do it with Jamboard. Recall, you can have multiple Jams within a Jamboard (multiple slides) where various groups of students can work together. This creates opportunities for you to differentiate among groups or jigsaw the task as alluded to earlier.
An activity that gives students the opportunity to review multiple Jamboards created by various groups is called a Digital Gallery Walk. Students from the other Jams on the Jamboard can review the other pairs or group’s work they did for the reading comprehension activity. This can then help be utilized to propel a discussion and make connections in their comprehension.
Summarization and Reflection Protocols
At the end of the lesson, we want our students to summarize and reflect on their learning. The strategy and protocol of “I Used to Think” and “Now I Think” provides students the opportunity to reflect and also summarize their learning. To begin, you can ask students to think about and then write down what they used to think about what they learned. Then, you can have your students discuss in pairs the bullet points they’ve written. Following this phase, you then ask students to summarize what they think about the topic now, which can also include a short pair or group discussion after students write down their thoughts to share with others in a group or to the entire class.
Concept Mapping
content they are learning. From brainstorming to summarizing key relationships of the content and skills being discussed, concept mapping can be done individually and then within pairs or small groups, which can be followed up by a whole-class discussion. Overall, concept maps can be saved and placed onto Canvas or printed out to be placed around the classroom for students to view. This can be a helpful study tool for students.
Conclusion - These Examples Are the Tip of the Iceberg
There are many strategies we can incorporate into Google Jamboard that can further amplify student learning. Eduprotocols, cooperative learning, and thinking routines are all types of instructional strategies that can be integrated into Google Jamboard, Google Slides, Pear Deck, and Nearpod. They are all part of the interactive slide family. Additionally, they can all be utilized for formative assessment to an extent, which can help you determine where your students are at relating to what you are covering at that point in time in your class. Take a look at the templates below as well as the strategies discussed here to see how you can begin to experiment with your students in your classroom.
Templates and More
Here's a video going through how to use Google Jamboard. Then, take a look at the Ultimate Google Jamboard Collection thanks to TCEA. This Jamboard Template collection provides you with over 1200 templates for you to make a copy of and use for your classroom instruction.
Jamboard Templates by Matt Miller
Mad Libs Template - Students develop a mad lib to create concrete concepts of content learned.
Timeline Template - Students develop individually or collaboratively a timeline.
Book Snaps Template - Students find a passage, snap a picture, and annotate on it.
3/3/2022 - Google Jamboard - An Introduction
3/3/2022 - Google Jamboard - An Introduction
What is Google Jamboard
Google Jamboard is an interactive template where students and teachers can interact individually as well as collaboratively within in-person and online classroom settings that can be either synchronously or asynchronously. The best way to think of Jamboard is that of a board game where you can move game pieces. However, on Jamboard, you are able to write sticky notes, create textboxes, add pictures from the internet or uploaded from the computer, and freehand draw to interact and create content.
What’s amazing about Jamboard is that you can create templates on Google Slides or Canva and copy it onto a blank Jamboard. This allows us to incorporate many strategies such as Venn Diagrams, KWL Charts, A-Z Vocabulary, Brain Dumps, I Used to Think - Now I Think, and much more. Check out this fantastic set up Jamboard Templates by TCEA that provide the very templates for these strategies to happen.
Sharing Jamboards for Student Access
Just like Google Slides and Docs, Jamboard can be shared to students through the share button on the far right hand side of the screen (see below; 4 steps are outlined). Be sure to ensure students have editing access and the link is available to be shared to anyone with a link. Additionally, you can post Jamboard assignments on Canvas by using the template you’ve created and sharing the link as a hyperlink when you create an assignment so students can access it. You can make multiple copies of the Jamboard within the same Jamboard template, which is great so you can see how multiple students or groups of students are doing on the task you’ve assigned.
Adding Contact on a Jamboard
There are a number of things students and teachers can do to add content onto a Jamboard individually or collaboratively. There are two toolbars that allow you to create content and navigate the Jamboard. See below as they have been provided to illustrate what they look like.
Top Toolbar. On the top toolbar on Jamboard, there are a number of options available for you to use. To edit, you can use the undo arrow or redo arrow to make corrections. There is a magnifying tool where you can zoom in and out of the Jamboard, a set background option, and a clear frame option that allows you to erase the Jamboard. Last in the very center, you will see two slides side by side. This can be clicked on and allows you to add additional Jamboard slides for students to interact with.
Left Hand Toolbar. On the toolbar to the left hand side of the Jamboard, you have the options to draw, erase, add a sticky note, add a sticky note, add a photo, add a shape, add a textbook, and utilize a laser pointer to highlight various.
Creating Templates for Jamboard
Creating templates for Jamboard can be done on Google Slides and Canva. Using their design features, you can create graphic organizers and designs on them. You can download the designs you’ve created from each platform and upload them on Jamboard as the background image, which cannot be erased when you click on the “clear frame” option on the top toolbar. Ultimately, with the use of these backgrounds, there are endless possibilities of the strategies and uses various strategies for your students to learn skills and content.
Templates and More
Here's a video going through how to use Google Jamboard. Then, take a look at the Ultimate Google Jamboard Collection. This Jamboard Template collection provides you with over 1200 templates for you to make a copy of and use for your classroom instruction.
Jamboard Templates by Matt Miller
Mad Libs Template - Students develop a mad lib to create concrete concepts of content learned.
Timeline Template - Students develop individually or collaboratively a timeline.
Book Snaps Template - Students find a passage, snap a picture, and annotate on it.
Conclusion - Google Jamboard
Google Jamboard is a very easy to use tool that can be used in any classroom setting. It provides opportunities for many instructional strategies to be utilized with the tool, which will be discussed in the next post regarding this EdTech tool. Go ahead and try this fantastic tool as it is a fun, engaging, and collaborative tool that can help facilitate and amplify student learning without much legwork upfront in regard to planning and setting up using Jamboard for students.
2/11/2022 - Creating Content on Canvas - Similiarities with Different Tools Make it Easy to Create Content
2/11/2022 - Creating Content on Canvas - Similiarities with Different Tools Make it Easy to Create Content
Creating content on Canvas is very similar to creating content on Word or Google Doc. Many of you know to use the content toolbar to write and create content on a Word Processor. Essentially, it is very similar on Canvas! The goal is to show you the various similarities each tool uses to create content, which many of us are familiar with. This helps us with the ease of use with the EdTech tools we utilize to create content for our classroom instruction as many are very similar.
It’s all about the content creation toolbar. Let’s see some comparisons below between Word, Docs, and Canvas.
Using this content creation toolbar, you can create pages and assignments on Canvas, which are the two of the main mechanisms you can use to create instructional content for your students. The content creation toolbar does not change throughout your use of Canvas. Ultimately, the options that change are the additional content you want to add when uploading assignments through either a file or the Google LTI integration (using a document or slideshow previously made and uploading from Google Drive). Keeping the content creation tool the same on Canvas allows you to easily transition from doing various actions on the learning management system, which ultimately helps with learning the platform and its ease of use.
Final Thoughts - Creating Content is Very Similar Across Platforms
Overall, creating content across platforms can be done in very similar ways. There may be a few steps that it takes us to open these various tools, but once we are creating the content, the toolbars have many of the same options we can choose from to create the content. I recommend taking some time to dabble and play with the content creator toolbars on Canvas. You can do just as much as you can on Google Docs and Microsoft Word, which is amazing! The more time you spend, the better you will get building out the content for your classes. Over time, you become much faster in creating the content as you are using the tool more often.
In my experience, much of the technology we use in education has many of the same functions to create content we can use to amplify our instruction and student learning. Once you know how to use one or three content creation toolbar interfaces, you know how to create content on ten to twenty different tools. Hopefully, by looking at these various content creation toolbars shows a brief preview of this pattern we see with EdTech tools we can use in our classrooms to amplify our instruction, content, and student learning!
Further Learning
To learn more about how to create content on Canvas and navigate its functions as a learning management system, go to our ETCN EdTech Website’s Exploring Canvas Asynchronous PD session. Additionally, visit our ETCN Canvas page on the website for step by step tutorials on how to utilize Canvas for your classroom as well as build it out of its content for your course.
1/27/2022 - Introduction to MOTE - A Game Changing Audio Recording Tool for Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets
1/27/2022 - Introduction to MOTE - A Game Changing Audio Recording Tool for Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets
Mote is a voice recording and voice player, which can be integrated into directly Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets. This is one of my favorite tools that can help improve student accessibility and differentiate instruction. It is free for 30-second recordings that can be used to play instructions and can be utilized to comment on student work to provide them voice feedback.
Let’s discuss how to use it and how it can benefit your students. As you go through this post, watch how MOTE works by watching it in action through this video. It will help you see how each of its uses outlined throughout the post can be put into action and utilized by your students.
Mote is a Free Audio Recording Tool for Feedback or Directions
As you can see here, MOTE allows you to comment on text and record a voice comment students can listen to when they hover over the text or comment where the recording is located. It can be utilized to provide student feedback and outline directions. Once you go to mote.com and download the extension, you can highlight text, comment, and then provide a voice recording on Docs, Slides, and Sheets. As shown above, this is what MOTE recording looks like after its been recorded on a Google Doc.
Getting Started with MOTE
To get started with MOTE, go to www.mote.com and download the extension and sign up for the free plan. Sign up and create an account, download the extension on the website, close your internet browser, and then open up a Google Doc, Slide, or Sheet. The Moe will then appear
To watch this happen in real time, watch Getting Started with MOTE - Step by Step.
Note: One note to make about the video, you canno download the extension in the extension store. Rather, you need to install directly from the www.mote.com website.
Mote on Google Slides
Mote can be directly integrated into a Google Slide. Create a Google Slide and then click on the MOTE icon above the slide. Then, record your directions or feedback directly into the slide. An audio symbol will then appear for students to click on when they want to hear the recording. Additionally, a MOTE recording can be integrated into a Google Slide by click on text and recording a MOTE recording through the comment feature.
Mote on Google Docs Beyond Comments - HyperMotes
Motes can be directly integrated into the text of a Google Doc. HyperMotes provide an opportunity for your directions to be hyperlinked directly in a text. A HyperMote can be recorded by clicking on the Hypermote icon on the Google Doc and then place directly into the text you’ve underlined.
Conclusion - MOTE Is Gamechanging
MOTE is a great tool to help differentiate instruction and can make learning much more accessible to our learners. It can be used for any form of content within any of our classes! We hope you check it out as it can be a gamechanging tool for your instruction that can help amplify student learning.
12/10/2021 - Introduction to Canva - The Free Content Creation tool for Teachers
12/10/2021 - Introduction to Canva - The Free Content Creation tool for Teachers
Canva is one of my favorite content creating applications outside of Google Workspace. It allows teachers to create content for their students that can be shared on Canvas, their website, or sent to students via email.
The goal with this post is to demonstrate Canva’s basic features, tips on how to create content, and some of its instructional uses to help you get started using this fantastic tool.
Introduction to Canva Video
Before we jump into more tips on creating content and instructional uses of Canva, let’s jump into learning more about its features. In the following video, you will be taken on a tour of all of these major features of Canva to help you get started.
Accessing Templates
Uploading Media
Using Various Text Styles
Using the Sketch Note Feature
Sharing Projects
Creating Folders
Creating a Classroom
Take a look here and review this video to learn more about the features of Canva.
Tips to Create Content
As you get started and create content, there are a number of things to keep in mind.
Ensure you choose the right dimensions for your design.
Pick a background
Add your elements (uploaded content, text, logos, clipart, and more)
Choose the appropriate fonts for your text
Add to a Folder When Done
Download the Content
Instructional Uses of Canva
There are a number of instructional uses for Canva. Listed below are several things you can integrate Canva into your instruction to support student learning.
Creating easy to understand graphics for your classroom and the content/skills you’re teaching
Developing interactive and visually appealing slideshows
Create a classroom on Canva as a place for students to build their own content
Develop assignments, graphic organizers, and worksheets for students to utilize on Canvas or can be printed out
Use Canva to help students build digital portfolios and resumes.
Overall, you can use Canva for many different facets in classrooms and school. We hope you take time to tinker and dabble with as you plan instruction. In addition, take a look at the additional resources provided below to continue to expand your toolkit regarding using Canva.
Additional Resources
Beginners Guide to Canvas (Article)
10 Ways to Take Your Lessons to the Next Level with Canva (Article)
12/3/2021 - Top 5 Themes from CITE and CCAE Southern Section Conferences
12/3/2021 - Top 5 Themes from CITE and CCAE Southern Section Conferences
Major Impactful Themes for our Practice from CITE and CCAE Conferences
Over the course of the week before Thanksgiving break, I was able to attend the California Information Technology for Education Conference (CITE) and the California Council for Adult Education (CCAE) Southern Section Conference. Each conference was in-person and a good opportunity to connect with educators within the Educational Technology and Adult Education spheres and communities.
The goal of this post is to highlight key themes from each conference that I believe can support us all in our classrooms and schools within our consortium. I will be providing a short description of each theme and how we can use them to make an impact for our instructional and organizational practice and for our students. For each conference, there are four themes that I will be elaborating on. Overall, we hope you can come away after reading this with several takeaways from each theme to further think about and research as well as improve our practices as Adult Educators and our schools.
Themes from CITE
1. The Teacher and Pedagogy Always Drives the Use of Technology
Teachers always drive the instruction. The strategy to help support learning should be chosen first before the technology. Take a look at the SAMR Model by Ruben Puentedura (2010) below, which outlines how technology can be used to transform and enhance our instruction. However, with this said, think about the strategies you utilize first in the classroom. For example, the strategy think, pair, and share can be used without technology yet it can be further transformed and enhanced by technology if we use Google Slides and/or Pear Deck or Nearpod to make the slides interactive for students. Therefore, not only are the slides there to help sequence the strategy, but they are there to transform the interactions students are having with their peers and the content.
2. We Must Teach Our Students Digital Literacy
In our day and age, students not only have to be able to read, write, and speak, but they also need to have the skills to do this in digital formats. For example, students need to be able to navigate our online world. Understanding how to use the internet and comprehend the validity of news sources is as essential as reading comprehension. Additionally, having the ability to create content for personal, job, and business uses, is important as a skill like writing can be translated to creating video, audio, and graphics. As a result, when delivering content and working on skills, we must interweave digital literacy skills into much of what we are doing in our classes.
3. Digital Footprint
Another topic that seemed to be a relevant theme was reflecting on our digital footprint and letting our students grasp its implications. Similar to digital citizenship, which are appropriate behaviors to navigate our digital world, our digital footprint represents every action and piece of content. Much of the content we post may be available online for tens to hundreds of years. We must explain this to our students and demonstrate how our digital footprint can be around throughout our lives and even beyond our lives.
4. Creating Not To Do Lists Before To Do Lists
One interesting way of organizing your tasks (and hopefully taking some things off your plate) is creating a not to do list before a to do list. The goal is ultimately to create a list of things that you may have to do or things that may not be in your scope of work at this moment to list before creating your top three to five things you need to do and focus on. In a time when things are ever-increasing in their complexity and that to-do list seems to be increasing by leaps and bounds, this may be a way to re-calibrate and assess what you are currently doing with your to-do list.
Themes from CCAE
1.Build Relationships in Each Classroom Setting
As the diversity of classroom settings is now more prevalent across Adult Schools (we offer online, blended, and in-person learning options), our goal should be to build relationships with students in each setting. Much of what was discussed is to put relationships before content. When relationships are built, students will engage at higher levels and be more accountable for their learning. Additionally, they are more likely to attend and extend their education and learning beyond the classroom. This resource from Matt Miller and Paulino Brener discuss a variety of different elements we can focus on for building relationships with students online. Then, a graphic below from the Missouri Department of Instruction for learning illustrates some ideas for building relationships in-person.
2. We Must Create Digital Literacy Onboarding Procedures for New Students
What stood out at the conference were several examples of other Adult Schools (i.e Fontana Adult School) and consortium having a uniform onboarding program for students to access items such as their email and logging into Canvas to build their digital literacy skills. Additionally, programs provided new students with tutorials of how students would send emails, receive updates from their instructors, and navigate through the schools website and major applications. Examples of these onboarding programs include having a separate single day class for new students to complete these digital literacy modules or experiencing the onboarding process within their first few classes of the class they are enrolled in. Ultimately, the results from these onboarding programs showed students being more fond of navigating their classes, Canvas, communicating with their teachers, and improved digital literacy.
3. Navigating Various Types of Instructional Models
As we progress into our new normal, the types of instructional models will be more diverse than ever. Adult Schools provide opportunities for learning to take place online, blended, asynchronously online, and in-person. By providing all of these options, we are providing our local communities and students with more equitable opportunities to access learning. Therefore, within our educational communities, we must continue to build capacity and improve these programs as they will continue to be prevalent moving forward into the future.
4. Adult Education Funding Mechanisms
Adult Education is funded much differently than K-12 education. Learning this was insightful and a good reminder as to how we can use those funding mechanisms to improve our programs and provide learning opportunities for students. Also, provided are several of the accountability indicators that we are required to submit to the state and federal government.
Major Funding Sources
California Adult Education Program: Over $500 million is allocated from California to Adult Schools.
Requires schools to provide data reports on practical student outcomes such as getting a job, transferring to college, or to another post-secondary institution.
Not performance based, but allocations are made available based on regional need and demographics.
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act: Minor funding from the federal government.
Requires schools to provide reports on learning gains, jobs, and transitions.
Funding is performance based and calculated via payment points.
Each learning gain is from a pre/post test measurement.
Points also come from graduates and civic assessment eams
The major caveat is that learning gains need to be significant to count
Funding guidelines are very stringent in regard to where funds can be utilized.
11/19/2021 - Digital Portfolios and Resumes Using Wakelet
11/19/2021 - Digital Portfolios and Resumes Using Wakelet
Having students create an ever-changing resume and portfolio online is essential in the world we live in today. By creating a landing page all about yourself that can be shared with the world, it provides a platform to share everything we’ve created, accomplished, and experienced. For our students, this is an awesome way to help them create resumes and digital portfolios that display their knowledge and accomplishments to help with future employment or moving forward in their careers. Besides creating an online portfolio and resume, students have the ability to download and print the portfolio to use when applying for jobs outside of providing a hyperlink for employers to access at any time.
Therefore, the goal of this post is to demonstrate how to use Wakelet as a template to create the portfolio as well as use it as an online landing page for the student to share with employers.
Below are the steps on how to get your students started creating a resume and digital portfolio on Wakelet. Included here is a video demonstrating each of the following steps below for you to review.
Step 1: This is the example of the Wakelet digital portfolio template (to see, join Wakelet by joining via Google) discussed within this blog. Go here and review the template. Students will need their own Wakelet accounts, which is free. They only need an email address to be able to have one.
Step 2: On the template, share the link to your students through your Canvas, email, or Google Classroom. You can do this by clicking the share button on the top of the Wakelet.
Step 3: Have students click on the top three buttons on top of the template to make a copy.
Step 4: Once they have a copy, they will go to their “home” Wakelet page on their account to view the copy to then edit.
Step 5: Students can edit the template by clicking on the edit button. Students can add text, photos, hyperlinks, assignments from their Google Drive, and videos. Be sure to have students click “done” each and every time they edit the page as it doesn't save automatically.
Step 6: Once students are done, they can download the PDF of the resume and portfolio. Additionally, they can share the link to the page they’ve created by clicking on the share button and copying and then pasting the link to whomever they are sharing it with.
Overall, Wakelet is an easy-to-use platform that students can use to create portfolios and resumes over their educational career. I recommend having students begin a portfolio at the beginning of the semester if they do not have one already. Then, for the specific class, create a page that leads to a collection of all of the learning artifacts they’ve created.
Take a shot at using this amazing tool! To learn more, see the resources below as well as our previous blog post on Wakelet to learn more about it and its uses to amplify instruction and student learning.
More Examples
Here is another example of a Wakelet student digital portfolio.
Embedded Resume Example on Wakelet
Wakelet templates you can use for your students and class.
Student Digital Portfolio Example
More Resources Curated on Wakelet
11/12/2021 - Using Flipgrid to Record Student Podcasts
11/12/2021 - Using Flipgrid to Record Student Podcasts
Flipgrid is an amazing tool that allows students to record their voice and videos of themselves presenting and sharing content. One fun and engaging task you can have your student participate in is creating and recording their own podcast using Flipgrid. This can be done for students to summarize what they’ve learned, to extend what they’ve learned, or to share new insights and thoughts regarding the content of the class.
To get started follow these steps. Included in these steps are resources for podcast templates you can have your students complete beforehand as a script before recording.
Create a free account on Flipgrid by going to info.flipgrid.com.
Then, create a class. This was discussed in one of our first blog posts, which can be found here.
Once you create your class, create the assignment using the “+ topic” button on the right hand side of the page.
Create an assignment for the podcast. Include any relevant information.
Provide students with a podcast script template to complete. These can be sent out as an assignment on Canvas, through email, or posted on a Google Site.
After the template has been completed by students, provide them with the join code for the topic you’ve created on Flipgrid. This is a hyperlink that can be provided via email, text, Canvas, or on a Google Site.
To see these steps in action, watch the following video provided here, which demonstrates these directions step by step.
Once the podcast assignment has been created, you can share the link on Canvas, a Google Site, or on Zoom for your students to access it. Once there, you can include the template to help them get started or the template itself has already been filled out as a scaffold leading up to when they record their episode.
Student created podcasts are such a fun and engaging way to amplify student voice and learning. We hope you try this activity and strategy into your classroom!
Additional Resources
11/5/2021 - What is a Wakelet Collection
11/5/2021 - What is a Wakelet Collection
Do you want a place to save links, social media posts, videos, and images that can be curated and interacted with by you and your students? If so, Wakelet is a great free tool where this can take place. On Wakelet, you and your students can create, curate, and organize content together to amplify the learning experience within any classroom setting.
The goal of this post is to introduce Wakelet, its uses, and resources to help you put it into action for yourself as well as with your students.
Ways to use Wakelet & Getting Started
Wakelet has many different uses to amplify your work and instruction with students. Take a look at them below before taking a deeper dive.
To begin your journey using Wakelet, here is a ten minute video outlining its features and how to use them.
Using Wakelet as an Organization and Content Curation Tool
One important way to use Wakelet for yourself is to curate and organize your content.
If you want a series of websites where they have templates you like to use, you can drop them into a collection.
If you want a series of video resources, you can keep them grouped together in your collection.
If there was a series of resources dropped from an educator on social media, you can include their posts on your collection too.
Additionally, you can place the links to all of your important documents and slides you’ve created on your Google Workspace.
Also, you can share your curated and organized work with your colleagues for collaboration, which is a really cool feature. Here’s a short two minute video showing you step by step how to share your collection.
Using Wakelet with Students
There are many ways to utilize Wakelet with students. Present below are a number of strategies integrating this tool.
Collaborative Brainstorms
A great way to collaboratively brianstorm with students is to create a new blank collection. Then, determine what you would like your students to brainstorm and collect and curate information. To do this, create a topic and then invite students to the blank Wakelet collection. You can share the link to the collection via Canvas, Zoom, or email. Provide students with about 5 minutes and you will see the collection to start exponentially having content and ideas related to that topic.
Digital Portfolios/Resumes
Another fun way to use Wakelet with students is to have them create their own digital portfolio using Wakelet as the template to do so. Show your students the Wakelet Templates for digital portfolios. Students can create their own collection on Wakelet using a digital portfolio template to house their work and content for your class as well as others.
Other Strategies Using Wakelet
Besides the collaborative brainstorm strategy, there are “getting to know” each other activities. Also, students can work collaboratively on a project together in the same Wakelet collection by sharing the link to each other.
Conclusion - Many Opportunities with Wakelet!
Overall, there are many opportunities to utilize Wakelet for yourself and your students! There are endless opportunities. Take a look at more resources below to help you learn more about this free and easy to use tool!
Essential Resources
Wakelet Templates for You to Utilize
10/22/2021 - HyperDocs and HyperSlides Create UDL Lesson Opportunities
10/22/2021 - HyperDocs and HyperSlides Create UDL Lesson Opportunities
Over the last few posts, we’ve covered how to create and utilize HyperDocs and HyperSlides. These integrations with these EdTech tools are game changing as they provide a variety of instructional options ranging from student choice, personalized learning, and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL). We have already covered how they can be utilized for the purposes of implementing student choice and personalization. Now, we will focus on how they can be used to provide multiple modalities for students to receive information, engage in a task/assignment, and demonstrate their learning. This is the foundational instructional strategies and learning science that powers our use of HyperDocs and HyperSlides.
Review HyperDocs and HyperSlides
Before jumping into discussing UDL, let’s review HyperDocs and HyperSlides. Generally, HyperDocs and Slides follow a lesson sequence where students analyze and process content and then synthesize the content they have analyzed and evaluated. The last step of this sequence is the opportunity for students to demonstrate their learning and by creating something that demonstrates that learning. Throughout this sequence, within the HyperDoc and Slide, various hyperlinks go to content they want students to analyze and assignments and tasks that ask students to synthesize and organize information and then create something that demonstrates what they’ve learned.
A reminder before moving into UDL, HyperDocs and Slides are not just a document or slide with hyperlinks. See below that outlines these differences.
What is the Universal Design for Learning
According to CAST (2021), the Universal Design for Learning is a framework to help cultivate expert learners who are purposefully motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, and strategic and goal directed. Additionally, by incorporating the UDL framework, we are providing access for all learners to participate in authentic, challenging, and meaningful opportunities to learn.
The UDL framework has three major components along with three sub-components that go along with each of the three major components. Below is the UDL framework provided by CAST (2021).
When reviewing this framework, can you see how many of its major and sub components may align to how we’ve been discussing HyperDocs and HyperSlides? If we look at the three major components of the framework, we can see how HyperDocs/Slides can provide multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression as they generally have multiple pieces of content that can be analyzed and evaluated followed by opportunities for students to create recognition networks of what they have analyzed by synthesizing that information and making it their own. Finally, they provide multiple means of action and expression by giving students a choice to demonstrate their learning through multiple means. Recall when we discussed how a number of choiceboards embedded in a HyperDoc/Slide gave students the opportunity to write an essay, record a podcast, create an infographic, or edit and record a video? This is a prime example of multiple means of representation in play.
Example of a HyperDoc and HyperSlide that is UDL Friendly
Below are a number of examples of HyperDocs and HyperSlides that are UDL Friendly. Additionally, the examples provided in our previous blog posts
The Civil War HyperDoc - By Matt Arnold
Space Explorer HyperDoc - By Karly Moura and Sherry Brauer
Fake News HyperDoc - By Amanda Sandoval
The Haradas HyperSlide - By Amanda Sandoval
How HyperDocs and HyperSlides Can Be Used Over and Over Again for UDL Friendly Lessons
As discussed throughout this blog post series, HyperDocs and HyperSlides can be easily changed and altered to meet future lessons. First, make a copy. Create the content (or reuse the templates for that content). Add the links. Revise the directions. Then, you are done! Once you begin using them on a regular basis, the lesson design and preparation goes much quicker and becomes rather efficient.
Conclusion - Now It’s Your Turn to Try Them!
HyperDocs and HyperSlides are an amazing instructional tool that can help amplify student learning and make your lesson preparation more efficient. They also align with many of the components of the UDL framework. Therefore, it’s an instructional strategy that's a win-win situation for teachers and students! I highly recommend trying it out! Also, below are some more excellent resources on HyperDocs and Slides for you to utilize.
Note: Check Out Our Previous Two Blog Posts on HyperDocs and HyperSlides
10/15/2021 - How Can Using HyperDocs and HyperSlides Create Student Choice
10/8/2021 - Making Interactive Lessons Using HyperDocs and Slides Blog Series
Repositories of HyperDocs and Slides to Select and Modify for your Lessons
10/15/2021 - How Can Using HyperDocs and HyperSlides Create Student Choice
10/15/2021 - How Can Using HyperDocs and HyperSlides Create Student Choice
HyperDocs and HyperSlides can be utilized to create student tasks and assignments that promote choice and student agency. Additionally, they can help improve the efficiency of your lesson planning by being utilized as templates time and time again for your lessons. Last, they can boost student engagement, creativity, and innovation as it provides them with the choice to add their own elements to the final work product.
Overall, the goal of this post is to show you how to create your own student choiceboard using Google Docs and Slides. However, before we begin, a few quick notes about choiceboards will be provided.
First, before utilizing chocieboards, we need to teach our students how to analyze the content we provide them as well as how to take the content and create something out of it. Creation applications such as using Flipgrid for podcasts, Canva for infographics, and writing a blog post using Google Docs, must be taught over the course of the first month or so of class so students know how to use them before taking on student choice tasks. We can scaffold this over time by providing several tasks over the first month of class that require students to create their own podcast, blogpost, or infographic. If this is done beforehand, we can have successful student choice tasks provided to them in a manner that can be successful.
Second, much of the creation process requires a bit of research. For the content you want your students to evaluate first, this will take you the longest to research while setting up your choice board. For the steps relating to evaluating and synthesizing the content and creating a student work product demonstrating their learning for the final step, the same tasks students interact with can be very similar throughout the choice boards you create each semester.
Now, let’s focus on building a choice board!
Choiceboard Using Google Docs - How-To Steps
Here are the following steps to create a choiceboard using Google Docs. Following these steps is a detailed video on how to create them using Google Docs. Let’s do this!
Step 1: Create a table with three columns. Label them Step 1, 2, and 3. Step 1 is Content,
Step 2 is a task for students to synthesize the content they’ve analyzed, which is typically a graphic organizer, and Step 3 is a task related to students creating something that demonstrates what they’ve learned and/or a problem solving task.
Step 3: For each column, provide two to three choices for your students.
Step 4: Hyperlink the content you would like your students to click on for the choiceboard. For Step 1, the content can be easily linked from the internet. However, for Steps 2 and 3, you must generally make an assignment on Canvas that you can then hyperlink to the choiceboard. This will help you grade student work and keep them accountable for completing the choiceboard tasks.
Step 5: Post the choice board on Canvas or send out via email or a link to your students.
Watch this video on How to Create a Choiceboard using Google Docs.
Here is an additional choicboard template you can use from EdTechPicks.org for your to create a digital choice board on Google Docs.
Google Slide Choiceboard
In a similar manner, you can create a choiceboard using Google Slides using the same steps. Essentially, the same steps are followed, but the content of the choices presented on the choiceboard are slides embedded within the slide presentation. On each of these slides, students complete a task that is associated with the choiceboard. It may include links and instructions required for the assignment to be completed. The major area that differentiates is the hyperlinks. Instead of linking content outside of the slides to the choiceboard front page, you will hyperlink each slide, which then can be utilized as a platform to hyperlink content related to that specific task (click on the image of the Google Slide below to see an example).
Watch this video on how to Create An Interactive Choice Board Using Google Slides to see how it's done!
Note: Click here to view the HyperSlide as depicted above.
Conclusion on Choiceboards
Choiceboards provide a great opportunity for students to analyze and synthesize content and then create something creative and innovative demonstrating what they have learned. Also, it provides teachers with an efficient and effective way to plan and deliver lessons. Additional resources have been provided regarding the choiceboards below. Check them out and please feel free to use the many templates provided throughout the article!
Additional Resources on Creating Student Choice Boards Using Google Docs and Slides
Matt Miller's Resource on Progressive Choice Boards - I Highly Recommend Reading It!
10/8/2021 - Making Interactive Lessons Using HyperDocs and Slides Blog Series
10/8/2021 - Making Interactive Lessons Using HyperDocs and Slides Blog Series
As we move further into our bi-weekly PD on Active Learning Strategies for Google Slides, we wanted to further supplement that learning with a blog series on HyperDocs and HyperSlides. We wanted to provide a series on HyperDocs and HyperSlides as it is the basis for creating fun, engaging, and interactive lessons for students that can take place within any classroom setting.
What are HyperDocs and HyperSlides?
HyperDocs and HyperSlides essentially can take the form of a lesson, instructional strategy, or visual interface. Generally speaking, all of these elements are combined when a teacher creates a HyperDoc or HyperSlide and delivers it to their students during a lesson. What makes them powerful is that they can take students on a creative journey and amplify the content and strategies you’re delivering to your students. HyperDocs and HyperSlides can be built within the Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 platforms.
Throughout this blog series, there will be three posts that cover the following topics about HyperDocs and HyperSlides:
What are HyperDocs and HyperSlides? How to Build HyperDocs and HyperSlides
How Can Using HyperDocs and Hyper Create Student Choice
HyperDocs and HyperSlides Create UDL Lesson Opportunities
Ultimately, the goal is to provide how to use these great integrations with HyperDocs and HyperSlides as well as demonstrate how you can use them to amplify student learning!
Before Building a HyperDoc or HyperSlide - Intentional Design
Before building a HyperDoc or HyperSlide, we must determine what their purpose is before building one. Are we building a lesson slideshow, choiceboard, scavenger hunt, or developing an assignment that requires students to move between multiple documents or slides? This question is important as we must determine what learning outcome we want our students to achieve as a result of designing a lesson that includes a HyperDoc or HyperSlide.
Determine Intended Learning Outcome As a Result of Using a HyperDoc/Slide
Design HyperDoc/Slide to Meet that Learning Goal
How To Build a HyperDoc and HyperSlide
To build a HyperDoc and HyperSlide, we must have content. Whether it's a slideshow or multiple documents, we must have the content first before hyperlinking everything together. Therefore, first and foremost, content is the most essential piece. Once the content has been developed, we can follow several steps to make the HyperDoc and HyperSlide.
Go to the Slideshow or Document you want to part of your HyperDoc/slide
Go to the “Share” Button at the top right hand corner of the screen.
Determine whether this will be a collaborative task or not, which will then determine if you will share the link to all in a viewable format or in an editable format.
Then, go to the document or slide you would like to add the hyperlink. You will either click the hyperlink icon (the paperclip icon) or use the keyboard shortcut Control + K to insert the hyperlink.
Copy and paste the link and then come up with a title for the hyperlink to be placed on either the slide or document that is being linked.
Watch the following video of taking these steps and putting them into action.
Developing Lessons Using HyperDocs/Slides - Begin with Templates
After knowing the basics of creating a HyperDoc or HyperSlide, we want to find an efficient way to develop our lessons and strategies using these tools. As a result, one of the easiest ways to create these lessons is to use templates already created or building your own to utilize. Once you have built two to three templates of lessons and strategies you want to use HyperDocs and HyperSlides for in your class, all you will need to do is change the links when the content changes from lesson to lesson when you want to use them.
To build your own template, use the “Table” option for Google Docs. You can create one that looks like this depending on what your lessons goals are for your students.
Similarly, on Google Slides you can do the same by creating Hyperlinks to various Units, Weeks, or pieces of content by using the same “create a table method.”
After templates are built, content can be linked directly to them. To reuse, all you need to do is to make a copy and change out whichever hyperlinks you would like to for the new lesson or task you will have students completing.
Templates and More
On the website Hyperdocs.co, there is an assortment of templates for lessons and strategies that can be utilized. All you will need to do is choose the one you would like to use, make a copy, and then start adding the hyperlinked content to the template. You may have to edit a bit of the content, but much of the design has already been done, which helps you build these out for your lessons quickly and efficiently.
Over the next few weeks, the two future posts will be on the following topics:
How Can Using HyperDocs and Hyper Create Student Choice
HyperDocs and HyperSlides Create UDL Lesson Opportunities
We can’t wait to talk about how HyperDocs and Slides can foster student choice as well as be utilized to develop lessons that are Universal Design for Learning friendly!
10/1/2021 - Student Self-Reflection, Self-Assessment, and Metacognition Using Interactive Slides
10/1/2021 - Student Self-Reflection, Self-Assessment, and Metacognition Using Interactive Slides
As we know, Pear Deck and Nearpod can be utilized and integrated into a wide variety of strategies. Student reflection and metacognition strategies are part of this range of strategies! In Part 4 of our Interactive Slide Blog Series, we will cover this in-depth.
Metacognition and Reflection - A Skill Set for Lifelong Learners
As educators, we want our students to be lifelong learners. However, this needs to be something we intend to put into our lessons to practice reflection and metacognition, which is the basis for becoming a lifelong learner. Through metacognition and reflection, students can assess what they learned, their strengths, areas of improvement, and next steps they need to take to extend their learning.
We can provide these opportunities more than ever on a daily and weekly basis. Thus, what we can do is build self-assessment into all our lessons and units to practice these skills. Our goal in this post is to show you how students practice self-assessment metacognition using interactive slides. Not only does self-assessment give students an opportunity to practice metacognition skills, but it also provides teachers with a plethora of information about our students they can use to become better teachers and learn more about their students, which will bolster their relationships. Overall, the information collected can help teachers learn more about the student’s thoughts regarding what they know, where they need to go, and what areas of strength they feel like they are strong in. Ultimately, this will facilitate dialogue between teachers and students throughout the year to help monitor and adjust our instruction as well as focus on the personalizing learning of our students.
Note: Here is a provided template for you to copy and paste these slides into your own presentations you are utilizing in your class. Use these for your reference too as you read through this blog.
Daily Self-Assessment & Reflection
Daily self-assessment is quick, which can be employed during the closure of a lesson. Teachers can pose one to three questions regarding what was covered, student understanding, and areas of strength/improvement for students to interact with and think about. We can use Pear Deck or Nearpod for my interactive slideshows so I can have active engagement throughout my entire lesson. Ultimately, at the end of most of my lessons, we can provide students an opportunity to think about what they have learned. This provides students an opportunity to practice metacognition and gives me quick feedback on where my students believe they are currently at on the skills or content discussed during that class period. Below, there are three examples of how you can utilize interactive slides for reflection at the end of your lesson as an exit ticket.
Weekly Self-Assessment & Reflection
Weekly self-assessment allows students to practice metacognition skills by allowing them to summarize what they have learned throughout the week as well as narrow down areas of strength and areas of improvement. In addition, a weekly self-assessment gives students an opportunity to give themselves self-reported grades on their reading, writing, math, participation, and work completion. By providing students an opportunity to self-report their progress and grades, it can allow teachers to have a dialogue with students thereafter to facilitate conversation about their strengths and areas they can improve in. For the weekly self-assessment, we can utilize either an interactive slide or Google Forms for a weekly self-assessment because sometimes we can provide multiple choice and free response reflection questions for my students. Also, the data output from Google Forms is extremely valuable because it allows me to analyze individual and class trends over the course of a semester versus the readout from a single lesson using Pear Deck or Nearpod. Below you will see how you can use interactive slides as well as a Google Form for students to interact with while they reflect. This can be done at the end of your lesson at the end of the week.
Conclusion - Implementing Self-Assessment & Reflection Builds Relationships
Regardless of the content you are teaching your students, provide them an opportunity to self-reflect, self-assess, and self-report grades because it gives them a multitude of opportunities throughout the year to practice metacognition and reflection. Metacognition allows our students to become lifelong learners, which builds their self-efficacy and confidence to think about or dialogue with others about their abilities and skill sets. Furthermore, we want our students to consistently look to grow and improve. By focusing on practicing metacognition throughout the year, it gives your students an opportunity to do this. On the teacher side of the equation, teachers have the opportunity to review this data and learn more about their students than ever before besides our student-to-teacher-to-student relationship, evaluating student work artifacts, and analyzing assessment scores. Evaluating the self-assessment data is critical in focusing on improving your instruction for all of your students and personalizing learning for your students by conversing with your students to work on improving gaps in their learning and making their strengths shine.
9/24/2021 - Collaboration Student Activities Using Pear Deck and Nearpod
9/24/2021 - Collaboration Student Activities Using Pear Deck and Nearpod
Collaboration with Pear Deck and Nearpod can be done in a variety of ways that can amplify student learning. In this post, several strategies will be discussed to help you create these collaborative activities using interactive slides. First, we will outline several steps to think about while creating collaborative tasks and activities. Then, we will discuss three strategies that can be utilized on Pear Deck and Nearpod that can be done collaboratively by students. These strategies include Think, Write, Pair, and Share, Reciprocal Teaching, and Collaborative Bulletin Boards.
Collaboration - Things to Think About Student Collaboration Activities
A few things to think about before student collaboration. This list will help you create collaborative groups and activities that will lead to students being successful in completing the task and getting the most learning out of it!
We want to keep our groups to three or four students max.
We also want our groups of students to be heterogeneous, but also strategically placed. For example, in ESL, you place a student whose strength is in writing while the other two students have strengths in speaking.
Also, we want to try and create roles within the group to complete the task.
Last, we want to create a task that students can do in three to four steps. We do not want to overwhelm the group with too many things they are required to do.
Collaboration Opportunities Using both Nearpod and Pear Deck and Nearpod
On either Pear Deck or Nearpod, we can create collaborative tasks using the slides. We will be discussing Think-Pair-Share and Reciprocal Teaching.
Think-Write-Pair-Share
This strategy is geared towards being collaborative. Students complete a task individually and then are paired with a partner or group to share their ideas and synthesize them. Finally, after synthesizing their ideas and writing them down together, they will have the opportunity to share them with the class. Generally, this strategy can be utilized to activate prior knowledge at the beginning of the lesson or it can be used during guided practice to further develop ideas and share insights.
For Think, Write, Pair, and Share, you will need to develop three slides that are ordered consecutively in your slide deck for the instructional sequence of the strategy.
Think - This is a slide that has the initial prompt and visual to go along with it.
Write - This turns into an interactive text or draw slide.
Pair/Share - This is an interactive slide as it allows both students to share their responses and then write a combined response to share with the class in the last sequence.
Generally, students are provided with a prompt. Think time is given for students to process the prompt. Then, they are asked to write their response on the following interactive slide. Three to five minutes is given for their response. Following their response, students are grouped or paired using breakout rooms or a place in the classroom. Once this has been completed. Students share their answers in the group. Then, students are asked to synthesize their answers to then be possibly shared with the class. After this has occurred, two to three groups are asked to share their responses to prompt further discussion on the topic.
See the short sequence of slides that have been created for you using Pear Deck. You can make a copy and then utilize it for your class by adding your own content to it. Then, WATCH an explanation of the strategy with this video.
Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal teaching provides our students with opportunities throughout an entire lesson to critically think regarding what you are teaching them. This strategy has four interactive slides sequenced at the beginning, middle, and end of the lesson. During each of these instructional sequences that make up the predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing slides, students are given opportunities to collaborate with interactive slides.
Predicting - On this slide, a prompt or phenomenon is discussed. Students are asked to predict what may happen next. This can be a text or draw interactive slide. Students can work with a partner or group to make a prediction regarding the lesson.
Questioning - Following the prediction slide or guided practice where the concept is discussed more in-depth, students can be asked to formulate several questions that can be collaboratively developed. This generally is a draw or text interactive slide.
Clarifying - Students are shown by the teacher through modeling the solution or answer several of the questions the students have provided. This is generally near the end of the lesson. This is not an interactive slide.
Summarizing - Students are paired or grouped together and are asked to summarize the lesson. Students are asked if the prediction they formulated at the beginning of the lesson was anywhere near where the lesson took them. Additionally, they can be asked if their questions were answered throughout the lesson.
When this strategy is initiated, it is scattered throughout an entire lesson. It’s not a consecutive sequence. For the collaborative aspects of this strategy, students can be paired or grouped together within breakout rooms or in specific areas of the classroom. The groups of the students can be changed throughout the lesson or changed multiple times depending on what you would like to do. Overall, this strategy is a great way to keep students engaged and consistently collaborating throughout an entire lesson.
See the short sequence of slides that have been created for you using Pear Deck. You can make a copy and then utilize it for your class by adding your own content to it. Then, WATCH an explanation of the strategy with this video.
Collaboration Opportunities Using Nearpod
Specifically for Nearpod, we will be showcasing the bulletin board feature that can be turned into a collaborative activity for your students.
Bulletin Board
On Nearpod, you can create a bulletin board where students are required to answer a prompt and answer. Then, their response appears on a digital bulletin board. To make this collaborative, you can pair students in multiple groups or in pairs. Then, in a breakout room or on a table in a classroom, they will be asked to work together to come up with a response to the prompt. Thereafter, once they have a response, the group members will be asked to respond to the other bulletin board posts and to like them. Their response can quote another group’s response and/or have the group’s names at the top of the response to signify its a response versus the first answer given. This is then followed up by a short classroom discussion on the prompt and topic.
In Summary - Collaboration Strategies Using Interactive Slides
There is a wide range of strategies that can be configured to be done collaboratively. Jigsaw, concept mapping and sketch noting are also strategies that can be done collaboratively. Many others exist as well. We are looking forward to assisting you in integrating these strategies with EdTech to amplify the learning of your students!
9/17/2021 - Formative Assessments Using Interactive Slides Nearpod and Pear Deck
9/17/2021 - Formative Assessments Using Interactive Slides Nearpod and Pear Deck
In Part Three of our series on interactive slides, we are going to be discussing formative assessment. By the end of this post about this topic, you will have three to five go-to formative assessment strategies to try using on Pear Deck and Nearpod. These strategies will help amplify how you assess your students, provide feedback, and monitor and adjust your instruction.
Additionally, we wanted to announce our Performance Development page on our ETCN EdTech Website is now LIVE. You can complete two asynchronous PDs on either Pear Deck or Nearpod. They are interactive as you will watch the video provided and then complete the interactive slides as you go. Please take a look and let us know your thoughts!
What is Formative Assessment?
Formative assessments are opportunities for you to see whether students are learning in real-time. These assessments do not have to be for a grade. They can simply be an opportunity for you to see in a short segment of time in your lesson whether individual students, groups of students, or your entire class is understanding what you are teaching them. With this data collected in real-time, you can then monitor and adjust your instruction to help and support your students. Also, you can provide feedback to your students verbally or covertly during this time. This can help point them in the right direction during and after the assessment has taken place.
Interactive Slide Formative Assessment Strategies
There are several formative assessment strategies we will review along with a screenshot demonstrating each. Be sure to review the getting started professional development links for learning how to build Pear Deck and Nearpod slideshows in Google Slides.
Quickwrites/Free Response
Quickwrites and free response questions can be incorporated throughout your lesson to assess your students. You utilize them to activate prior knowledge and to review concepts from the previous class. Or, you can ask students throughout class open-ended questions they can respond so you can determine whether they are understanding the task ahead. Another way open-ended questions can be deployed during your lesson is at the end of the class session. You can ask students to summarize what they learned at the end of class as well as provide a question they may have and where they want to take their learning to next.
During the time students are providing responses, you can give them overt feedback in the form of verbal responses or covertly in written text. On Pear Deck, you can provide written responses directly onto their response, which students can see immediately.
Multiple Choice
Multiple choice can be utilized at any point in your lesson to assess your students. Multiple choice can be traditional A, B, C, D, True/Fale, or students can draw a circle around a specific answer choice. What’s great about Nearpod and Pear Deck is that they show how students are doing in real-time. You can see which students got the question correct and incorrect so once the assessment is over, you can quickly determine discrepancies in the answers provided by students.
Matching & Retrieval Practice with Flashcards
Matching and digital flashcards is a great form of retrieval practice, which helps our students take information from their long-term memory as they practice words and concepts they have learned. This can be a form of assessment to determine how well your students remember various terms, facts, and concepts they have learned in your class.
There are two forms of matching and flashcards that have been provided: Nearpod Matching and Pear Deck Flashcards. Each is an interactive option on Nearpod and Pear Deck. However, the Pear Deck form of flashcards is a different avenue in the application you will have to learn versus building interactive slides. Yet, each of these activities is engaging and Universal Design for Learning friendly as it provides multiple modalities for your students to take in and process the information provided.
There are two forms of matching and flashcards that have been provided: Nearpod Matching and Pear Deck Flashcards. Each is an interactive option on Nearpod and Pear Deck. However, the Pear Deck form of flashcards is a different avenue in the application you will have to learn versus building interactive slides. Yet, each of these activities is engaging and Universal Design for Learning friendly as it provides multiple modalities for your students to take in and process the information provided. Above you will see the Nearpod matching activity and below you will see the Pear Deck vocabulary flashcard activity.
Learn more about Matching on Nearpod by watching this YouTube video.
Learn more about setting up Flashcards on Pear Deck HERE and watch it in action HERE
Problem Solving Performance-Based Formative Assessments
The last form of formative assessment using interactive slides is problem-solving, which is a performative-based assessment. What this means is giving your students an open-ended problem or a problem that has a single solution where they must show their work and understanding as they solve the problem at hand. This can include a math problem, completing a grammar and punctuation problem, a short essay, or summarizing a task. Ultimately, this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can do. Generally, when using Pear Deck or Nearpod, you create drawing slides for these performative-based assessments. These types of slides give you a multitude of options for your students to interact with the assessment question you have provided.
Formative Assessment is a Powerful Strategy for Interactive Slides
Formative assessment is a great strategy to utilize while using interactive slides. Many options are there for you to see how your students are doing, provide feedback and use data to drive your instruction. Both Pear Deck and Nearpod provide a platform for this strategy to be amplified! Take advantage of it, experiment, and see how it can impact your instruction and the learning of your students.
9/10/2021 - Building Connections and Relationships with Students Using Interactive Slides
9/10/2021 - Building Connections and Relationships with Students Using Interactive Slides
Building Connection and Relationships with Students Using Interactive Slides
Last week, we began our series on interactive slides. We introduced interactive slides and demonstrated how to get started with Nearpod and Pear Deck. From what we learned last week is that interactive slides provide active learning opportunities for students. This allows for students to be participating, engaging, and learning overtly and covertly during synchronous and asynchronous instruction.
For today’s post, we are focusing on how we can use interactive slides to build connections, relationships, and social-emotional learning skills for our students! You will see examples of how to do this throughout lessons to amplify your student’s learning and your connections with them.
Activities to Build Connection with Students
To build instant connections with students, we want to ask them about themselves as well as provide opportunities for them to share with you about themselves. As a result, two activities where you can obtain this information from students are through Quickwrites and Poll Questions.
First, we have Quickwrites. With both Pear Deck and Nearpod, we can create open-ended questions where students write their responses. Usually, I will model my answer and then provide students to write their responses. Once students have completed, we can either cold call, call on them at random using Wheel of Names, or having volunteers. Immediately before calling on students, you can provide an overview of the responses of the students by summarizing the class’s responses.
Second, we have polls. Both Nearpod and Pear Deck have polls and multiple-choice features that allow us to poll a class. What’s great about polling your students is that you can quickly learn about them individually as well as your entire class. This can be done to activate prior knowledge or as a way to build motivation as a hook and/or lead into a new portion of your lesson.
Social-Emotional Learning
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is a set of strategies to help build our student’s emotional and social intelligence through teaching them a series of skills. Interactive slides are a great opportunity for your students to build these skills through active learning. Examples provided demonstrate how students can self-assess how they are feeling by interacting with a mood chart. On the mood chart, students draw circles around how they are feeling.
Pear Deck and Nearpod both provide templates for SEL. As seen below, here are two that Pear Deck provides. These include activities on what is filling your bucket versus what’s training it. Additionally, we can use SEL strategies to help students practice metacognition as seen in the slide example of a series of questions regarding how the lesson went for the student.
Throughout our lessons and classes, we want to build connections and relationships with our students as well as work on their SEL skills. By incorporating opportunities as discussed today with interactive slides to work in these areas throughout your lesson, active learning opportunities will yield more connections with your students as well as bolstering their SEL skill set. For more information on how to do this further, check out the following webinars below.
More Ideas on SEL - Two Videos for Further Investigation
9/3/2021 - A Series on Active Learning - Interactive Slides: An Introduction to Nearpod & Pear Deck
9/3/2021 - A Series on Active Learning - Interactive Slides: An Introduction to Nearpod & Pear Deck
Introduction to Interactive Slides: Nearpod & Pear Deck
Today on 9/3/2021, we had our very first ETCN EdTech LIVE PD that was hosted by the Poway Adult School ESL Department. We focused on introducing teachers to interactive slides; specifically Nearpod. For those that came today to participate live, we hope you had a fun, engaging, and worthwhile experience.
Today’s byte-sized PD focuses on the basics of getting started with interactive slides. We are going to show you how to access both Nearpod and Pear Deck add-on’s on Google Slides so you can experiment with. Our plan will be to have a series of about four to five byte-sized PDs blog posts that will align how to use interactive slides to create fun and engaging lessons for your students!
Upcoming Byte Sized PDs Using Interactive Slides
Building Connection and Relationships with Students Using Interactive Slides
Formative Assessment (Quizzes, checks for understanding, quickwrites, exit slips, etc.).
Collaborative Student Activities
Student Reflection & Metacognition
Before we get too far into this byte-sized PD, here are two slideshows with videos demonstrating what Nearpod and Pear Deck do as well as learning how to use their basic features.
Note: All of these slides and videos will be up on the ETCN EdTech Website.
What are Interactive Slides?
What are interactive slides? They are traditional Google Slides that have a special add-on that makes them interactive for students to write and draw on them while you are presenting them in your live online or in-person classrooms. A great adaptation to interactive slides is your ability to provide students with feedback as well as see their progress as you move through your lesson. This allows you to provide active learning opportunities and feedback simultaneously, which will create a fun and engaging lesson for your students. Also, in terms of prep, it does not take long to prep your lessons as you can take your current slideshows and transform them into interactive slides!
Access to Interactive Slides
Currently, Poway has a district license for Nearpod and Vista and Escondido have a district license for Pear Deck. There are some aspects of each you can utilize for free. However, when it comes down to it, you can integrate the same strategies using the same tools.
Strategies/Activities for Interactive Slides
You can do a wide range of strategies and activities ranging from social-emotional learning, quickwrites, drag and drop, flashcards, bulletin boards, exit slips for formative assessment, and student reflection. This is just the tip of the iceberg! Both Pear Deck and Nearpod can be used for all of these strategies and activities.
Getting Started with Nearpod and Pear Deck
The goal here is to show how you can get started using Nearpod and Pear Deck. You will see step-by-step instructions to add both tools to your Google Slides to then be incorporated into your slideshows.
Step 1: Open up Google Slides and create a slide. Then, click “Add-ons.”
Step 2: Click on “Get Add-ons” and add “Pear Deck” and “Nearpod.”
Step 3: Open up Pear Deck or Nearpod by clicking on Add-ons.
Part 2: Opening Nearpod and Pear Deck on Google Slides
Now, we will open up Nearpod and Pear Deck. First, we will begin with Nearpod.
Nearpod
Step 1: Log on through your Gmail or Office 365 account. You will have to create an account for either Nearpod or Pear Deck in order to use the add-on.
Step 2: Now, click on the slide and turn it interactive by clicking on one of the various options provided to make it interactive. The free version of Nearpod includes Drag and Drop, Draw, Open-Ended Questions, and Poll (Multiple Choice).
Accessing Pear Deck
Step 1: Click on the Add-on tab on Google Slides.
Step 2: Open up Pear Deck and determine what you would like your slide to be in terms of what interactive feature you would like. Free Pear Deck includes text and multiple choice features to be added to slides.
We hope you take the time to dive into Nearpod and Pear Deck as well as look to future ETCN EdTech PDs in the future to learn more about these powerful tools! Please also be sure to check out our Professional Development page of this website to see our recorded PDs. Thank you!
8/27/2021 - EdTech Integration Spotlight: Wheel of Names for Calling on Students
8/27/2021 - EdTech Integration Spotlight: Wheel of Names for Calling on Students
Have you ever wanted to randomly pick on students without using popsicle sticks? Do you want to create a fun and engaging way for students to see their names possibly being picked? This can be done in a matter of a few minutes and either online teaching synchronously or in-person. Ultimately, using a mechanism like this to call on students is a more equitable opportunity to get all of your students to participate verbally in your class.
Go to www.wheelofnames.com to begin! You will first see below what it looks like when you access the website. Then, following the image of the wheel, there will be a set of steps and a video showing how to create a wheel and launch the wheel while in class online or in person.
Step by Step Instructions on How to Create and Implement Wheel of Names Into Your Online or In-Person Classroom
Watch the Entire Tutorial in Action! - Watch: Wheel of Names Tutorial
Steps to Creating a Wheel of Names
Go to www.wheelofnames.com
Then, on the far right-hand side of the screen, type in all of your student’s names in your class.
Click Save.
Click Customize.
You can change the sound, the amount of time the spinner spins, the max number of names visible on the wheel, etc.
Once you are done customizing, click Save.
After you are done with these steps, you are ready to launch this Wheel of Names for your class.
Watch How-To: Video of Creating Wheel of Names
Steps to Using the Wheel of Names in your Class
Open up your wheel of names that you’ve created on www.wheelofnames.com. Be sure to KEEP the Wheel of Names open on your internet browser.
Open up your Zoom meeting through Zoom.us or on your calendar.
After opening up your meeting, sharing your screen.
Be sure to keep your slideshow presentation on the same line of browser tabs as your Wheel of Names tab on your internet browser.
If you are in person, this is something you should do as well so you can go back and forth between your slideshow and Wheel of Names as you call on students throughout the class.
Then, as appropriate, click on the tab for the Wheel of Names and spin the wheel when you would like to call on students to provide an overt verbal response.
After you spin the wheel, you will be able to either remove students who have been called from the wheel OR keep them there.
Have fun!
Watch How-To: Video of Launching Wheel of Names During Zoom
8/20/2021 - EdTech Integration Spotlight - Jigsaw Strategy Using Google Slides & Zoom
8/20/2021 - EdTech Integration Spotlight - Jigsaw Strategy Using Google Slides & Zoom
The Jigsaw Strategy Using Google Slides & Zoom
What is the Jigsaw Strategy?
Jigsaw is a cooperative learning strategy that has many uses as an instructional strategy. It involves taking a task and dividing it up into small chunks so students can interact and work together in a collaborative manner to learn. Then, after the task is completed, the entire class can come together and discuss it or complete a subsequence task, assignment, or activity where everyone has background knowledge. It can be utilized in a wide variety of ways as listed below and can be used with a number of EdTech tools.
Goal: In this post, you will learn how to implement this strategy within your instruction using Google Slides, NewsELA/Readworks, and Zoom.
Example Video: See the Strategy in Action - Click here to see Jigsaw in Action
Instructional Uses of Jigsaw as an Instructional Strategy
Student Engagement and Collaboration
Building Reading Comprehension (i.e., annotation, paraphrasing, & summarizing)
Differentiated Instruction & Personalized Learning
Project-Based Learning
Jigsaw Strategy for Reading Comprehension (i.e., Annotation, Paraphrase, and Summary)
Today, we will be using Jigsaw as a strategy to help with reading. Jigsaw Annotation is a strategy where a teacher can have students do a similar reading, speaking, and writing task but using two or more reading levels of the same text. This creates an opportunity to differentiate your instruction but keep the content and topic the same that students will discuss. It also is a good opportunity to have students read together and collaborate by annotating and paraphrasing what the text is stating. Then, having students discuss the text in their groups and then as a whole class. By doing this activity, students can build their comprehension and speaking skills.
How to Implement this Strategy and EdTech Integration
Using Readworks or NewsELA and Google Slideshow, an article from Readworks and NewsELA can be broken down into two or more slides where a portion or the entire text from the article or story can be copied and pasted into the slideshow. Then, a set of slides is dedicated towards one reading level of a specific text and another set is dedicated towards another reading level of the same text. Sets of slides can be numbered one, two, or three so students are eventually assigned those slides to read and annotate with a group. Usually, we suggest having three levels of the same text is great to start.
Once the slides are created, make a copy of the slides and set the link share to be “everyone with the link can edit.” You have two choices of where you would like to distribute the slides for the activity. The protocols of how this can be done will be discussed in a moment. You can either place the link to the slides as a Canvas assignment or copy and paste it directly into the Zoom chat box for students to click on. Either way works. Ultimately, it depends on what you and your students are comfortable with.
EdTech Tools Needed
Google Slides
NewsELA/Readworks
Zoom
Canvas (Optional)
Steps to Implement Jigsaw Using Google Slides & Zoom
Step 1. Log into NewsELA or Readworks and find an article.
Step 2. Determine which article you want to use and then break it down into two to three different reading levels.
Step 3. Open up Google Slides. Create two to three sides, which will make up the number of slides needed for the article. This is about 10 to 12 Google Slides when it is all said and done.
See Steps 1-3: Video NewsELA / Readworks
Step 4. As discussed above, ensure you have opened up a 10-12 Google Slides presentation.
Step 5. On the first slide, always have the title of the article.
Step 6. On the second slide, divide the slides into two to three groups. Each group is represented by a number, which represents the reading level of the article you choose.
Step 7. Then, on the slides, copy and paste the article onto two to three slides (based on the length of the article). Do this for at least two to three different reading levels. Altogether, this will be 10 to 12 slides in length.
Step 8. Last, be sure to click on the far upper right-hand side of the slide and click on “share.” To distribute the slides on Canvas or Zoom, it must be shared as an editable link for “anyone with the link.” This allows once a student access the slideshow, they can go to their assignment slides and edit that page.
See Steps 4-8: Video Google Slides
Step 9. Once ready to share, share the editable link with your students in the Zoom chat.
Step 10. After students have clicked on the link, model to students the directions of the task. You may want to model how you do it for about 3-5 minutes as an appropriate scaffold.
Step 11. Then, divide students into groups and create breakout rooms. They will then begin the jigsaw task you’ve asked them to complete.
Step 12. Provide your students with a time frame of the task completion and possibly a follow-up task thereafter.
See Steps 9-12: Video Illustrating Jigsaw in Action Using Zoom
For more information about the Jigsaw Strategy, check out the following resources.
8/12/2021 - New Website and EdTech Integration Spotlight: Flipgrid
8/12/2021 - New Website and EdTech Integration Spotlight: Flipgrid
Introducing the New ETCN EdTech Support, Resource, and Integration Website
We have an exciting announcement! This week we have launched the ETCN EdTech Website.
Website: https://sites.google.com/educationtocareer.net/etcn-edtech/
Ultimately, this website offers support on all things EdTech and how to integrate strategies and tools into your classroom instruction. It provides support on Canvas, Google Workspace, and several other major tools we utilize. Additionally, it provides a blog, resource pages, and instructional strategies for you to use in your classrooms!
Most importantly, it has my contact information and links to book a meeting with me to help support you and your students! Please bookmark this page and come back to it for your EdTech resource, support, and instructional needs.
8/7/2021: Getting to Know YOU on Flipgrid: Building Community and Language Skills
8/7/2021: Getting to Know YOU on Flipgrid: Building Community and Language Skills
What is Flipgrid?
Flipgrid is an interactive audio and video recording platform where students can respond to a teacher's activity, prompt, or question as well as responses created by students. Teachers and students can add emojis, graphics, augmented reality, and more to their recorded response. Responses generally are short and last from 15 seconds to a little over a minute. Student responses can be assessed and graded by the teacher. Last, Flipgrid is very straightforward and easy to and can be shared to students quickly on Canvas, Zoom, an email, or anywhere you can send out a hyperlink.
Watch to Learn More About Flipgrid: What is Flipgrid in 2 Minutes
Let’s learn more...but, first, your turn!
Your Turn: Click HERE to access the Flipgrid to record your response by acting as the student as well as letting the ETCN community get to know you better! The goal is to learn a bit about Flipgrid as well as getting to know the ETCN community across all of our memberr schools.
Getting Started with Flipgrid - Build your Own Flipgrid Group and Topic!
1. Sign-up at www.flipgrid.com by using your school email.
2. Once signed up, go to “Create a Group,” which is also known as a grid.
A “Group” is considered a “Classroom” or “Community” that can use Flipgrid by responding to a question or activity created by a teacher.
3. To create a “Group”, watch the following video to learn “How to Create a Group”
4. Learn to “Create a New Topic” on Flipgrid by watching the video.
5. Once you create your own Group and Topic on Flipgrid, you can share the hyperlink for students to access the Flipgrid through email, Canvas, a Document or Slideshow, or through Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams.
Instructional Uses
Building classroom communities and learning students' names.
Online discussion boards where students can respond to the main question posed and respond to their classmates.
Practicing language vocabulary, grammar, and phrases.
Student led podcasting.
Social-emotional learning tasks and activities
Student assessment
Student presentations
Above are several instructional uses of Flipgrid that you can place into your classroom. If you would like to see them in action, please book a short meeting with me by clicking HERE.
For More Information on Getting Started: https://blog.flipgrid.com/gettingstarted
Contact Tech Trainer & Integrationist Matt Rhoads
Contact Tech Trainer & Integrationist Matt Rhoads
Book a Coaching / Support Session or Meeting: Click HERE
Phone: 858-688-4024 ext. 4005 (Office) or 858-848-9556 (Mobile/Text)
Primary Email: mrhoads@educationtocareer.net Secondary Email: mrhoads@powayusd.com
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