Two years ago, my school district began using Google Apps for Education (GAFE). Teachers are successfully using the suite of tools under various innovative capacities.
I’ve been using many Google applications with my students for the past couple of years – mostly, to collaborate with student essays along with organizing my own documents. See HERE for materials from a beginning-of-year session I held at my school last August. For this upcoming school year, I’ll be setting up Google classroom for three of my five classes (for the other two, I will use iTunes U as I continue to have success with this platform tool). Alice KeelerandLibbi Miller, Ed. D.’s book, “50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom” couldn’t have been published at a more opportune time. Google launched Google Classroom at the beginning of the last school year and, while I know many teachers had success with this from the start, others like me had some questions before initiating a brand new platform.
My copy is already doggy-eared everywhere!
What I like best about Keeler and Miller’s book is that it offers at-a-glance tips to do everything from setting up a classroom to utilizing advance features such as polling and linking to virtual office hours. Each of the 50 things to do include a clear, concise synopsis coupled with a screen-shot type illustration that visualizes the steps needed to execute the work in one’s own class.
As stated in the introduction of the book, “Adding technology to our classrooms isn’t optional; it’s a must if we’re to equip our students for their futures” (xi). It’s books like this one that makes adding technology that much easier. This is a book I will refer to again and again. This is a book I’ve already referred colleagues to. This is a book any teacher using GAFE in the classroom will not want to be without. A+ for inspiration to incorporate more student-centered technology and effective instructional strategies!!
Keeler, Alice and Libbi Miller Ed.D. 50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom. San Diego: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc., 2015. Print.
I’m lucky to teach in a school where I’m continually inspired by so many around me – both students and colleagues. I’ve never been more inspired to learn and grow as an educator. It feels like home – the rigor, the philosophies, the attitude. Never one to rest on my laurels, I’m continually looking to get my hands on as much information as I can consume.
Create Compose Connect! Reading, Writing, and Learning with Digital Tools by Jeremy Hyler and Troy Hicks – Hicks and Hyler give new meaning to LOL – Learn Out Loud. The pedagogy they discuss and model for digital learning and connections in the English classroom is inspiring. I’m currently using the book review and corresponding movie trailer/comic strip as an independent reading choice book project with my freshmen. There’s so many more usable examples here – I can’t wait to try more.
Write Like This – Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling & Mentor Texts by Kelly Gallagher . . .I actually purchased this when it was first published a few years ago but am re-visiting it this year. I use writing exercises in here as supplements to “hook” my student writers, to help them understand the connections between their academic writing and the “real-world” writing they will be performing beyond school. I appreciate Gallagher’s sensible ideas.
They Say, I Say The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein – I’m intrigued by this one. My department chair recommended it – I see use of this on all levels that I teach. Templates for helping students understand the rhetoric of argument is arguably doable. Articulating sound arguments with supported evidence is such an essential life skills – each year at school, students need practice with this.
“Seven Reasons for Standards Based Grading” by Patricia Scriffny in Educational Leadership . . . My principal and assistant principal spoke about this very recently. While I’ve heard and read about SBG before, it makes more and more sense to me as we move forward. I’m still wrapping my head around it, learning and trying – articles like this one make the theories and applications more clear.
The Art of Social Media – Power Tips for Power Users by Guy Kawasaki & Peg Fitzpatrick – As an educator, I’m very interested in ways we can use social media to impact student learning. I truly feel, when planned carefully, student interest and habitual use of social media can be channeled in a way to further understanding of class content. As a blogger, I’m intrigued on ways to “brand” oneself to gain significant connections with others in your professional fields.
Journalism Education Today from the Journalism Education Association . . . I’m anxious to read my first copy of this! I recently added this membership to my list of professional associations as I’m thoroughly enjoying my first year with my school’s newspaper. This is another great way I get to fulfill my passion for digital writing, media, p.r. and journalism!
What are you currently reading? I’d love to hear what fellow educators are reading to stay inspired? Thanks for stopping by!~
Recently, I sat down to study reading quizzes my sophomores completed on Tuesdays with Morrie, the memoir written by Mitch Albom. One of my Sophomore English classes, is co-taught; my co-teacher, Geri Dismeier and I agree that poor performance on vocabulary accounted for the majority of lower grades. While grades are not the ultimate goal in learning, vocabulary is one of the significant goals. Vocabulary knowledge is a life skill that plays a key role in what students understand and communicate.
After talking through ideas with my co-teacher, I took the opportunity to try something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time. I created a video for our students to refer back to as they studied for the second reading quiz over this weekend. Students will be taking the quiz on Monday. I can’t wait to see how they do on vocabulary in comparison to the first quiz!
The process took all of one hour from start to finish.
I created a Google Slide presentation in which I typed in the words and definitions the students previously articulated in class using their context clues (I wanted to be sure to use the same words we used in class).
I scavenged through my own pictures to see which pictures could represent the words.
If I couldn’t find an appropriate photo of my own, I searched through Flickr.com under the Creative Commons section for photos.
I inserted (or, in my case with my Mac, dragged) the pictures into blank slides that I left after each word slide.
Using QuickTime, I screen recorded myself talking through the presentation.
The part that took the longest was finding appropriate photos. In fairness, I recorded myself once more before saving my final recording. I sounded too hurried in my first recording.
I modeled my video from the SAT vocabulary videos that Catlin Tucker has been successfully using for some time. Her post about this, Vocabulary Lessons: Flipped, Collaborative, and Student-Centered, thoroughly explains her process and reasoning. Please check it out for more information and ideas! I refer back to Tucker’s posts frequently as she exemplifies many collaborative strategies to incorporate technology and the CCSS in instruction. (Thank you, Twitter! That’s how I originally discovered Tucker’s teaching).
What would I like to do differently next time to improve?As a culminating summative assessment, I’d like the students to create their own vocabulary videos, within small groups, toward end of the semester. That way, they can use these videos collectively to help study for finals! Once I have that assignment created, I will post that as a follow-up in case anyone is interested.
From a technical standpoint, I’d like to include the part of speech along with including the exact sentence from which the vocabulary word appears in our reading. In this particular course, we read much of our material aloud and it will be a chance for students to use their context clues once again.
From an instructional standpoint, perhaps asking students to bring their own created sentences the morning after viewing the video will actively engage them once more with the words before any type of formative assessment is given in class.
For other usage, I can see myself creating instructional students for my students to use -say – at the beginning of the year (i.e. how to sign up for Schoology or iTunes U, how to sign in to GAFE, etc). Tucker does these very well!! Check out her YouTube page! It’s a great idea to save class time AND it’s great for new or transfer students we sometimes get in the middle of the year. These videos were quicker and more fun to create than I thought. . . I’d definitely like to find ways they may be more useful.
Here’s a link to materials from a technology session I hosted during our Teacher Institute. This is the first year our ENTIRE district is going 1:1 and we couldn’t be more excited!!! Enjoy and let me know what you think:
Using Edublogs – WordPress for schools, teachers & students – these are the three steps I take to initiate my student blogs. This is certainly not the ONLY way but this is the process I found to be most helpful. The best resource is the very helpful user guide Edublogs offers. Every process along the journey of classroom blogging is outlined and explained well in that online guide.
I find it more efficient to conduct this initiation myself rather than the students. For one, I can set up their URLs in a uniform fashion, eliminating the possibility of silly URLs students may regret owning later – URL name is the one item that cannot be altered. Additionally, the twenty minutes or so this takes me to do is undoubtedly faster than the entire period it takes students as this very well may be first experiences with the blogging world. Students will have ample opportunity to “own” the experience through choice of theme, fonts, colors, etc.
Once you’ve set up your own class site via edublogs.org, perform the same steps to set up each individual student site. **NOTE: Because I illustrate this step-by-step, this may look much more involved than truly is. . . . Again, see the Edublogs guide for the thorough step-by-steps. This is simply my own step process, in my own words:
Click on “Get Your Free Blog Now” (just as you would have done for creating your own account).
Make the “username” the first initial of first name, last name (i.e. tchristensen) for each student. This is what he/she will use to log in. Creating uniformally formatted will be easier for you to create and them to remember.
Skip the optional “email.” This will not be needed if you have uniform usernames & passwords!
Create a “password” that is easy to retrieve for each student (id?/birthdate?).
Make the “blog domain” something that sufficient for future digital portfolios (full names? first initials of first names/last names? first names/first initials of last names?).
For now, make the “blog name something like “Theresa’s Blog, Jason’s Blog, etc . . . they can change this later.
For “blog type,” don’t forget to indicate it as a student blog! This will allow them to “join your class” site later.
TLC TIP: If, after performing the above steps, Edublogs tells you that student name already exists, add a numerical digit at the end of the name. For uniformity, you may want to think of this number ahead of time and keep it the same for each student. (i.e. 2014 for that year)
Go back to the Edublogs.org site for EACH student and perform this same process. It really doesn’t take long!
2. TEACHER DOES: Link the student blogs to your own Edublogs site.Taking this step ahead of time, prior to unveiling the student sites to your students, will add to the fun because they will see their names on the “blog roll!”
Log in to your own class site on Edublogs.
Go to the Dashboard.
On the left hand side, go to “Links” and click “Add New.”
For each student, create a link:
Fill in the student’s name in “Name.”
Type URL (that you already created) for that student’s blog under “Web Address.”
Under “Description,” type Brad’s Blog or Skylar’s Blog, etc. This appears when the cursor hovers over the link on the blog roll.
If you have ONE class, this is all you need to do! If you want to place more than one class in your blog roll (in other words, have more than one class linked up to your site), you will need to set up each class as a category:
Go to “Posts”
Click “Categories”
Fill in a name for your Category (i.e. Period 5 or Period 6)
TLC TIP: If the blogroll doesn’t automatically appear on your right sidebar, go to “Appearance” and “Widget.” Drag over a Widget called “Links.” HERE is the complete guide for this process.
First, unveil the sites to each student! I’ve used THIS document in the past.
Once the students log in to their sites and get over their initial excitement, have them go to the Dashboard, go to “Class” at the left-hand side and “Join a Class.” They search for your site, request to join and you approve. Having them join your class allows you further control of their posts – if you choose to have it. In other words, you can approve posts or comments before they are published, you can easily see who has completed a post, etc.
TLC TIP: I’ve used Edublogs both with and without a PRO account and have functioned well with both. While I prefer having the PRO for its advantages (more control of privacy, more media upload capacity, more themes, the new reader function, etc), managing posts is doable without it. You will simply need to click on each student link within your blog roll to check the posts.
I hope this explanation is helpful in easing your initiation with classroom blogs. Like I mentioned above, there are a couple of different ways to begin but this is what I found to be the least complicated and time-saving. In the meantime, Happy Blogging, Friends!
**These are the steps I’m sharing with teachers new to blogging in the classroom:
Choose a blogging platform. See THIS chart for comparison of the widely used platforms in education.
Teach students how to blog. Have students either do a “practice” journal post online or HERE is a cool example of a “paper” blog activity to get students understanding the concept of sharing with an authentic audience without actually sharing online yet.
Talk about online safety and etiquette. Taking time to teach some do’s and dont’s goes a long way. Don’t assume they know the proper code of conduct. Common Sense Media has some great lessons. Last year, my school used some digital citizenship lessons from them – more HERE.
Teach students how to comment. In order for blogging to be effective, connected comments are needed; but, if students don’t practice proper comment etiquette, they will lose out on a significant part of the experience. I tell students that the rule of thumb is only write what you would not be afraid to tell someone in person. My comment rules are HERE.
Start small. You may want to make the first post be a journal entry about the students’ favorite subjects – themselves!! You may want to invite them to make one appreciative comment to one another student as well. HERE is an example of a first post assignment I’ve used in the past . . . although every year I do something different for the initial post, depending on the nature of the students and the class.
MY BASIC POST REQUIREMENTS:
two paragraph minimum
one media (picture, map, timeline, word art, video etc) to be included
one comment on one peer’s post of the same assignment
Include parents. Parents appreciate knowing what we are doing, what students are writing about and enjoy an invite to comment. The students enjoy the extra connection too . . . even if they don’t always admit it. HERE is an actual post assignment in which I involve parents. Providing parents with the website URL during Open House and/or within Schoololgy, iTunes, or an Infinite Campus note is helpful too.
Connect with one or two classes. While comments from around the world are phenomenal, the connections anywhere outside of class are key. Pair up with another class within your building or within the district. Here is an example of when I paired my senior E405 Expository Writing students with my E108 Freshman English. Reach out on Twitter or QUADBLOGGING or through #comments4kids to set up something more permanent.
Visit other classroom blogs. Inspire your students by opening class with an example class blog from time to time. I usually find blogs simply by searching “High School English Class Blog” or “High School World Geography EduBlogs” or something like that.
Let students explore. My students love to play around with font, color, and images. They often change their themes too! They teach each other how to do anything fancy (and also let each other know when font or color choices are poor!). This is a way for students to come into their own as creative writers and also start to think about creating their online identity.
Perhaps, don’t grade the first post. Blogging is meant to be a way to practice writing for an audience and learning to respond to critique. I, of course, am clear about requirements and the edit process but I never ever chastise them for mistakes made . . . online or off; usually, peers point out mechanical errors and/or students immediately fix errors themselves once they see them “showcased” as clear as day on their sites. By the way, HERE is an example rubric I’ve used for posts.
Challenge students. Often students write about a given topic we are studying but, to keep students writing on their own, you can offer weekly (or bi-weekly) challenges in which you ask students to research to find the answer to a tricky question or have them write one higher-level thinking response to a prompt you give them a week or so to ponder.
Map class connections. To motivate and inspire, you can start a WORLD MAP OF YOUR CLASSROOM on a bulletin board within your classroom, marking those places where site visitors come from. Placing the CLUSTER MAP widget on the site helps too!
Have patience! Some students take to blogging instantly, others aren’t so sure, and yet they all end up loving it! The sheer mass of paper we save by having students create online is staggering. By the way, if you have a homebound student, blogging is a GREAT way to keep them writing and involved with the class!!
TLC TIP: Take part in blogging yourself!!! I’ve been blogging on my own personal site since February 2009 and never looked back. We need to practice what we teach, it’s a perfect venue for us to professionally and/or creatively hone our own writing skills, and we better understand the trials and triumphs our students experience. ONE OF MY FAVORITE INFOGRAPHICS on “Blogging in the Classroom:” (courtesy of Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano)
From Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano @ langwitches.org
**I modeled my above steps from Pernille Ripps “14 Steps to Meaningful Student Blogging.” I modified my steps for the high school classroom, using my own resources as examples. Check out Pernille Ripp’s site HERE for fabulous blogging resources!
August 22, 2001 sounds like it was a long time ago but, in so many ways, it feels like a super short period. Last week, I completed my 13th year teaching at Palatine High School. I earned so much invaluable experience serving as educator to the PHS students and gained so many cherished friendships with colleagues – I would not trade one day of my tenure as a Pirate. To broaden my professional growth, however, I am excited to write that I transferred to Palatine’s sister school on the other side of town, William Fremd High School!! As of this week, a Viking helmet takes the place of the Pirate hat on my head.
I’ve felt connections to Fremd for quite some time. My daughter graduated in 2010 with nothing but positive academic and extra-curricular experiences that she still talks about today. Additionally, I’ve enjoyed working with numerous Fremd colleagues – enjoyably presenting together at NCTE, sharing and networking on our PLN, and teaming up at Institute days. Finally, Fremd’s interview is ‘the interview that never was’ back when I was seeking my first position in the district 13 years ago: Fremd’s (then) principal called me first but Palatine’s (then) principal interviewed me first. Being the eagerly excited new teacher, I happily took Palatine’s offer and didn’t looked back!
Pieces of PHS Memories!
Some of the PHS memories I’ll always cherish . . .
~ Assisting in the hosting of EdCamp2014 at PHS: This year I transformed much of my teaching to 1:1 teaching with iPads. See my post here in regards to making that switch. Integrating educational technology has fast become a passion of mine and attending conferences such as EdCamp continues to prove invaluable. Moreover, assisting in organizing EdCamp 2014 at PHS this May was truly productive, memorable and fun. If you are an educator and have not attended an EdCamp yet, you may want to check it out at some point. They are free, informal conferences in which the participants drive the course of the day!! Each attendee has opportunity to offer what can be presented, and each attendee has opportunity to present and/or simply drop in to each session as needed. It’s a simple way to network and gain loads of resources in just a couple of hours. See the PHS Technology Coordinator’s post on the latest EdCamp here.
~ Writers Day: I was lucky to serve our school in hosting Writers Day for the past two years. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to see students get excited about, talk about and hear about the significance of writing in our every day world. Modeling our purpose and format from the acclaimed Fremd High School’s Writers Week, PHS’s annual Writers Day began a few years ago as an opportunity for students to celebrate and experience writing in ways that classroom time does not allow. We have visiting authors as well as student and faculty writers share, perform and discuss their work. Read HERE for more pictures and information about this year’s PHS Writers Day and the NCTE 2013 conference I presented with colleagues about hosting Writers Day or Week.
~ Choreographing and organizing the very first dance PHS “flash mob:” This is an experience I will never forget!! Stemmed from a whim idea I had one day when I saw my former French teacher’s FB post about a teacher dance at her own school, I decided to go for it! After months of keeping the secret from students (staff did a great job with this!) with disguised emails, early morning dance sessions hidden in the wrestling room, and private YouTube how-tos for the teachers, a good majority of staff performed, shocked and wowed students!! Feel free to check out a more detailed commentary of my experience in coordinating this right HERE. . . .
~ Coordinating the Literacy Coaching program: As a reading teacher, I was happy to offer my services as mentor to new teachers, offering resources and feedback on integrating best practice reading strategies within each content area. Having the chance to mentor creative, motivated teachers outside of the English department was immensely eye-opening and educational. I enjoyed collaborating with the Applied Technology, Art, Music, World Language, and Family & Consumer Science department during my three years as a literacy coach. You can read more about the program in my post here. Establishing collaborative relationships with the Applied Tech department, in particular, led to the Engineering teacher and me drafting a proposal for a district technical writing course. Stay tuned for more information on that!
~ Designing the Freshman Study Hall program: This goes back to my earlier years at PHS. When we had a more traditional study hall for nearly all incoming freshmen and sophomores, I enjoyed researching and organizing study skill mini-lessons for staff throughout the building to share with the study hall students on a bi-weekly basis. For instance, one week Media Center specialists came in to speak about research skills, another week math teachers came in to demonstrate that solving seemingly difficult math problems can be broken down into doable step-by-steps, and yet another week, our principal, talked about summer reading and what he was going to read that summer! It was another productive way for me to get to work with many wonderful colleagues in the building.
Some things I look forward to embarking upon at Fremd . . . .
~ Assisting with the The Logue, Fremd’s school newspaper!: This truly excites me!! I’ve already met our student staff for the upcoming school year and canNOT wait to work with these talented souls! These students seem earnestly eager to represent and share Viking Pride through the paper, and I’m just as earnestly eager to watch, guide, and learn as they do! This year, District 211 is embarking on the first year of producing all-digital newspapers at all five of our schools and WORDPRESS is the platform. With a WordPress.org, WordPress.com, and Edubogs account of my own, I can’t be more thrilled about this. I so look forward to working with the students as they learn and refine their digital journalism skills. One added perk for me . . . my daughter served as an editor on the paper when she was a Viking herself . . . all the more reason for me to enjoy The Logue. 🙂
~ Working with Fremd’s special education department to teach a co-taught English course!: I am honored to utilize my reading background to serve the special needs of students at Fremd on a sophomore-level co-taught course. I’ve already met my partnering teacher and was instantly connected. We are in the midst of planning our curriculum and look forward to meeting our new students in August!!
~ Helping wherever I’m needed with Fremd’s fabulous Writers Week!: I look forward to assisting my colleagues in any which way I can to promote the 21st annual Writers Week. I’ll be honored to be teaching amongst this exciting week and serving the school during his acclaimed tradition at Fremd. I had fine practice with coordinating Palatine’s Writers Day over the past two years and learning from Fremd’s newly retired, revered English teachers Gary Anderson and Tony Romano.
~ The countless learning and teachable moments, achievements and memories I know are yet to be made at Fremd!: Dare I say it already feels like home?!!!! It’s not even possible to yet write all of the experiences I have to look forward to at Fremd. I’ll let my exclamation points speak for themselves!
“If you do not create change, change will create you.” ~Unknown
Change is good. Every great accomplishment and milestone – both professionally and personally – stems from conscious change. We grow and learn from every small or more major change within our lives. I look back fondly on the growth experiences I’ve gained in my educational career as I excitedly look forward to the new insights, perspectives, connections, experiences I will gain at my new school. Go Pirates! Go Vikings!
Mystery Writer, Attorney, Loyola Professor Visits my Reading Class!
Laura Caldwell, mystery writer, Loyola professor and civil rights attorney came to speak with my reading students this week. They have been reading excerpts from her book, Long Way Home, which is Ms. Caldwell’s account of a case she took on for Chicagoan Jovan Mosely, a person wrongfully convicted of murder as a teenager. Today, Ms. Caldwell oversees the program she founded at Loyola called, LIFE AFTER INNOCENCE. This program helps exonerees who are wrongfully convicted gain productive access back into society. Rightfully so, my students were very interested to find out how Jovan and other exonerees are doing today. Read the book for an intriguing account, not only of how Jovan became mixed up in the murder case, but also how Laura helped clean his record later and gain his life back. What really excited me as a teacher was just how inspired my Reading Improvement students were to find out about writing and even getting published some day. The students – in my reading improvement class – had so many questions. Some were literally walking down the hall with Ms. Caldwell well after the bell rang!
A life lesson Laura Caldwell learned in working with the wrongfully convicted is our abilities to choose gratitude over anger. This is something we will talk about in class through the end of the year! Those convicted of crimes they never committed are souls who spend a significant amount of time in a horrible place they don’t deserve to be in. Ms. Caldwell intriguingly accounted how they wake up every single morning, open their eyes and think it was all a bad dream only to be awakened by the harsh reality of cold jail – day after day after day. She explained that, for survival, these wrongfully convicted learn that for every situation in life, each of us has a choice about how to react. Acting out in revenge or anger hurts only ourselves – no one else. While some situations may be harder than others, we CAN control are thoughts and, therefore, choose more productive choices. Sometimes it may mean taking a step back and breathing before speaking or reacting, but it is always a choice.
Ms. Caldwell gave the example of specific, remarkable men she’s worked with who spent years in prison but chose to not be angry about the years of life they lost. Instead, they are grateful for and concentrate on the chance to start anew – however late it is. Gratitude can be chosen over anger in every single life experience. This sounds cliché, but it is true that there is always something to be thankful for. A man may divorce but be grateful for his children and the good years he shared with his ex-wife. A student may fail a math test but be grateful for learning afterward how to solve a difficult question. A young woman may lose a job but be thankful for the time to re-evaluate goals. These are only pieces of examples of the gratitude so prevalent within each of us. So next time you are feeling blue, realize it’s a normal emotion and okay to feel that way. It is also okay to, in turn, make a choice to help yourself out of the slump and move forward. If we can do this more often for ourselves, the little things that can bug us will disappear and the bigger things that test us will promote growth! Gratitude promotes growth!
“She grabs happiness by the collar and yanks it into her life.” This line from If Only describes the protagonist’s best friend but it echoes the mood of the entire story. This is the story of Jordan, a junior in college who’s spending her year studying abroad in Aberdeen Scotland. Like many girls her age who venture far from home, she hopes for excitement and adventure; what she ends up getting is wisdom and love. Jordan’s journey spawns interest from the start, right from the train to Aberdeen when she meets two completely different gentlemen she is attracted to in different ways. Along the way, she learns which of the two men is sincere as she learns what is sincere commitment and love. Watching Jordan juggle her own insecurities while working through friendships and learning responsibility drives the reader to the relatable heart of the main character.
I am lucky to be able to call the author, A. J. Pine, my colleague. Like her character, Jordan, Amy grasps her dreams and turns them into reality. The author’s own wit and natural humor shines through within the words on the pages. I give If Only an A+ for soulful reality that makes the reader empathize when Jordan agonizes over love lost, rejoice when Jordan proudly endures thoughtlessness of her peers , and claps when Jordan exclaims she “wants it all – the good, the messy and the spectacular.” Interspersed with quotations from E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View, to poignantly open sections of the story, this book is filled with fabulous lines that make the reader nod, smile and say, “You go, Girl.” Life does not disappoint . . . as this story portrays. I really like this genre, NA, – new adult, because it speaks to a wide audience of young adults just trying to find themselves along with those a bit older who think they already have but still need affirmations along the way.
This is an amazing time to be an educator. We have more reason than ever to be engaged, enthusiastic learners right alongside our students. In the midst of 4th quarter during my first year as a 1:1 teacher, I am more charged than ever to take on the challenges that lie before us with technological innovations and shifts in thinking with Common Core and PARCC.
One practice that helps me turn seemingly massive tasks into concrete capabilities is creating to-do lists. I’m a firm believer in the power of lists. My original category on Grading Girl – Listing through LIfe, attests to that belief. Based on this first year of teaching 1:1 with the iPad, here is my procedural list for those of us just about to venture forth into paperless classrooms. I’d enjoy any additions others may have:
1. Choose a main LMS platform for your class. This first decision will make your teaching life easier . . . and you don’t necessarily have to use just one. I currently use iTunes U with my accelerated freshmen. It’s a convenient way to push daily agendas, homework and announcements to the students. Attaching documents, videos, calendars, etc is a snap, and provides students a “one-stop-shop” for the class. I used Schoology with my expository writing composition students this year. It provides a Facebook-like homepage for students to access material, communicate amongst classmates, and send me homework or assessments back.
2. Find a cloud storage service to store all of your class documents. For me and my school district, we are converting to Google Drive. I transferred all of my material over last year and haven’t looked back. With Google Drive, I am easily able to convert Word documents to Google Docs for myself and/or students to edit. Additionally, one of the first tasks I charged to my 1:1 students was to create their own Google Drive folders for the class: Daily Work, Rough Drafts, Journals, and share those folders with me. That way, assignments placed there are automatically available for me to comment on. I know that other schools make use of DropBox or iCloud. I use those for personal material and they seem to work just as well.
3. Convert documents that don’t easily transfer over to Google Docs to PDF by performing the following: “File Print,” “Save as PDF” and save that PDF to your computer for uploading to your LMS later. Additionally, you can utilize pdf converters such as PDF Master or Genius Scan. PDFs seem to wed more nicely with Google Docs vs. Word documents. Also, if you want to ensure that your documents stay as the original, a “pdf” write-protects itself.
4. Experiment with work-flow techniques Here is simple overview of mine: a. Students save documents in Google folders they share with me (Daily Work, Rough Drafts and Journals) b. I make comments c. Revision history is easily accessible d. Students upload revised documents into TurnItIn.com. e. I make comments based on the rubrics in TurnItIn. ALSO I use Schoology when giving an in-class assessment. Schoology provides an easy way for students to type on and submit within the same program.
5. Utilize a blog platform and incorporate digital writing into your curriculum. The power of blogging never ceases to amaze me. It seemed powerful when I started blogging in 2009 and it amazingly continues to grow in usage every day. I’ve been using EduBlogs for three years now and highly recommend it; it is WordPress for educators and schools. The features are of the most customizable available and the privacy-range to choose from allows for even the most leery educating soul to get his/her feet wet. Your students will thank you – now and later – for giving them the opportunity to carve a piece in their important digital footprints. See my SlideShare on a recent presentation I gave at ICE 2014 on why and how I incorporate blogging in the classroom.
Bottom line . . . . Don’t be afraid to pitch one technique or application and add another more conducive to your classroom. Learn from trials and errors. My students appreciate when I tell them I don’t know an answer to their question, let’s figure it out together – and it is exciting when we do!
How are you adjusting to going 1:1? I’d enjoy hearing thoughts and ideas from other educators having success and trials as you make the transition.
Theresa L Christensen 