Teaching with Technology

Using educational technology to enhance the learning environment and increase student engagement!

Quick, Collaborative, Formative Assessment with QR Codes

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Happy Sunday, all! It’s been a bit since my last post – between submitting my first draft of my second book, CREATE (another post about that soon!), celebrating our oldest daughter’s birthday, and keeping up with all of the crazy that is our life, I haven’t been able to share a post or podcast episode with you. ARRGGHH! So much to share, so little time to share it! In talking with a colleague last week about ideas for formative assessment/review stations using QR Codes, I realized how long it’s been since I’ve shared a lesson idea with you that involves these lovely little squares. I love listening to my students discuss and reflect on course concepts with this quick, collaborative, formative assessment strategy!

In addition to using a school-provided Chromebook in our classroom, I also frequently allow my students to use their cell phones in class. (Check out my cell phone policy here if you’re interested!) And, when we’re working with QR Codes, my students have found that just using the camera on their smartphone is so much easier and quicker!

There are many ways to create QR Codes for your students, ranging from websites to extensions, but my favorite way to make these cute little squares is by using a Google Spreadsheet Add-On called QR Code Generator.

To create a QR Code review activity for your students, open a Google Spreadsheet and search for the add-on linked above. In column one of your spreadsheet, include vocabulary terms, countries and/or capitals, themes or components of literature, or any other concepts you want your students to review or apply. In my case, my students were applying what they had learned about the powers of Congress. They scanned a code that included ascenario. Using Article 1 of the Constitution, students discussed with their group whether or not Congress had the authority to do what the scenario described. As students came to a conclusion, they completed the Google Form quiz, with a “yes, Congress can because…” or a “no, Congress can’t because …” The conversations that occurred with my students around the concepts they learned in class were awesome! AND … they were analyzing a primary source to find the answers. WOOHOO!!

Definitely give QR Codes a try in your classroom! If you’re looking for more ideas and details about how I use QR Codes in my classroom, be sure to check out Chapter 1 of Illuminate: Technology Enhanced Learning!

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

Offering Students CHOICE: CREATE in the Classroom Series

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Happy Sunday, my friends! I’ve been a bit MIA lately for a few reasons: first, I’ve been spending every spare minute writing my second book, CREATE, which will be published by DBC soon! More on that later 😀 Second, in addition to teacher-hood, I’m also a pretty busy MOMMA! My daughters, ages 7 and almost 9, are involved in ALL of the things, ranging from piano lessons to ballet/tap/jazz multiple nights a week, as well as basketball and soccer practices and games. It is CRAY-CRAY every day in the Petty household, especially since my husband (a finance manager for a car dealership) works super unpredictable hours. We often find ourselves eating late suppers at our favorite Mexican restaurant so we can all be together for one meal each day! I know you know exactly what I’m talking about – we’re all busy people! To help welcome CREATE into the world, I’m starting a new series to debut each component of the title/acronym … you know I’m a sucker for a good acronym! Welcome to the first installment – offering CHOICE in the classroom!

 

Through intentional tech integration, teachers can offer their students more CHOICE when it comes to how they plan to demonstrate their learning. Are you a fan of essays? Go for it. Would you prefer to create a visual representation of what you’ve learned using a sketchnote, mind map or something similar? Be my guest. Do you want to try your hand at creating a game to demonstrate what you’ve learned? How about a tweet? Do it! Students take more ownership and pride in a project in which their choice is taken into account. If you think about it, we all take more ownership and pride in work when we have had an option on how we share information.

How do you provide students with CHOICE in your classroom? Every unit HyperDoc in our American Government class includes an extension page that students can complete to earn Bonus XP and review for their unit assessment at the same time. I always include a choice board aka Show What You Know BINGO which includes many options for students to create demonstrations of what they’ve learned. Students appreciate the opportunity to choose what they create to demonstrate what they’ve learned. Sometimes providing choice isn’t an option because of course standards, learning targets, etc. But, when we can provide choice, doing so can increase student engagement and quality of work!

How do you encourage choice in your classroom?

Thanks for reading 🙂

Tips for Using Google Classroom – Tip #5

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Happy Thursday! We’re in the middle of Homecoming Week in my district – today was “decades day” and I was a bit stumped as to what to wear. I settled on my Declaration of Independence shirt that I bought over the summer when we were in Philadelphia for ISTE and am representing the ’70s … the 1770s that is! Yes, I’m a nerd 😀 Even though we’re a third of the way through October, we’re still technically in 1st quarter, which means we’re still technically in back-to-school mode, right? Therefore, finishing my back-to-school with Google Classroom series today is just fine! Don’t judge – this semester has been super hectic!

What’s the final tip for using Google Classroom?

DRUMROLL, PLEASE …

Archiving Classes!

Yes, archiving your classes is tip #5. While there are many different perspectives on the best way to create sections in Google Classroom, such as creating a new section in Classroom each quarter, for each unit, etc., I have anxiety about actually deleting a class or deleting content from the Classroom stream when I’m finished with the course or the unit. Therefore – I archive my classes at the end of each course.

Archiving class sections has three main benefits for me:

  1. Pacing: I really REALLY appreciate the ability to look back at previous years to be sure I’m making adequate progress. Sometimes, particularly in my dual credit classes, I find myself getting bogged down in my favorite topics, including the US Constitution, Greek Mythology, the Colonial Period, and the Protestant Reformation. It’s nice to be able to glance at the previous year’s section of each course to make sure I’m plugging away as I should!
  2. Reusing Posts: Have you used this feature? In Classroom, when you’re creating an assignment for a class, you can select “reuse post” to, for lack of a better phrase, “reuse” an old post from a previous, ARCHIVED class section. Can’t do that if you delete your class section!
  3. Accessing Student Assignments: Accessing student assignments is, in my opinion, much easier to do in an archived section of Classroom than searching around my Google Drive, digging through dozens of folders in an attempt to locate a file.

Do you archive your classes? What other tips can you share about using Google Classroom?

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

 

Using Google Classroom – Tip #4

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Happy Saturday, all! I took a mental health day yesterday and it was fantastic! I think teachers are all too often shamed (directly or indirectly) for taking a day off – and that SHOULD NOT HAPPEN! Yes, yesterday was my high school Homecoming parade(this is my 15th year out of high school!) and Grandparent’s Day at my daughters’ school. Since my mom is still teaching (this is year 30 something!) at their school, that only leaves my dad to do double-grandparent duty. Which means, Momma is coming to Grandparent’s Day! Fortunately, my daughters’ school recognizes that not everyone has grandparents that are able to come, so they make all visiting adults feel welcome 🙂 Even though we’re nearing the end of September, I still feel like it’s “back to school” time, so I’m sharing another one of my favorite tips for using Google Classroom!

It’s no secret that I’m a HUGE fan of Google Classroom. We use it as a landing page in all of my classes. All of the assignments, materials, and resources that my students need to access for my classes can be found in Google Classroom. It’s all RIGHT THERE! My students appreciate the fact that they don’t have to search all over the place to find objectives, HyperDocs, ELFs, extension opportunities, task lists when their teacher takes a personal day, etc. Google Classroom, which celebrated its fifth birthday last week, is a great fixture in our classroom.

Now, on to the tip!

DRUMROLL, PLEASE …

The fourth tip for using Google Classroom is …

MOBILE APPS!

Yes, that’s right! Download the mobile app to your phone to make your life easier on the go! Are you sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for an appointment? Whip out your phone, open your Classroom app and get caught up on evaluating student work and providing feedback.

Did you take a personal day and forget to share a task list with one of your classes? No? Does that only happen to me?! Simply open your Google Classroom app and share needed info with your students!

Google is always making updates not only to Classroom, but also to the mobile apps in order to allow seamless usage between the app and the website. It’s FABULOUS.

The Classroom app (on my iPhone and iPad) has saved my tail many times over the last few years. How do you use the Google Classroom mobile app?

Thanks for reading 🙂

Tips for Using Google Classroom – Tip #3

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Happy Friday, all! If you’re getting back into the classroom this week – welcome back! If you’ve been in session for the last three weeks like me, how’s it going?! In case you missed it, I shared an image earlier this week (or was it late last week??!) with some tips for using the Share to Classroom extension. Be sure to check it out here if you haven’t!

I started the Top Tips for Using Google Classroom series late this past summer and am excited to share with you the next installment – Tip #3!

A bit of a backstory – in addition to teaching high school Social Studies during the day, I also teach Educational Technology online for pre-service teachers. I’m a busy gal 🙂 The college uses a learning management system that is, lets put it this way, is not my favorite, and I’ve been allowed to use Google Classroom instead. PRAISE THE LORD! Since I teach multiple sections of the same course, I use a lovely trick when assigning work, posting announcements, sharing materials, and asking questions: select multiple classes!

When you create a post, simply click on the dropdown triangle next to the name of your class, and select all of the classes with which you’d like to share the post. Easy – peasy! This prevents me from forgetting to assign a specific resource or assignment with my classes and helps ensure that the assignments are the same name across all classes.  Also – it’s a huge timesaver!

Keep sharing your favorite Google Classroom tips in the comments!

Thanks for reading 🙂