Teaching with Technology

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

Zip Quiz Trivia Game from Quizizz

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Quizizz is one of my go-to review activities in my classroom – it’s just so fun and easy to create! My students love that they can play the game on their individual devices, see the class leaderboard, and view fantastic MEMES after they answer each question! The memes, friends. Oh, the memes!!

Quizizz has recently unveiled a great app that students can use to prevent summer “brain-drain” by reviewing age appropriate trivia-like content. The best part? IT’S FUN!

Zip Quiz is similar to Trivia Crack with a few exceptions …

–> Players can choose to “spin the wheel” for a category OR can select a category of their choice
–> Players can choose the level of the questions they receive
–> True to Quizizz form … the MEMES are great!
–> Players can also choose an avatar

Zip Quiz is available as an iOS app.

Here’s how to get started:

On this screen, select “Get Started” – but, I’m sure you figured that out 🙂 Next, you’ll choose an avatar … the focal point of many popular memes.

On the next screen, you’ll enter your username and select your grade level. It’s been a few years since I was in 12th grade, of course!

When you see this screen, you’re ready to play!

Next, you’ll get to select “individual or versus” based on whether you want to play a game individually or against an opponent.

If you choose “play versus,” Zip Quiz will find a random opponent for you to challenge. After you’ve finished the game, you can challenge your friends through text, email, or social media to beat your score!

Next, you’ll be able to either spin the wheel or choose your quiz subject!

You have 60 seconds to answer as many questions correctly as you can! True to Quizizz form, the winner gets a crown and the loser gets a rain cloud! Zip Quiz will show your accuracy percentage, the number of questions you missed, and the number of questions you answered in 60 seconds.

This game is FUN and a great way for kids to continue learning, or at least review over the summer break!

Give it a whirl!!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Create a Class Blog with Google Classroom!

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I LOVE blogging! I love love LOVE it! You have no doubt picked up on this fact if you’ve been reading my blog (thank you!). My blog gives me a way to express myself to an authentic audience, reflect upon my teaching experiences, share my triumphs and struggles from my classroom, connect with and learn from other educators around the world, and provide resources and strategies for other teachers. I LOVE it. I want to be able to offer my students the opportunity to contribute to a class blog because I see so many benefits of students blogging! If I were using the “old” version of Google Sites, creating a class blog through the announcements template would be a breeze. However, even though the new version of Sites is stunning, I’m missing the announcements option! Enter Google Classroom!

Google Classroom has become an essential feature of my classroom. Classroom serves as our landing page and houses Docs, Slides, Forms, important websites, announcements and other resources that my students need. I create a Google Classroom section for each class period and archive those sections at the end of each year. There are MANY ways to utilize Google Classroom sections – some may create a section every quarter, some for every unit, and some may use the same section year after year. That’s part of the beauty of Google Classroom! Teachers can use this fabulous tool however they feel it will best benefit their students!

Now … to the class blog project!

My American Government classes have a gamified component – a huge motivator for some of my students is the chance to earn Bonus XP. I plan to create a section in Google Classroom titled “Bonus Blog” (or something else that’s more clever!) and will have all of my students join that section. Throughout the year, I’ll use the question feature of Classroom to create a variety of blog topics and will encourage all of my students to participate in our Class Blog. How will I choose topics to include on our Class Blog? By surveying my students, of course! I’ll create a Google Form to solicit responses and view the data on a Google Spreadsheet. Forms and Spreadsheets make my Google-heart happy! I also plan to create free-choice questions on the Classroom section to encourage students to authentically reflect upon whatever they want to share!

I tried the concept of a blog using Google Classroom with my online Tech for Teachers course this summer, and IT WAS AWESOME! I loved how easy it was to view and respond to student blogs, and I am so excited to use this activity with my students this fall!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Fabulous Updates to Google Forms

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Google has unveiled yet ANOTHER fantastic addition to the already wonderful Google Forms. Now, with the flip of a (digital) switch, teachers can view data by individual student or question, provide students with feedback on each question, grade subjective questions, AND award partial points per question! Woohoo!

To get started, create a Google Form and turn on the “quiz” feature through settings. Here are the options I chose for my quiz settings in Google Forms… notice that I uncheck the correct answers option and select the “release after review” option.

While in settings, be sure to choose “collect email address” in your options. This will allow your students to view their score and your individual comments on their responses.

To view the data from your quiz, select “responses,” where you will see a more useful selection of data-viewing options! You can choose to view the summary of the data, which provides a bar graph with question responses – this is not a new feature – or, you can view data by individual student or question. If you choose to view data by individual student, you will be able to provide specific feedback on each question and can share this information with your kiddos via email. If you choose to view information by question, you will be able to see how your students have performed on each question – this is PERFECT for formative (and summative) assessments!

By choosing to view data by question teachers can also award partial points for responses! I can’t tell you how many times teachers have asked me how to award partial points … Google came through!

This update for Google Forms is FABULOUS! I can’t wait to see what comes next!

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

Revolutionizing Teaching: Takeaways from CORE Academy at SEMO

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Friends, I attended an AMAZING conference this week at Southeast Missouri State University. CORE Academy gave teachers the opportunity to hear Ron Clark and George Couros deliver powerful keynotes … that’s right, I said RON CLARK AND GEORGE COUROS. I found myself laughing and tweeting and reflecting like a madwoman throughout their presentations, and left the conference feeling inspired, encouraged, and validated in my teaching practices. I’m still processing the fabulous information, but here are some of my big takeaways from this fabulous conference:

Social Media = New Literacy
This is most definitely true! At the start of his keynote, George Couros shared a hashtag and his Twitter handle and encouraged all of us to tweet thoughts throughout his presentation. He then said that if people in the audience were totally unfamiliar with what he was saying, then they are becoming illiterate. SO MUCH TRUTH! Social media is EVERYWHERE and, like technology, it is not going away. An example from a student was extremely powerful, “social media is like water. You can either teach us to swim or let us drown.” Holy moly. This is so accurate and the fact that this idea came from a student makes it all the more important. Our students are growing up in a world connected by social media. They look to us as their teachers to guide them through the sometimes murky, sometimes pristine waters of social media. If we pretend that social media doesn’t exist or is worst thing to hit humanity since the Black Death, we are not only doing ourselves a huge disservice as educators (you can learn so much from social media!), but we’re also failing our students. My daughters, who are 6 and 4, will never not know a time where they can take a funny picture and Mommy can send it to Grandma and Papa or post in on Facebook so all of our family and friends can see it. Our students are growing up in this same climate. We can either ignore the truth of this new environment or we can help them learn to navigate social media and use it for GOOD, not for evil!

Relationships are KEY
In addition to George Couros and Ron Clark, I also attended a breakout session by Josh Stumpenhorst – I’m telling you, this conference was AMAZING! One huge emphasis in this presentation was the importance of relationship building with our students. Classroom management problems most likely come from one of two sources: lack of engagement in your lesson and/or less than great relationships with our students. I was reminded of the importance of relationships again during the #DitchBook Twitter chat last night – see, Twitter is AWESOME! In his book, Ditch That Textbook, Matt Miller describes how he rejects the “be your students’ friend” warning … showing students that you care about them as a person and are rooting for them to be successful is a powerful thing! I genuinely hope that my students see that I care about their success, not just in my classroom, but in their lives, as well.

I’m still reeling from the sheer awesomeness of this conference, and will definitely report back soon! What conferences have you attended so far this summer? Be sure to share your reflections! Share on Twitter! Tag me so I can learn from you!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Using Flipgrid in the Classroom: I’ve Caught #FlipgridFever!

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I’m sure you’ve heard of the new tool that’s taking the world of educational technology by storm: Flipgrid! If you haven’t, holy awesomeness, prepare yourself now.

 

I first learned about Flipgrid earlier this year when they were announced as EdTechDigest’s 2017 Winner in the product or service category. (By the way, I was included as a finalist in the School Leader category! Whaat?!) I immediately put Flipgrid on my list of things to try with my summer school dual credit classes. My summer school classes often become my trial classes for new tools I stumble upon!

Today, we were FINALLY able to use this amazing tool. If you’ve never used this fabulous tool before, check out this quick guide to getting started:

  1. Access Flipgrid and create an account
  2. Select “+New Grid” (If you’re using the free version of Flipgrid, you’ll be limited to 1 grid. However, if you update to the classroom version of Flipgrid, you’ll be able to create tons of grids!)
  3. Name your grid and fill out the other information … you can customize the last section of the URL to fit the needs of your grid!
  4. Click “create grid”
  5. Teachers can share grids with students via URL, by embedding it in a website, by creating a QR Code, sharing through Facebook or Twitter, and even adding to Google Classroom!!
  6. Next, you’ll create a new topic, add a question, set a maximum video time, and can set other parameters for your assignment. Teachers can also upload a video with instructions for their students! Like with the grid itself, teachers can share specific topics with students via Classroom – you can create an assignment by sharing the grid! Woohoo!!



When students are ready to create their video, they simply access the link shared by the teacher, and click the record button! Next, your students will be asked to review their video, snap a picture for the grid, and enter their name (and email if you require it) to be visible on the grid. Teachers can provide students with feedback through Flipgrid and can send comments via email!

The possibilities are seemingly endless when it comes to using Flipgrid in the classroom! Teachers can use Flipgrid as …

  • formative assessment –> Use Flipgrid as an exit/entrance ticket!
  • pre-assessment –> Assess prior knowledge!
  • student introductions –> For class AND for global collaborations projects!
  • passion project proposals –> I’m SO doing this next year!
  • book/chapter reviews and discussions –> My students read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Thirteen Days, Lord of the Flies, and Animal Farm throughout the year (in different classes!) … I plan to use Flipgrid to supplement discussion boards and other activities we complete throughout these books!
  • HyperDoc reflections –> This will be an AWESOME addition to my growing collection of HyperDocs!
  • Digital BreakoutEDU –> Flipgrid videos can be used in breakouts!
  • Student review –> Students can create a list of topics they feel they need to review for a test and can then create recordings that describe a particular concept or topic!
  • Bonus missions! –> Teachers can encourage students to create raps, songs, poems, etc., that relate to a course concept!

…and so much more! Flipgrid is one of those tools that I’ll add to my favorite edtech tools list!

Teachers can also create global collaboration projects with Flipgrid by selecting “connections,” choosing a grid to share, and then adding a specific goal for the project. Teachers can choose to remove connections at any time … just think of the possibilities!

By the way, have you joined my global collaboration database?!

I’m so excited to explore and use Flipgrid more in my classes! How do you use this fantastic tool in your classroom?

Thanks for reading 🙂