Teaching with Technology

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

Google Classroom September 2018

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Hello, and happy Friday! When I opened Google Classroom today, I wasn’t expecting anything special. But – that’s typically how things go with Google and their updates to Classroom. You open the site and get ready to share announcements or post an assignment and ~BAM!~ Google tosses an early Christmas present your way, and it makes your day!

Google recently unveiled a new and improved Classroom. It’s much cleaner – easier for teachers and students to navigate with a separate section for announcements and assignments.

However, many teachers, myself included, desperately missed the traditional “About” section of Classroom. While “About” is still available on the updated version of Classroom, it doesn’t offer the ability for teachers to post content.

NOW … teachers can add “Materials” to the classwork section of Classroom AND, using topics, post the materials with other assignments for each unit. WOOHOO!

The newest update also provides teachers with the option to add a classwork stream to any Classroom sections they created prior to the recent changes.

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

Back-to-School Giveaway – Teaching with Technology

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Hello, and happy Sunday! Here in the US, Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer and back-to-school season for many teachers and students. We’ve been back at it for about three weeks and I ALMOST feel like I’m back “in the swing” of getting up to an alarm, missing my afternoon nap, and teaching hard all day. September 1 also marks a very important season – in addition to the return to Hogwarts (yes, I’m a Harry Potter FREAK), it’s also the first day of my birthday month! Even though I’ll be 33 in a few short days, I still – to my husband’s amusement – celebrate my birthday during the entire month of September (insert hair-flip here 😀 ) What better way to celebrate my birthday month with some reflection and a giveaway from Teaching with Technology!

For the past few years when my birthday rolls around, basically since I hit the big 3-0, I get a tad reflective. I’m so incredibly thankful for the gift of getting older because so many don’t have the privilege of doing so. At the same time, I’m getting older! I have more gray hair, a stronger coffee addiction (didn’t think that one was possible), and an increasing number of “oh crap” moments as a high school teacher. For example, our library celebrated the 20th anniversary of the release of Harry Potter with House themed cupcakes – I’m Ravenclaw of course – and one of my wonderful students brought me one at the beginning of class. As I was daintily eating (let’s be honest, devouring) the cupcake, I told my students that I was in 7th grade when the first book was released and I was immediately a fan. One student, clearly doing some quick mental math said, “Mrs. Petty. You were in 7th grade 20 years ago?” I kindly and skeptically replied, “yes…” Her response, “wow! My parents hadn’t even met each other then!” Thanks, kid. Thanks a lot.

I could go on and on about how teaching high schoolers makes me feel old on a daily basis – try teaching a lesson on the terror attacks of 9/11. I was a sophomore in high school on that day while most of my students weren’t even born. YEESH. But, on to the giveaway and the reason for this post!

I’m beyond grateful for the blessings of this past year and want to share them with you. As we all get “back in the swing” of teacher life, I’d like to share some of my favorite teacher things with you – don’t get too excited, I’m not Oprah so no one is getting a car 😀

To enter this giveaway, follow the directions on the embed below. Enter daily and share this giveaway with your friends! The winner will receive 1 signed copy of Illuminate: Technology Enhanced Learning, 1 $5 Starbucks gift card (have a latte on me!), 1 $5 Amazon gift card, and 1 $5 Target gift card.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Thanks for helping me celebrate my birthday month, and as always, thanks for reading 🙂

Back-to-School with Educational Technology

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Hello, all and happy Wednesday! If you’re back to school like me, I hope your school year is off to a fantastic start! I’m still struggling to settle into a routine that includes 3 ballet classes, two jazz/tap classes, 3 soccer practices, piano lessons, working out, making lunches, fixing (and eating) supper, teaching three online classes, teaching all day … I could go on, but you get the idea! We all have hectic lives, and so do our students. Sometimes I wonder if we as teachers remember what it was like to be a student. In my case, I had ten classes in high school, which were complete with ten sets of rules and expectations, homework, projects, and different learning environments. I was a good student but still found this overwhelming. In addition to having multiple classes and classroom expectations to master, my students also experience quite a different teaching strategy when they enter my flipped, blended, and gamified classroom. We use the available educational technology tools at our disposal daily and heavily in our classroom to enhance learning, quite possibly in ways they’ve not yet experienced.

Understanding the Why 
In my Government classes, my students progress through units of instruction in the form of HyperDocs. Our HyperDocs are housed in the form of a Google Site, and include “Engage,” “Explore,” “Explain,” “Apply,” “Reflect/Share,” and “Extend” components. Students begin with the engage and explore sections to become, well – for lack of a better term, engaged in the content they’re learning and establish background knowledge about the subject. The explain component requires students to view and interact with instructional videos through one of my favorite educational technology tools, Edpuzzle. The apply section requires students to choose a product to create that demonstrates their understanding of a variety of concepts addressed in the unit. I also include a rubric that students can use not only to understand the requirements of the project but also to self-assess and make adjustments before submitting their product. (Check out my unit HyperDocs here!) Even though this process is a huge shift for my students, I want them to understand the “why” behind what we’re doing and the educational technology tools that we’re using. Why am I asking them to create a representation of their understanding that requires them to include not just a definition of a term, but also (and more importantly) a thorough explanation of the concept? Why do I ask them to assume that their audience (me and others we may share their work with) has no idea about the concepts they’re learning and it’s their job to offer a complete presentation of that information? Because I want them to demonstrate their understanding of a concept … not whether or not they can copy/paste from the Internet or from their peers!

Do. Not. Panic! 
When we experience something new, one of our first responses is to FREAK OUT because we don’t know what to expect, we’re scared, or we just want to continue doing what we’ve always done. When students encounter something new or different, they’re likely to have the same response. This is OK! I’ve stressed over the last week and a half the process that we will follow throughout the duration of our course, the building blocks of knowledge that we acquire and use as we proceed through our units, and what my students are expected to do with what they’ve learned. Clarity of expectations and processes are key in any classroom, but especially when we’re asking our students to do something much different than they’re accustomed to.

I’m here to help 
As I’ve said here and in my book, one of my favorite features of my flipped/blended/gamified classroom is that I feel like I’m able to actually help my students on an individual level. When a student or group of students is struggling with the systems of government, I can re-teach that concept for those students. When a group of students is ready to be challenged and extend they’re learning, I can do that by offering them activities that encourage them to go above and beyond, and am there to help them if they need it. I feel like I’m really able to be there for each of my students. Even though the first few weeks or the first unit can be challenging, it’s so worth it!

I hope you’re excited about the new school year and the knowledge that we get to have such a huge impact on the future through our classrooms!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Technology in the Classroom: Teacher Goals 2018-2019 Edition

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Hello, and happy Wednesday! Today was an emotional day for me – our daughters went back to school, and we now have a 2nd grader and a Kindergartener. Ohhhhh the emotions! I made it worse last night by looking through my girls’ baby pictures, watching videos of when they learned to walk and talk … the waterworks were in full force! However, I did NOT cry today as we walked them to their classroom and both girls had an amazing first day of school. We’re going to have an awesome year! My school year officially starts tomorrow – I don’t really count the before school meetings as “back to school” because my students aren’t there – and I’m experiencing the same feelings I have the night before school starts that I have every year since I started teaching. I’m nervous and excited to start year ELEVEN – that doesn’t seem possible – and am excited to share some of my teacher goals with you for this school year!

Intentional Tech Integration 
As you all know, I am a HUGE proponent of intentional and purposeful technology integration in the classroom to enhance learning – hence the name of my blog and the focus of my book 😀 As I emphasize in Illuminate, tech integration should be intentional and meaningful, and the focus should be on how tech can enhance learning. I’m constantly searching for new ways to incorporate technology to enhance learning, and am excited to use InsertLearning this year to encourage my students to connect more with resources and information that we use in class.

Flexible Seating 
I’ve excited about and interested in flexible seating for YEARS but am finally making some strides in that direction. I’m fortunate enough to have 6 bungee chairs in my classroom this year and I am PUMPED! I hope to eventually have a few tall, round bar-height tables and bar height chairs, maybe a couch, a rug, and a few tables to provide my students with more options and choice for where their learning takes place. Fingers crossed!!

 

Make it AWESOME 
This year, I want to continue to focus on creating a learning environment that students actually want to enter, and where they feel like they can learn safely and effectively. I want our classroom to be an inviting space where everyone feels like they’re a valued part of our community and my students know that I’m there for them – to help them learn, to challenge them to understand and apply a concept at a deeper level and to encourage and motivate them to be successful.

Thanks for reading 🙂

P.S. –> I’m adding a new option to my Hashtags through History extension activities! Download your copy of “If we had Twitter when …” today!

Back to School Planning Series: Google Classroom Updates

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Hello, and happy Tuesday! In case you missed it, Google announced today that they’ve made some great improvements to Classroom, hopefully making it more user-friendly and efficient for teachers and students! Let’s dive right into the updates to Google Classroom.

Separate Stream and Classwork Tabs
Do you ever look at an update from a tool that you love using in your classroom and think, “YAASSS! This is going to be so much better!” That’s exactly the response I had when I noticed this change in Classroom. One of the chief complaints that my students have while working in Classroom is that everything is too “smushed” or “jumbled” because assignments, announcements, questions, etc., are all in the same spot. And, prior to this update, I totally agreed with them. Yes, I used the “topics” feature to make locating resources, assignments, etc., easier, but the fact that everything was on the Stream was just a bit too much. Now, Stream and a new tab “Classwork” are two separate entities within the Classroom section, allowing for teachers to create assignments (and soon, locked quizzes!), questions, and topics (used for units) on the Coursework tab and announcements on the Stream tab. Woohoo!

New and Improved Grading/Feedback
Perhaps my favorite update to Classroom is the grading feature. Teachers can now open student work through Classroom and toggle back and forth between student submissions without opening new windows for each individual student submission. As you can see in this article from Google, teachers will be able to open a student submission, add comments (and even quickly add often-used comments!), and move to another student’s work without opening a new tab. WOOHOO!!!

Topics 
Ok, so I know I just said that the grading/feedback option was my favorite, but the new Topics option is a close second … maybe tied for the favorite spot. The Topics feature has been around for quite some time in Google Classroom and has done wonders for “cleaning up” the sometimes messy Stream. NOW teachers can use Topics to create units in the Classwork section – almost like folders where students can easily access all of their work and information for a given unit. WOWZERS! Check out this GIF for more details.

Long story short – I am PUMPED about the new features that have been added to Google Classroom. Soon, teachers will also be able to assign a Google Form as a quiz through Classroom (on managed Chromebooks) in “locked” mode – I can’t wait to see how this works!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Back to School Planning: Kahoot Update

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Happy Sunday, all! I’m continuing today with my back to school planning series, and focusing on one of my favorite tools – I know I say that a lot! – Kahoot! The great people at Kahoot introduced a new game option on Twitter last week, and teachers around the world will love it!

 

When launching a Kahoot activity, teachers have the option to use “classic” or “team mode” as well as the following:

You’ll notice that “enable 2-step join” is listed as a game option. Turning this feature on will require students to jump through an extra hoop when they join a Kahoot game which will prevent (or at least drastically reduce the chances) random people from popping in your class activity!

I’m not saying that my students have suddenly appeared in another Kahoot game by typing random numbers as a game pin, and I’m not saying that they haven’t 🙂

As for the other game options – here’s a quick rundown of the features we use in my classroom:

–> Answer Streak Bonus — use it and love it!
–> Name Generator — we tried it once and my students much prefer to enter their own gamer tags (Check out Chapter 8 of Illuminate for more info on gamer tags!)
–> Podium — yup!
–> Randomize order of questions — we definitely use this option because we review content frequently in my classroom, and I don’t recreate a Kahoot every time we review that content!
–> Randomize order of answers — same as above 🙂 The point of reviewing the content we learn frequently is not to determine whether or not students can memorize which color goes with each answer option!
–> Enable 2-step join — super pumped about this one!
–> Display game pin throughout — most definitely! This is especially helpful for students who have wifi difficulty or come to class late
–> Show minimized intro instructions — nah. My students are QUITE familiar with the ins and outs of Kahoot
–> Automatically move through questions — nope. I do not use this feature because, depending on the responses from my students, I may spend more time discussing the content of specific questions to ensure understanding before we proceed.
–> Require players to rejoin after each Kahoot — nope. I’d rather not focus on “hey what was the pin again?” as we proceed through the class period!

What Kahoot game options do you use in your classroom?

Thanks for reading 🙂

Back to School Planning: Edpuzzle in the Classroom

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Hello, and happy Saturday! I hope you’re having a great week and are enjoying the last few days of summer vacation. If you’re like me, you probably aren’t quite sure what day of the week it is, but you know that it’s most likely not August – #teachersummer – am I right?! In keeping with my back to school planning series, I’m sharing one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE tools today – Edpuzzle. If you’ve read my blog over the last few years (thanks!) you know that I’m a huge fan of Edpuzzle and use it daily in my modified flipped classroom. Edpuzzle has recently enjoyed a makeover and you may find yourself searching for some necessary features – like the assign button! No worries, you can still assign videos – multiple videos at once – through the sleek, redesigned Edpuzzle page.

Check out the video below that details Edpuzzle’s new look – and please ignore the sound of my children playing and cackling in the background 🙂

As I’ve shared before, my students use this great tool daily in our classroom to view and interact with instructional videos. I love the fact that I can not only monitor their progress individually and as a class on each video, but can also provide quick and effective feedback on embedded formative assessment throughout the video. This allows me to provide more individualized help and instruction to my students – it’s awesome!

Learn more about using Edpuzzle in Chapter 1 of Illuminate!

Be sure to sign up for the Illuminate: Technology Enhanced Learning giveaway! I’ll be giving away a signed copy of Illuminate every 7 days through August 18 … click here for more details.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Back to School Planning: Using InsertLearning

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Happy Sunday, friends! A few weeks ago, I tumbled down the Edu-Twitter rabbit hole and found an amazing digital tool – InsertLearning! After a few minutes of digging, I realized that this is a fantastic tool that will help me design lessons around digital resources that easily integrate with platforms I already use, including Google Classroom and the fabulous Edpuzzle. What is this great tool and why am I so excited about it? I’m so glad you asked!

InsertLearning allows teachers to embed resources, discussions, and questions in any digital source using their Chrome extension.

Here’s how it works.

–> Access the site
–> Select “Log In”
–> Sign in with Google
–> Select your role in education
–> Add the InsertLearning extension to your browser

–> Choose a digital resource (Google Docs, website, etc) that you’d like your studets to use
–> Embed questions, discussions, videos (video lessons from Edpuzzle!!), and highlight text with the InsertLearning menu (There are DOZENS of additional embed options as well!)

–> Assign the resource to your students by either creating a class section within the site or by exporting your Google Classroom sections.

That’s it! Teachers can monitor student progress and provide feedback from within the InsertLearning dashboard. I have soooo many ideas swirling around in my head that involve using this tool to illuminate learning. Do you use HyperDocs in your classroom? Think about how you could use InsertLearning as part of a HyperDoc! I can’t wait to use this with primary and secondary readings in my high school Social Studies classroom!! Did I mention that you can also share your InsertLearning activities with other teachers? Hello, collaboration! 

Users have 3 different pricing plans ranging from free to customizable for the size of your school. The individual teacher plan (which I’ll be using) is $40/year HOWEVER, teachers can “earn” free months by sharing this great site with others.

Do you use InsertLearning in your classroom? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Back to School Planning: 3 Reasons to Use Nearpod in Your Classroom

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Hello, all! Is it just me, or does it seem that summer vacation really speeds up after July 4? I feel like the second half of summer goes WAY faster than the first part and I’m quickly realizing that I’m not checking off nearly as many things from my summer to-do list as I wanted! As I’m prepping for the new semester, I’m planning to share how I’m using some of my favorite digital tools in my lessons to increase engagement, illuminate learning, and make learning memorable! As you’ve probably noticed, I’m quite a fan of Nearpod and use it daily in my dual credit classes. While there are definitely more, here are 3 reasons to use Nearpod in your classroom!

Virutal Reality 
Seriously, how awesome is virtual reality? The fact that teachers now have the ability (through multiple tools) to virtually take students to places, past and present, to enrich their learning experience is just amazing! Nearpod allows teachers to embed virtual field trips into their lessons to transport students to amazing places around the world. In our World War II unit, I love taking my students to the Palace of Versailles, Japan after the use of nuclear weapons, the barracks at Auschwitz, and the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. When students use their smart phones or tablets, they’re even able to walk through these places. Students using a Chromebook or laptop are able to drag and zoom on the image as they travel to distant places.

Formative Assessment 
Formative assessment is key in any classroom – we need to know what our students know and what they don’t know so we can help them understand what they don’t know and encourage them to apply what they know – you know?! 🙂 When creating Nearpod lessons, teachers can embed a variety of formative assessment questions – include multiple choice, true/false, and one of my favorites: draw it – into their presentation. When the lesson is launched and the class proceeds, students will view the questions on their screen and the teacher can view the results of the class in realtime. Teachers can also add formative assessment questions “on the fly” during their lesson as needed.

Student View 
My students REALLY appreciate the fact that they can log into a Nearpod lesson and view the information on their device without having the crane their necks around the heads of their classmates. They also LOVE that they can interact with virtual and 3D images, simulations, etc., on their own devices. The ability to view the presentation on a variety of devices also offers a great deal of flexibility for my students!

I could really go on and on and ON about the wonderful features of Nearpod! Definitely check out this great digital tool and reach out if you have any questions. I’d love to help you use Nearpod to illuminate learning!

Speaking of illuminating learning — be sure to check out my new book, Illuminate: Technology Enhanced Learning, for great tips and strategies for using great technology, like Nearpod, to enhance the learning environment for your students!

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

F.I.E.R.C.E. Teacher Series – Excited and Energetic Teaching

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Hello, friends! I’m writing to you this morning, refreshed and exhausted at the same time after coming back from our week-long beach vacation in Destin. The sand and water were fantastic! I probably could have used a bit more sunscreen … but, oh well. I’m pumped to continue my F.I.E.R.C.E. Teacher Series with the first of the “Es” … let’s talk about being an excited and energetic teacher!

EXCITED
I’m generally an excited person, both inside and outside the classroom. If you’ve ever been to one of my presentations or workshops, you know that I always introduce myself and then give attendees a fair warning that, whenever I talk about something that I really like, I get super excited and start talking really fast. It happens! That’s just how I roll, friends! I’m pretty much the same in my classroom, and it helps that I’m a huge geek about my content area. I realized, however, toward the beginning of my teaching career that everyone doesn’t get quite as hyped about the functions of the branches of government, Constitutional Amendments, and landmark Supreme Court cases as me – weird, right?! 😉 So, in order to engage my students in our content, I need to be excited about the content. Can you imagine walking into a class that you’re not particularly pleased about taking and the teacher is dry, boring, and clearly NOT excited about teaching you? How horrible would that be? So, even on the days that I’m not 100% excited to be out of my jammies and my recliner, I’m making it my mission to be excited about not only what I’m teaching, but the fact that I get to teach – sit back and think about the fact that we GET TO TEACH. We GET to have a direct impact on the future. How cool is that?! In what other professions could we have this kind of influence? Get excited! We get to teach!

ENERGETIC
My students often say that they have no idea how I have so much energy. My daughters are 5 and 7 and still don’t sleep through the night. When they wake up for milk or a trip to the bathroom, they don’t wake up their dad, but instead, insist on having Mommy help. I’ve asked them why they don’t wake up my husband, and they both reply, “Mommy, Daddy is asleep.” Ohhhh, he has them trained! Being an energetic teacher is hard, especially when we’re tired, don’t feel well, or when the kids don’t want to let us go when we take them to school or the babysitter in the morning. However, I’d much rather be excited about what I teach and energetic in my classroom than, for lack of a better word, “blah.” My students can expect me to “drop mad beats” and “spit bars” about our content if they need help remembering the concept of federalism or the difference between dual and cooperative federalism. They can expect me to stand on tables to make review a bit more fun and do toe touches for moral support before they take a test. How can we be energetic about teaching, even when we aren’t? That’s a million dollar question, isn’t it? As for me, I try to take a “when my feet hit the floor in the morning, it’s go-time” attitude. And God and coffee. Lots of both.

Check back soon for the “Rs” of the F.I.E.R.C.E. Teacher Series! I hope you’re having a fantastic summer!

Thanks for reading 🙂