When I first learned the difference between gamification and game based learning I made the analogy of learning a language in a classroom versus being immersed in the country and culture where they speak the language. My understanding is that gamification incorporates components of the values that games bring, the "game" supports the learning. Game based learning allows the user to be involved in the learning process within the game.
I don't think I am very connected to what kids are playing and I do not play anything. It would be valuable for me to spend some time learning more about gaming. I have never really been a gamer. After watching "Gaming can make a better world", I think about games in a different way. I loved the constant comparison to how people are in games vs. the real world. The idea that gamers are super powered, hopeful, individuals is a powerful point. What are these gamers, our students, capable of if they are playing games that matter? I was inspired by Jane McGonigal's TED talk and the games she created such as World without Oil and Super Struct. I think an amazing project would be to have students not only play games that matter but also design these games. I think our next steps at New Tech would allow for something like this to happen. I can see this being a project that is rich in content, voice and choice, real world connections, and elements of gaming. I have used Desmos as a graphing calculator and I have explored a few other uses. I am looking forward to taking my use of this to the next level and utilizing more of its capabilities. I one of the videos I watched it talked about how math class was not called math but instead called code world. This motivated me to look at code.org. I would love to explore this in more detail but I believe there could be some great connection in the math classroom. I have used Kahoot before and the kids to enjoy this. I would like to use Quizizz with my students as a way to review and/or practice skills they are working on. The final way I would like to use games in my classroom is not through technology, I was inspired when I went to High Tech High and was able to go into the Puzzle Bus. The Puzzle Bus was similar to an escape room; however, it is mobile and incorporates academic content. The experience was amazing! It was so focused on collaboration, critical thinking and it had a variety of content. I would absolutely love to have my students create a break out room!
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I experimented with several different tools; each have things I like about them and also some things I struggled with. Ultimately I decided to use Edpuzzle. I like that you are able to take videos that already exist and make them your own. I also like the interactive component of it. I found this provided access to many videos that I already use in my classroom, I am just able to make them my own.
Pear Deck is something I have played with a little bit and I continued to experiment with it when working on my lesson plan. I love the fact that it allows students to enter in responses to questions. You can pick multiple choice, short answer, or paragraph responses. You are then able to display the responses. I like that you can put it on presentation mode where all students are on the same page, or you can let students go at their own pace. You are also able to export answers into google sheets and use add-ons such as Flubaroo to automatically grade responses. My one struggle with pear deck is that I have not figured out if you can do voice recordings for the slides. I looked at Visme a little bit; I plan to explore it more. This seems to be a more business focused; however, there were some really great visuals that reminded me our readings from Baggio in "The Visual Connection". I have seen some really great presentations using Adobe Spark and I plan on using this for several thing for the start of the school year. As our 9th grade cohort embarks on new territory we will have our syllabus presented using Adobe Spark. I like the clean visual appearance of this tool and it seems fairly easy to use. I know that I will have more experience with this tool so for this assignment I decided to go in another direction. I am excited to get to know the pros and cons of the tools and to effectively incorporate them into my practice. At the same time, as I was thinking about my flipped lesson plan, I struggled a bit. Although I see value and need for direct instruction at times, I wonder how this can be more student driven as I go into this new model. I would like to push myself to be innovative not only with the types of tools but also the implementation of them. Whenever using presentation tools I would like to make sure students are interacting with the material and there is a way to assess and provide feedback (one reason I really like pear deck). As I followed the ITSE conference of 2018 on Twitter there were a few things that stood out to me. Attached below are images that I found valuable. I will explain why they stood out to me and how I could use them.
Image 1: 6 Questions To Ask Your Students. The more I learn about teaching and how we learn, the more important I feel it is for us to get to know our students. This reminds me of "Making Sense of Sense Making" by Dervin, we as teachers need to bridge the gap from the students to the information. In order to do this, we need to be asking the right questions. Image 2: Quote. I love this, it shifts the mentality of how we and students look at things. After reading about growth mindset it is very apparent that a subtle shift in the words we use can have a huge impact on how we view the world. Image 3: Twitter Hashtags for Educators. I thought this would be a nice resource for our cohort as we begin our journey on twitter. Image 4: Why Believing in Students Matters. I thought this was a good reminder to myself about how much of an impact I can have on students and on people. One of our school norms is to assume good intentions; it is important that we do this with our students as well. I became a teacher because I love the kids, there are times that things get challenging and I can questions that, this reminds me how important it is to have a positive mindset and truly believe in each of my students. Image 5: 10 Characteristics of Learner-Centered Experiences. First of all I liked the wording of the title "learner-centered". As an educator in a PBL school it is important that I create a learner centered experience, this graphic is simple and clear and focuses in a things that should be present. One last thing that I found on Twitter is google forms will now have the ability to have a more secure assessment platform. This is a great addition to google forms. There were quite a few other things that stood out to me and sessions that I would have loved to attend. I look forward to hearing more about the experience from my cohort member and hopefully I have the chance to attend myself in the future. I have used google forms for several years now. I use it most often for feedback or reflection both in my classroom and when leading professional development. I am excited to learn about many different uses that I did not know were possible before. I had not thought of it as a way to turn in assignments; looking at the responses in a google sheet would organize the assignments in a nice way, I think it would be easier to view than it is in echo. I plan to continue using it for reflections but I would like to use it for things such as exit tickets, sign in/out sheets (for materials), assignment submission, collaboration assessment, and I want to continue to explore its capabilities. I love that the responses can be organized in google sheets; this allows for many options as you analyze or organize your results. I am also interested in exploring more of the add ons and how people use them. I do think I need to be aware of overuse. I think if we as teachers use a tool too much, the students can get tired of it and not see the value of it. I hope to use this when this is the best tool to use, not just to use it. As for as my capstone goes I think this is one way that I can gather data. If we look at the design thinking process, we could use this to learn more about our students and build empathy. It may be used to assess prior knowledge as well. When thinking about using this for assessment (or gathering data on knowledge), I have been apprehensive in the past because students can just look up answers in another tab. When following #ITSE18, I saw that on a chromebook, you can now lock other activity while they are taking the assessment. I wonder if this works with other devices. This could allow other opportunities for using google forms. I am a new twitter user. I have a little bit of experience with it from our last class and since then I have gained a few followers both personal friends and professionals. I was looking at the schedule for the chats and decided to join a chat with the following description:
This chat is dedicated to connecting and continuing the Empowering and inspirational teachers that have made the Elevate and Celebrate Effective Teaching in Arkansas movement really happen. If you have attended or are just looking for an inspirational exchange with teachers that really care and want to promote the field of the Teaching Profession #ECET2ARChat. This chat was scheduled for 5pm on Thursday 6/21/18. At 5pm I logged on to twitter to join the chat, I searched for the given hashtag and nothing was posted. I continued to check back every 5 or so minutes and still nothing. I thought that maybe I was doing something wrong so I called several classmates. One of them had a similar experience. This experience raises several questions for me about the chats. First of all, who starts these chats? Second, is there someone in charge of them? Third, how accurate is the schedule and is there updates of that? I plan to try again in the future because I would like to have this experience. I have several social media sites and mostly post pictures of my adventures with family and my daughter. I tend to stay away from having discussions (especially political discussions). I do however enjoy looking at the conversations that other people post. I will have to push myself to start engaging in conversations and using this platform as a way to become a more educated and up to date professional. So, at this point my experience with a twitter chat was unsuccessful, but I will try again soon! I think social media has a variety of ways in which someone can develop, collaborate, and communicate as a professional. It allows for us to stay connected with people all over the world. We can see what new things people are trying, research that has been done, and connect and problem solve with people that have similar struggles. It allows us to not only read things that have been published but to actually interact with experts in certain fields. It also allows us to share things we are doing and to make meaningful connections that can support us in and out of the classroom.
Although there are many wonderful things that can come with social media, there are also things to be aware of. Several big ones that stand out to me are, first of all, how you represent yourself and the words you choose. this could be as simple as using correct spelling and grammar. If you are constantly making errors, that could change the way you are viewed and make others not respect you as a professional. How you present yourself could also be more severe. It is important to remember that once you put something on the internet, it is out there and you can't take it back. I liked the quote from one of our readings, if you don't want it on a jumbotron in New York, then don't post it. The second major issue is the relationship boundaries between student and teacher. Questions to consider, is it okay to follow students? Is it okay to have students follow you? What does that interaction look like? Should you have a separate teacher account? I don't know that there is a clear answer to any of these, I do think it is something we need to consider for ourselves and constantly make sure we are aware. I think it is a slippery slope when it comes to the appropriateness of students posts. Is it okay to use bad language? When has it gone too far? I wonder how we as a district could be consistent about this. I think it is hard to give consequences when clear lines have not been established. If I saw something that I thought was inappropriate I would probably talk to both the counselor and the principal or assistant principal and have a conversation with them about it. My goal would be to support the student in making the right choices and that they understand the consequences, not punishment. I also think it depends on the type of post it was and the relationship that I have with the student. If I feel the student respects me and my opinion and it was use of bad language, not necessarily directed at someone, then I might have a conversation with that student. If the student was bullying another student, I would definitely get support of the counselor and the other student to make sure support was offered. There are a lot of things to consider with this issue. I hope that in the future we can have clear guidelines and procedures to follow to take away the ambiguity of things. Another issue with this is that the parents should be monitoring this. How can we educate parents about digital citizenship and support them in monitoring their children. School has gone from a place of disseminating knowledge to a place where we are molding citizens. I wonder how our system can support all the things that now fall on schools. I am not one to be strict about the contract or work time or what my job description is, at the same time, when are these things outside of the realm of my job. Again, clarity and consistency around this issue is needed in my opinion. At New Tech High we assess students based on five school wide learning outcomes (SWLO's). One of the SWLO's is oral communication. I have struggles with how to accurately assess this in a math classroom. Many teachers at our site assess this during a final presentation; however, I think it is important to think about other ways we can assess oral communication. In my classroom I haven't had students give very many formal presentations so I need to push myself when it comes to meaningful assessment. One way in which I decided to assess their oral communication is by using Flipgrid.
I started using flipgrid at the end of the 2016-17 school year when all staff members were asked by admin to create a flipgrid reflection of the year. I instantly saw the value in it and decided it would be a great way to assess oral communication in my classroom the following year. So I started by being a user and understand how it works from the students perspective. I found it very simple and straightforward. When the next year began I used flipgrid several times throughout the year. I only have the unpaid version so I am limited to how deep I can go in the use of it. It took a very short amount of time to figure out the basics. What is flipgird? Flipgrid is a tool that allows students to create short videos. The teacher can set a specific topic or question and then each student will create a video (only 90 sec max for the unpaid version). Students can view each others videos and add emoji reactions. Feedback is available with the paid version as well as longer recording options. From my experience the strengths are as follows: All students can be help accountable for orally responding to a prompt or questions; however it does not take class time for each student to give their response. Students and teachers can look back on the oral communication to give accurate feedback and/or reflect. Students with a phone or computer can access flipgrid from the anywhere. It organizes the responses based on topic (have a specific code). Students can watch videos from other students to give feedback. I have had students that get anxious or not comfortable being in front of a group and presenting or even on video; I allow students to record their work as they speak, so they don't have to have themselves on camera. It allows a safe place for them to present orally. The weaknesses: Most of the weaknesses from my perspective my be remedied by upgrading to the paid version. For example, the feedback component is huge and can not be used with the free version. The second drawback is the time limit which also can be changes with an upgrade. I think this is a great tool for assessing oral communication. I think that no matter what I am assessing it should be done in a variety of ways so it is important to remember it is one way, not the only way. I found when watching videos of my students answering math questions that it was very clear if they understood the concepts. Using academic vocabulary is very important and this tool helps you see who is able to not only do the math but to clearly communicate the math. Here is the link to my flipgrids for the school year 2017-18. https://flipgrid.com/3aanuby Given the already full curriculum, how will we begin to teach digital literacy? I think this question is a huge concern to many already overwhelmed teachers. It feels like more and more things are being added to what we need to teach. It is no longer just about teaching our content but we need to teach skills such as collaboration, communication, digital literacy, and many more plus encouraging our students to be empathetic, positive citizens, and creative. The lists could go on and on about all the things we could and maybe should focus on in the classroom and this list can seem almost impossible. As Hess stated in "Strategies to Help Students 'Go Deep' When Reading Digitally", “I don’t believe technology should ever be taught separately”, I think we need to ask ourselves how do we integrate these skills so that they support each other? When designing lessons and projects, how can we tie these skills together so that we are not teaching many different isolated topics? I think this idea helps in several different ways, first of all the time issue, but also the idea that these skills are relevant to what we do already, and the idea that our brain remembers better when we make connections.
As I move forward in supporting my students with both digital citizenship and digital literacy, I need to make sure my ninth grade team is aware and inline with the tools and skills we will be focusing on. I think my first step would to be to bring awareness to the ISTE standards for both students and teachers and maybe within each project we could pick some areas to focus on in a similar way in which we look at our SWLO and pick indicators to assess and scaffold. I am excited that I have a team that I can work with that has a different background and set of skills that they may be able to bring to the table in supporting these standards. A good place to start may be some tools that we already use as a school site; however, we do not maximize their use. For example, in "Strategies to Help Students 'Go Deep' When Reading Digitally", strategies to help you read an online text were described using google docs. I use google docs regularly and was not aware of some of the things I could do with it. At our site, echo is our LMS, we are all required to use, but most of us do not use it to it's full potential. I would really love to explore for of the resources that are out there that can take part in our projects that we design. I decided to read "4 Tools For Kids To Help Develop Compassion and Social Change", by Romolo Tavani because a huge focus at NTHS is to have students engage in real world issues. I liked the comparison of empathy vs. compassion, "Empathy allows us to sense other people's emotions, like grief or joy, and imagine what someone else might be thinking. Compassion is similar, but also involves a desire to help the person." I hope that through our projects we create students that are both empathetic and compassionate and that their experience allows them to take action. I wonder how the tools The Wonderment, Facing History and Ourselves, Climate Kids, and NYT VR can support the work we are already doing. In conclusion my plan is to work with my team and use their strengths in digital literacy to develop a consistent plan to incorporate digital literacy into the project we are designing. When I was in middle school at Silverado I took a class called Quest. This class was an elective that focused on how to be a good person, we journaled, did random acts of kindness, and learned about empathy and many other things that helped us grow into self aware, positive citizens. For me this class just reinforced the things that were taught to me at home; for others, it was the only time they had ever learned about these things. I have always felt that Quest was a class that students should have all throughout their education. As I read about digital citizenship, I am reminded of my Quest class. In the common sense training, one teacher mentioned how the digital citizenship is just an extension of how to be in person, the same rules apply.
When looking at the 5 W's of teaching digital citizenship, it seemed very flexible. For example, some sites have one teacher that focuses on it while others do it as a team. You could do a unit at the start of the year or spread it throughout. I am excited to see where I can implement this as NTHS moves towards integrated projects. As a 9th grade team we discussed a themes of "local to global", starting with a project that focuses on self and expands outward to global issues. As I read about the different topics to be covered in digital citizenship, I think it could tie in very well. As I look at different resources, the topics, although similar and overlapping, they differ slightly. In the article "What Your Students Really Need to Know about Digital Citizenship", digital citizenship is broken into proactive knowledge and experimental knowledge. In the proactive knowledge there are 9 Key P's. Many of these we could examine as to how it relates to ones self in our first project. One thing that struck me as I was reading these is that students not only need to gain awareness and learn how to do things appropriately, but also the consequences if they don't. The personal impact of potential consequences were highlighted in the article "How to Keep you College Admissions Offer: Start with Digital Literacy", Ajayi stated that Harvard has rescinded acceptance offers to students due to things they posted on social media. I think students often say or post things as a joke and do not realize the impact it actually has on people. I loved the quote "If you would't want something you posted to end up on the jumbotron in Times Square, DO NOT POST IT." One of the things that I think is very important is making it relevant for the students; create connections to the things they are interested and how it impacts them. "It turned out these platforms we kids were all loitering on could be used for business!", this is a powerful statement. Technology provides so many opportunities; we need to support students in understanding the opportunity for positive, productive uses, not just the social aspect. I am excited to continue to explore the Common Sense resources. I definitely see alignment with where we are headed. In our self unit we can focus on the self-image and identify topic along with digital footprint and reputation. As we expand out to our school site we can focus on cyberbullying and digital drama. The other areas can tie well into different areas of projects. If we are intentional about covering these topics, I think each one can fit nicely into things we already do. As a 9th grade team we can share the responsibility of teaching the concepts and just reinforce the ideas they have been exposed to. It is great to have so many resources in this one place, I want to look more into Nearpod lessons and how to incorporate that into my classroom. Overall, I am excited about the potential for this to make a positive impact on our 9th graders at NTHS. I have already mentioned the idea to our team and I think it is wonderful that there is already a well developed curriculum with activities and assessment that we can incorporate. The article described competency based education as an "education based on mastery of skill rather than seat time". I think this could be a very effective model given the appropriate structures and supports.
I love the idea of students co-determining learning targets and how they will demonstrate their learning. I do wonder what this looks like. I have the following questions: What is the process for students determining individual learning targets? Are the targets based on the standards? When does this happen and what are other students doing at the time? What tools and/or structures are in place? If all the proper components were in place, I think this process would be very powerful. The article mentions that having "standard operating procedures" is very important. I feel like creating procedures and creating culture is valuable in any education environment. As a school or classroom potentially shifts to this model, again, I wonder what this looks like and how teachers would be supported in this shift. As New Tech High shifts to a model for 9th graders where projects are the drivers rather than classes, I connected with this article because we will have a lot of the logistical freedom to make this happen. My vision for this is that I will be able to support math skills in a workshop style. In this model there will be a group of about 5-6 teachers designing a interdisciplinary project for the Freshmen; there will be students in both math I and math II and I am sure within those two levels there will be huge discrepancy in their math ability. It will be essential for me to have different goals and supports for these students. Having educational technology that supports this process and structure could be very valuable. Students will need tools and resources in order to be self-directed. I think the idea of having technology that specifically supports this process could be a huge success factor. For example I took the idea of screencasts and instead of lecturing in person, I have my students watch the screencast (in class) at their own pace. Each student has the ability to pause or replay the "lecture". Once students watch the video and take notes they have the opportunity to practice at varying levels of the same skill. I imagine the competency based model to be far more individualized than my example but even on a small scale, technology supports this process. Overall, I find this as being ideal for student learning; however, I know that the idea can be overwhelming for educators. I am excited to have the support and collaboration as a 9th grade team to allow our incoming students to have an experience that has some elements of competency-based education. I would love to explore more about this to support me and my team in creating this environment of individualized learning within a project as well as developing a strong sense of agency in our students. |