This week, I am pleased to report that I actually tried out quite a few "new things" in my classroom!
Peardeck
On Monday, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a follow-up session to the Google Summit in Coronado on October 4th and 5th. During the session on Monday, one of the other teachers presented on
peardeck, a Google App that allows you to present directly to your students' screens and easily facilitates in-the-moment formative assessments. (For a brief tutorial on how to use peardeck in your classroom, check out this
video.)
Due to the fact that I was in the meeting all day, I didn't have a chance to submit the copies I needed for Tuesday before the deadline. Normally, I would have resigned myself to either changing my lesson plan or sneaking down to the copy room to make the copies myself; however, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity for me to try out peardeck! Luckily, I had reserved the Chromebooks all week because my students were working on
argumentative essays in relation to The Crucible, so I didn't have to worry about not having a device for each student.
I made a short 4-slide peardeck that allowed me to walk my students through the rubric for this assignment. (We'd already gone over the criteria with other activities throughout the writing process, but I wanted to emphasize that, for this particular essay, I was going to focus my grading on only 4 of the 10 criteria because I wanted to use this essay to make sure they understood including the opposing viewpoint and addressing the opposing viewpoint with a counterargument.) For the purpose of the activity, peardeck was extremely helpful. I was able to easily present the information I needed to, while keeping the students involved and engaged. More importantly, I was able to use a formative assessment to see whether or not my students understood which criteria they would be graded on, and the best part was that I could IMMEDIATELY address any misconceptions my students had! It was awesome! In the words of my 2nd period TA: "This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time."
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Ease of use: I'm pretty sure my 90-year-old grandmother could make a peardeck (if I showed her how, of course).
Would I use this again: Absolutely!!!
Downsides: I don't think that access to technology is an issue, because kids can access peardeck on their phones. If not every student in the class has a smartphone, that is actually better because it then forces them to group up and collaborate! Win, win! The only downside I can see (and this almost happened to me) is that in the even either the WiFi goes down or their is some kind of glitch with Google Drive, you won't be able to use it. However, this is the case with most technology, so I don't really see it as a deterrent.
Applications: Any formative assessment ever.
Google Docs Websites
With the project I mentioned above, in the past, I had my students create physical newspapers, and I even gave them extra credit if they made them look old. (You know, because the kids always have a lot of fun burning the papers and dying them with coffee, and I always enjoy having my classroom smell like burnt coffee for a few days after the projects are due.) This year, I decided to give them the option of turning the newspaper into a website, because at the Google Summit, I learned how extremely easy it is to turn a Google Doc into a website.
Okay. I guess I shouldn't say I "learned" it at the Google Summit, because I was always aware that that was a possibility, but I had never really thought through what I would use that feature in Google Docs for. But now, I was thinking about it, and I realized that since I was forcing my students to type their essays in Google Docs and peer edit them in Google Docs, then I might as well also give them the option of publishing them in Google Docs instead of forcing them to print them out, cut them up, and glue them together into a newspaper.
When I presented the project to the students, I mentioned to them that they would have either option and that I would show them how to create the website later on. Well, that day wound up being this past Wednesday. After I walked my students in 1st period through the process of creating the website (i.e., opening Google Docs, clicking on "File", and then clicking on "Publish to the web...", all 5 groups in the class decided to go that route instead of creating the traditional paper copy. 3 out of 5 groups in 2nd period created websites as well.
Here is a student sample. You will notice that the formatting isn't great (nor is some of the writing), but considering this is the first time they put together a website, and they did so in 1 day, I don't think it's too bad.
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Ease of use: My 90-year-old grandmother could definitely do this, and I don't think I'd even have to walk her through it. (I would just have to write down step-by-step directions for her.)
Would I use this again: Heck yes!
Downsides: A student in 1 of the 2 groups that created the actual newspaper was worried about organizing her group and getting all of the pieces together to glue into the newspaper. I told her she could just do the website, but she told me, "But that's too easy!" So, I guess it's not great for the really kinesthetic people who need to make things with their hands.
Applications: Student or staff websites. Actually, this is a great place to start for teachers who want to make a website but have no idea how, because, for this, if you can create a decent looking Word document, you can create a website; it may be extremely basic in appearance, but it will be a website, nonetheless.
Peer Reviews with Google Forms
On Thursday, I had my students peer review each others' newspapers. In the past, I've done similar activities through
surveymonkey, but since I never want to have to pay for anything I don't absolutely need, I am stuck with a limited version of surveymonkey which only allows me to make surveys of up to 10 questions and doesn't allow me to download a spreadsheet of the responses. With Google Forms, I can make forms with as many questions as I want, and, what's more, the information is saved in a spreadsheet right in my drive! How cool is that???
Now, I have made and used forms before, so that wasn't new to me. The thing that was new was that I made 3 forms -
one to review the a group's newspaper,
one to review a specific article in that newspaper, and
one to vote on the best newspaper in the class - and (now here's the kicker) I linked them so that students would finish one form and immediately be directed to the next one! (Okay. I'm reading what I just wrote, and I can see how that doesn't really seem that cool... just trust me - it's really cool.) Basically, you can customize the end message that students get after they submit the form, so you can use that message to give them instructions on what to do next.
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Ease of use: I don't think my grandmother could do this. You have to be somewhat proficient at creating forms to do something like this. However, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials out there on creating forms, like
this and
this. There is definitely a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it's a piece of cake (specifically, 7-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting).
Would I use this again: Yes. The beauty of Google Forms (and anything Google, for that matter), is that once it's made - once you've struggled through it one time - you can click "File" + "Make a copy...", and you automatically have a new form that is exactly the same as the amazing form you just made. If you don't want to get too crazy with forms, you can make some general form that you can use on a regular basis, like
this, and then you never have to make another form for all eternity, or you can go crazy with forms and tailor them to your every need. (I think I am falling in love with forms...)
Downsides: I will be honest: I ran into 2 problems when I did this with my class. The first (which I'm sure many of you can already guess) was that I had some students submit the first form and then close the tab without reading the message directing them to the next form. Then, I had to individually send students the links to the other forms because they didn't read the instructions. (Sigh... there's always a few in every class, aren't there?) The second problem was that, half-way through 1st period, I decided I wanted to make separate forms for 2nd period because then I would have a separate set of spreadsheets with the results from each class. Since I was rushing to copy and re-link the forms during the passing period, I, of course, messed up the links, and the forms for 2nd period wound up being out of order. The first few students who worked through the form on reviewing the newspaper were taken directly to the form to vote on the best newspaper; at the end of that form, they received the message, "Congratulations! You are done! :)"; thus, they thought they were done, even though they had not yet reviewed the a specific article. (I guess I just should have been happy that they were reading the directions, unlike the students in 1st period.) To solve this problem, I turned to
tinyurl, created bite-size versions of the original URL's, and just wrote them on the board and posted them on our class page on Edmodo. Like I said above, I would use this again; I think the process will get smoother as both I and my students get more comfortable with it.
Applications: Forms seems most valuable as an assessment tool - whether you are using it to assess your students or you are using it to have your students assess each other or even you. If you get really crazy with forms, you can create quizzes that will take students to different questions, depending upon their answer to a question (kind of like a "build your own adventure" novel). This seems a little complicated for me right now, but I may try it out in the future.
Newsela
Newsela is a website that presents current events in a range of lexiles. Basically, you can choose an article, and then you can adjust the lexile depending upon your (or your students') reading level. Since I have my ELD 2 class complete
current events on a weekly basis, I decided to create accounts for them with Newsela.
I thought that my students would be really excited when I showed them the site, because they often have trouble finding articles that they can understand; however, the truth is that they didn't really understand what Newsela was or what I was showing them. They just thought it was another site that they could use to find articles for their current events. After re-teaching and walking them through adjusting the lexile of an article, I saw a few light bulbs turn on. However, we will see if, in the long-run, the students actually make use of the site.
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Ease of use: For a teacher, it is extremely easy because you just have to create an account, and then you can access all of the articles. Getting the students logged in, however, is a little more difficult because you have to create the class and then give them a code. Once you're in, it is really easy to find interesting articles and adjust the reading level.
Would I use it again: Yes. I am going to continue to encourage my ELD students to use it.
Disadvantages: In my experience, anything that requires students to create an account and log in is immediately at a disadvantage because it means the students actually have to remember their usernames and passwords. Fortunately, it is easy to reset student passwords, but still... I don't really see why you have to make an account in the first place...
Applications: Current events (obviously). You can also use it to assign students specific articles. Some of the articles have quizzes for students to take when they are done reading, so that's pretty cool.
Going "Sarcasm-Free"
Let me start by saying that this will be an ongoing effort on my part. It went pretty well this week. I did speak to the student I originally offended; he actually approached me the next day in class and apologized for taking my comment so seriously. He said he actually appreciates my sarcasm, but he was just having a bad day. Nevertheless, I am going to stick to my word and continue on with this effort.
I will admit that I did tell a student his hat looked stupid. I wasn't sarcastic; I was completely honest. I felt as if it was my responsibility to tell this student that he looked absolutely ridiculous, because he thought he looked really cool. (The problem was that he has a mohawk, and he put his hat on on top of his mohawk... so his hat was sticking up a good 4 inches from the top of his head...) When he asked some of the girls in class what they thought, they admitted that it looked stupid. Therefore, I don't really see this as being "mean" to a student, since I was really just helping him out.
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Ease of use: It is actually really difficult for me to not be sarcastic. One of my students asked me why I always look so stressed out. I asked him if I look stressed out when he is asking me a lot of questions, and he said yes. I really had to bite my tongue because this is a student who always asks A LOT of questions - most of which he could probably figure out for himself if he just tried. I had to refrain from making some sarcastic response, and, instead, I was as honest as I could be with him, without insulting him. I told him something along the lines of, "There are a lot of very needy students in this class, and sometimes it is difficult to answer the same question multiple times. But it's okay, because I'm glad that you are all asking questions."
Would I use this again: Yes.
Downsides: None, actually. Yes. I am not as funny anymore, but isn't that worth it, if I'm not insulting my students? I think so. And I still think I'm pretty funny.
Applications: Life. I had already removed sarcasm from my personal relationships outside of the classroom. Now, I think I just need to work on taking it out of my interactions with my colleagues...
