CLR Reading Clock hour

A Reading Clock hour focused on Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching and Learning.

Today's Meet Backchannel - 11/2/12

Flashcard Machine website

Responsive Academic Literacy Instruction on Prezi

Now that all Irondale students have their own gmail, it makes sense that teachers would share their classroom calendars with students. In doing so, some teachers have wondered how they might link websites or online documents/assignments in their calendar to make it even easier for students to access them.

Here is a screen shot and screencast video showing how you can easily do this:

                     

4C's of 21st Century Learning: Communication

Open Letter to Educators:

 -- Let's look at  iPad and web-based apps for communication!

 Safely text students and parents using Remind 101. This web-based tool allows teachers to send mass text messages to anyone who joins their "class." Teachers can set message to send at a future time and date and can download the Remind 101 app for iphone/iPad to send message form their mobile device rather than going online.

Create a Blogspot like this one to provide parents and students instant access to your course content. Use the Blogger app to update your blogspot page from your mobile device.

Blogspot allows teachers to embed multiple modes of communication and messaging. Embed your Twitter feed, Youtube channel, Prezi presentations, Classroom calendars, or link Google forms. This is a much more robust one-stop shop for students and parents than our current classroom websites!



In addition to Blogspot, Google also provides opportunities for students to collaborate and communicate through Google Docs, Spreadsheets and presentations. Now that all students in the Mounds View school district have a MV Gmail account, teachers can share classroom calendars with students.  Every iPad must have the  Google App, which grants access to everything google has to offer.



Additionally use the Google Translate app to communicate via e-mail with parents who speak English as a 2nd Language. Easily translate words and phrases between more than 60 languages.  The web-based version of Google translate is available through the "More" drop-down menu in your MV Gmail.






Allow students to communicate through a backchannel discussion. A backchannel is everything going on in the room that isn't coming from the presenter. It's where people ask each other questions, pass notes, get distracted, and give you the most immediate feedback you'll ever get.  Tapping into the backchannel lets you tailor and direct your presentation to the audience in front of you, and unifying the backchannel means the audience can share insights, questions and answers like never before.

 Encourage students to follow you or your classroom on Twitter. Students can tweet your learning target for the day or use a hashtag to create a backchannel discussion on your lesson. Twitter is an excellent way to generate excitement by tweeting links to relevant and interesting articles, videos, or images that students can check-out at their leisure.




Use TodaysMeet to embrace the backchannel and connect with your students in realtime. Encourage your class to use the live stream to make comments, ask questions, and use that feedback to tailor your presentation, sharpen your points, and address audience needs.

iPadagogy

Using Educreations to check for understanding for purposes of making an immediate instructional adjustment.

For more information on the power of Educreations, watch this video!

Garden of your mind

I couldn't help but think the themes we discussed during workshop week are well reflected in the video below. We talked about validating students' home culture and experience. We discussed strategies for increasing engagement by meeting the students where they're at. We emphasized achievement and the giving of feedback that requires students to think.   We introduced new instructional technology that will both increase communication (text101.com) and provide additional opportunities for students to access curriculum and enrich understanding.

I love the below notion of young people growing ideas in the garden of their mind. This auto-tune of our old friend Mr. Rogers puts our work into a context that's both fun and creative.  The people at PBS (old and new) did a fine and timely job articulating a great 20th century message, in a most entertaining 21st century way.

Watch the video...and turn it up. The more you listen, the catchier it becomes...in the garden of your mind...

                              

Interested in learning how to use google forms to quiz or survey students?

Watch this screencast from Highview's Jeremey Squires:

 

 For more videos on using Google Docs click here

remind101

Students love to communicate via text. Teachers are right to be uncomfortable about directly texting students from their personal phones. If only there were a web-based tool that would allow us to communicate with students via text --- to remind them of looming due dates or upcoming tests.

There is such a tool.  Introducing Remind101.com. 

Teachers can print directions and students can bring them home to parents so they might also receive important texts about upcoming assignments, projects or tests. 

Today's Agenda

Today's Agenda:
7:30 - 7:35 - Re-introduce new staff
7:35 - 7:45 - Intro Web 2.0 - Tina Tanner
7:45 - 8:20 - CLR Debrief - Reetz/Rosivach
8:25 - 8:40 - Communication Plan - Gengler/St. Martin
 8:40 - 8:55 - Grading Parameters - Clemson/Hieb
9:00 - 10:00 - Meet with departments - discuss communication plan/grading
10:00 - 10:30 - Back to IMC -- report out by department
10:30 - 11:00 - ISIIP Goals, Report forms, Narrative


Questions for the CLR Debrief:

1. What is your biggest take-away from yesterday?

2. Try to think of a time when a student demonstrated a culturally inappropriate behavior in your class.  How did you respond?  Were you a mood killer?  What could you have done differently to be more culturally and linguistically responsive?

     3.  How aware are you of your deficit monitor?

        1 - Not very aware - Doesn’t cross my mind

        2 - Moderately aware - If I stop to reflect I can see how deficit thinking is affecting

             me (at the end of the day I slap my forehead and say “duh”)

       3 - Always turned on - I can generally recognize when I am using a deficit mode of    

            thinking

4. What do you expect will be the greatest challenges for you as you try to  incorporate more culturally and linguistically responsive teaching practices in your classroom?

Grading Non-Negotiable

Using iPad as a tool of formative assessment

Click here for a Songify version of the intro to this presentation:

iPadagogy - Click below for a tutorial on using the iPad for formative assessment:

All the applications covered in the above video are linked below:

                                    

 For additional screencasts on basic functions of the iPad, click here.

Interested in making a move to Prezi? Save all your Powerpoint slides as JPEGs, insert them in prezi and build a pathway. You'll be done in minutes! Prezi is a zooming presentation tool that easily embeds in any website or blog. Check out the Prezi viewer app for iPad!

Formative Assessment on Prezi

Immediate Instructional Adjustments 

gather data, analyze it real-time and adjust instruction appropriately. Preparation is key. Must predict students errors (they're not random) and have a go-to adjustment prepared when students don't understand.

Apple TV allows students to wirelessly project their work immediately upon request. This increases opportunities for peer to peer feebdack.

Wondering what you need for Apple TV to work in your classroom?

Apple TV uses an HDMI connection, which older projectors do not have.

HDMI to VGA Converter

Using an older LCD projector in your classroom?

You can purchase the Kanex ATV Pro to convert

HDMI to VGA with audio support.

HDMI to DVI Adapter

Have a newer projector that has a DVI input but no HDMI input?

Purchase this HDMI to DVI adapter.

AirServer

Are you using a desktop or laptop on a wireless network in your classroom? You can Airplay your iPad to a PC or MAC using AirServer.

     

Reflection App

Are you using a MAC in your classroom? You can Airplay to a MAC using the reflection app. When students mirror their work through apple TV, thus displaying it up front for the class, use Dylan Wiliam's "2 Stars and Wish" method of providing peer to peer feedback. Provide students' with specific criteria to determine two things they like about another student's work and one thing they wish for.

EduCreations

Use this app to create A,B,C,D cards. Ask students to answer multiple choice questions in their color of confidence (green = confident, yellow = unsure, red = guessing.  You might also do this with short answer questions.

Save EduCreation quizzes with Evernote:

In addition to students showing their answers immediately, teachers might also request a screenshot of the quiz sent via e-mail (see left) A better idea is to have students e-mail a screenshot of their quiz to a classroom Evernote account. Teachers then have a storage unit of immediate assessments (and other ungraded assignments) that they can access for more information on a struggling student. 






Educreations also allows students to create a screen cast of their work, which can provide insight into their thinking. Watch the video below for an example of the impressive screecasts students or teachers might create:
                                                         

             

Show Me - Have students use Show Me to create A,B,C,D Corner Cards. Ask a question that has no right or wrong answer. Ask students to choose the option that most closely aligns with their belief. Separate the groups into 4 corners, and have them create an argument (using iPad as a resource for evidence) for why their answer is best. Present the arguments and allow for students who were persuaded to move groups!

Do you have students that struggle to process work outside of class? Have them record a personal sceen-cast of a small amount of homework in Explain Everything so you can watch and see where the gaps are in their learning. Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design tool that allows students annotate, animate, and narrate explanations and presentations. This $2.99 App allows users to pull in a PDF or PPT. document from Dropbox. This app helps make homework about learning!

Stick Pick helps you randomly call on students and it helps you track student responses

                                               

Receive immediate feedback from a Poll Everywhere question! Poll Everywhere replaces expensive proprietary audience response hardware with standard web technology. It's the easiest way to gather live responses in any venue: conferences, presentations, classrooms, radio, tv, print — anywhere. It can help you to                                             

Near-future Instructional adjustment

collect data at the end of class and analyze it to inform the next day or next few days of instruction. Develop a sustained learning progression and measure the extent to which students have mastered each sub-set within that progression.

Socrative is a free smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets. 

Naiku  - Naiku empowers students to reflect and self-assess. It is an entirely different assessment experience in that it evaluates what students know and allows them to reflect on why they know it.

Use Google forms to quiz or survey students. Google forms are easily accessed w/ iPad and allow for all types of questions (multiple choice, short answer, essay, scale grid, etc.) Use conditional formatting function to color code correct responses. Use the 'Show Summary of Responses' feature to provide whole-group feedback.

Moodle is an Open Source Course Management System with many great features. Teachers can build great assessments within Moodle. It isn't the most user-friendly instructional tool, nor is it as engaging for students as new products.

Schoology is a learning management system and social network that makes it easy to create and share academic content. The assessment features is intentionally formative. Teachers can ask a variety of question types and require students to indicate the level of confidence with which they answered a question.   

Start a Homework Help Board on Schoology. Ask students who have questions to post them on the board each night. Encourage students to check the board to determine if they might seek out and answer/help one of their classmates.  

Mastery Manager - Mastery Manager's new online (hand-held) testing format is a 1:1 assessment tool that provides iPad and Android support, a Paperless solution, Randomize questions, Instant scoring, Immediate feedback, Virtual bubble forms, video and audio can be embedded in the questions, and it has a functional equation editor.

The SMART Response VE interactive response system is cloud-based software that enables students to respond to planned and spontaneous questions and take quizzes using any of their favorite Internet-enabled devices, from anywhere.

Student Tactical Adjustment to Learning: 

With the help of iPad, teachers can foster and promote tactical adjustments to student learning. Students who reflect on how they learn best, or make adjustments to how they process and retain information are active learners. The applications below increase student access, organization, and follow-through and provide creative opportunities for self-directed learning.

Students love to communicate via text and now there is a safe tool for teachers to contact students (or their parents) via text message. Introducing Remind101.com. Teachers can print directions and students can bring them home to parents so they might also receive important texts about upcoming assignments, projects or tests. Teachers can also set up text messages to be sent at a future day or time or they can download the remind101 iphone/ipad app. 

 Evernote - To promote better organization and follow-through,  teach students to upload their notes or research articles to Evernote using a hashtag for immediate organization. They can also use this space to save assignments and easily access again from home (provided they have an internet connection). Teacher in a 1:1 iPad classroom may set up a Class Evernote account with a folder for each student as an easy way to provide feedback and monitor progress. 

Diigo - Have students that struggle with organization of research?  Diigo is your all-purpose digital library on iPad - bookmarks, archives, annotations, notes, images, and screenshots. Collect everything, find fast, share easily, and access anywhere. 

Download the Diigo Browser to easily highlight or annotate any content on the web!

For students in need of in-depth information on a particular topic, suggest  the search engine Wolfram Alpha or download the Wolfram Alpha app for iPad.

Flip instruction for free using Jing. A great way to encourage students to make a tactical adjustment to their learning is to create a screencast of your lecture, upload it to youtube and embed it in your website, e-mail or blogspot. This is a must for 1:1 iPad classrooms as it will allow students to view it on their own time and at their own speed. 

Screencast-O-Matic is also a free software download that allows users to create screencast video.

Schools already using SMART software can use the SMART recorder to flip instruction. 

A great (but expensive) tool serious users is the robust Screenflow software, which utilizes the front facing camera to include your face in the corner of every screen cast your create.







Khan Academy - Do you have students that would benefit from learning at their own pace? Go to the pioneer of flipped instruction; Khan Academy has over 3,200 videos on everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills and tests to practice. You can supplement or enrich what you've taught with a Khan Academy lesson or use these videos to flip your instruction and allow for more higher order thinking to take place in your classroom.




Watch the below video for an example of Sal's great work!



Classroom Climate Shift:

When teachers encourage students to make tactical adjustments to their learning, it begins a shift in student thinking away from getting an assignment done to using the assignment to increase understanding. Help promote a classroom climate shift by going paperless.  An emphasis on learning in an environment that embraces technology will help motivate and engage all your students.

Want to go paperless? Reduce student issues with organization and late work by using the Pages App. Pages for iPad is a word processing app that seamlessly uploads documents to Dropbox and google docs (through Otixo). Students can open any word document from the web and complete it in pages. Teachers can set up a class dropbox account with a folder for each student as an easy way to provide feedback, monitor progress or hand in completed assignments. 


    

Click here for Otixo's step-by-step directions for linking your pages account to your Dropbox and google docs account.

   

Reduce missing assignments and late work by teaching students to store their assignments in the cloud. Dropbox provides free storage and students can access their work anywhere and on most any device. Teacher can set up the Pages app to allow students to hand in their work directly to their classroom dropbox! Download dropbox app for iPad here.

The free CloudOn app brings Microsoft Office to your iPad and links it with your Dropbox account. Create word, excel, and powerpoint documents in the cloud! This is a great app for 1:1 classrooms but doesn't work well if multiple students have access to a classroom set of iPads.  

Do you have students that struggle with grammar and parts of speech?  Try noredink for a free and fun way to practice and master grammar and writing skills. Noredink.com uses facebook profiles and interests to build a grammar learning experience within the frame of reference of the user. Set up your class in minutes and monitor their progress on a dashboard.

 Songify -- have fun with fluency by asking students to read aloud from a text in class while recording them with the songify app. You'll turn Holden Caulfield into the next Moby and kids will be motivated to read with purpose and fluency. Ask students to find passages that shift in tone and see if they can document that shift while songifying the passage. Listen here to Catcher in the Rye all day

Use Neu.Annotate to manipulate PDF documents on your iPad. Students can highlight information, answer multiple choice questions or use a stylus to write on the document. Completed docs can be saved in iBooks or e-mailed to Evernote account.


Use the Popplet app for mind mapping activities to get a better understanding of the depth of student thinking, or to help students who struggle to begin writing.  This is a great app for brainstorming and can be used to help facilitate more discussion.