My interest in Twitter surprised me. I had an initial bias against Twitter as something that would waste my time and that I could not benefit from using. I was both correct and incorrect in my initial assessment. Like most people who use social media, once I began reading and clicking on topics that interested me, I went down the Twitter rabbit hole. I was correct about using up time that could be best spent doing something else more productive. I was wrong in thinking that I would not benefit from Twitter. Today, I learned about a free program to connect my class to other parts of the world by using the program Empatico, from a local school Educational Technology Specialist. Twitter has provided me with ideas for my classes and with inspiration on the type of help I can provide for teachers in my future as an Instructional Technology Coach. There are a variety of uses for Twitter with teachers, students, and parents. Teachers can use Twitter for a virtual book club to discuss impact of a selected reading on their philosophy of education or on how it helped them deal with authentic classroom concerns. Teachers can also use it to share ideas to solve a problem or suggest new technological tools and resources. Students can use Twitter to receive announcements or assignments from teachers, to collaborate with their peers and as a tool to follow people with opposing ideals on a topic for an exercise on alternative truths. Teachers could use Twitter to announce special projects, events, and student accolades to parents. Teachers could also use Twitter to extend the learning day by providing discussion points for parents to have conversations with their students about concepts they learned in class. For example, my students are currently learning about West Africa. Discussion starter topics for parents could include: What do you think about the issue of access to clean water and reliable electricity in Western Africa?, What are examples of Americans having issues with clean water?, or What are causes for power outages in America? To address diversity and varying ability levels. The teachers can use a district or electronic translator to post in multiple languages in order to reach all members of the community and/or post a video in lieu of text. Twitter can be used as a tool to communicate and collaborate with a PLN, students, parents, and school stakeholders. I still would caution the use of Twitter with students, because of individuals who do not respect the rules of netiquette, but with parental permission and guidance there are a wealth of opportunities. Podcasts For personal interest podcast, I previewed a Comedic Storytelling Show entitled Funny, Cuz It’s True, hosted by Kevin McGeehan, in which story tellers tell 5-minute comedic stories that happened to them. Humor is very important in education. It helps relieves the tension between teachers and students. I use it often in my classes, because I often make mistakes. In the high stakes testing culture that we teach in, humor helps reduce student anxiety when teachers show them that it is o.k. to laugh at yourself when you make a mistake. Students then realize that it is ok for them to make mistakes. They can laugh at themselves, learn from the mistakes or errors, and move forward.
For the professional interest podcast, I previewed Eric Robinson from Teachers Talking Tech. He presented a podcast entitled Minicast: Recorded Reading. In the podcast, he describes how students can read stories to younger students to help develop literacy skills. He suggests different programs for a variety of platforms such as Apple Clips and Shadow Puppet Edu for Apples or PC. For Chromebooks he suggests using Screencastisfy or Quicktime or even just using screen recording on an iPad. In this activity, older students can read for younger students which helps older students with fluency. The younger students benefit in literacy development from hearing stories read aloud. The recordings can be shared via Seesaw or QR codes can be printed and posted on walls or in a binder, so that students can proceed directly to the posted recording. This podcast is informative, and I plan on suggesting using the concept from it at my son’s school. I thought of a couple of opportunities for using podcasts with my students that connect with the 4C’s, SAMR, and/or varying levels of Blooms Taxonomy. To tap into students’ creativity and critical thinking, students could create a fictional story about a young person living in one of the regions of the world we are studying. Student would use authentic information from our resources on geography, economics, political structure, culture, and the environment to help them create the story. Then students can share, listen and comment on the stories via a class podcast channel. My students currently are required to participate in online discussions. Students could have the choice to collaborate with each other via podcast or typing. Students with difficulty typing will have the opportunity to participate via podcast and not feel restricted by their physical limitations. ELL students can communicate with others by creating a podcast response to the discussion in their first language and then one in English. When teaching about conflict in a region, students could hear podcasts on different views regarding the same news topic and summarize the differences. In the past, I created stations for student learning and one of the stations included listening to a podcast. Students with reading comprehension difficulties enjoyed the process of learning by using a different modality. In my podcast, I decided to help teachers try out a mode of instruction that is currently trending in education, the flipped classroom. Some teachers may struggle with trying out something new, so I attempted to make trying out a flipped class lesson easy and approachable in my podcast: FlippingED https://anchor.fm/e-drake
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Formative Assessments
The tools listed on D2L are very helpful in assessing students in a traditional, blended and virtual environment. Many teachers at my school already use Kahoot! to engage students and assess their current knowledge on content. Student’s enjoy playing the game and it brings out their competitive spirit. As a busy teacher, it is great to use free assessments and modify them as needed for my course. It is also helpful to have a preview of student’s level of understanding by using a review assessment. It is beneficial to learn what part of the content students struggle with and to determine which students are struggling. The game also provides feedback to students which helps them determine if they are ready for the upcoming Learning Management System (LMS) formative or summative assessment. It also can provide a student with feedback for self-reflection on whether they need to spend additional time studying or reaching out to me or their learning coach for support prior to taking the LMS assessment. This tool can easily be used in a flipped classroom by assigning students work to read or view at night and then assessing the students during the class time. Teachers can also use the feedback from the Kahoot! game to provide targeted reteaching or remediation. Screencasting The first time I used Screencast-O-Matic, I was extremely nervous. I found it helpful to write down what I wanted to convey prior to recording and I also performed a walkthrough presentation prior to recording. Those two steps, combined, reduced my anxiety and helped tremendously. I currently use a screencasting tool with my students via Adobe Connect, which is the e-learning software embedded in my school's LMS. Using the screencasting tool in Adobe Connect is helpful both in our synchronous and asynchronous sessions. In showing students how to access and navigate resources to use for research, for example, The Central Intelligence Agency’s The World Factbook, I can use the screencasting tool to walk students through navigating and finding essential information on the website. During synchronous sessions, students can ask questions and I can provide immediate feedback and answer their questions while showing them on the site. If students are viewing the content asynchronously, they can watch the recording of the screencast and pause or rewind the recording as needed. Another purpose to use the screencasting tool is for the Kahoot! game. Students use their devices to login and answer questions while they view my screencast of questions. Teachers in a traditional, blended or flipped learning environment can use the screencast recordings of step by step instructions. This will limit the number of times a student asks a student how to complete a task with numerous steps. Teachers can also use the Kahoot! game for students on BYOD day, one-on-one learning sessions or students working in stations or groups to assess learning. Please find below my screencast describing and comparing Edpuzzle and Nearblog: Screencast Recording on Tools |
E. DrakeVirtual School Educator, ITEC Ed.S. Candidate Archives
May 2019
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