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Showing posts from March, 2017

Classroom Benefits to Screencasting

Screencasting is the effort of recording your device's screen while narrating the actions taking place on the screen, similar to a think aloud while reading a book. Screencasting is a great way for you to transform your learning environment regardless of subject! Benefits of Screencast:  Frees you as the facilitator to guide learners that may need additional support or enhance content for those that need pushed! Could be used to flip the learning environment . Screencast the lesson ahead of time, post the video to the LMS, and have learners watch it the night before to come to class prepared for a project or class discussion.  It can be used as a formative/summative assessment tool! It supports to the Rotational Model, mentioned in this post, as a portion of the Independent stations.  You could have your learners create screencasts demonstrating their learning of a process, making their learning visible to you and the other learners within the class! We can also reach tha

Rotational Model of Hybrid Learning

In my local IU there has been a lot of discussion about the Rotational Model of Hybrid Instruction. I like the model! In this model the class is split within three groups, helping to differentiate for individual needs, where there are 3 stations within the classroom: Teacher Led, Collaboration station, and Independent Work station. Here is a fantastic EdSurge article on the model . It's also outlined in the video below.  I came across an article on the model that I liked which provides additional options for the the rotational model on top of the Teacher Led/Collaboration/Independent.  You can find the article at this link.    I like that the additional models discussed in the article, such as the “Lab Rotation” may be able to meet additional needs that some learners have such as need for repeated exposure or hearing topics in more than one way, as well as possibility for assessment within the rotation.  Let’s say you use the Lab Rotation model for a day, a learner

Student Engagement

There are so many ways and tools out there right now that aim to increase student engagement during a lesson, of course the topic and content have to be high quality for any of them to even stand a chance of working! Below I'll outline a few different tools that can assist with student engagement, once you've got the relationships with kids and content in place. Google Slides Q & A: When you start your next slide presentation, consider using Google Slides with the new(ish) Q & A feature. Google has baked a back channel directly in to your Google Slides, which can be used as collaborative notes, a parking lot, or just a space for learners to put their questions while you are presenting. Once the Q & A has be used you can choose to keep the back channel when doing your next presentation or begin a new one! It's a great way to produce conversations around the topic you are presenting! EdPuzzle : If you don't like the traditional slides approach to pres

Bringing it all together

I know most of you have likely seen the graphic of coffee and SAMR, created by Kathy Schrock, that is widely circulated around the internet. I've decided to put my own spin on the concept. I love music, as well as coffee, but I think the analogy below is apt for what technology can do for classrooms and has also done for the music industry. (I should also mention that I happen to love and collect analog music, especially vinyl, so no hate in the comments about the comeback of analog music. I am single-handedly trying to buy enough records to make the comeback myself!) Evolution from reel-to-reel which tethered you to a machine to mobile anytime-anywhere access of music! We are currently in the renaissance of doing the work of changing school to a customized, personalized space just like as the music industry has evolved over the course of years past. A playlist is a great analogy for how things could look for our kids in the future of schools. The ability to pick and ch

Blogs as Learning Portfolios

This week I had the privilege of attending the Mid-Atlantic Personalize Learning Conference. There were a lot of inspiring people doing great things for kids and adults in their learning environment one of which was the amazing George Couros, which performed Wednesday's Keynote and a breakout session. Below is one of George's TED talks for your enjoyment: During his breakout session George talked about helping our kids (and ourselves) create a positive digital footprint. He noted that as the person in charge of hiring for his district that if an applicant didn't have a positive digital footprint they went in the piles of applications he would NOT consider for the job. This is a critical learning for all educators because if we aren't helping our kids create that positive digital footprint we are leaving it up to chance that all our and our learner's hard work will reach it's potential. I don't know about you, but I don't like to leave things up to

The Magic is in the teacher's implementation, not the tool.

A point that I keep coming back to often right now is technology doesn't make learning happen. Technology doesn't make learning better; inherently anyway. Technology doesn't in and of itself motivate kids. It's what the facilitator in the room does with the technology that makes learning happen.  It's what the facilitator in the room does with the technology that makes learning better: more authentic and engaging. It's what the facilitator in the room does with the technology that makes activities more motivating. Images like the one below are meant to depict that there is a relationship between your implementation of a technology gauged by SAMR and the learning taking place as gauged by Bloom's Taxonomy. What people in the #edtech field know is that images like this one are often taken as: If I use X app, I'll be in the Modification stage of SAMR and my principal said I should be above the transformation line, so I'll use X app and be good!  Nop