Atomic Learning (Thing 32)

I have never used Atomic Learning before, so I have no other experiences with which to compare this one. However, I will say that starting my experience with Atomic Learning with that 21st Century Skills Assessment was not very pleasant. It was a moderately long quiz, but it seemed so much longer than 40 questions because there was no progress bar on it, so I had no idea how quickly (or slowly) I was going through it! For me, knowing how long something is going to take me or how many questions I'll have to answer is an important part of pacing myself. Also, while the results at the end of the quiz told me my overall score, how it broke down into percentages, and which questions I missed, it did not tell me the correct answers to the questions I answered incorrectly. I was disappointed by this because I don't think it's a good model of one of the standards (reflection and re-assessment). I would have liked to know what the right answer was and why. I did look for topics that would help me with my worst categories, but without knowing which answers I selected and which were incorrect (I definitely didn't remember what I put), they were not very useful.

As with most of the websites, programs, and apps we have worked with during this course, there are helpful resources here if you know where to look. When I selected my top three areas of interest, there were a lot of courses that I had to sift through before I got to any that were helpful. When I filtered by issue in the second task, though, that brought me some good information. I chose "Increasing Student Engagement" and found the "YouMatter: Mattering IS the Agenda" course. The only part of it that was unlocked was the introductory video, but that part was interesting. On one hand, it seems kind of unbelievable that teachers wouldn't know about reaching the students emotionally and paying attention to them before trying to teach the material, and some of the video was sort of cheesy. On the other hand, it's an important reminder to us that we are teaching the students, not the material, and I really liked the idea of starting with the staff before asking them to do it with the students. More and more often, I think teachers find themselves unappreciated, and it wouldn't take long to start to remedy that. After all, we can't take care of the kids if we can't take care of ourselves.

In the third task, I searched for reading, writing, and vocabulary. I found this course on collaborative writing with Google Docs that I really liked because it addressed both how to use Google Docs AND parts of the writing process. It is essential to me that any integration of technology into the classroom does not overshadow the skills I need to teach. In other words, the focus of the lesson should be on the writing process and collaboration, not on how Google Docs works. Of course, teaching how Google Docs works is important for online collaboration, but if it overshadows the teaching of how writing works, it's not worth it.

The other courses I found were about challenging advanced readers and using Snapchat in education. The first came up when I searched "reading," which made sense to me, but the second came up when I searched "vocabulary." I was intrigued. Snapchat has only ever caused problems for me as a teacher, so I have never thought of incorporating it into the classroom. I'm skeptical about answering questions "in real time" as described in the video because I think it's another thing that I would have to remember to do outside of school hours (not to mention the complication of having to have my school iPad with me at all times since I wouldn't use it on my phone), and I don't know how many of the kids would actually use it. But I LOVED the idea of the kids taking snaps of objects and labeling them with their Spanish names (the vocabulary connection). 

I can definitely see assigning that Google Docs collaborative writing resource to the kids before we start using Docs in our writing - that would be super helpful. The other courses I viewed were geared toward teachers, so obviously I wouldn't use those. I'll come back to this resource and see what other student-geared courses I could use in my classroom. I'm not sure how teachers would feel about having Atomic Learning assignments tailored to assessment results. If you mean standardized assessments that we have not written, I don't think it would go over well. In my mind, it would be one more step toward the computerization of learning. After all, if you have courses the students watch individually, tests they take individually, and then assignments that a computer generates that they work on individually, where is the teacher's role? 

I understand that we should be working to use technology to streamline the parts of learning that students can and should do on their own, but I don't think that making everything automated is the answer. Students need to collaborate, bounce ideas off of each other, receive feedback from a real person...I'm uncomfortable with the idea of the automatic, online loop. If the assignments come as a result of assessments that we wrote and feel were implemented with fidelity, then I think there's potential for that. It could save time and differentiate the assignments so there would be more time for teachers to work with students individually or in smaller groups. To my mind, that is the goal of educational technology: to help make individualized learning more possible. 

Publishing a Google Doc (Thing 4 Part 2)

Here is a link to the Google Doc I published. It's a summer reading assignment that my students do between seventh and eighth grade.

Google Apps (Thing 4)

Google has done some extraordinary things for education. I may be late to the party, but I didn't realize how much they have that is geared specifically toward teachers and students! I have used Google Docs in several classes that I've taught (both in District 36 and out of it), and this year I started with more spreadsheets and forms. This is the rare case in which I can say that the technology has made my life easier literally every time I've used it. All Google-related apps or programs that I've tried have worked exactly the way that they were supposed to work...the first time! :)

Google Docs has been the best collaborative tool that I've ever come across (no hyperbole!). The ability to read the documents as they come in and make comments in real time has fundamentally changed the way that I run my writing and reading workshops. Instead of having to wait for a paper copy of the essay to be turned in, I can see the minute that students are ready for me to comment, and since I can type much more quickly than I can write (and more legibly!), I can offer much more specific, focused feedback on their writing. They can also write comments back if my suggestions have been unclear or if they don't know how to do what I am suggesting. Here's what I used to have to do when giving feedback on student writing:

All the information is there, but it's super cluttered and probably hard for the students to read which comment goes with which sentence or paragraph. Now, here's what it looks like in Google Docs:

I know it's small, but hopefully you can see that the highlighted words correspond to the comments on the side and how much easier that is to follow than the "track changes" feature in Microsoft Word. I like Word very much, but I don't think it was really designed to collaborate, whereas Google Docs absolutely was, and it shows. I like that the comments are still available but hidden after the student checks "resolved" and that the earlier drafts are still there (which I didn't know before watching this intro video).

 

The second app that has been great for collaboration on a more professional level is Google Sheets (I mostly use the spreadsheet but have also branched out into the schedule when doing conferences or other meetings.) I haven't used the spreadsheet with students yet, but since I am lucky enough to co-teach, that tool has been invaluable for sharing data with each other. Our students work with Wordly Wise 3000 online, which is a great program but was a challenge in terms of managing the transfer of scores from the program into my gradebook. An additional challenge with the program in terms of record-keeping is that since it's self-paced and has different levels, each student could very well be at a different lesson or level at any given time. I have my students complete one lesson per week on average, but since they could be on different lessons and levels, it's not like I can say, "Do lesson seven of level eight for Friday." This was a nightmare for me until I discovered Google Sheets! I can keep each class's scores for each trimester in the same document thanks to the handy tabs at the bottom, and my co-teacher can input grades, adjust scores when students retake lessons, or check in with students about lessons they're missing without me having to be there or hand over a paper copy of the information. Here's what it looks like:

The due date and post-test score are across the top; in each column, I record the lesson that is due on that date and the score each student received on that lesson. The gray boxes are lessons that were submitted late, the blue boxes are lessons that were retaken so I know to average the scores, and the red boxes are scores that were lower than 79%, which means the lesson needs to be retaken. 

The third app that I have started to work with much more this year is Google Forms. I've used this with students as well, mostly for collecting information about projects in which the students have a certain amount of choice. For example, when I taught Shakespeare this year, I offered a choice of either A Midsummer Night's Dream or Macbeth. In the past, I would have taken class time to summarize each play and then ask the students individually which one they would rather read. This year, I created a very simple form that they completed outside of class; it provided a summary of each play and asked them to choose which one they wanted to read.

The REALLY cool thing (at least to me) was that the results of the form were automatically collected into a Google spreadsheet, which made it very easy for me to see who wanted to read what. (The last column is usernames, which I have cut off on purpose, but is obviously really important to this kind of use for the form.)

Another thing I use the forms to collect is information about how they are progressing on a long-term assignment. For this form, I wanted to know which person versus society conflict they had chosen to research from their Civil Rights book group, why they had chosen that one, and what information they already had.

This form will give you either individual or summary responses and can also be exported into a spreadsheet. The individual responses just look like the form filled out, and the summary response view gives you a list of all of the answers to each question. It also provides a quick view list at the top of who has and has not responded - a very important tool for managing assignments, at least for me.

This is just the start of the first question ("What conflict did you choose?"). The pie chart - which updates in real time and is sort of cool to watch if you have time! - is what percentage of each class responded.

One app I would like to get better at using is Google Calendar. I think it would be great for collaborating professionally - then my colleagues and I wouldn't have to call or email each other to schedule all of our meetings - and I probably wouldn't forget things or have to use a dozen post-its stuck to my laptop. David Lee's ed tech blog seems like a good place to start for me, and although I've know about TeacherCal for a while, I haven't really used it, and it seems like this would be cool. Finally, this video brings me full circle: back to the beginning of this entry where I said that Google has done extraordinary things that are applicable for education specifically. I love it. You can attach documents to your calendar! Who knew? (Probably everyone else, but not me. :) ) You can also share the calendar so your co-teacher can edit and view! (I did know that, but I'm excited about it all over again.) 

P.S. This video is from 2014, but I think the basic information is the same. I'll find out when I try!