I'm a 14-year teacher. I started this blog to chronicle my learning about new technology and how to incorporate it in my classroom, but I love to learn about and practice other things, too - so here are my thoughts about teaching and learning!
Formative assessment and I have a complicated relationship. On one hand, I love it for the information it provides me and my students and for the fact that it keeps me updated on their progress in a much quicker, more easily accessible way than summative assessments do. On the other hand, I sometimes get overwhelmed by the management of formative assessments and feel guilty that I don't do them often enough or use the information quickly enough after I get it. I think I need to revisit how and why I use formative assessment, and I also need to expand my definition of what formative assessment actually is. I mentioned on the Padlet response that my definition in practice can be quite narrow: I think of formative assessment as exit slips. Because of that, I end up with hundreds of little slips of paper (Post-its, index cards, scraps of reused paper, or, if I'm really organized, an actual typed and copied handout) that have good information on them but get lost in the shuffle of the rest of the paper in my classroom after I have glanced through them. If I am more deliberate about what I ask for in formative assessments and if I can use some of these tools, I think I will be able to use the information I get much more successfully this year. Here is a clip of one of my favorite educational leaders, Rick Wormeli (@rickwormeli2), talking about formative and summative assessments.
I created a Google Form about sentence types and enabled Flubaroo (@Flubaroo) to grade it for me. I don't think this gives me better or quicker data than using the Schoology (@Schoology) quizzes, which also grade automatically, so I probably won't use Flubaroo too much. I can see that this would be helpful if I were using Google Classroom because then everything would be in one place, but since we already use Schoology as our learning management system, I like everything to be there. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Flubaroo; I love the idea, but I think it would be an extra thing for me to manage. Feel free to take the quiz if you would like to! (Please take one moment to appreciate the fact that I had to manually adjust the size of this form in the embed code and I figured it out and IT WORKED. #progress)
I was already familiar with Socrative (@Socrative) since I used it in graduate school (and I also did my Google Hangout On Air about how to use Socrative. That being said, I still struggled with creating an exit slip that wasn't pre-populated and ended up making a quiz instead and saving it as an exit slip - more problem-solving on the fly! (It seems like a long time ago that I said one of my biggest issues would be seeing roadblocks as opportunities; I still struggle with this, but I HAVE learned to look for answers to my questions and try several things before throwing up my hands in disgust. Again...#progress. :) ) I like Socrative a lot because it is easy, quick, and does not require any additional hardware or software since all the kids already have iPads. I think this is formative assessment at its best because it gives you immediate feedback and it is easy to see exactly where your class is on any given concept. I also like the reports that can be generated after students are finished with the quizzes. I will have to do more work to create exit slips or quizzes that are specific to the content of my class, but the pre-populated ones are also useful, which is a rare find for me. My room number is T6DOMEWS if you would like to take my quiz on Things 1-28. I know that several of my colleagues use Kahoot (@GetKahoot), and I have actually administered a few of them while subbing for other teachers in the building. My Adventures kids were also really into them! They are super easy to write and I love the fact that there are literally millions of them that are available for immediate use. Not all of them are useful, though, and there are a lot to sort through, but I'd rather have that problem than have too few resources! The few times that I've used Kahoot in the classroom while subbing, the students seemed really into it and liked the immediate feedback when each question ended; they also liked that they could see who was winning after each question because they liked the competition. I could see a lot of potential with Kahoot because as the teacher, I could also see how many of the kids got a question right or wrong as well as which kid got the question right or wrong. I was a little worried that they wouldn't want the other kids to see that they were wrong, but the students didn't seem concerned about that. This would be great for literary factual recall questions or a quick check at the end of a lesson to see who got it on the first try and who didn't. The only thing I'm not sure about it whether or not the results save; Flubaroo and Socrative are good for that, and I don't know if Kahoot does it or not. Finally, Padlet (@padlet). I love you, Padlet! My first experience with Padlet was not good, though, because it was at a district-wide institute day and had literally hundreds of people adding to the same one, which got really overwhelming really quickly. However, now that I have used it on a smaller scale and created one of my own, I am in love with it. I went to the Scholastic Reading Summit (@Scholastic, @ScholasticTeach, #readingsummit) this summer and got so much inspiration about independent reading AND technology, and one of the best things I learned about was using Padlet with students to share independent reading suggestions and responses. In the past, I've had students share their independent reading books verbally and I've kept a list of them, which I then added to Schoology and MAYBE three or four kids would refer to when they needed new independent reading books. However, with Padlet, the kids can add to the list whenever they want and access it easily from their iPads or phones. It's available for Apple or Android and free, which is my favorite price. I think I'm going to have the students put it on their iPads and use it as much as possible for brainstorming - we could do it with independent reading books, selecting quotes for essays (which I do on Schoology discussions now), topics for research projects, and so many other things! Another great thing about this is that it's not limited to just one class, so if I wanted to do a cross-curricular exploration with another teacher, that would be really easy. Please share your favorite books with me!
This was one of the only weeks of this course where I felt that each "thing" I did was useful. Although I liked some more than others and felt that some would be easier to implement in my current classroom than others, none of them were overly flashy or difficult to learn, which means that none of them will stand in the way of the skills or practice the kids need to do. It also means that none of them will be difficult for me to teach the kids (if they're not already familiar with them - they usually are!). I will be implementing the use of Padlet on the first day of school - literally - to collect their summer reading titles and get started on the culture of reading in our classroom! Some of these tools have applicability outside of the classroom and formative assessment. As I mentioned, I've used Padlet in professional development (as a student, not the presenter). It was a good way to get feedback, but I think it needed to be more organized (the grid view would have helped). I can see using Socrative in a department or faculty meeting to collect responses because you can have open-ended questions, but Flubaroo and Kahoot seem like strictly classroom tools. I would love to hear about other uses! When I was looking around for other examples of formative assessment in the classroom, I came across this blog that included the rubric below (it's bigger on the post). I really like the idea of using basic rubrics like these because they are not content-specific, and they encourage reflection. Since this is supposed to be for formative assessments, the number is not the grade on the assignment because the assignment is not graded. I need to remind myself that I should not be assigning work because I need the numbers in my gradebook. I need to be okay with much more feedback that is not linked to grades because the grades on the summative assessments will come if the feedback on the formative assessments is timely and focused. One of my biggest concerns is that students are far too focused on the grades they get rather than the learning that takes place. Maybe more formative assessments and feedback will help with that.
I'm not entirely sure that Google Hangouts or Hangouts on Air have a big place in my classroom (at least, not in the way that I've set it up or visualize it now). I can't think of a way to use the live chat feature within the class that makes sense, but I do see how the recorded Hangout on Air could help me "flip" certain aspects of my classroom. Right now, I have just started to record videos on grammar concepts to post to my Schoology class page; I know the science department has flipped a lot of their lessons and it seems to work, and I like the idea of having the students exposed to a concept before we talk about it in the classroom. That tends to cut down on the time I spend lecturing and gives us more time to practice the concept together. I only tried it once last year (as a result of a session with Emily, Jesse, and John from the Washburne science department at an institute day) and then I kind of let it fall by the wayside. I'm thinking that if I get most of the videos ready over the summer, I'll have a much better chance of actually using them for instruction. I COULD use the live Hangout on Air to make myself available for questions from the kids during non-school hours - kind of like a virtual office hours thing. (I read this article that sums up the difference between Google Hangouts and Hangouts on Air to make sure I was using the terms properly!) It turns out that you can only have 10 people in a Hangout, so if I were going to implement this idea of virtual office hours, I would want to be able to help as many kids as needed it and even perhaps facilitate some group work. I'm dreaming pretty big here, though - I'm not sure if many (or any) kids would take advantage of something that required them to be at their computers or other devices at a certain time outside of school to talk to a teacher. Emily had a great idea about using it to bring in people who are professionals in the science field, which sounds like how we sometimes use Skype to have online author visits - that would be nice! The Hangout on Air that I hosted (tried to host?) this afternoon wasn't really a success. I was teaching about Socrative, which is one of my favorite instant-response systems for classroom use, but I couldn't see or hear Emily, who was kind enough to try several times with me! She could see and hear me, and my screen-sharing worked (that's a nice feature), but we couldn't talk the way we were supposed to in a Hangout on Air; we had to post comments in the event itself or use Gchat. I'm not sure what went wrong, so I probably need to try again when I'm in the same room as the person, which defeats the purpose, but could help me learn! Here's a screenshot so I can prove that I tried, at least. :) (You can see it's titled "Socrative Take 3" because that's how many tries it took me to to even get it to semi-work...Google+ is really giving me a run for my money.)
Mystery Hangouts is pretty cool, though, and I can definitely see a use for it in the classroom. Once I get back into my classes next year, I'll see if any of the kids are interested in participating, and if they are, I'll volunteer to host one for sure. I like the idea of students learning about each other and guessing their different locations through clues with no other strings attached. Pen pals, both physical and electronic, certainly have their place, but sometimes I think they serve more to reinforce stereotypes or existing ideas about places that are "other" from our students than anything else. Not being pressured to come up with interesting anecdotes about their lives or learn anything specific about anyone else is what makes this opportunity unique, and I look forward to trying it.
Okay, I have a confession to make: before I started this week's "things", I kind of thought that "Social Media Manager" or similar jobs were fake. Like, how much time can it take to tweet or post Instagram photos or keep up a Facebook page for a business? After learning more about Google+ and the communities, however, I totally take that thought back. There is so much to curate when you're really engaged in social media and branding, and there is way too much content to read everything on every social media when you're trying to continue your professional development on your own. So, to the supremely talented Social Media Managers who keep the content coming, to the committed educators who blog, post, tweet, and share so I can learn, and to the larger online learning community: my apologies. You have a Herculean task! The thing is, there's a lot of great stuff out there. Google+ is one of the few social media platforms that I haven't really explored because I wasn't that interested in it. I've only used it professionally, not personally - a few years ago, our eighth graders started participating in Global Nomads Group, a fantastic organization that connects students across the world. (On an unrelated to Google+ note, I am always so proud of the kids who come in to school at 6 am to talk to their counterparts halfway across the world!) They use Google+ to have video chats and post reflections on their conversations, so I set up my profile because I had to moderate the girls' groups. All I ever did was read their comments and sometimes respond; I didn't really get involved with everything that Google+ had to offer since it seemed kind of overwhelming and I didn't need another social media account to manage. This week, I have enjoyed taking the time to add my colleagues on Google+ and organize them into circles. I have to keep everything I do in this class professional; I'm only following people I work with even though my personal contacts have popped up on my suggestions of people to follow list. If I start using Google+ for my personal use, it'll end up being a big time-suck and I'll basically use it as a second Facebook. I like having everything organized into circles and groups because then I know where to look when I'm looking for something specific. I created the D36 Learning 2.0 circle for this class, the D36 circle for my colleagues who are and aren't in this class (since it's going to end this summer and I still want to have my co-workers added), and the Authors circle for authors I'm following (so far, it's just John Green, but I'll add more). When I have some more time, I'll probably make more circles, but I'm still getting used to this platform, which makes me reluctant to do more adding until I've practiced with it more. I joined several communities, most of which have to do with education or ed tech since I'm only using it professionally. Here they are: Mystery Hangout Google Apps in Education Educators on Google+ EdTech Google Plus Pro Tips 36 Things...D36 Learning 2.0 GEG Chicagoland The Winnetka Experience: MLI Reflections Winnetka University Reflections Advisory Ideas and Links (thanks for starting, Emily!) I also explored the photography, food and drink, and education general communities. There is a wealth of amazing information on Google+, but there is also a lot of useless junk. It takes me much more time to go through people's postings on Google+ than on Twitter or Facebook because there are so many more people in the communities; it's not just people I have chosen to follow or "friend." I had my notifications turned on for one day and I got about 75 emails, so I promptly turned them off for the more global communities and only kept them on for the specific Winnetka communities that had both far fewer people and posts that I was sure would be useful to me personally. I'm really interested in the Mystery Hangout group - I think it would be very cool for my students to connect with another classroom in a different location and try to guess where they are. I would love to volunteer for this group but don't have any students until we start school again, so I'll have to remember to keep checking in with them. The GEG Chicagoland group had some interesting "real life" opportunities where I could actually meet up with people to talk in person about the integration of technology in the classroom. This sounds like a great opportunity but not one that I think I'm going to take advantage of right now since I'm still learning here. Maybe when I have more to offer to the conversation? I think the Advisory Ideas and Links group will be the most helpful for me since it is geared specifically to the Washburne advisors, and I'm grateful that Emily started it since we do need to share more across the school. I scheduled a Hangout on Air for next Monday, July 11 about Socrative. I'm nervous about running it because I'm still not sure that I totally understand how to do it, so I'll probably do some practice ones before Monday. When I watched parts of the archived hangouts (Maureen's "Giddy for Google" and Josh Denson's "Teachers as Innovators and Entrepreneurs" as part of the EduOnAir (#eduonair)), it was pretty amazing to me how the participants came together and bounced ideas off each other. There was the usual lag time and some awkward talking over each other that comes with online collaboration, but overall, people seemed to really benefit from the meeting. I enjoyed Emily's Hangout about how to use Recap - she showed how the app worked, included examples of what her students had done with it, and answered all of my questions about what it did. I think it will be a cool thing to integrate into my classroom next year, mostly taking the place of paper and pen exit slips. It was also beneficial for me to participate in a Hangout before having to host my own because it showed me exactly what I didn't know about how Hangout worked. I had trouble joining the Hangout and figuring out how to comment, but we worked it out in the end. Thanks, Emily! :)
