I am at the NC Technology in Education conference in Raleigh. These are my notes. Please know that it will not simply be a summary of what the speaker said but also my own musings about what they are saying.
Keynote - Keith Hawkins
I am always suspicious when a speaker tries to get everyone to say something and then say it louder (How you doing? Better than good), but he does have a lot of positive enthusiasm.
Whenever someone asks him how he is, he says, "Better than good." He told ten stories about people's reactions to that. What he means is that he's grateful. He asked a student in a school who was a basketball player, what kind of shoe he would most want to play in. He said, "I'll play in any shoe that fits." He said that was not a muscle his own kids had developed because they would want the best or most expensive.
Some students with behavior issues have had a previous experience that has caused them to unplug. He's not my child, but he's somebody's child. What you think is what you become. Protect your minds.
Motivation comes from effort. Inspiration comes from a desire to create change and empower others. Motivation is temporary; inspiration is permanent. Motivation is a feeling, and feelings don't always tell you the truth.
He said that schools are designed for statements, not questions. I don't know how anyone who spends time in a school could think that. Schools are full of questions. He is also making the assumption that we all live for breaks and that Sundays are terrible because we hate thinking about work on Monday. For someone who has all of this positive energy and is "better than good," this is a negative take on our jobs.
It is not someone else's job to make you happy. Find and keep joy.
Google Tools to Support All Learners - Eric Curts
His book is Ctl Alt Achieve - many ways to use Google products in your classroom
Not all of these tools are made by Google, but they all play well with Google.
- Read and Write is a Chrome extension - has both a free version and a paid version - It adds a toolbar to your Chrome browser. Just click on the puzzle piece extension to get the toolbar. Hit the play button and it will start reading the web page or google doc to you. You can change voices, languages, and speeds in the settings. Students can listen to their own google docs to help with self-editing.
- Immersive Reader is a Chrome extension - It pulls the text from a website into its own window with larger font and highlights as it is reading, so you can read along with the voice. You can edit text size, spacing, and colors. You can color-code parts of speech. It also pairs images with many words.
- Google Lens allows you to point your phone/tablet/computer at a physical object with words on it, and it will read it to you.
He's not actually talking about this, but he just used a tool called Google Magnifier, which allows you to place a "magnifying glass" over part of your screen. This would be good to point to certain things during class.
- Docs Voice Typing types whatever you say into a google document or slideshow
- Google caption doesn't type it in a document. It just shows what you are saying above the screen.
Assessment - What Assessment? Using Flip and Discovery Ed by Caitlin McCommons and Aubrey DiOrio
Test anxiety prompted her to find new ways to assess her students.
Flip (the artist formerly known as FlipGrid) is free and works on any device.
Allows students to explain their thinking.
Making a video is not scary for this generation. They’ve been filming themselves their entire lives.
There are tools in the system (stickers, emojis, etc.) that gives them choice.
The instructions can be read to them with an embedded immersive reader. (They have 1st graders, so they can’t always read the instructions themselves.)
Good for any time you want kids to talk to you, but you don't have time in the classroom because they can all records at once, and you can watch them later with a checklist of the things you are looking for.
I may start doing math practice homework rather than paper. They can do it on a whiteboard and talk through it.
Discovery Ed Live Quizzes can be used if you are concerned about the accessibility issues with Ed Puzzle.
- This looks a lot like GoFormative to me in terms of being able to see everyone's responses in a grid.
- It does have a "try again" feature, which GoFormative does not have.
- Drawback: The questions cannot be put in ahead of time. They can only be asked verbally or projected.
Engaging Learners with Math and Science - Apple
Apple Classroom has similar features to Mosyle. The device can be locked by the teacher. When you open an app, you have the option to lock it as the only app they have open.
Apple is the largest platform for Augmented Reality experiences. There are interactive apps that allow you to consume or create interactive experiences.
Visible Body would be a good app for Zane.
You can screenshot or screen record the augmented reality experience and upload it.
There are over 200,000 education apps and EPPP partners that work on iPads.
PDFs within a book in the Books app can be annotated on the iPad.
I know this sounds cynical, but for some of these things, it is not necessarily better learning; it just looks cooler.
Just Say No to Screen Zombies: What to Look for in the Connected Classroom - Marsha Sirkin
This was meant for administrators, but I didn't see anything else in this time slot that I wanted to attend. It was a HIKE over the Sheraton, so I got my workout in for the day.
Why is it that everyone who is offered a microphone thinks they don't need one? Everyone needs one.
"Beware of quiet classrooms." I would add some nuance to this. Ask why it is a quiet classroom because there are times when that is a good thing and times when it is disengagement.
Don't promote technology for the sake of technology. Promote it so they can learn skills that will be good for society.
She shows a picture and asks what we notice. The lady next to me insists on finding something negative in everyone. There's no context to the picture. We don't know why they are writing on paper or why the computers are facing the wall (likely because they have to be plugged in, which limits your options).
I may need to leave. She just used the chart that shows retrieval practice works (the forgetting curve) to say this was “teaching to the test.”
High Five - Instructional Strategies that Impact Student Achievement - Susan Alpin
Instruction matters more than technology.
Chose your outcomes, then strategies, then tools.
Chose your outcomes, then strategies, then tools.
She’s my favorite person so far because she just referenced John Hattie.
"Our children can't succeed in classrooms where there is a tool surplus and a strategies deficit." - Wes Kieschnick
- Direct Instruction (0.6) - Not the same as lecture. Lecture is one way (might as well be a video or is a video). Direct instruction is interactive, has students doing things including guided practice and independent practice. It has an effect size of 0.6, so it is a powerful tool.
- Attention - grab their attention with a 30s video, story, or quick quiz to connect the day's lesson to something they already know.
- Transition
- Lesson (or Lecture) - If you use a tool like Peardeck or Edpuzzle, it can be saved. If you use games mid lectures (instead of at the end) you can get formative information from it.
- Activity - Student DO something to show their learning
- She didn't talk about transition or the summation, so we only learned ALA.
- Feedback (0.73)
- At its best, feedback least to better teaching, new learning, self-reflection, insight, and improvement. At its worse, it is just criticism.
- It should change what we do.
- Meaningful feedback is specific, frequent, personalized, about performance, and helpful with their next step.
- Jigsaw (1.20) - a cooperative learning strategy
- Expert groups (all the same) research and report back to home group (everyone is different).
- Be careful, your expert groups must learn correct information, or they will just teach the home groups wrong things.
- She says you can use them at all levels of learning, but I personally wouldn't use it for new information. I would give it to them after some basic instruction from me.
- Spaced vs Mass Practice (0.60)
- Regular retrieval will cement learning in the brain better than mass practice (what we used to call cramming).
- The more complex something is, the more frequently it needs to be revisited.
- Repeated practice makes learning sticky.
- Self Assessment (1.33)
- Have students quiz themselves frequently with feedback.
- You only get the maximum benefit if you give them opportunities to do it DURING a process, when they can still make changes, NOT JUST AFTER they finish a project.
BEST ONE SO FAR!
30 Tips and Tricks for Teachers - Apple
I was a few minutes late, so I came in in the middle of Apple Translate
Tools that are built in on iPads and the latest operating system.
Machine learning will allow you to take any image and select the thing to keep and remove quickly.
Live Text - is text to speech. It allows you to have the text read to you (It seems like there are a ton of tools for this).
Files app - allows you to digitize printed work from your phone or iPad. (That was an impressive demonstration.)
Measure (AR) - Creates measurements of objects. Could be good in math classes.
Screenshot and Screen Record - These I already knew and have used daily for years!
- Command Shift 3 - screenshot the entire screen
- Command Shift 4 - screenshot a portion of the screen by drawing a box around it.
- Command Shift 5 - screen record
Keynote Live Video - will kill Google Slides and Powerpoint (in the opinion of the presenter). It allows you to simulcast yourself in your keynote slide. (I WILL USE THIS)
Stage Manager - allows you to see everything you have open in a sidebar of icons. Then you can choose what to open.
Multi-Tasking - allows you to split screen.
DAY 2
Hey Google, How Do You Promote Rigor and Engagement? by Jenny Combs
SAMR model - Subsitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition
Connecting it to Blooms - I would say think about how they connect, but don't automatically assume if it is high on SAMR that it is also high on Blooms.
Logo Math Art looks interesting.
Google Meet doesn't have to just be for virtual learning. You can use it to create a jury for a mock court case.
Google Forms could be used for escape rooms because you could lock it so they cannot move on to the next question until they have correctly answered the one on the question they are on.
Google Slides can be used to make digital notebooks, pair videos and questions, could make a "choose your own adventure" by linking images on one slide to other slides in the show. (Per Marcia - you can share it with them in play mode so they cannot just skip to whatever slide they want to go to.)
Google has augmented reality tools. Instructables.com allows you to make a headset for students to us for AR without needing the fancy, expensive headsets.
YouTubeVR has virtual field trips.
Podcasts are available for classroom use. They come with questions. Brains On!
There is a portion of Google Earth that is Google Moon and Google SkyMap. There is also Google Mars. You can even do a virtual reality tour through Access Mars (in Google Experiments in Arts and Culture).
You can change the dates in Google Earth Engine to see how areas have changed.
Experiments with Google Arts and Culture has music interactives (Chrome music lab can related music to fractions) and art interactives.
Google is always changing, so keep checking back.
Digital Revival: Saving the Lost Innovation by Katey Balikian, Heather Wilson, and Grayson Bendenbaugh
In 2020, we thought the "21st century skills" were inherent. When CoVid happened, we had to bring things back down because of social distancing. It was too hard to do collaborative work.
the goals of bring technology into your classroom is student engagement (I would maintain that's a tool, not a goal), differentiation, redefiniton of learning experiences, and purpose full use in pedagogy.
Methods of fostering innovaton
- Augmented reality allows you to explore scale and proximity in math, work with 3D math equations, go on firtual field trips, and create virtual prototypes in projects. (Green screening counts as AR?)
- Personalized learning (I'm finding that this means 1 of 6 different things depending on who is presenting - these guys just mean having choice is how you show your learning) - Explore Boards, Canva, Free Form, Flipgrid
- I don't know much about Explore Boards, but they look interesting (like amped up infographics). Make note to explore them further.
- Coding across the curriculum
- Creative Media - Doodle art, logo creation, collages, documebtary/news reports, gifs, publishing ebooks, digital storytelling (Adobe Express, Clips, iMovie, Keynote, bandlab, Canva), create a magazine cover, modernize a book cover, make album art.
- 3D Design - Design a structure (greenhouse, school building, home), solve algebra or trig problems involving the Z-axis.
Professional development - Have your high flying teachers share their excitement with others. Coach each other.
Learning How to Learn: Strategies for Success in a Digital World by Barbara Vinal and Spencer Ziegler
Focus on three standards: Learner, Designer, and Analyst
Look! Some real cognitive science research!
The Amygdala - Your emotions influence your ability to process what a teacher is saying. You will learn better if you feel safe.
Wait! He just messed it up by saying our brains are wired for a world we no longer inhabit. The brain's ability to register threat is still just a necessary today. It may not be a Sabertooth Tiger anymore, but we still need that. People's whose brains are lacking that are in serious danger.
Consider your audience type. Are they scientists who want ideas and data, professors who want facts, friends who want stories, or inventors who want fantasy? We all probably have some of this at different times and contexts.
Okay, they've won me back. Good research coming.
- The Spacing Effect - We all know cramming doesn't work for long term learning, but now we know why. No one starts preparing for a marathon the day before a marathon. They build distance over the course of weeks. Your brain should have to reach a bit to retrieve information (desirable difficulty)
- Supporting the Spacing Effect - Anki, Duolingo, Kahoot, FOrms, Quizizz, Padlet - I mentioned Anki once online, and the responses were amazing. I had people tell me that their spouse who was in medical school used Anki all of the time.
- Working Memory- You can only think about a few things at a time. If you are introducing a new piece of technology, try doing it with familiar material to avoid taxing their working memory. Then, when they are comfortable with it, you can use it for new material.
- Take a 10 second break every now and then. You can make it a turn and talk. You can also make it a stretch break or just a "take a deep breath" moment.
- Limit how much content you put on a slide. Don't ask students to listen to you talk and read something at the same time. Give them a chance to read it before you begin speaking, so you don't overload the spoken language part of your working memory.
- If you are going to have to move quickly during class, provide the ability to look at it on their own later.
- Putting content into your brain again will not help you remember. Retrieving it after you have put it in will. (I always ask students if they have ever memorized a script for a play - actors don't memorize their lines by reading the script again - they do it by trying to remember.)
- You can encourage flashcards, quizlet, low stakes quizzes.
- He used the forgetting curve correctly!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment