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Middle School Spanish teacher, Chris Phillips, and I teamed up to get the students to create their own grammar tutorials about the Spanish verb estar. He allowed the students to collect media that best suited their learning styles as they designed these interactive learning presentations in Nearpod. Students included content slides, authentic video clips, quizzes, games and more. When the tutorials were complete, student's used Nearpod's engaging "join session" feature to run their tutorial and conduct their lesson with their Spanish Class.
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Middle School Science Teacher, Tara Kane, recently had her students learning about the states of matter. When it was time to show what they knew about the topic, she took a different approach to assessment. Students worked in groups to create song lyrics (using popular songs of their choice as a base) about the states of matter, how they changed with temperature fluctuations and examples of each. But the best part is: as students created their music videos, THEY were the props. Students used their bodies and movement to "act out" the atom movement in each state of matter. "Students had a blast making these, " Kane told me. Students used built-in cameras on their laptop computers and iMovie to create subtitles and bring together media in these creative (and hilarious) videos. Here are just a few examples:
During completion of a synthesis activity in her eighth grade Reading cycle class, English Language Arts Teacher, Mrs. McClair reached out for technology support. Her class was to create radio scripts using iMovie, and her students wanted tips for creating, editing and enhancing their science fiction style media projects. See another blog post for details on this project. The problem? Supervisor of Instructional Technology / Technology Coach, Tina Bacolas was already booked during the desired period. The solution? Student experts! Hosting an iMovie-specific "Lunch n' Learn", Mrs. McClair suggested four students as in-class experts and teamed them up with Ms. Bacolas. These young ladies spent their lunch hour with Bacolas in her office, snacking on Oreos and reviewing the features of the program. "I asked them what they thought their classmates would already know about iMovie, and what things they would like to show them to enhance their projects", said Bacolas. The girls suggested "alien" sound effects, voice manipulators and banks of online sounds clips. Bacolas continues, "After discussing the technology and practicing, we even talked about proper citation of media". The "mini technology coaches" went on to teach iMovie features to their classmates, demonstrating with a laptop and projector. They answered questions and served as supports to the class throughout the three days the class took to complete the project. Great job, ladies!
All students were equally engaged during this activity. Furthermore, they all had a "voice" while participating in the Nearpod submissions. Great job, Mrs. Mullen!
Tara Kane's 7th grade science class (pictured left) used Google Docs to collaborate in groups on a recent assignment involving cells. A typical lesson involving the organelles within a cell was given a fun and interesting twist. Students had to come up with an analogy for the cell and it's parts and relate them to structures within their chosen object (one group chose a prison, for example). Students were working simultaneously as a group on single document, completing a table (template provided through Google by Mrs. Kane) that related each organelle to something on their analogy and providing a rationale for each. The teacher, as Google Doc editor, was able to "peek" in on student work and progress and offer guidance. Students peer reviewed and helped one another as the lesson continued; they even used the built-in cameras on their MacBooks to take a picture of their cell analogy (a Cheeseburger pictured here) and imported it into the Google Doc. Another middle school science teacher, Sue Sharber, facilitated a lesson in a similar way using Google Drive. In this case, students were learning about controlled experiments and the necessary components needed to collect viable data. Students designed and executed their own experiments. With the help of the MacBook cameras and Google Presentation (see below), students were able to brainstorm their ideas, plan their experiment, document their lab setup and compile their data in a group presentation within the cloud. Students even utilized Google Sheets to collect, analyze and graph their data. Experiments that included a reaction included student-created YouTube videos with links in the final presentation. Eighth grade Language Arts teacher, Patricia McClair, has her students creating stories in a fun and innovative way. Students first read from a compilation of science fiction short stories. The students were able to chose a story of interest and, working with a group, create a story with some basis grounded in their choice. Extrapolations of characters, events and other details were used to then write a story script in a small group (2-3 students). The script had to include dialogue from multiple characters within the story. Mrs. McClair discussed the importance of audio within the script recording and how heavily sounds (or lack thereof) could affect the emotions and interest of the listeners. Technology coach, Tina Bacolas, joined the class to aide students in using iMovie's narration features and built-in audio clips. The students were also shown ways to download and edit audio from the web and how to properly include citation for this media. Students were able to export their Scripts (now .mp3 files) and submit them through Schoology.
Math teacher Ariel Weissman uses a combination of our LMS, Schoology, and an iPad app called ShowMe to clone herself! Well, not exactly...but close enough! Using this easy-to-use (and free) whiteboard-style app, this teacher records her voice (and her steps) for solving some of the toughest problems in her class (like this one on the Quadratic Formula, for example). She then posts these videos to her class page within Schoology for her students to access. "My students love it", Weissman remarked, "and it's great for review before their assessment". While this Algebra II teacher says she has also used the app to record flipped lessons, she really likes ShowMe for review purposes and absentee students. Using a stylus (or your finger) and an iPad, her colored-coded steps are outlined, explained and can be played over and over again. Schoology is a great compliment to this - as students can easily access these embedded resources videos for future use! #schoology #edtech #flippedlearning #showmeapp #blendedlearning #blendedclassroom Señor Phillips challenged his Spanish II students in their "vacation" unit this school year by having them design their own mock hotel websites. Students were given the basics of Google Site design and encouraged to be creative as they included room layouts, local attractions, and even maps of their travel destinations (all in Spanish-speaking countries, of course)! All of website text, menus and even self-made video "testimonials" were in Spanish and helped students exercise the vocabulary they had learned in this unit all while students learned basic webpage design. By teaming up with the Library Media Specialist, Señor Phillips also reinforced digital citizenship with web citation requirements.
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AuthorTina Bacolas, Supervisor of Instructional Technology Archives
January 2017
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