Throughout the school year, there are a few times when we get to put ourselves in front of the greenscreen and create something awesome. This past week, my students answered the question: "Is Chardon Middle School having a Renaissance?" They interviewed people around the school (including the asst. superintendent!) and came up with some great scripts to support their claim.
How can you make this happen in your class?First: ANY classroom and ANY age group can complete this type of assessment. I have been astounded by the achievements of kids and what they can do given the opportunity. Starting to think about an activity like this and automatically saying, "I don't think my kids could handle this," isn't the right attitude. Anyone can achieve anything! With any assessment, you have to have a question in mind first. What objective do you want them to meet? Start there, and like any assessment, make sure you have a general rubric written for students to follow. Next, think about the technology and resources are available to you. Tech: If your school has iPads, a great app to use is Do Ink (click here for the app store information). If you have Chromebooks or PCs, WeVideo is my personal favorite. To use the greenscreen feature, it does cost per student, but it's inexpensive and you can choose a plan that fits for you (click here for their pricing information). You can also record directly in WeVideo. If you aren't 1:1 with devices, you can still make this work! If you have the ability to checkout devices for your classroom, you would only need one per group. If you have desktops and are able to let students use their own phones or devices to record, they can upload directly to Google Drive and store videos there. Brainstorm the possibilities or ask around and see how others have made something like this work in your school or district! Resources: Greenscreens are surprisingly CHEAP! You can order them from Amazon for less than $20. You can also bribe your maintenance staff to paint a wall green as well! I've also accumulated a costume box over time with some funny props for students to use (not necessary, but a fun addition!). Finally, allowing students to work through the video process on their own is the key. You can give as much or as little direction as you want, but it's important to let STUDENTS take ownership. If you want more structure, give them a blank storyboard to create. If you are comfortable giving them they question and letting them run with it, go for it! That process is completely based on student and teacher comfortability. When it's all said and done, you've got an amazing assessment that is outside of the norm but something that students will enjoy and talk about for years to come. Here's an example from my students: Some other resources:Happy creating!
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I've posted about Flipgrid before (see here!), but I recently presented at two conferences on video assessments, and have learned so many new and amazing ways that you can use Flipgrid in any classroom! If you are unfamiliar with Flipgrid, here is the tagline from their website: “Use student created video segments to ignite student discussion and increase engagement.” And they mean it - Flipgrid gives students the opportunity to record a short video where they answer a question, pose a topic, record a song, or do whatever it is that they are asked to do. There are ENDLESS possibilities, and (generally) kids love it! A "grid", or the spot where videos go, looks like this: That big green plus sign is what you click to record, and really...that's it! The teacher is the only one with a log in, the students just click a link to access, and the grid can be shared with anyone as long as they have the link. It's that simple! Flipgrid has also recently opened the Discovery Library, which is a place you can find pre-made topics already created by teachers, for teachers. Sweet! Some of the cool ways that I've seen Flipgrid used: There are hundreds of other ways this tool can be used, and to keep our 21st century students engaged in their learning, this is an awesome website for student voice and learning! One of the biggest questions that I get about Flipgrid is: "How do I make this work!?" It seems chaotic to let 30+ students record a video at the same time, but there are tons of ways around that problem to make this tool work for you. Have more questions about this tool? Contact me! Or, check out the hashtag #FlipgridFever on Twitter for some awesome ways to use this in your classroom!
One of the professional goals I set for myself this summer was to become a Google Certified Educator. And after hours of going through the training and taking the tests, I'm so excited to say that I passed levels 1 and 2! So, here are some FAQs and hopefully decent explanations of the process for anyone interested in taking this next step in technology integration. What is it? Google has a few different levels of certification for teachers and educators. Level 1 is for the everyday teacher - if you are using Google Apps for Edu on a daily basis with your students, you can pass this test. It still has hours of training that you can (optionally) go through, and I'll admit: I use and teach Google more than the average teacher, and there were some things that stumped me! The training was REALLY helpful, and I highly recommend it even if you think you are already a Google master. Level 2 is also for the everyday teacher or technology specialist, but it's a step above and goes deep into some Google apps and websites that I didn't even know existed. This one definitely required training, but thankfully I paid enough attention to pass the test on my first try. There are other levels as well: Google Certified Trainer - this is geared more toward technology integration specialists, and requires training, an exam, and a video compilation. (My goal is to complete this program during the 2017-2018 school year!) Google Certified Innovator - the innovator program is an extremely elite group that works toward completely changing education through technology. What does it mean? If you are heavily into Google as an educator, this training and certification is justification for you as a technology integrationist. Why is it necessary? The short answer...it's really not. No teacher is currently required to become certified in Google Apps, but I will admit that it feels really good to be able to show that I really do know what I'm talking about when I ramble about Flubaroo and Tour Builder. How do I get started? Go to the training center website and log in with your personal Google account. It looks like this: Then, follow the boxes in the middle. Go through the training (there are practice quizzes for each little section, and then a test for each of the units - definitely skip to the questions if you feel confident about the area of study!). Practice the quiz and unit questions, and when you're ready, register for the exam. The Level 1 test is $10, and the Level 2 test is $25. You have 7 days to complete the exam after you register, so make sure you do it in a time you know you can take it! (Bless my toddler and her 4 hour nap today which allowed me to take my level 2 test)
If you have any questions about the process, please let me know. I'm happy to explain the training in more details! Embedded deep into the world of Google Drive is one of my favorite features - templates! "Reinventing the wheel" is exactly what teachers need to stay away from doing, especially when templates like these exist. Whatever you're thinking about doing - creating a schedule, making a calendar, writing a newsletter - someone has already created the basic outline for you. By starting with a template, you cut out all of the annoying formatting that (if you're like me) sometimes you just can't get quite right. Below is a quick video that shows you how to access templates in Google Drive! It's super easy, and once you click the template you want, Google automatically makes a copy for you in your drive. Once the template is created in your drive, you might want to move it to a different location. That's easy too! All you need to do is click the gray folder next to the title, and choose which folder you'd like it to be in. Have fun finding templates - there are so many out there to help make your life easier!
My dear colleague Cher came to me one day and said, "I found this cool new thing way to embed stuff on our Weebly pages!" So of course, we instantly sat down and she showed me and I was floored. This is now something that we encourage our entire staff to do because it's so. easy. It looks great, makes calendars and other slides easy to update, and it's less work for you (which is always the goal, right!?). If you watch the video above, you'll see these basic directions:
1) Go to any Google Slides or Docs file and hover over the File menu. Go near to the bottom and click "Publish to the Web" 2) Click "embed" (I leave all the settings as is), then "publish". Copy the code. 3) Go to whatever site you prefer - the video shows how to do it on Weebly and the new Google Sites. On Weebly and most other web hosts, you'll need to select "Embed Code" as the tool. Then, you'll paste in your copied code! On the new Google Sites, you can do the embed code thing, but it's easier just to go to your Drive and find the file you want to embed. It's that simple! As I said above, we typically use this for calendars in our building. Each teacher keeps one running Google Slides file for the semester, and just add the newest week to the top so it appears first on the website. You can include links, videos, pictures...you name it. It makes it SO easy to update your website. Editing in Google is easy. That isn't always the case with website updating. Also, we share websites at our school, which means there are always a lot of editors attached to one site. Using this method keeps the files as your own rather than worrying about someone else accidentally editing your work (we've all been there!). I have been overtly pushy to everyone I know about Google Slides being the ONLY website/program that you need to create anything and everything. Every worksheet, rubric, or document that I need to make for students, I make it in Slides. The ability to manipulate and move anything anywhere makes this my go-to program (sorry Google Docs and Microsoft Word...you're out!). To start, I always change the page settings: You can change them to any paper size you need, and just change it to 11x8.5 if you want the document to be landscape instead of portrait. Then, you can move and create boxes and shapes however you'd like! I'm always trying new ways to move and create boxes to keep papers interesting - here are some of my favorites that I've made recently: This is a set of notes on the Crusades. Making the transition to any new format is hard - just this year is when I really started to get into the habit of clicking "create a google slide" rather than automatically going to Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Trust me though...you'll never go back once you make the switch!
I'm sure many of you know about Flipgrid, but I've just recently started using it and it is amazing! Here's the tag from their site: "Flipgrid is a video discussion community for your classroom that supercharges your students’ voices. You add the topics, your students respond with short videos, and everyone engages!" I used it recently to have students reply about the Columbian Exchange. It was around the time of state testing, and they had been doing so much writing and typing that I was looking for an alternative way to engage and assess them at the same time. This was definitely the answer. They LOVED that they got to record themselves (well, most of them loved it!) and they could watch each other's responses as well. If you click here, you can see my students' videos (the site only applies first name for privacy which is great), and I even had a quick rubric that I used to grade them (click here!). Currently, I'm only using the free version. However, I think I'll be buying the paid version next year because it gives you the ability to provide feedback digitally, and students can comment and reply back to one another as well. What an awesome tool for instant feedback! Here are their purchasing options: I saw people on Twitter recently talk about using this as a way of introducing kids to a new grade level - at the end of the year, current students can record a message to future students letting them know all about the grade they are about to enter. Then, near the beginning of school, new kids can watch the videos and feel more at ease about the upcoming year!
I am by no means an expert, but if you have questions, let me know and I can try to answer. Flipgrid's twitter page is also a great resource, and they always answer questions quickly. Hello fellow educators! Welcome to my new website. I've been creating sites like this for years for graduate classes and professional development at my school, and finally realized it would be great to have everything in one spot. I'm currently a 7th grade social studies teacher and technology coordinator in my building, and use any extra time that I have to work with my fellow teachers on technology integration. My goal for this site is to write about new tech tools, integration strategies, and all-things-Google. Please use the contact tab to find my information, and tweet or email me any time! |