Easy Bite Size Steps to Increase Classroom Technology

Easy Bite Size Steps to Increase Classroom Technology

If your school has just recently gone 1:1, or just announced that they will be going 1:1, hopefully I can help. This is part 2 in a short series to help you transition to 1:1 technology.

This post will assume that you have gotten some of the procedural details and routines out of the way that were discussed in Part 1. Now you are looking for some ways to transition into using more technology in your classroom.

Ten Small Steps to Start Using Your New 1:1 Technology

1. A video station - There are huge advantages to having students watch at their own pace, and be able to rewind, pause, or replay as needed. Here is a good discussion of using videos in the classroom. One of my favorite strategies is to have the students watch at a station, with a partner, and do a strategy that I call “watch, talk, write.” Students watch a short video with a partner. Talk about it with their partner. Then they write a short summary, often of a specified number of sentences, where they have to decide what information to include.
2. A vocabulary station with Quizlet - Quizlet is a great site for students to review vocabulary, or really anything that needs to be memorized. You can even add in diagrams with labels where students can quiz themselves. This could be an early finisher activity, a station, or a whole class activity. 
3. Review games using Kahoot - Kahoot is a great way to do review. It can only be used for multiple choice or objective questions, but students get so engaged! Its quick and easy to set up, and students love it. 
4. An alternative way to do a research project - rather than only a written essay or research paper, check out these ideas for technology-rich ideas for students to demonstrate knowledge.
5. Formative Assessment - My favorite formative assessment tool is Google Forms, but there are many others out there as well (Socrative, Plickers, and many more). I have written about Google Forms a few times before, here, and here, and a bit about Plickers here. 
6. A virtual field trip or interactive website. Here is a great start on places to look for interactive 
7. Resources for kids to use when they finish early - Having technology in your room gives more options for differentiation, in a lot of ways. However, one great tool is the ability to have more websites available for early finishers for review, enrichment, or reinforcement. Quizlet is great, various websites with science news articles, or, depending on your state, practice exam questions. 
8. Change an assignment to a Google Doc - Google Docs have a lot of advantages, they can be accessed anywhere, they save automatically, and they can be shared. It is fairly easy to upload an existing assignment and convert to a Google Doc, making a copy for each student, or distributing through Google Classroom. 
9. Video instructions of a lab or of a lab demonstration - If you are doing a demonstration, or giving instructions of how to do a lab, it can be extremely helpful to video this. Students can rewind and pause, students who are absent can watch, and somehow they even seem to pay closer attention to a video than to the teacher! This video can be uploaded privately to YouTube, or to Google Drive and shared with students as needed, or posted in Google Classroom. 
10. Background research or vocabulary research going into an activity - before beginning a unit or an activity, we all know that students need to build background knowledge. As they are all coming from different places, and starting with different amounts of background knowledge, it can work well for them to research vocabulary terms, or a specific topic for background knowledge on their own, before diving into the instructional part of the unit. 

I hope this helped you consider some ways to start using technology in your 1:1 classroom! It can be overwhelming, but don’t get overwhelmed. Take it one step at a time, and don’t be afraid to try something.

Questions? Ideas? Suggestions? Please comment below or join me in the Facebook group.

My School is Going 1:1 Where Do I Start?

My School Just Announced We Will Be 1:1 Where Do I Begin?!

School Expectations

First of all, don't panic! Spend some time finding out what the school expectations and rules about 1:1 devices are, how was the devices will be assigned, where will they be stored and what training is provided. Also think about how often will you be expected to use them, or how often you want to use them? What school policies may be in place around students carrying them between classes, or bringing them home? What is the devices aren’t charged? What will the behavior policies be for students who are on other websites? Some of these questions may not have quick and easy answers but they are important to start thinking about, as you begin framing how you want to use technology in your classroom.

Technology is a Tool

Don’t get overwhelmed, but realize that the technology is a tool just like any other tool. It is there to help you and your students. Using technology could completely transform the way that you teach but there are lots of small steps for you to start with as well. Using technology in your classroom doesn't have to be an overnight dramatic shift.

Procedures and Skills

As you get started make sure you allow some time to teach procedures and teach technology skills. Even though we think students grew up with technology, and that they know a lot about technology, it often turns out that they don't know how to use technology for academic purposes. They may know how to use it for YouTube or other ways, or know how to do things on their phones, but may not know how to do some of the tasks that we ask them.

Some procedures and introductory lessons that you may want to cover in your classroom if they are not taught in school as a whole include: digital citizenship, procedures for carrying a Chromebook or laptop, where they will be stored, charging procedures, what to do if a student's technology is not working or is missing that day. What classroom rituals and routines do you want to set up around the devices. Some teachers have students put in only one earbud, close the lid of the laptop or chromebook, or put tablets face down when the teacher is speaking, etc. What will be the consequences if a student doesn't follow the technology directions? If you take the device away do you have an alternative assignment? If it WiFi is down or technology is unavailable do you have an alternate emergency assignment? These are things to think about and to try to clarify in your head as you begin to picture your classroom with technology. These are not meant to scare you off but to prevent future problems.

How Do you Want to Use Technology 

Once you have some of those procedural things out of the way, start thinking about how and when you want to start to build in technology into your classroom. Do you want to use them at the start of class everyday? At the end of class everyday? (There are a lot of great ways to do formative assessment or warm ups using Google Forms). Do you plan to use them only as needed for certain interactive activities or stations? Especially for science, there are a lot of good videos (BrainPop, CrashCourse, Bozeman Science, Amoeba Sisters) and interactive virtual labs and field trips to use for particular topics).  You could also look into Digital Interactive Notebooks, but probably not as a first step. 

Using technology in the classroom really provides a lot of opportunities to engage students, to individualize instruction, to free up your time to work with students rather than being at the front of the room and for students to connect with others outside of the classroom walls.

My advice would be to jump in and get started. Emphasize to the students that you are learning along with them, and take it one step at a time.

Inspirational Ideas and Resources

Just for inspiration, here are a few of my favorite resources for technology in education happening very differently through technology!

• Transforming Lessons through the SAMR Cycle
• Alice Keeler - Anything Google
• Ditch That Textbook
• Flipped Learning

Jump In and Give It a Try! 

Don’t get overwhelmed by learning the tech tool. You can do that with a bit of training or some searching of online tutorials/videos. Instead, spend your time thinking about how you want your technology-infused classroom to look. What will it look like in the long-run? What smaller steps can you take now to go toward that goal? Maybe each marking period you can add on to that? Or maybe take one unit and re-vamp it, but leave your others for now.

What are your 1:1 technology questions and concerns? Leave your questions below or in our Facebook group, but don’t be afraid. Give it a try!

4 Technology-Rich Ways For Students to Demonstrate Knowledge

4 Technology-Rich Ways for Students to Demonstrate Their Knowledge

Many times we asked students to do class work in such a traditional manner, such as to write a research paper, write an essay to present their knowledge, in written form only. While it is important that students can read and write, This is not the only way for them to show their knowledge. It's important to give an element of choice as well as to give variety throughout the year so that students who excel in other areas, or who struggle with writing have a chance to show their knowledge.

Why not just write an essay? 

Perhaps that particular student is not a strong writer, but really does know the content. Or may they are really good at animation, graphic design, sound effects, or some other aspect. It's time that their knowledge show through. Some great ways for them to demonstrate their knowledge, other than written expression would be a screencast, Thinglink, a PowerPoint or Google Slide presentation, a podcast, or even an animation such as PowToon. Sometimes, even if the student is a stronger writer, having an aspect of choice is so important. Allowing the student more choice over how to demonstrate their knowledge is a way to get more buy-in and engagement from him or her, and more excitement about the assignment.

Podcast

A podcast is a very easy alternative to implement, and has many different applications in the classroom. Students could simply do a voice recording on a tablet, phone, computer with a microphone, or many other devices. If you actually want it to be posted as a podcast available online, this is possible too, and there are a lot of tutorials and guides online. However, for a single assignment, it would be appropriate for students to just make a recording, and it could even be shared as an audio file on Google Drive, if you choose. The downside of this is it of course you can't include any visual elements but for some students and some topics this will be enough.

Screencast

A screencast is a recording of the computer screen it can be done with a camera with it, showing the student's face, or without and can record only the tab or the desktop of the computer, along with recording audio. This is a very simple way to record a short presentation with narration, a technology skill, or student presenting or showing a particular topic or skill. There are lots of ways to do a screen test but my personal favorite is the Chrome extension screencastify I believe you can make a free recording up to 10 minutes and the results is saved right in Google Drive. Very simple!!

Thinglink

Thinglink is a paid product, but there are also free accounts with a few limitations. Thinglink allows the student to start with a picture such as a map, photograph, diagram, etc and then add certain buttons with information and links, videos, sound files, or even text documents and callout buttons to make a multi-media clickable image. Again, this depends on the topic, and how it is best suited. I think this would be great for presentations where you want to show a lot of information from different sources. A word of caution, be careful that the student is able to summarize their information, or paraphrase and cite the information, because it can be very easy to just cut and paste a lot of information. Thinglink is a great way to make a really different kind of presentation and include various kinds of information. Here is a great example of a human body presentation.

Powtoon

Powtoon will allow students to create an animation. They write the script, and record the audio, and then choose different backgrounds, characters, and what they will say. Here is an elementary example

Powtoon can be a lot of fun and very interactive for the students. It is quite different than what they may have done before. The warning on this one is that there will be a bit of a learning curve for students. It may take some time for them to get comfortable, so allow extra time to learn the technology if you choose this method.

Lastly, don’t rule out a PowerPoint or Google slide presentation. This is not really a brand new method, but can be an alternative to a written presentation. Both allow shorter, more broken up writing, and the insertion of videos, images, and other multimedia formats into the presentation. Google Slides is easier to insert videos and easier to share the final presentation. PowerPoint is easier to insert narration or sound files if this is something that you want students to do. Adding audio to Google Slides is difficult.

As we transition to using more technology, under the SAMR model, these may be some ways to push your teaching, and your students learning, to the next level, and to further engage your students. Have you used any of these in your classroom? What other alternatives do you utilize, besides a written essay, do you use for students to demonstrate knowledge? Please share in the comments.