Can I tell you a secret? I have a love-hate relationship with the summer on a school campus.

As a school administrator, my days extend quite far into the summer. That’s okay – I knew what I was signing up for. Yet, it’s such a weird experience on a campus. On the one hand, it’s lighter and quiet. There is time to think, plan, and recuperate. On the other hand, it’s eerily quiet and lonely. It’s so strange to go from 100 mph to residential speeds in a few days. Mostly, I greatly miss our staff and students. That being said, I have greatly come to appreciate the time to slow down, think, and plan for the future.

As a part of the planning process for next year, our team is making some big pushes toward increasing the amount and quality of professional development on our campus. We will be making a huge push with amplifying our PLC’s and pushing writing across the curriculum. In addition to this, we will have a variety of staff meetings, optional PD’s, and district PD’s in which our staff can participate. To help organize all of this information, I developed a simple “Professional Development Calendar” with all of the trainings, dates, locations, and links to upcoming PD to keep our staff informed.

Here’s a quick example of what it looks like:

(View) (Sample) (Copy)

As you can see, the calendar is broken into four sections:

• Staff Meetings – Monthly staff meeting with a specific sitewide focus. This year, it will be on “Amplifying our PLC’s”
• Academics – PD specifically aimed towards improving our academics. This year, we will be offering writing PD’s, continuing our learning walks, and a Rookie Rap for new teachers.
• Student Well-Being – Any PD for our SEL & PBIS goals to support teachers as they navigate the ever-changing behaviors of our students.
• District PD – Any PD being offered by the district office.

If for some reason one of my amazing teachers is reading this PD, I know that none of this is new information but please note these dates are all simply examples and may not be accurate. Your “legit” version is coming soon!

As with anything, I always want to make sure the “why” is understood when developing, creating, or implementing something new. While this PD calendar has a low impact on staff, the “why” is quite simple but still important. Clear, accurate, and timely communication is always appreciated by school staff. We have a lot of amazing opportunities happening on our campus. It’s important that our staff can easily access these trainings and plan for their year.

Finally, as a leader, the goals for the year must be communicated to your staff. As simple as this calendar might be, it is another way to remind our staff of our sitewide goals for the year. After all, how effective are your professional development and goals if it is unknown by your staff? Simply sharing this calendar is another way to increase the awareness of our goals for the year through visually seeing the professional development that is offered to support it.

How does your school share their important events and/or dates with staff? I would love to hear about it, so share in the comments below!

Hello friends! I know – it has been a while…but that’s life.

I am so excited to share a great tool with you today that will make your teaching easier and more enjoyable while increasing the rigor in your classroom. It’s called Brisk for Teaching, and it’s an AI-powered platform that helps you create and deliver amazing and effective learning experiences for your students.

Brisk for Teaching is a Google Chrome add-on web-based tool that helps you create lessons and quizzes, deliver personalized feedback, and detect authenticity using AI. With Brisk, you can:

• Generate and customize content that matches your curriculum, standards, and objectives
• Create multiple choice, short response, and long response quizzes and assessments
• Provide instant and personalized feedback and guidance to your students based on their performance and progress
• Analyze and visualize your students’ data and insights to track their learning outcomes and identify their strengths and weaknesses
• Create questions based on the different levels of DOK

Brisk for Teaching is super easy to use and works with any device and browser. You can also integrate it with your existing tools and platforms, such as Google Docs, Google Forms, and more.

To show you how you can use Brisk for Teaching in your classroom, I have made a video that walks you through the main features and functions of the tool. You can watch the video below or click on this link to view it on YouTube:

Thank you for reading and watching. Happy teaching!

Happy November! It is hard to believe that we are almost through the first semester of school! I hope you are doing well and surviving these crazy times – because it really is SO crazy right now.

In fun news, I am starting a new series of blog posts that will come out at the beginning of each month – the Rundown! This is a simple post with a TON of links to Google Workspace Updates, helpful videos, blog posts, and a variety of instructional and educational resources that I have discovered over the last month. It is a short post this month but I plan on growing it over the next few months to contain more categories, blog posts, videos, and resources.

I hope that you enjoy these easy, quick blog posts and find something useful to use in your classroom and/or school!

Google Workspace Updates:

• Replacing a Background in Google Meet
• Slideshow Button in Google Slides
• Making Google Classroom Video Meetings Easier and More Secure
• Google Classroom Unenrollment Features
• Create Meeting Notes in Google Calendar
• Easily Add to Google Docs with the @ Menu
• Page Break Before Paragraphs in Google Docs
• New Google Meet Host Features for Audio and Video

Instructional & Educational Technology:

• PearDeck: Reflect & Review
• 11 Things Coaches Should Look For in Classroom Observations
• Slides Mania Cardtegories!
• Top 5 Game-Based Learning Platforms

Inspirational:

• Don’t Let the Tough Things Keep You from the GREAT Things! (Video)

Going forward, I hope to add many more links and sections to this blog posts. Particularly, I would like to share some leadership blog posts and videos to help support education leaders and, selfishly, help me to grow, too!

Stay tuned for the next rundown!

Recently, Google has begun launching Smart Chips which allows users to quickly hyperlink and preview Google Docs, Slides, Drawings, Calendar Events, and email addresses within Google Docs. I know what you are thinking – I can already hyperlink in a Google Doc! Well, Smart Chips are a bit different than the classic hyperlink. To be honest, I just couldn’t think of a better word than hyperlink to describe how Smart Chips operate.

To create a Smart Chip in Google Docs, it is super simple:

• Type the “@” symbol into the Google Doc.
• Start typing the name of the Doc, Slide, Drawing, calendar event, or email address.
• Select the appropriate item and you’re done!

Below, you will find a GIF and short video on how to create a Smart Chip in Google Docs. As you will see, it is super simple to create and can be a great way to organize materials in a Google Doc. The OCD person in me absolutely loves the organizational possibilities for the future!

Now that I have shared what I love about Smart Chips, I feel that I must share a disclaimer about this new feature that I will also reference in the video. Currently, I am struggling to get Smart Chips to work with all the documents that I would like to attach. I’m not sure if this is just a bug that needs to be worked out or a user error on my part, however, I cannot find some of the documents (whether Docs, Slides, Drawings, etc) that I want to link within my document. I have tried it every which way but it only gives me the top four options and sometimes these are not the options that I need to attach. Hopefully, Google will update this to increase the number of options you can select from or better refine their search algorithm for users.

GIF Tutorial:

Video Tutorial:

Have you used Smart Chips? What do you think and did you run into the same issues as I did? Share in the comments below!

Greetings friends! I know I have been terrible over the last month about creating new content. I can break down my struggle into two main reasons: 1.) I have struggled to find my creativity during the pandemic and 2.) I am just recently getting over my first trimester morning sickness and finding my energy again. That being said, I am determined to start delivering new content and find ways to support educators!

In this post, I am super excited to share a couple of new tools that I have found for providing students with audio feedback via voice notes. I’ve shared this at several staff meetings and professional development train ings and it has been a big hit with teachers! If you spend a lot of time providing individual feedback to students, I can almost guarantee that you will 1.) love these tools and 2.) it will save you a TON of time!

Below, I will show a quick description and GIF of each tool, a video tutorial comparing the two, and then a breakdown of the similarities and differences. Alright – let’s get started!

Tool #1: Mote

Mote is a “Chrome Extension that makes it easy for anyone to add voice notes and feedback to documents and assignments.” It integrates easily with Google Apps and is embedded within the comments sections of Docs, Slides, Classroom and more. Once you make the audio note and finish the comment, it will turn into a play button for students to playback. Below, you can see how easy and quick it is to make an audio comment with Mote:

Tool #2: Talk & Comment

Talk and Comment “lets you create voice notes inside any service on the web, including Google Classroom, Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook comments, Gmail, YouTube, Reddit, Slack, and more!” Instead of being embedded within the comments section, it is located off to the side of your browser for you to click on it whenever you need it. You do have to manually copy the link and paste it into the comments or application but it still works seamlessly. Just like Mote, once you make the audio note and finish the comment, it will turn into a play button for students to playback. Here is a quick example in Google Docs:

Video Tutorial

The GIF’s not doing it for you? Check out this YouTube video where I show how you can use each tool in Google Docs and Classroom:

Let’s Compare Them!

As you can see from the tutorials above, Mote and Talk & Comment are very similar. Personally, I tend to favor the ease of Mote but like the cost of Talk and Comment – which is free! Click HERE if you wish to visit the pricing plans for Mote.

Here is a quick breakdown comparing the most popular and/or on-demand features:

As you can see, Mote clearly offers more features but it comes at a price. If those features don’t matter to you, then Talk & Comment may be more than sufficient. Either way, I encourage you to test them both out and see which one is your favorite – then share in the comments below!

One of my favorite ways to get students talking in my classes was an AVID strategy called Philosophical Chairs. Philosophical Chairs is a student-centered format for classroom discussion that promotes analytical reading, respectful dialogue, and personal reflection. You could equate it to a debate, however, there is a much richer focus on text and mutual understanding. It’s an amazing strategy to get students talking to one another – whether you are teaching in person or online!

In the post below, I will share the steps for setting up and running a Philosophical Chair in your classroom, as well as a useful Google Slide Template! Let’s get started!

The first step of any successful Philosophical Chair is a relevant prompt for students to discuss. If it isn’t relevant to the students, then they won’t be interested in participating. In the past, I’ve had students discuss whether college athletes should be paid, if video games made people violent, and if social media should be limited to people over the age of 14. All of these topics immediately had my student’s interest because it was relevant to them.

Here is a list of possible Philosophical Chair topics I found online: Philosophical Chair Topics. The reason I said possible is that you should always reflect on the appropriateness of the topic based upon the age of your students.

Step #2: Find a Text to Read

Once you create your prompt, it is important to find a relevant text (or two!) for students to read to reflect on the prompt. Sometimes I would pick one article for them to read that was less biased, then allow students time to conduct their own research to find their additional texts. With my students, I always stressed the importance that their opinions were based on facts. They had to be able to prove why they chose the side they eventually sided on.

Step #3: Read & Annotate

After you select your text, I encourage you to teach your students to read, annotate, and reflect on the text that they have read. If you are unfamiliar with annotating the text, I encourage you to check out this student-centered template to use with your text:

Annotating the Text Student Template (View) (Copy)

As you can see in the template, this will guide your students through the pre-reading, reading, and post-reading of the text. By using these strategies, students were more likely to engage in deep levels of thinking with the text they were reading.

Step #4: Choose a Side!

After students spent time reflecting on the text they had read, the fun part begins – choosing a side! In the classroom, I would split the room in half to represent an “agree” and “disagree” side. I would ask students to stand on the side that reflected their opinion. If they were still unsure, they could stay in the middle. I’ve seen Philosophical Chairs done with more structure during this part, such as setting up chairs on each side and having students sit down. Personally, I would have my students push the furniture to opposite ends of the class so that they could move around during the discussion if their opinions started to change.

If you want a digital option with less movement, check out this template:

(View) (Copy)

Share this template with students and enable access to everyone. Each student takes a “tag” and replaces “Student” with their name. During the discussion, students can virtually move their name to the “agree” or “disagree” side – or even somewhere in the middle!

Step #5: Discuss

Once students have selected a side, the discussion beings! Here are a few rules I had during the discussion:

• Equal speaking time for each side.
• No interrupting each other – only talk when you are holding the “speaking object”.
• Refer to evidence in your text at least once while you are speaking.
• Reference what other students have said by saying, “I agree with John because…” or “I disagree with John because…”

Usually, we would spend the majority of the class discussing the topic because it’s just so fun!

Step #6: Repeat 4-5!

Throughout the discussion,  I would give students time to repeat the last two steps. They would have the opportunity to move sides after a few students talked and then the discussion would continue and repeat!

As you can see, this is a really fun (and super easy) instructional strategy that you can use in your classroom. I hope you give it a try out and, if you do, feel free to share how it went and/or how you modified it for your students!

]]> https://www.i-heart-edu.com/philosophical-chairs/feed/ 4 2558 https://www.i-heart-edu.com/hyperdocs-weekly-plans-webinar/ https://www.i-heart-edu.com/hyperdocs-weekly-plans-webinar/#respond Fri, 10 Apr 2020 21:19:44 +0000 https://www.i-heart-edu.com/?p=2317 HyperDocs are an amazing way to support student learning during the distance learning adventure! In this webinar, Melissa King and Marilyn McAlister share some great tips and tricks for getting started, as well as some weekly plan templates for distance learning. In this webinar, the following topics are covered: HyperDocs website and templates Creating a… Read More HyperDocs & Weekly Plans Webinar]]>

HyperDocs are an amazing way to support student learning during the distance learning adventure! In this webinar, Melissa King and Marilyn McAlister share some great tips and tricks for getting started, as well as some weekly plan templates for distance learning.

In this webinar, the following topics are covered:

• HyperDocs website and templates
• Creating a HyperDoc
• Free weekly plan templates for distance learning
• Daily 5 and inquiry projects

Below, you will find some of the FREE resources that were provided by Melissa and Marilyn:

• HyperDoc Templates & Website
• Melissa’s Blog, Kings Korner
• Melissa’s Freebies
• Marilyn’s Student Samples
• Marilyn’s Remote Learning Templates
• I Heart EDU HyperDoc Templates

We hope you are finding these webinars helpful! We have two more webinars set up for next week, so feel free to sign up using THIS Google Form.

The Road Trippin’ Follow Up

A few weeks ago, I wrote about an upcoming HyperDoc I created to help students explore ratios, rates, proportion, and scale factor.  In this HyperDoc, students were introduced and applied their knowledge of these concepts by creating their own Road Trip.  (To read more about this HyperDoc and get your own copy, please read my post “A Ratios & Proportion HyperDoc” post.)

It is important to note that, although this HyperDoc was an enormous and important part of our unit, it was not the only piece of this complicated teaching puzzle.  My students still completed notes, as well as a set of skills-based lesson practice.  One thing I have tried to do this year is find a balance between all three of these – the notes, the skills practice, and real-life application.  Each piece is incredibly important but it must be balanced.  Personally, HyperDocs have been a great help in balancing these parts in my classroom.

The feedback that I received from my students on this project was amazing.  They really enjoyed it!  They had so much fun designing their maps and creating budgets for food, hotels, and gas.  Many of the students commented that they enjoyed this HyperDoc project much more than the “Cell Phone Plans: A Systems of Equations HyperDoc” that we completed in February.

In this post, I would like to share with you:

• Examples of student work, as well as the road trip website that contains all of the student creations.
• Five (5) takeaways that I had from assigning this project to my students.

Road Trippin’ Products: Examples of Student Work

In this HyperDoc, students submitted two main pieces of work: 1.) A Google Map that outlines their road trip, including food, hotels, and destinations, and 2.) A Google Doc that explains and breaks down the math within the project.

The Google Maps

One of the first things that the students began creating was the Google Map that outlined their road trip.  Each group completed a map in Google My Maps and this accounted for 50% of their grade on the project.

To view all of our road trips, please visit our Road Trip website: Road Trips (16/17)

The students completed all of the Google Maps that are listed within this Google Site.  From there, they submitted a title, description, cost, and link to their map via Google Forms and I added this to our website.  For the students, they were so excited to see that their work was published on the internet.  In addition to this, they found the idea that other people could view and use their road trips to be very relevant and engaging.

The Google Doc

Each student completed a Google Doc that broke down the math behind a road trip.  Students explored how to create a Google Map, how to budget for food, gas, and hotels, and how to find the scale factor of the Google Map compared to real life.

To view some examples of completed work, please visit these examples: Example #1, Example #2, and Example #3.

Road Trippin’: Three Takeaways & Three Ideas for the Future

Three Takeaways

1.) Students love projects that have a real-life application.

In Math, students often say, “When will I use this in real life?”  Through this project, I was able to offer them some insight into how math is used in the real world and…they loved it!  It was relatable and relevant which is instantly interesting and engaging to students.

2.) There is a balance between skills practice and real-life application.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a balance between the skills practice (DOK 1) and the real-life application (DOK 3+).  In skills practice, the students should be able to receive immediate feedback on their progress to see if they understand the basic skills practice.  In applications, students may be developing a long-term project that is receiving consistent feedback over an extended period of time.  Both are important and have their purpose.

3.) By moving from a teacher-centered to a student-centered (with choice!) learning environment, student engagement will increase.

Over the last two years, I have tried to create a learning environment that is student-centered, rather than teacher centered.  It is a long process and is constantly being modified but I have found that it has great benefits for students.  Again – there is a balance.  It is not all one or the other.  For myself, I equate it to a scale that is tipping more heavily towards the student-centered side but still has some weight on the teacher-centered side.  However, students love being in charge of their own learning and having the option to choose the types of projects that they will explore.  This automatically increases buy-in which, in turn, increase student engagement.

Three Ideas for the Future

1.) The students were introduced to the real-life application but there could be a short assessment to see if they understood the important concepts that were being taught.

Although they had a lot of practice in the math concepts listed above, I would be interested in assessing their knowledge of these concepts to determine if they truly understood the material and did not get lost in the “glamor” of creating a road trip.  This assessment should be short and could include something skills-based or a performance task.

2.) It would be helpful to create short videos or gifs to walk students through basic technology skills and instructions.

Unfortunately, I know that I lost too much time by explaining the same directions for certain technology skills multiple times.  In the future, I need to create short videos or gifs to assist students with these skills if they do not understand the directions.

3.) Some student tend to work with the same students for each project.  It would be beneficial to use Flippity to create new groups that would allow for collaboration outside of their regular peer group.

In our environment of student choice, I usually allow my students to choose their own groups.  Although this has its benefits, I often worry that my students are not able to learn how to work with students that are outside of their regular peer group.  Using Flippity to create random groups could be an excellent option to mix up our classroom groups during future projects.

Final Thoughts

The HyperDoc took about two weeks for the students to complete but they seemed to enjoy every second of this project.  It is a great reminder that we need to spend more time finding ways to create learning environments that are engaging for students but also helps them to reach their learning goals.

As I have mentioned before, I highly suggest that you try the HyperDoc model in your classroom – I promise that it will transform how you teach your students!

HyperDocs are becoming one of my favorite things in education.  It is such an amazing tool to incorporate technology in a purposeful way that promotes student learning and engagement.  One of the things that I love about the HyperDoc model is that there is a focus on creating digital lessons that go through various stages of learning (Engage, Explore, Explain, Apply, etc.).  I am finding that this process is helping me to truly analyze the type of lessons and I am creating, as well as the purpose of the technology that I am using.

After all, technology has become an important part of education but technology only benefits students if it is a meaningful tool in their learning process.  Technology should never be used just to say, “My students used this really cool technology tool in class.”  Instead, it should be, “Look at this amazing things my students created and were able to learn because of technology.”  The HyperDoc model helps me to focus on the later.  It helps me to focus on the pedagogy behind the technology.

Check out the lesson below and give me your thoughts!

Road Trippin’!

The Lesson: Road Trippin’! A Ratios & Proportions HyperDoc

The Objectives: In this lesson students will plan and create a road trip and budget using Google Maps, Google Docs, and various technology tools.  They will use ratios, proportions, and scale factor to calculate the cost of gas, hotel, and food.  Students will share the Google Map with the class and the world by publishing it online.

The Technology: Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Images, Google Search, and Random Number Generator.

Students will be introduced to the lesson through the Engage stage where they will watch a video about creating a successful road trip.  During the Explore stage, students will begin planning their road trip by creating a Google Map.  To better understand the mathematical concepts, the students will enter the Explain stage and watch two videos, as well as take notes, on “Ratios & Proportions” and “Scale Factor”.  During the Apply stage, students will work on the bulk of their project over a 2-3 day period of time.  Students will explore scale factor to determine the actual distance and scale factor of their road trip, choose a car and calculate the cost of gas, and select places to stay and eat during their trip.  In the Share stage, students will publish their road trip on the internet and share it with the class.  The class will view the Google Maps that have been created and vote on the best road trip.  At the end of the lesson, the students will Reflect on what they have learned during this activity.

If you use in your classroom, I would love to hear about the outcomes and student reactions.  In addition, I am always open to more ideas that would improve this lesson and create more learning opportunities for our students!

One of the things that I love about our HUSD Twitter Chat is the amazing resources that I learn about from the conversations that I am able to have with teachers in our district.  In a recent Twitter Chat, one of our coaches (thanks @Dfcain!) shared that the application Kami is a great resource for viewing, annotating, sharing and collaborating on PDF’s and documents within the the Chrome browser.

He was right – it is amazing!

Recently, I have had several teachers ask for tools that would allow their student’s to annotate PDF’s from the Chrome browser and Kami is the perfect solution.