Activity 10: Collaborative Middle School Useful Tech. Tools Blog

Activity 8: Google Forms Assessments

This is my first self-made Google Form. I've used them in the past, but J.J. liked making them, so I always just let him. It seems like a million possibilities exist for using Forms as an assessment tool, which I'm excited to try throughout the year as I get used to having Chromebooks.  I especially like the options to shuffle questions and answers as I think this will be a useful tool for retests; it will save a lot of time and make retesting feasible.

Here's my practice branching form:


Final Thoughts: With time, I see Google Forms being incredibly helpful in assessing students and providing feedback. With the direction we are going at Chippewa, I think this could be used as a relearning tool that provides links and practice for each objective and lets kids work at their own pace.  The forms are fairly intuitive, but it will take time to make tests this way and create learning opportunities. I see this as something a resource teacher would need to spend time creating for groups.

Activity 7: Assessments

I use Socrative as a classroom review tool for roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Here's a copy of one of my quizzes (I don't know how to embed a live quiz from Socrative):

Socrative is a good tool for very concrete information and factual assessment. It also allows for the teacher to ask an open-ended question to which the students reply, which can then be saved to email and printed out. I've used to this to assess knowledge of paragraph and complete sentences. I will continue to use Socrative throughout the year; kids like it.

PollEverywhere seems like a fun tool to get quick responses for things and start discussions. I might use it for Do Now!s at the beginning of the period. I usually had kids write Do Now!s in a notebook, but what fun is that?

My Poll: What was your favorite part about summer?

Activity 6: Google Classroom

Beyond reporting PLC information, this is my first experience with Google Classroom. I can see myself using Google Classroom in small intervention classes in order to get use to the format and grading procedures, but I can't imagine jumping right into working with 140 students from five classes and having success; thank the gods we are not being forced to. However, with a small class, I like how everything is compartmentalized and easy to track. However, the nature of an intervention class is to have students move around quite a bit, so would it be difficult to add and subtract students, however they might be transferring. I do, however, like that I can hold them accountable online and that I need to keep these kids engaged however I can. So... I see the possibility and have had a little fun with the word however--however you feel about that.

 

Activity 5: Apps, Extensions, and Add-Ons

I've been using the Note Board Extension for about a year now. I use it to take notes and make lists for whatever I need to do. I like that it's available on all of my devices that I'm logged into. I also use this to keep track of my school passwords and other sites that are not necessary to keep completely secure.

As for the rest of the apps, extensions, and add-ons, there's a ton of potential, but I can also see spending too much time trying to incorporate "fads" that may not be worth trying to learn. These things give me anxiety. What if I spend an entire school year teaching students how to download, use, and share information using these tools only to realize that it was a mere distraction? What if what I change to is not as beneficial as what I do now?

Robert Frost wrote: "...why abandon a belief/ Merely because it ceases to be true./ Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt/ It will turn true again, for so it goes." 

I know many of these are powerful tools, but for my own sanity, and, hopefully, the benefit of my students, I'm going to focus mostly on how students get information, how students create information, and helpful ways that I can provide feedback. Anything else I will leave by the wayside until proof demonstrates effectiveness.

Activity 4: Google Suite

Google Drive is great because everything can be made available from any device that has access to the internet. Since I began teaching at Chip, I've been keeping all of my files on Drive. It's a great tool for the classroom because you can link projects and guidelines onto a web page and students/parents can access it at anytime. One drawback for me so far has been that I often forget to share the docs after posting and parents end up requesting access (I wish there was a prompt that came up when linking files). Parents also need to get use to this technology because many still email to request forms as opposed to going online and finding it for themselves; one of my goals is to streamline my web page this fall. 

Here is a presentation that I updated to use with Reader's Workshop in the fall.

Basic Literary Terms

Week 3: Screencasting

Here's my first attempt at using Snagit, which I've never used before. This video is a great example of why we should rehearse and script our work before turning in a project. This is not related to a lesson, but it is something I would show kids to evaluate and make suggestions for improvement; sometimes are bad examples help improve student work.

I love using screencasts and the idea of flipping lessons (I'm not ready for a flipped classroom), but I was not happy with Snagit. I don't know if I completely missed it, but where is the pause button? I like screencasts that allow me to pause and bring up new pages or images. Without that pause button, I feel that the only thing I would use Snagit for is to explain simple images or to narrate a PowerPoint, which is all my screencast for this assignment it.