2 Comments
This kind of class is my favorite. Getting a list of tools to explore and working with them is pretty cool. And when my kids walk by and I ask them if they’ve used a certain tool and they say no, I feel like an explorer of sorts. Maybe I can teach them something, I tell myself. And perhaps they represent my students and their familiarity with these tools, I think. But I am not sure. I’ve been teaching 19 years and never has the profession been at such a crossroads. We can’t make this business as usual. This is a growth moment for us as a profession as much as it is for ourselves as educators. We get a chance to do things differently because we need to do things differently. And what did I do differently? I played with Flipgrid. There is a lot of hype around this tool. No, not the kind of hype Kanye is getting by perhaps running for president (can you imagine what his signature shoe— the Yeezy— would look like customized on the campaign trail?), but the kind of teacher hype where you KNOW teachers are using this tool and enjoying it. So I played with that a while. I also played around with Loom, which is essentially a really easy to use quick video looping tool. Need to send out a quick message and get your voice and tone in it? I think Loom is good for that. Flipgrid and Loom both worked. I think Flipgrid would be great to get kids interacting with one another. And I think Loom is great for reminders or messages where you want some personality in them. I think the only barriers are going to be with Flipgrid, and that’s pretty minimal. Kids will just need time to learn the tool. That is something I think about a TON. If a student has six teachers and each has a series of pet-tools, there could be a huge learning curve there. Likely there will be overlap but that could be four or more new tools per teacher? 24 tools or more?? That’s a lot of learning JUST ON TOOLS and a lot of email signups. I think video as assessment is interesting. If we are using a distance platform for education, I do think it could be really powerful to see what kids think and connect with their thinking in that way. Writing is great but is limited. And if kids don’t show their face on Zoom, this might be all we have for that personal aspect of learning. Okay. It’s pretty clear that I haven’t been using G-Forms anywhere near their capability. I am about 15 forms into my career— so, pretty basic— and the potential of Forms blows me away. It’s so much more than I had considered. Here’s what I had used them for during the 2019-2020 school year:
- department meetings. What would you like to see on the agenda? Feedback, etc., on certain items. - distance learning check-ins. What was one thing you learned this week and how would you apply it to your life? - polling students on what they planned to read this summer And I thought I was using Forms well. Ha! Here are some ideas I would like to add: - I love the idea of grading work in Forms. It could be something really simple, like a one-point rubric. I could give feedback on the form if I want. This comes up because in my subject there is one point for a “defensible” thesis statement. That is a really easy use case. - I really liked Scott’s philosophy that with Forms, you could spend more time on feedback and less on other things that don’t help students learn. That speaks my language! Sandy Writtenhouse (I have to assume that’s a pen name, right? The universe couldn’t possibly be that funny in giving that name to a writer?? also writes about a QR maker. I would love to use this at Open House. Hey parents! Scan this code and give feedback on XYZ please! I think parents would like that and I would get info on whatever I need. - Rubrics as a whole would be GREAT to have in Forms. We are pretty consistent with our rubrics. It’s six points and with only light variation, it applies to most of my essays. this could be a peer review if I wanted it to be, or I could use them when grading, period. Miller has a ton of ideas in his article— and endless possibilities await. As for how this could be used in my research, I think it would be really easy to get feedback from students on how different activities and learning strategies are working for them. I could monitor growth in Forms. Additionally, I could establish a two-way feedback loop between teacher and student regarding work and growth. I’m feeling a bit snarky— in a positive way. Can social media work in class? I think it has to! If I have learned one thing in the last month, it’s that our job is to meet students where they are at. This is where they are at. They know social media because that’s who our society is as a whole. We can’t ignore that.
What we CAN do it keep it safe. Who should use it? In elementary I would think this can be done in subtle ways without using social media apps. That holds for middle school. In High School I think we can engage with the app itself. This is where the teacher critically needs to be clear on Digital Citizenship and the rules— I mean, this has to be frontloaded— but the payoff is pretty substantial. Once students put their work “out there” the world can react in unanticipated ways. Policies would have to be established, but Insta and twitter can be goldmines (or landmines) for class work. For AP Lang / Lit, it would be wonderful to engage with other people and audiences on rhetoric and lit. I think this is where the teacher’s creativity either meets the moment or falls short. Or, perhaps the teacher has an end goal in mind and allows student voice in shaping how the assignment looks? We played around with memes and GIFs in AP Lang this year and I think I want to hit that much harder next year. Part of Lang is visual rhetoric. Memes and GIFs are nothing if not that. And they are so prevalent that they have become a viable form of communication. It’s on your phone texting app as an option— it’s part of our student’s lives. My next steps will be to wrap my mind around creative uses of social media for class use. I have to do even more to bring the subject to my students— and in doing that, I am sure I’ll get more from them. I should probably add this: Klein’s message that social media is breaking us feels absolutely on point— but I also feel it brings us up. It’s both. And while that conflicts me, when I think about it social media is a tool. And like all tools, they can be used to build and they can be used to break. The difference is in how they are used. Lastly, NPR’s brief piece on how the possibilities are endless once teachers use social media correctly serves to support that point. I just think we haven’t moved past the idea of “fictional fixedness”— the idea that a tool can only be one thing. Social media has long been the posting grounds for our favorite pet, child (you can only have one, people. Stop lying to your kids!), and meals. Maybe reimagining what this tool does can help make social media a healthier outlet for our students’ learning. Here is a link to my personal learning plan for tech The tool that I leaned most heavily on this spring (outside of G-Suite) was Screencastify. There were some district trainings on this. I did sign up for one but it was sooo slow that I left and went onto YouTube to learn the tool. It was outstanding. I used it on my Chromebook for a variety of things. On a separate note, now that I am attempting to move my workflow to an IPad Pro, Screencastify is not an option (or at least, not an app) and I am going to be using Screen Cast O Matic instead.
However, during the spring with Screencastify, I learned a few things: 1. It is a GREAT tool for asynchronous learning. I had to explain a rubric concept and instead of doing this five times in Zoom (and potentially looking at blank screens, low attendance, letting people in, interruption, etc... I used this tool to deliver content. The time in Zoom was for questions and to go over big picture ideas. But Screencastify allowed me to deliver content (and edit it) cleanly for my students. It saves to Google Drive and links to Google Classroom from there. It was wonderful. 2. As students got closer to their AP Exam— I had practice sessions for the exam. Students would take a timed writing and submit to me. And instead of making notes on it, I made Screencasts. I showed my screen and would do a live look at their doc and would read it live and react live. Because I didn’t have to write notes it was pretty fast. And it was sent directly to students for them to review. There was a lot of positive feedback on this. Having said that, I am not sure it would work for 150 essays. That would drive me bonkers. I know it was the right tool because it gave students what was needed: direct instruction and feedback. I suppose there was one limitation: that tool didn’t allow for students to send feedback to me / ask questions. That had to be done through email. There were some really tremendous resources that I saw this week in regards to teaching Digital Literacy with equity at the forefront. I don’t say that lightly. There are far more wonderful and useful ideas out there than I realized. And what’s more, I think there are ways to integrate these ideas into my curriculum. As an AP teacher, there really isn’t any additional time to tap into. I don’t want to ask students to take a few weeks and work on digital citizenship and abandon our curriculum. I see now how important DC is now, however, and based on the concept of equity I think I can build that into a comprehensive unit itself. Most of AP Lang is based around the idea of rhetoric. The art of language and persuasive content.
Isn’t there space to talk about equity here? You betcha. And that is a bit of an epiphany for me. I would start with the Stanford COR series on how to question social media. I would explore what colleges (and job sites) look at for social media. And then I would absolutely dive into the idea of social justice and equity (and specifically, the rhetoric surrounding it). It seems to me that it would be a version of professional malpractice to ignore digital citizenship and equity— and they seem to be tailor made for a class on rhetoric. I am all in on this next year. Admittedly, Digital Citizenship has been treated (by me) in the way I treat a new toaster: I feel like we know how to use it and comply, and therefore busy myself with other tasks. The paperwork that comes with the toaster— just like the paperwork that comes with digital citizenship student packets— is glossed over.
And I am willing to bet that’s pretty common for teachers. I was reminded recently that DC is important. Actually, really important. And it is likely not taught at home. Because so much of what we do is digital, we have to be mindful of what that can look like outside of our classroom. I am all-in now on learning how to teach this. What can I do? 1. The Stanford COR series will be a bedrock of info for me. The material is centered around the concept of “lateral reading”— which essentially is a skill that can be used to determine if a resource is valid or biased. This teaches the HOW. We talk about it in class, but haven’t went into the depth that the COR series provides. 2. The College Bound “lesson in action” video would resonate with my student population. Again, we have talked about what a college might do in looking up a perspective student, but have never approached it like the video lesson did. Looking at samples of social media footprints could be REALLY useful. I think I need to do this with my baseball players as well. 3. Bias is all the rage these days. Never have I been more aware of the bias attached to a source when researching online. Back to the COR series: Stanford suggests that teachers specifically pull articles from left, center, and right leaning sources and look for bias. Now, I have done this in class. It can be a little dicey because politics are very touchy in my school. However, this reinforces the need to help develop the skills to determine it. Sometimes I think I shy away from political topics in class because I don’t want to come across as having a party affiliation. I can still maintain my professionalism and run this lesson. I also came across a number of specific Tweets that could be analyzed for bias or false info. This really has to be part of my curriculum. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FCc3P7rFPIIq66TVo2nQRcfXEras10XqWpVPTxeN2-8/edit Personalized Learning Vs Traditional Learning Image In regards to what the role of personalized learning and competency-based learning is today… well, that’s complicated. From what I am reading it’s a blender of thoughts and not an agreed-upon idea. I am going to answer the rest of the question through the lens of the course I primarily teach: AP Language and Comp. In AP Lang, there is quite a bit of newfound clarity on the topic. The College Board went to great lengths to begin providing resources that help teachers and students. One of the problems with the class is historically there is no textbook. It’s been the Wild, Wild West. Now with clarity of what is on the exam and what the College Board expects, we as instructors are more clear-- and we are clear with our students. And if I had to summative my understanding of what personalized learning is and means to our classroom, I would say clarity becomes the most essential piece. Teachers need to be clear on outcomes and students need to be able to see their progression and current learning clearly in pursuit of that outcome. The video on e-Literate TV talks about the flipped classroom. That is EXACTLY what I have been doing during COVID19. I have been using Screencastify to deliver ideas and Zoom to discuss ideas. That is, I have done this to some degree and it is when I think I have done my best work. It is something I have to make happen when we get to in-person learning as well. That way, I am available to help meet students where they are at when we are in class. Next, the idea of student agency-- floated by EdWeek-- is interesting. We grade like that at Napa High-- or, rather, we are supposed to. It is one of our grading outcomes. But across the board, we have a variety of ways we look at this category. Which seems to make sense, given there is so little universal agreement on what that means. What I like about the idea of student agency is that a student could own where they are and where they are going. And if they demonstrate mastery, they can focus their attention elsewhere. In a recent discussion with Michael McDowell, he suggested that students knowing where they are at has one of the highest effect sizes possible in moving a student to growth. He said if we could do one thing as teacher leaders, it would be to help our teams get clear on how we can help our students with their awareness of where they are at and where they need to be. Learning analytics is something that I am just now starting to understand. The College Board has launched AP Classroom, which gives feedback for students and shows teachers where each student is at and where the class is at. Clearly this tool is critical. e-Literate TV has touted the idea of analytics as a concept worth considering in pursuit of personalized learning. And I agree. My question is this: what happens if I teach a subject or level where we don’t have obvious access to tools such as what the College Board provides? What tools are out there? Do we have to make the tools? |