Big Changes

It’s been a while since I’ve written my last post, and I’m feeling a little out of practice.  I’ve had so much piling up I wanted to write about that I didn’t even really know where to start. So I’ll just jump back in and get back to it!

For starters, I left my position at McNick.  Without getting on my soap box, I left McNick as a result of disagreeing with the new Archdiocese teacher contracts.  In my opinion, this discriminatory contract is going in the opposite direction the way education, society, and humanity should be going (okay, I promised no soap box…). Words can’t express how much my colleagues at McNick mean to me, and how grateful I am to have known and worked with each of them.  They are very special, talented and dedicated educators; I hope the students and parents realize how lucky they are to be a part of that community.  I’m going to miss them terribly.

In a way, the contracts were a blessing in disguise because it led me to looking at a new opportunity.  I am thrilled about starting my new position at Middletown City School District working as an instructional/educational technology specialist and overseeing the district’s website.  I’m really looking forward to this next step in my career working with multiple schools and a lot more teachers!  To be honest, the new challenge is scary, but I’m ready to keep learning and growing from the talented tech staff at Middletown! When I first started my masters program, my goal was to ultimately be a district instructional technologist, and I am still shocked and humbled that my plan has fallen into place (knock on wood!).

My Research Presentation

This brings me to my next point.  Last Friday, I finished my Master’s in Education and Instructional Computer Technology- WOO HOO! I can’t explain the relief I feel to be finished.  For me, grad school was extremely rewarding and worthwhile.  I loved (almost) all of my classes, and I felt like I learned and grew so much in each one of them.  If you’re debating going back to school to start your next degree, I say go for it! There will never be a perfect time and you’ll never know until you try. My advice: don’t settle for a program and an area you don’t love.  I couldn’t imagine pouring all those man hours into classes and a topic I wasn’t passionate about.

I did my final research project on the Lunch & Learns I have blogged about over the past year.  If you’re interested, I’d be happy to discuss it more with you.

I’m glad to be back to the blogosphere and look forward to returning to my favorite Twitter chats!

What have you been up to this summer?

Tech To You Later!
-Katie

Lunch & Learn: Teachers Spotlight EdTech Successes

April marked the last of this years monthly Lunch & Learns, where teachers were invited to bring their lunch to the library during their lunch bell on a designated Thursday each month.  I wanted the last session to spotlight some teachers throughout the building, and allow them to present some of their edtech success stories.  I’m happy to say that I had trouble narrowing it down to 4-5 teachers from each lunch bell!

Teacher presenters ranged from 5 to 40 years of experience teaching, and the tools they presented on also ranged in tech-ability level. I asked teachers to answer the following questions in an 8-10 minute presentation of the tool.

• What was the activity/project and how did you decide on having students use this particular tech tool? How was this different than the traditional project/activity you previously used? How would you change the project for future use?
• How much were you involved with setting up the technology portion of the project for students? How long did it take? How difficult was it?
• What were the results? How did this improve/enhance student learning? How did the students respond?
• If there is an opportunity to quickly interact with your tech tool, I’d like to do that with the teachers.

I filmed each of the teachers’ presentations and uploaded them into the corresponding Lunch & Learn resource folder on Schoology.  Teachers asked the presenters a lot of questions, and there was a lot of great brainstorming going on.  I know some teachers have already implemented some of these tools after seeing them presented at the Lunch & Learn.  A brief summary of each of the highlighted tools are below.

Word track changes/review tools– Word has a handy feature that allows you track your and student changes, add comments and more. This is a great way to grade papers, so your students can easily see all your comments and suggested changes. It’s also a great way to see peer-editing progress.

Screencasting– Screencasting records whatever you’re doing on your screen and you can also record your voice giving instructions. Screencast-o-matic (screencasting tool) allows you to download your video to your computer or upload your video to the their website or YouTube and share the link with anyone.

VoiceThread– VoiceThread is like an audio discussion board. You can upload a picture or even a PowerPoint presentation and record your voice over each slide. Students can create audio comments on each slide too. Both you and the students also have an inking option that is recorded/played back as you speak as well.

Weebly– Weebly allows you and your students to create websites/portfolios. It is an extremely easy platform to use. There is also a blog feature. You can manage your students sites and they can be password protected.

Symbaloo– Symbaloo is a visual bookmarking site. It’s an easier way to keep track of all your favorites and website resources for students.

Kahoot!– Kahoot is an awesome, interactive, quiz game. It’s similar to a BDubs trivia game; the less time you take to answer the questions, the more points you get. You can download the results to see what each student answered, how much time they took, etc. It’s really easy to set up and the kids LOVE it!

Wikispaces– Wikispaces has a great educational side to their wiki platform. Wikis are a great place for students to complete group work because you can track all the changes they make and students can work on the wiki from anywhere-they don’t have to be together. They have a project side to the wiki that allows you to put students into groups, and only those students have access to their group pages.  Wikispaces was highlighted at a Lunch & Learn earlier in the year and caught this teacher’s eye to implement.

Blogs– Our creative writing teacher showed off her student created blogs in WordPress and how she manages them.

Minecraft– Our Latin teacher talked about how letting his students use a tool they were comfortable with (and he was not) transformed an okay project into a really awesome experience. His students researched important buildings and places in Roman/Latin history.  Previously they had to create the building out of a clay, a diagram, a drawing, etc.  He allowed his students to use Minecraft and was blown away by the detail they were able to put into their creations.

Read about all the Lunch & Learns this year by clicking here. How do you spotlight teachers and encourage teachers from different subject areas to engage in conversations about best practices together?

Tech To You Later!
-Katie

Candid EdTech Discussion with Teachers

This year I started monthly Lunch & Learn sessions for educational technology PD for teachers during their lunch bell. October through February, I chose the session topics, many of which covered our new school-wide LMS Schoology. March was designated as a Teachers’ Choice.  

I sent out the pre-survey to see what teachers wanted to talk and learn about.  Most had no preference and were up for learning anything. There was one suggestion that really stuck out to me.  The person had asked if we could discuss technology in the classroom at our school.  Seeing as we rarely have a forum for this (the little time for PD is jam packed teaching and learning the designated topic) and this is the time of year we start deciding on software, hardware, etc. needs for next year, I thought this was a great idea. I sent out an email before Thursday with some question prompts to start the conversation (below).

• What has worked really well for you in your classroom (lessons with tech, tech tools, etc.)? Why?
• What has not worked well for you in your classroom (lessons with tech, tech tools, etc.)? Why?
• What are some hardware or web tools you would love to use if we had it or a subscription/license to the site? Examples:
  • Movie making software?
  • VoiceThread?
  • Piktochart (infographics)?
  • Games/simulations?
  • Hardware?
• What hardware/web tools and software on your tablets do you use frequently? What aren’t you using very much?

Both lunch bells had some great ideas and feedback, and I think it was a much needed session and overdue conversation. We started off the Lunch & Learn watching a few clips of Adam Bellow’s ISTE 2013 Keynote (started at 38:35-39:44 and 44:25-50:00).  There were a handful of requests from teachers for subscriptions and licenses to different web tools and sites.  There was feedback about some of the current tools we have that can be passed on to the companies.  There were philosophical discussions about how to use technology in the classroom, what types of activities are really making the most use of the tablets with students, and how much is too much?

One of the teachers who attended suggested creating a list of guiding questions for teachers to use when planning their lessons to best incorporate (or not to use) technology. She emailed me over the weekend to let me know she started working on the list!  I think this is a great idea, and I’m looking forward to seeing what she came up with.

While I didn’t plan on using one of the Lunch & Learn sessions to essentially just talk, I’m really glad someone suggested it.  It created a place to have conversations where there really was no formal space before.  It also allowed myself, the Director of Technology, the Principal and the Director of Curriculum who each attended both sessions, to learn more about teachers wants and needs related to technology in the classroom.  I’d say this Lunch & Learn may end up being the biggest success of them all!

How do you create a space for teachers to have this conversation?

Tech To You Later!
Katie

Busy as Can Be? Time for Online #EdTech PD!

Cheesy, I know.  I can’t help myself if there’s a good rhyme to be made!

Photo taken by Al Camardella Jr.

If you’re reading this from my part of the world, you’ve had more snow days than you can count, too. And it’s only the beginning of February!

Mix that with retreats, conferences, calamity days, Digital Citizenship Day, make-up games, tutoring students, meetings, teaching, grading, the other 300 things on a teacher’s plate each day, and oh yea, your personal life… and where in the heck do you have time to fit any educational technology professional development?

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been holding monthly Lunch & Learns, where teachers bring their lunch to the library to learn about (or refresh their memory on) something edtech. We’ve had a session on tools for collaboration in the classroom, DyKnow,  and every other month is dedicated to our new LMS: Schoology. Based on availability and pre-existing events on the school calendar, there would have only been a couple of weeks between the January and February Lunch & Learn sessions.  I just couldn’t add that additional stress to people, or myself, right now in the midst of the overwhelming schedules and make-up schedules. I couldn’t cancel the February session either.

What to do?

In the spirit of the students using Schoology to make up snow days, I decided to put the February “Lunch” & Learn (Schoology Analytics and Student Completion Rules) online in the teachers’ Schoology PD course. I still sent the pre-survey to teachers, asking them to complete it by a certain date, so I could have the material ready based on their needs. I took a screencast of the usual presentation and how-to’s I would have shown on a big projector screen.  At the points I would have normally had teachers stop to do something on their own tablet (tablet PC), I asked teachers to pause the video and do the task themselves in one of their Schoology courses. I included the normal links to resources and added a discussion board for them to ask questions and share experiences since they wouldn’t have the opportunity to discuss face to face.  I also included a brief online screencast “tutorial” of the course. At the end there was a five question quiz to make sure teachers had actually “attended” and understood the content. Finally, the session ends with a post-survey as always.

Lucky for us we had another snow day and I was able to get everything posted and made available to the teachers a day early. Instead of one lunch period on a certain day, they now have the entire month of February to complete the session and receive credit for “attending” the Lunch & Learn. There have been about 15-20 out of 45 teachers attend each face to face session thus far.  Nine people have already completed the online session, and they still have three weeks to go! I’ll have to wait until the end of the month for the feedback to gauge how well this format worked for them.  If an overwhelming majority really liked this format, it might be something to think about for the future.  At the very least, I hope it alleviates the stress of making another meeting during this busy time while still getting the same PD time.

Click to view the screencast how-to overview of the online session on screencast.com.

The video Lunch & Learn session:

Have you taken or prepared an online edtech course before? What did you think?

Tech To You Later!
-Katie

Experts in the Trenches: Teacher Led EdTech PD

This year I decided to implement a new plan for teacher edtech PD to try to accommodate their schedules as best as possible.  I came up with the monthly Lunch & Learn idea, and so far it’s gone over pretty well!

Word cloud of teachers’ pre-survey responses about what features they currently use in DyKnow

Today was our January session. We focused on revisiting DyKnow, which is very versatile software that we have on all student and teacher tablet PCs. Most notably, DyKnow allows teachers to view and “monitor” students’ tablet PCs in real time and control (or “block”) which student applications they choose for that particular lesson. It does a lot more than monitor and block, though. Our teachers were all trained on this software a while ago, but haven’t received “formal” training as a refresher in a while.  It’s always good to refresh!

This Lunch & Learn session was called DyKnow: More than Monitoring and Blocking.

I asked one of our experts in the trenches, math teacher Jack Kaniecki, to take the lead during this session because he uses a lot of the interactive features with his students on a regular basis.  He did an incredible job, and I wish I had thought far enough in advance to video record this session for those teachers who were unable to make it.  Duly noted for next time.

Prior to this session, Jack and I met a couple times to discuss what he would show the teachers.  He taught me a couple new things about DyKnow during these demo sessions- thanks, Jack!

As always, I started out by sharing with teachers the results of their pre-survey, so they know why I chose to highlight certain features.  To see those results and the Prezi that was used during the presentation, click here.

Mr. Kaniecki leading teacher edtech PD.
Photo credit: Ellyn Whiteash, school photographer

I made a Lunch & Learn class in DyKnow and added Jack as the instructor.  I made six new student accounts and added each “student” to the new course in DyKnow.  Teachers teamed up with at least one other teacher to use the tablet PCs that were already set out and logged into DyKnow as one of the six new “students” and took on the role of students in Jack’s classroom. Jack was able to show his teacher view on one projector screen and interact with the “students,” just like he would on a normal day.  While interacting with one another, Jack walked them through how to do/set up each task. I had set up a resource folder in our Schoology PD Course ahead of time with links to instructions and videos for each of the tasks preformed during the Lunch & Learn (and then some), so teachers can refer back to them at a later date. While Jack had his tablet PC projected on one screen, I had the Prezi with the corresponding how-to instructions up on another screen.

Mr. Kaniecki leading teacher edtech PD.
Photo credit: Ellyn Whiteash, school photographer

Between the two of us (mostly Jack) and some input from other teachers, we went over how to use the following features: filter URLs; submit, collect, grade, send back and retrieve students’ panels; send polls; use the “private ink” to avoid writing over students’ work; embed a web page on a panel; place students in groups and work on group panels; and the chat feature- whew!  I haven’t checked out the results to the post-survey yet, but judging from the interaction, engagement, and “ohh’s!” from the teachers, I’d say it was a pretty successful Lunch & Learn.

I definitely plan to utilize more teachers in future edtech PD sessions, especially after todays session seemed to have gone over so well. After all, they are the experts of their content area in the trenches with the students day in and day out!

If you’re interested on other Lunch & Learns I’ve put together, click here.

How do you utilize and encourage teachers to lead edtech PD sessions at your school? If you use DyKnow at your school, please share your favorite feature by commenting on this post.

Tech To You Later!
Katie

Lunch & Learn: Teacher EdTech PD

Since October, I’ve been putting on monthly Lunch & Learn PD sessions for teachers.  December was dedicated to tests and quizzes in Schoology (our new school-wide LMS).

As usual, I shared the results of the pre-survey I send out to teachers a week before each session.  I use these surveys to see what teachers are already doing with the tool(s) we’ll be discussing at the Lunch & Learn and what they want to learn. I share the results for three reasons.  First, I want teachers to see why I’ve chosen to cover certain areas of the tools (based on their responses).  Secondly, I want teachers to see I am taking their input into consideration, so they will know I value their time and opinion.  Lastly, I want them to know where they stack up compared to their colleagues, and see that they are not alone if they aren’t a technology wiz.

Before we began learning anything, I had the teachers take a “pop-quiz.”  This six question quiz included one of each of the six question types you can add to a Schoology test/quiz (multiple choice, true/false, matching, fill in the blank, ordering and essay). It was truly more informative to highlight the question and answer options.  I also wanted them to experience the students’ perspective when taking a test/quiz.

Once they had become familiar with all the test/quiz options, we discussed the possibility of using the “test/quiz” feature for interactive and in-class assignments.

We quickly looked over question banks and how to grade the quizzes (questions that don’t grade themselves), and then they had the rest of the time to start building a quiz (or an assignment). As always, I wish we had a little more time so they could have gotten a full quiz (or assignment) built and saved into a question bank.

To check out my Prezi presentation for the Lunch and Learn, click here.  To read about October’s Schoology assignments and discussion boards L&L session click here; and to read about November’s collaboration in the classroom L&L session, click here.

How do you use your LMS’ test/quiz feature as interactive assignments?  What do you think of online quizzes?

Tech To You Later!
Katie

Collaboration in the Classroom: Teacher PD

The second session of my Lunch & Learn series took place today.  It was the session I was most looking forward to in the whole series- Collaboration in the Classroom: Tools for Student Collaboration!  This session focused on Google Docs, Linoit, Skype and Wikispaces.

As always, I began with a pre-survey of teachers’ current use.  I asked for three pieces of information to plan the 50 minute sessions.

1. Describe what collaboration looks like in your classroom.
2. What tools do you currently use for student collaboration?
3. What do you hope to get out of this session?

I made word clouds in Tagxedo out of the first two questions, which I included in the Prezi for the session to share their responses.

Based on feedback from the first session, I wanted this session to allow more time for teachers to get their hands dirty and use the tools.  So I started out with a brief introduction, and then had them dive right in!  I had Tablet PCs set up all around tables, each labeled with the tool set up and signed in on that machine.  Beforehand, I had created multiple accounts to be used during this session (three accounts for Google Docs to simulate three students, etc.), so we didn’t have to waste time creating accounts, logging in, and getting set up.

Teachers had about 20-25 minutes to explore the tool in front of them with a few other people in their group (“tasks” for each tool are listed at the bottom of this post under each tool). I walked around to help groups when needed, but for the most part teachers were really able to just dive right in and start exploring. There was even a person across the library, so the Skype group could actually practice Skyping.

We came together for the last 15 minutes of the session, and I asked each group to share what they had found out about their tool.  I filled in the blanks to make sure the big points were touched on.  If I had more time I definitely would have rotated each group, so they could have all tested each tool before coming back together to share.  So far, the post-survey responses seem to be in agreement that teachers would have liked more time on this topic and they all learned something they will apply to their classes- YAY! I heard a lot of “let’s meet to set this up for my class…,” which is music to my ears!

I provided resources for each tool in our PD Course in Schoology for reference at a later time.  I’ve included some of that info below (with the exception of links to our practice examples).  I also gave teachers all the test account log in information, so they could play around with it on their own if they wanted to do so before diving in and setting up their own accounts.

Google Docs
What to do:

• Edit the email document
  • Use the chat feature
• Add info to spreadsheet
  • Find sum and average years of teaching experience
• Add a slide to a presentation
  • Make a comment on a slide
• Create new Google Doc
  • Share it

Google Drive home
Google Docs in Plain English
Google Docs Tour
Tips Every Teacher Should Know About
Google Drive/Docs Help
Sync Google Docs with Schoology

Linoit
What to do:

• Post idea for using Linoit with students or coworkers
• Send post by email
• Post a picture or video

Linoit Home
Sign Up for Linoit
Linoit How To
Tips, Tricks & Ideas for the Classroom
50 Ways to Use Linoit in the Classroom

Skype
What to do:

• Video call other Skype Team
• Do a Mystery Skype
  • Use the location in the Mystery Skype folder to answer questions
• Find a lesson or guest speaker from the Skype in Edu website you could use/bring to your class

Skype in Education
How Do I Join Skype?
Download Skype
See Skype in Action
50 Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom

Wikispaces
What to do:

• Participate in the discussion on the home page
• Access team page and add to the table
• Make a new team page
  • Add “Widget” to new page
• Edit About McN page
  • Add a fact
  • Make a comment

Wikispaces Home
Wikis in Plain English
50 Ways to Use Wikis
Wikispaces Help
Getting Started with a New Wiki

To check out the Prezi that describes and highlights each tool, click here.

What do you think of this format?  How have you used these tools in your class?

Tech To You Later!
-Katie

Lunch & Learn: PD Reflections

You’ve seen, heard and read it everywhere: teachers need ongoing technology professional development.  That’s where my job, and might I note one of the favorite aspects of my job, comes in.

But where is the time?

On a quest to provide teachers with more edtech PD at my school, I tried to figure out a way to fit this into their ever-growing, never-ending schedules.   Inspired by my time working in higher education at NKU, I came up with the idea to host Lunch & Learn sessions.

Teachers were invited to bring their lunch and eat it in the library for some light learning or review of a topic and a chance to discuss the tools with teachers from different subject areas.

I loved seeing the teachers help one another and answer each others questions.  It was a great chance for them to hear how teachers in different departments were using the tools- something that doesn’t normally happen.

The first session was dedicated to our new LMS Schoology. I wanted to make sure teachers were able to use some basic tools with a lot of functionality and uses in the classroom.  We went over setting up assignments and discussion boards, using the audio feature to add a whole new element to discussions, submitting assignments and discussion board threads as a student and ways teachers can use these two Schoology tools in their classroom.  I wanted to see a lot of discussion amongst teachers, and I was pleased with what I saw.

In order to tailor the sessions to the specific needs of those who wanted to attend, I sent a pre-survey via Google Forms.  This helped me shape the precious 40 minutes that I had with them.  Afterward, I sent another survey in order to make sure all the following sessions are just as, if not more, helpful.

I go back and forth about the option to offer these sessions twice per month: one session for beginners and one session for more advanced users.  On one hand, I want everyone to feel like they’re getting something out of this. And on the other, I want to offer teachers a space to converse about what they’re doing on opposite ends of the building.   All in all, I’d say it went pretty well. I’m really looking forward to the next L&L- I’m going to use a totally different format.  I can’t wait to share about it!

If you want to check out my Prezi that I used to guide the discussion, click here.

What do you think?  Do you like the idea of Lunch & Learns?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Tech To You Later!
Katie