All good things must come to an end, they say. This is exactly what happened to Google Expeditions. For years, we were able to transport learners from the classroom to Antarctica, the Roman Colosseum, under the sea, AND to outer space. Those possibilities no longer exist in an easy to access and deliver way. Many tours were moved to Google Arts and Culture, but being about to provide guided tours using VR headsets are a thing of the past. Sure, they can explore on their own, but we lost the ability to guide students through the exploration and discuss what they were seeing. With Expeditions we could also see that our students were with us using the targets and seeing all of the student icons in the target area. If you know, you know.
In my role as a creator of content, I am perhaps the most sad about the loss of the Tour Creator application that allowed teachers to create custom guided expeditions and learning experiences for students. An added benefit to this was that STUDENTS could also create those tours to show learning. It was a multi-faceted creation tool and was accessible for them! With the loss of Tour Creator, we lost an opportunity for students to move from consuming virtual reality content to creating it. With COVID-19 limiting in person virtual reality experiences due to shared equipment and some students lacking face-to-face access, the need for virtual travel has changed, yet in some ways, it has become more important than ever! Sure, there are 360 videos at YouTube - and it would be great to use those. BUT the YouTube app for iPads which would allow for viewing in a headset viewer, is 17+ in the app store. That means it is a big NOPE for our schools. Then there are the recent changes with age restrictions for YouTube videos and third party apps, so it is possible students wouldn’t be able to even view them if they did have access to the app. The struggle is real. The obstacles are always changing - just when you think you have one figured out, another gets thrown in your path. Well, not today! Currently, I am exploring VR creation tools for teachers to use - I have not found any robust ones for students - available for free - and that makes me sad. I put together THIS list. Here I documented tour creation tools for teachers that detail what each tool allows the creator to add. I covered Google Arts & Culture and YouTube for places to go to find and use ready made items (consume), but my focus in my October professional learning offering was on creation! I shared the following tools: Panoform, StorySpheres, 360schools, and Thinglink - whichis my absolute favorite! Granted, there are other tools such as Round Me that I like for creating 360° tours. However, in my current district, they have deemed the site risky since it is communicating with Russian servers. I can get to the site https://roundme.com/ but can’t log in. So the list above only contains sites that are accessible within our district’s filters. Here is my recent presentation on 360° of Engagement - Consuming & Creating 360° Experiences for Learners. Included in the Create section are links to samples created to demonstrate what each tool can do, So while Google may have dropped Expeditions, our journey has not ended. As with any good journey, we have to see obstacles as a chance to try something new. On to the next adventure!
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Working in a district with Chromebooks. - YAY!!
District restricted updates - BOOOOOO!!! But I get it. Just super glad that over the summer our OS was updated. Now students can annotate PDFs without the need for external tools. They can scan QR codes without needing an external app on the Chromebook. They can now create a screencast using a built-in screen recorder - a few less steps than using our larger recording tool, We Video. They can capture and annotate images also. I put these together to help teachers help students take advantage of some of these new changes. I always strive to keep these tip sheets to one page. They are not the prettiest, but they are functional and will surely be updated as students try them out! Here are the 2021-2022 Chromebook tutorials. I’m keeping my eyes open for other new features our students will be able to access soon - when the next round of updates rolls out! I will add any new tip sheets to that folder linked above. The journey never ends! And just like that, the 20-21 school year ended. I think. Just like everything else this year, the lines are blurry. While end of grade state tests were being administered in classrooms, the digital learning team was getting everything ready for Tech Camp ‘21. This year, we were 100% virtual. As the pandemic wanes, and even though our desire was to hold this event face to face, the virtual platform provided a means to increase attendance. Our team facilitated and led sessions on topics ranging from eSports to Self-Care and Resiliency. We even had a panel discussion to talk about what we are taking with us as we move forward. Led by our superintendent and teachers and principal of the year, Their takeaways about transforming school in a pandemic to post-pandemic structures were insightful and excited us all for the version of school yet to come! Almost all sessions were teacher led and allowed for conversational learning at times. We provided magic moments and enabled discoveries to help teachers leave for summer excited about what they can do in August. Overall, the feedback was positive as teachers had the flexibility to join the sessions from wherever they were AND they could watch the recordings. It always amazes me how technology can transform experiences. Tech Camp ‘21 wasn’t any different for the teachers. They’ve been attending virtual sessions since the pandemic began. There had always been a tech camp (the what) but by changing the how (all virtual) we shifted the why from because I have to show up to because I want to learn. Very similar to what we did for our students when COVID entered our world in March of 2020. And then our team changed directions on a dime.... As soon as Tech Camp was over, our team dug into getting things set up for summer school. From rosters to applications, our team did all of the behind the scenes stuff. Through our Clever portal, students and teachers have access to the many applications our district pays for - during the year. Everything magically and marvelously syncs with our Student Information System during the school year. But in the summer, the digital learning specialists become the magicians! It’s a little like being one of Santa’s elves.
We tracked down data, created rosters from the provided lists of students, we customized sharing rules and worked with our vendor partners to work out the kinks - and there were many - to make sure that when teacher and students went to their Clever portal, and clicked on the application they needed, it would work! We uploaded new enrollments and changes daily, we continued to have conversations with vendors and Clever to troubleshoot and resolve issues that came up. In conversations with teachers, they remarked that the access to Clever and the applications they, and their students, were used to using helped make the experience easier. So while what we did in June alone may not really be magical, more hard-work and diligence, the fact that transitions were smooth and our stakeholders remained, for the most part, calm, I’d say the results certainly were. PS: Magic is exhausting. I will only be adding a new post every other month for a while. I hope everyone has a great school year! PROBLEM: The Twittering of our district was limited, or if it was more widespread, it lacked unification. Also, Twitter chats had been tried, but never really took off.
SOLUTION: We knew we needed to start with us - the Digital Learning Team. We landed on a hashtag - #BCSEdChat - and started using it. All the time. We’d quote tweets from others in the district (and beyond) and add the hashtag. RESULT: Others started to use it, too! We created a BCS Twitter challenge - yes, it looks like the one I made when I worked in another district. It was hugely popular there, still it! However, I have updated this one to include a series of days that focus on classroom impact. Yes, Twitter is great to get teaching ideas, but it is also great to teach your students about the reach of a tweet to get answers and input from experts in the field so-to-speak. Working with my awesome teammates, we put together a website for teachers in our district to refer back to after our Tech Camp ‘21 presentation: bit.ly/BCS_Twitter When I presented on this topic at tech camp, the focus was on being a connected educator AND teaching students about responsible use of social media by modeling it! There were many Twitter newcomers, so the session really focused on tips for getting started, but the presentation was peppered with questions from participants. Will it make a difference? I've already seen a little improvement with the number of teacher tweeters in the district. Our team would like to offer a Twitter chat, possibly at the beginning of the school year, and see where this journey takes us. After spring break, and our second COVID vaccinations, we were allowed to get back to our usual school visit rotations. But, we were also deep into planning for our Summer Tech Camp and gearing up for Summer School! But, being spring - the second grade life cycle study was underway! Chicks were incubating in classrooms across the district and students were learning about butterflies. So, I put together an activity for teachers to share with their students and created two versions of the finished product: one in SMART Learning Suite Online and the other in Pear Deck! These are both designed to be done in Student Paced mode, which both platforms offer. Check them out!
Here is the one for SMART Learning Suite Online https://suite.smarttech.com/share/bfd52045-df86-444b-bf98-4f882e79dc55?_ga=2.166363191.804164053.1620323743-499137217.1599593216 Here is the one for Pear Deck: https://sharepeardeck.com/ly6qku Pretty soon ... Spring has sprung! Playgrounds however are still not fully a-buzz with children playing. With schools still limiting social and community activities, this meant no Easter Egg Hunts as students and teachers looked forward to in the days leading up to spring break. I received an email from a second grade teacher who was lamenting this, but she was determined to offer some form of it to her second graders. She often used the Egg Hunt to review math facts. She pondered doing something digitally and reached out to see if I could help put something together. “Of course!” I said. I masked up, and stopped by early one morning to pick up some math problems she wanted to make sure were reviewed. We discussed using a modified Escape Room format and then, I went to work! Armed with the math practice guidance from the teacher, and the request for a virtual egg hunt, I took my query to Pixabay to see what images might inspire this activities overall character. Enter Jasper, Felix and Mel I found a series of equally vibrant images - all free to use - as I perused Pixabay. And as I searched, the story developed. The premise: The Egg Hunt had been canceled, but the teacher had a set of math activities for them to complete! Each section told more of the story. Answering the questions had students relying on not just the math skills, but also reading. Specifically: using text features to understand content. The activity included a digital Eggs-it ticket that could be modified by the teacher ahead of time and printed if need be. It included a completion form at the end to receive the secret code the eggs-it ticket asked for. It also included four main activities: 2 math review games, a draggable word problem puzzle, and a set of math tasks that revealed a pixel art image if the problems were solved successfully! I used WordWall to create the custom math review activities. Each designed to encourage competition, individually. The goal being to get better with practice and have their own “best time” and “high score” to report. Inspired by posts on Twitter, and not wanting to use the same old puzzle creating tools, I opted for a custom drag and drop activity. Using the cropping tools in Google Slides, creating the square pieces was a cinch! Then, with a few adjustments to the image order, I was able to place the square pieces “in” the basket. Once assembled, a word problem was revealed for students to solve. This activity is linked and set to force a copy for each user when clicked. But, the pièce de résistance was a custom pixel art activity, inspired by a post on Eric Curts’ blog, Control Alt Achieve. Check it out for yourself here: http://bit.ly/BCS_EGGcited Due to COVID clusters in my district, the Digital Learning Specialist visits to the schools we serve had been limited after winter break. As each of us visits multiple schools each week, our director didn’t want any of us to 1) be labeled “super spreaders”and 2) be exposed to COVID and not be notified. <-- Lemons!
We spent February teaming up to offer professional learning opportunities for teachers and meeting with them virtually. <--- Lemonade! What we Taught: Since our district recently purchased Pear Deck and many of us were planning on providing some getting started sessions in the coming weeks, we started there! But instead of each of us leading independent sessions, we joined forces to create some mind-blowing PD and resources for our teachers. We also shared about other district resources such as SMART Learning Suite Online and our new Be Cyber Safe program of mini lessons. What we Learned: Well, for starters we learned more about the tools we were sharing. Each of us had nuances and tricks for using the different tools - so we learned from each other! We also learned that we really LIKED teaching with each other and planned to do more of this in the coming weeks/months of this pandemic.
A few months ago, I wrote about Pear Deck. One school had purchased the Premium version for all staff. It proved to be a game changer with remote learning for the teachers that had access. This month, the boss informed our team that she had purchased this for the ENTIRE district for the next three years - and that they were giving us the rest of this year for free!
This month found us (the Digital Learning Specialists) working from our offices. Meetings only allowed via Zoom or Meet. As teachers were up to their eyeballs with students, we worried that our services would not be utilized. We. Were. Wrong. With this announcement of Pear Deck, we dove in and created resources to help! First up - http://bit.ly/BCS_PearDeck This site was the compilation of all of the questions we were being asked. And - it will kick start the professional learning opportunities of February. We are Pear-y ready! What a year it has been.
This time last year, I was struggling. I knew I needed a change. I love what I do, so I knew I didn't want to stray far from that. I was preparing for a job interview in a district that would have required a move for my family. The district was one that had made a significant investment in digital learning, so I was excited about possibly working with those that shared similar passions. I didn't get the job. Yes, I was disappointed, but the person that did get it was without question a better fit. Life goes on. Then, on a Saturday afternoon in March, along with every other educator in my district, I listened as the governor closed school buildings down effectively immediately. No chance to regroup and continue planning as we were doing the day before. It was go time. The way the district handled this - the district where I worked at the time - was pretty crappy. No clear guidance. No regard for the folks that actually were doing the teaching. Way too many direction changes. Things had been stressful before, but now - I knew staying was going to kill me. I loved working from home. I met with people via phone and Meet or Zoom. The level of support I was able to provide did not skip a beat! But there were things going on behind the scenes that I could not allow myself to blindly accept. I was ready to leave education entirely rather than be a part of what was going on in the department where I worked. Then, a friend sent me a text. He knew I was actively looking for a change and suggested I apply for a job that he noticed had recently been posted in a neighboring district. I applied. Even though being an outsider would make my job more difficult, I am very thankful the district took a chance on me. I was able to leave the drama behind. You know what? So did about eight other people from the department in the months that followed. So 2020 may have presented everyone with many hurdles, for some of us, it provided new opportunities. Here's hoping that 2021 will be even better. To piggy back on my last post, I need to reiterate that investing in the tools that make instruction easier for teachers and more enjoyable for learners is something that makes a noticeable difference. Now, more than ever before, districts that have invested in tools - and training - are having a less difficult time with remote instruction. Notice I said less difficult...it is still difficult, but having access to digital learning tools helps.
My district is able to offer access to SMART Learning Suite Online as one more way for teachers do prepare and deliver lessons that are perfect for remote learning! While I usually do mini-lessons on using this, I offered some official professional learning on this tool at the schools I serve this month. One elementary school scheduled it for all staff during PLC meetings - THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING BREAK! Talk about a tough audience. Knowing that we were headed into the holidays and another school closure could be imminent due to COVID-19, it was vital to make sure they know how to use this tool to create engaging lessons for both face to face instruction and if they were forced back into all remote for a bit. (Our elementary schools had come back in Plan A in early October.) I totally scrapped the resources I had used previously - I knew I had to up my game for these sessions to be effective. In the time allotted, I had teachers join a SMART Learning Suite Online session that I had created so they could see it from the student perspective while I showed them the teacher view. Especially the ability to monitor work and collaboration of students in real time. I then gave them the remainder of our time together to give creating an activity or lesson a shot while I was there to support them and answer questions. We did all of this in thirty minutes. It was a success! The end result was THIS site. I broke the presentation into three distinct parts. and gave them a place to head back to as they worked on creations independently. My favorite part was the Menti they completed as their exit ticket of sorts. Each left an idea for how they could use this tool - check it out at bit.ly/BCS_SLSO. |
AuthorJeannie Timken Archives
March 2023
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