Wow! I mean Wowzers! A lot of action is happening in our district, including a grant that Julie Youskievicz, 1st grade intervention specialist at Vermilion Elementary, recently received to pilot a personalized K-8 math program called Wowzers which can be explored at http://www.wowzers.com/. Not only did she apply and receive the grant, she also reached out to her fellow educators and offered to set up the free pilot for their classes as well.
Student Profile Reports
NWEA MAP testing is heavily underway and now there are interactive Student Profile Reports available to teachers which provide even more detailed information about what each and every one of our students knows and is ready to learn. The student profile reports have the potential to be instrumental for planning as well as an invaluable tool for student conferencing and goal setting. Check out the introductory tutorial about these reports here:
Kami
Useful tool alert! The Chrome extension Kami, located at the Chrome web store, allows for the easy mark up of PDFs reducing our use of paper and getting those reluctant writers interacting with our documents. Plus, if used in conjunction with Google Classroom, it streamlines work flow a hundred-fold. So save some trees, student headaches, and your valuable time! Install it on your Chrome browser today and encourage your students to do the same. No administrator password required.
Perusall
Allison Hinkel, 7th Grade ELA teacher at Sailorway, and I are exploring the free website Perusall (http://perusall.com/) which requires students to actively interact with a text and respond to each other rather than reading in isolation - the former being a superior alternative shown to enhance learning. Better yet, it provides us with confusion reports so we can see at a glance concepts and ideas from the text our students struggled to comprehend! Simply upload a PDF file into Perusall and highlight the excerpts you would like students to comment on or answer questions about.
Thinking Out of the Box with BreakoutEDU
Looking for something completely different and fun that will enthuse both you and your students? Try a breakout session from BreakoutEDU! I did one of these with my computer science students about encryption and it was a powerful learning experience that infused hands-on learning, history, authenticity, and content. Other teachers that have used a breakout lesson and have reported positive learning experiences are Leia Gentile and Angela Dewitt for 7th grade social studies and Becky Jessen for Honors Biology in 10th grade. Additionally, this lesson variation has been introduced in staff meetings at both VES and SMS. Nikki Dekam, 6th grade social studies, and I have an ancient China lesson in the works and are implementing the breakout session next week with her classes. If you are interested in investigating the lessons available, visit http://www.breakoutedu.com/games/. Here is a snapshot of how the breakout went in my computer science class:
Makey Makey
Andi Askins, art teacher at Sailorway, is providing high-tech choice to her students involving an upcoming art project using Makey Makeys, electronic devices that can turn any conductive material into a keyboard.
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| Yes, even bananas can be made into a keyboard! |
Swivl
Our resident educator teachers in the district have been working tirelessly to submit videos of their teaching to the state for their licensure. So, how have they been able to teach their accomplished lessons and videotape themselves at the same time? The Swivl, of course! The Swivl is a robotic base for a smart phone or tablet, such as an iPad, that follows the motion of the teacher, recording both audio and video. The videos captured on the Swivl using the Swivl Capture app automatically upload to the cloud and can be saved on a laptop or uploaded to a YouTube account. I'm looking for a few brave souls that would like to share a few minutes of a favorite teaching strategy using the Swivl or that would like to explore the Swivl Recap app to gather student feedback. Any takers?
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| Swivl device. |
Sailor Sharing💜
Sailor Sharing is yet another one of my desperate attempt to unite us in collaboration as educators across the district. You have been invited to be a contributor of this Blogger site, so if you were wondering what that invitation was . . .
Please consider taking a moment - and yes, that is all it takes - to share the learning going on in your classroom with a wider audience. It could be a post no longer than a sentence highlighting a tool, site, strategy - you name it - you found helpful. The Sailor Sharing blog can be found at http://sailorsharing.blogspot.com/. If you need help posting, you know where to look👀
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