I've been making a few screen recording how to's for colleagues during this emergency remote learning time, so I figured I'd start sharing some of them.
Psssst. I could've fit it all into one video but accidentally hit stop halfway through my Loom...so two parts it is!
Also to be honest, I hadn't used the Bookmark much yet, because I usually already had my links, photos, etc. up that I wanted to put on my Wakelets. But I was just helping a friend with a tech question, and we tried it out. It will show items you recently saved to a Wakelet and/or Wakelets you recently saved made by others.
0 Comments
This year was my second ISTE. It was a bit less overwhelming than last year, but ISTE is still is hands down the most intense, all consuming, and exhausting conference I've ever been to. That said, you learn so much and can connect with tons of people. My brain is spinning with ideas still. Here were my highlights from this year:
Equity forum
ISTE sent out an email a while back that I think either went to all members or all registered folks for ISTE 2019 about applying to be a part of an Equity Action Forum. This took place for a few hours on Sunday morning and was facilitated by Jennie Misong Magiera, a panel, and several other co-facilitators. Before the work began in the forum, the panel gave some amazing pieces of advice for equity work. These are quotes and paraphrases of some of what they shared:
Then Jennie outlined our work for the day, we brainstormed with tables about what's inequitable in education, had each group submit their top three, facilitators posted them around the room, we walked around and stood by the one we wanted to commit to, and then met our group and dove into setting meeting dates, talking about our equity issue, and starting to brainstorm on that focused topic. It was an amazing and well planned whirlwind. I had a tough time choosing, but I ultimately decided to continue the work I've started this year about support LGBTQ+ students. (At some point I should also write about what led me to that work...so many things I need to write about...and never enough time...) There's still ground myself and my building need to cover to progress, and I am starting a GSA in my building this coming year. how a twitter chat works
Most Twitter chats kick off at their designated time zone (pay attention to the time zone) and last for 30-60 minutes. This style of chats are often fast and furious depending on the spacing of questions and number of participants. Everyone is responding to questions at the same time and in real time.
A designated host (or co-hosts) tweet out questions discussing a specific topic often in a Q1, Q2, etc. format. They also use a pre-decided hashtag to help folks find the questions and the answers. You might see folks mention a Twitter slow chat. Slow chats are asynchronous. The questions and answers are typically spread out. Often times this is someone posting a question per day over a week with people responding when they can, or they might post all of the questions at once with people responding throughout the week. The timing of how the questions come out is really up to the host and their goal. how to participate in a twitter chat
Last Spring, I had a 5th grade Humanities teacher approach me with an idea she had for students to do a National Park research project that would ultimately involve them using a green screen to make it look like they were filming at their park of choice. She was looking for some recommendations for apps for the students to use on their iPads and for a way to have them turned in. We are getting ready to tag team kicking off this project for the second time, so I'm digging back up my notes and such from last year and thought I'd share.
I selected VeeScope Live and TouchCast Studio. Both were free, user friendly, effective on iPads, and would accomplish the goal. I explained the pros and cons of each and demonstrated how to use them to the class last year and will again sometime this coming week. (TouchCast had more bells and whistles but required an account and parent permission due to age reqs. VeeScope had less bells and whistles but didn't need an account and was super simple.) Here are my notes I saved of information to demonstrate and as a reference guide for folks that needed reminders: GRA is what you want it to be...I do encourage you to check out the resources that are out there others are sharing, not be afraid to go off the beaten path and to allow your class to get sidetracked with their questions and interests, and try something new! So in one of my last posts, I talked about why I love Global Read Aloud so much and ways to have authentic audiences and connect with others. In this post, I want to focus on some of the technology tools that can be used to supplement any of the GRA 18 texts with or without a partner class.
What is the global read aloud? The Global Read Aloud was started in 2010 by Pernille Ripp with the goal of having "one book to connect the world." Since 2010 over 4,000,000 students have participated! Different books are chosen each year for different age levels. (Here are the 2018 choices. Each spring, Ms. Ripp finalizes the list of contenders and opens it to the public to vote.) During 6 weeks in October and November, teachers all over the globe read their chosen book aloud to their students. Those classes also have a lot of opportunities to build or find opportunities for global connections and collaborations. My entire school participated last year. Our 5-8 building read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. This October we'll be doing it again school wide with Refugee by Alan Gratz. I am an advocate for this program and what it can do for: building classroom/school community, developing global awareness, fostering global collaboration, providing authentic audiences, and developing sympathy and empathy in our students. It is a game changer. It can revolutionize how your kids think about the world around them and the people in it. It is a game changer. It can revolutionize how your kids think about the world around them and the people in it. How did I find collaboration partners and authentic audiences? ISTE put out "4 ways to attend ISTE 2018 virtually - pssst, they're free!" a couple of weeks ago. The article has some good suggestions, but as someone who has personally been an active participant in the #notatiste community the past two summers, I want to share the tips and tricks that have gotten me the most out of ISTE without being there.
I will get to attend ISTE this year and won't have time to actively participate in the Not at ISTE community this year due to that, but I will do my best to tweet out resources and information from sessions/speakers I attend using #iste18 and #notatiste. Anytime, Anywhere After recently writing about Ditch Summit and after having time to try out Microsoft Education a bit more, I want to share about some professional development and online certification opportunities that can be done anytime and anywhere. I know I've already mentioned how to become Flipgrid Certified, which might have actually been my first online certification with educational technology. I know that several other educational technology platforms/softwares/etc. have similar certifications. (Side note - some of those cost money, and personally I feel like they should all be free. Now I realize some of them are only $10, but educators are already buying PD books, school supplies, etc. out of our own pockets. Plus if educators like your product and see it positively impacting their students, they'll spread the word to other teachers. Why charge a fee? Needless to say, I stick to the free ones.)
Let me preface by saying that Ditch that Textbook Digital Summit ends in 4 days on Dec. 31! So if you're reading this before the videos go offline, head over there ASAP to view the ones that call out to you. (You can always go to Matt Miller's main site too after his summit is over.)
Online professional development can be such a great way to learn from the comfort of our own homes. I typically prefer in person PD and conferences, but sometimes those aren't in the cards (like when I was on maternity leave and taking care of a newborn this past summer). Plus online PDs can broaden your horizons, as they're sometimes national or global in scale. I started getting into online PD back with EdCamp Global a few years ago (they've since changed their name to EdChange Global), and then I got into EdCamp Voice and NotAtIste the past two years. I would highly recommend all 3 of those and have learned from each of them and plan to participate in them again. All three of them are highly interactive and have so many options for how to be involved and what you want to learn about. These interactions also provided me with so many new, amazing educators to follow and connect with via Twitter. These online PDs also introduced me to some of my favorite educational technology tools that I still use (Flipgrid, Piktochart, Canva, etc.) as well as expanding my thinking and creating open dialogue around topics key to education. That being said, I find webinar-esque PD to be rather hit and miss, and recently I stumbled upon a tweet by a fellow teacher in my district about Matt Miller's Ditch that Textbook Digital Summit. I figured I could listen to some of them during some of my holiday season driving, and I'm SO glad I saw that tweet. At the time I'm writing this, I've already listened to 4.5 of the 9 (I need to go back and finish some obviously). I want to dive into the two that have stayed with me the most so far and some of my takeaways. |