Looking Back, Looking Ahead

The Best Take Aways

I have learned a tremendous amount from this class and have already starting many of the new sites, apps and resources into practice in my classroom and in the lessons I am making to help the teachers in my school. The most frequent new tool I have used is Flipgrid. I started studying how to use video in the classroom in Week 2 when I started making my presentation on Flipped Learning and then continued it in Week 6 when we took an app into the classroom. Since this time we have started using Flipgrid at least once a week for something. I am still working on managing the response time. Students are working to lengthen their responses, but it's getting better.  

The other resource that I am loving was something I found when we did our project with Twitter.  While I am still not a huge fan of posting on Twitter, I have definitely found a number of great resources by following people there, particularly the Google Teacher Tribe (GTT) Podcast. I listen to it each week on the way to work and then follow up with all their resources online. I'm considering trying to start a "podcast club" at my school, similar to a book club where we all listen to the GTT podcast and then meet to talk about what we like and how we could use the ideas in class.   I also found the Twitter chat surprisingly fun and helpful. I think I will definitely follow one of those again. 

What's Changed?

I think that I have made a lot of personal growth and gained a ton of knowledge because of this class. It has definitely opened me to new experiences and encouraged me to try new things in the classroom. It has been great to learn about some new websites and apps that I wasn't familiar with and also to see how other people have used them. I am still really excited to find ways to start incorporating blogging, podcasts, and more video into the classroom. I have lots of ideas about how to help bring some of our big traditional school projects to the 21st century.  

What's Stayed The Same?

I am not sure that I have grown quite as much in my sharing side. I am still hesitant to share on social media and prefer to maintain a small digital footprint. However, I am taking into account the argument that the absence of a professional digital footprint isn't necessarily a good thing. I'm still not convinced I plan to put a lot of information out there publicly, but I am definitely looking at it in a new light, and can see a value to have a professional web presence even if I keep my personal profile limited. 

Tech in School

This class has really helped me a lot in my new position this year. It has exposed me to websites and apps that I didn't know existed, shown me new ways to think about student learning, and really helped me to try to move my teaching to a new level. In Week 2 I analyzed the SAMR model and compared my teaching. At the time I put myself solidly in the Augmentation level, but I think I am definitely moving more into the Modification level, and part of my new job has me really helping teacher to do the same thing. They are much more comfortable moving from S to A to M when there is someone there to help them. I was nervous at first about this class and this position, but the last eight weeks have been really exciting and interesting to me, and made me really happy that I am embarking on this new career path. 

Flipping for Flipgrid

Flipgrid

Check out this screencast to see how to use Flipgrid.

What Is It?

Flipgrid is a website that allows teachers to post a question and students can respond via a short video with their answer. Student videos get posted to the 'grid' and other students in the class can watch their peers and respond back with either comments or another video. Videos can be no longer than 5:00 minutes. Teachers can watch student responses and leave feedback or reply via video. 

Benefits of Flipgrid: 

• It's interactive. Students get to respond to me and to each other either via text or video. 
• It's engaging. Students get to make a video and "decorate" with stickers and emojis. 
• It's easy to use for both students and teachers. Teachers can check for prior knowledge, get feedback during a lesson or hear student reflections after a lesson. 
• Allows teachers to hear from every student even if they don't like to participate in whole class discussion.
• Students can hear many different perspectives. 
• Opportunity to teaches digital citizenship.
• It's free. All teachers get one free grid.

In My Class This Week:

I started reading about Flipgrid earlier this semester when I was researching my EdTech presentation on flipped learning. My class is ELA and we do a ton of writing so I think that if students can  have an opportunity to get their thoughts and ideas across to me without have to write a paragraph or essay they are going to be thrilled. (However for my first 'real' assignment they are actually going to have to do both). I had students record a basic trial video introducing themselves and answering our "Would You Rather... Wednesday Question" via Flipgrid instead of on Google Classroom. For the first go-round it wasn't too bad. There were a few growing pains as we learned how to share the space so that everyone could be heard while they were recording, but it was their first experience and that's to be expected. 
We are going to do our first real assignment later this week. We are watching a tv version of the story we just read. After we finish watching the movie, students will respond to whether they like the book or movie version of our current story better. Traditionally, I have students write this as an opinion paragraph. I'm still going to have them write the paragraph because 1). they need the practice, but 2). I want to make sure they have good content in their video. 'The Would You Rather Responses' were a little light on details. I'm hoping if they prepare ahead of time then they'll give me enough information to show understanding. As we practice, this step will hopefully become less necessary.