If you want to read about a great teacher both in the classroom and beyond, please read some of the comments on the link’s article about Bud Flaherty.
“I learned this lesson when I was 15… Material wealth means nothing, especially as you prepare for eternity, it’s all about your legacy and especially your influence on children. To me, you are a very wealthy man.”
On Friday, a colleague (Lisa Iaccarino, 8th grade team leader and English teacher) and I presented on how to embrace the power of our over-connected students at the Association of Independent Schools in New England (AISNE) conference entitled: “Making Connections: A Conference for Middle School Faculty.”
In the presentation we discussed how Schoology has enabled us to use the skills and tendencies that our students as they spend countless hours on social networks and mobile devices outside of school. By meeting students “on their turf”, we have found success and greater participation in class discussions and access to tools and resources for class.
Here is the link to our Prezi: http://prezi.com/nnou-ler3e5q/aisne-2011-overconnected-students-101411/
“Give more, expect less.”
Last winter in one of my graduate classes, my professor wanted us to try out a new social network called Schoology for one session to see what we thought of it. After trying it, we came to the immediate consensus that we wanted to switch our online discussions from Blackboard to Schoology. The Facebook style format was the first thing that drew my classmates into the site. The discussion threading was intuitive and easy to read but most importantly the overall feel of the interface was so familiar because it was almost identical to Facebook. Moving forward to the present, this fall I am going back into the classroom to teach 6th and 7th grade mathematics. Given the fact that I am lucky enough to teach in a school with a one-to-one laptop program, I wanted to find a solution that would seamlessly utilize the laptops for my students without disturbing the demanding curriculum. Below are the key ways that I am going to be using Schoology to connect my classroom this year: 1. Overall Class Organization 2. Quick Post Lesson Assessments 3. Discussions & Extra Help Another way to utilize the discussions feature is through the ShowMe App on the iPad. This app gives teachers the ability to create their own Khan Academy videos which can be then shared with their students. If you haven’t heard of it, the ShowMe App is worth checking out. 4. Analytics 5. Notifications These are just five ways that Schoology is going to connect my classroom in the coming year. There are many other features of the site that will enhance my class. Schoology has brought together how students communicate today with the security of a private social media network, creating the effective online curriculum organization that schools are looking for in a classroom management suite. Schoology – http://www.schoology.com
In an era where our students communicate mostly through Facebook messages, Twitter replies, and old fashioned text messages, we as educators need to find a way to communicate with them the way they know best. Many schools know that social networks can be utilized for this purpose but have privacy and legal concerns with teachers and students interacting on these sites. Schoology has proven to be the best compromise of meeting students on their turf while keeping both the students and the school safe on a social network.
Schoology provides the ability to organize all of your class materials online in folders for students to access when you let them. As the teacher you can create assignments, give online tests/quizzes, post files and links, create discussions, post photo albums, and create pages of content. All of this material can be organized in folders by units for the students. The teacher then has the ability to publish or unpublish content.
After a lesson, I want to know who “got it” and who didn’t. Schoology gives the ability to create quick online quizzes, which I plan to use as post lesson assessments. These quizzes will be less than four questions and will give me a quick snapshot of how many students understood the material that day and how well I did as a teacher. After taking the quiz, the analytics in Schoology give the teacher detailed information with minimal effort.
For mathematics, Khan Academy shows great promise in being an excellent way to give students another perspective on content. If my students didn’t understand the content when I taught it that day, I want them to get another perspective on the content. The discussions feature in Schoology allows me to post Khan Academy and other materials related to class that day, giving my students access to this content at home and hopefully a better understanding of the material.
All of this content and communication is great, but what if my students simply aren’t utilizing it? Schoology has a great analytics tool which allows the teacher to know when and how often students access virtually anything in my course. This is a great way to hold students accountable who need the extra help but are reluctant to access it.
Schoology now gives users the ability to receive notifications via email or text message on their phones for content on Schoology. This ties back to meeting students on their turf. Normally when a student creates a discussion thread online, they are unlikely to go back and check for responses later but now with notifications, they can choose to have updates emailed to them and therefore the conversation keeps going.
Khan Academy – http://www.khanacademy.org
ShowMe App – http://www.showme.com
Did Google finally get it right with Google+? Will this new platform be the piece that ties together Google Apps for Ed with a strong social media platform? Will people accept and adopt another social network? I’ve spent the past week testing out and exploring Google+. Let me start with my list of the positives: 1. Integration with Gmail 2. “Circles” 3. The ability to follow anyone 4. “Hangouts” 5. Google Chat 6. Automatic Mobile Photo Uploader 7. Potential for integration with Google Apps for Ed This is going to be huge and I can’t wait to see how they plan to integrate the two web services. 8. Feedback encouraged The accessibility and collective knowledge approach of Google during the testing phase and development of this network will be revolutionary in developing Google+ because it allows this diverse and talented field of testers to all have input. Now for where I would improve Google+: 1. Integration with Twitter 2. Adding friends 3. Google+ for the iPad
Now when you log into your Gmail, the task bar at the top has changed and Google+ notifications are built into the Google toolbar. The convenience of this is a huge factor in keeping you coming back to the social network. With so many people using Gmail as their email service, this integration will help bring more people to accept the network.
I love the idea of circles. One issue of Facebook and Twitter is that there is very little room for separation between family, friends and colleagues when interacting with these social networks. With circles, you have the ability to post the right content to the right audience, allowing you to combine professional and personal networks into one. Another great benefit is the ability to filter the stream using circles. This will become especially important once I start following a larger number of people in education or technology.
This is where Google+ took a page out of Twitter’s book. I find it fascinating to be able to follow virtually anyone on Google+. Most Facebook users will immediately think, “but what if I don’t want someone to follow me?” This is where the circles come in. You have the ability to set each post to “public”, “extended circles”, “circles”, any particular circle(s), or even by person. This allows you to have a public feed as well as private ones.
Although this can be done through other web services, the convenience and easy user interface of Hangouts on Google+ brings about some huge possibilities for education in particular. As I take my last graduate level course online, I have used many different collaboration tools from Blackboard to Adobe Connect and Schoology. Hangouts proves to be a contender to these tools, especially with the potential audience of users it can draw.
To be honest, I rarely use Facebook chat when communicating with others. Usually, the instant messaging I do is through iChat (Google Chat) because the people I talk to most often all use Google Chat. Having this integrated right into Google+ means I will probably use it even mor, since it’s right there and very convenient.
I wasn’t so sure about this feature when signing up for Google+ but I have found it incredibly convenient. This feature automatically uploads any photo taken from my Android phone directly to Google+. Immediately most people think of privacy concerns tied in with this, but I have found it very nice to not have to manually upload my photos. First, the photos are all uploaded and locked so that only I can see them unless I decide to share them. The reality is that the photos that I take on my phone are usually taken to be shared with someone via email or a social network, and this automatic feature just takes away one step in the process.
Dave Girouard originally shared this post: Can’t wait to get Google+ out to some of our Apps for EDU schools!
Dave Girouard originally shared this post: How would you like to see Google Docs play with G+? Let +Jonathan Rochelle and +Jeff Harris know!
If Google is smart, they will integrate a way to cross post or integrate Twitter into Google+. I know this could be a hard thing to do, but if users are given the option to combine two networks together, I think they will take it.
Google+ has a easy way to add users from your Gmail address book to the network and your circles, but it can be difficult to filter through old email addresses. My suggestion would be to have an easy way to hide unused email addresses or combine multiple addresses into one contact and choose a primary.
Although the iOS app is not out yet, I believe this will be a big factor for the brand new social network. The Android app is great and the iOS needs to be just as good, given that iOS is such a large market.
Today I observed the middle school cartooning club hard at work and I noticed something. There were six students in the room. Two of them were at the board using the markers and cartooning there. Three of them were at their desks using pencil and paper to sketch out their doodles and the final two were using the iPads to draw. Each student had chosen what was best for their style of drawing and was completely engaged in the activity. This brought me back to a conversation I was a part of this morning where we discussed what device is best for education.
Do we need to choose a device that all students should use in the classroom? Do some students work better with a small laptop vs. a larger laptop? Do some students work better on a Mac than a PC? Do some students prefer an iPad over a laptop to take notes?
Watching the students choose which way they wanted to draw in this club made me think more deeply about this topic. The idea of keeping things consistent in the classroom is key to integration. It makes lessons run smoothly without technology getting in the way constantly. The conversation should be less about which technology to choose and more about how it works to enhance the curriculum. For example, have a conversation around Google Docs. If a school chooses to use Google Docs for all documents, images, presentations, etc., any of the devices mentioned above would work fine with it (including mobile smart phones). Is that the best way to help our students complete their work and stay organized easily? In the end, the real question is are we enhancing the learning process for our students. Devices will come and go but choosing a platform for integration doesn’t necessarily have to go with them.
With so many iPads apps there it can be daunting to find which apps work best for education. I created a running GoogleDoc list of iPad apps, categorized them, and shared the list with the iPad users in my school community. Please feel free to add apps that you have found particularly useful on the iPad.
As you may or may not know, this is my 8th grade year. My school goes to 8th grade, so this is my gaduation year. It would be worth mentioning that I don’t have any nerdy friends at school. I’m the only nerd in the whole 8th grade. I have an iPad. I’m the only person in my class who has one (at…
So, you want to make your life easier? You’ve tried Google Docs but aren’t quite ready to give up MS Word or you need your students to submit files in other formats (pdf, jpg, etc.)? This combination could be the solution for you.
Dropbox is an excellent online storage and sharing tool which I have talked about in earlier posts but let’s assume that you aren’t able to have every student have their own dropbox in order to share files with you. JotForm is an easy web based form creation tool that plays well with Dropbox. In less than 10 minutes, I was able to create a simple homework submission tool (pictured above) that sends the attached file directly to my dropbox folder and even organizes each submission by last name.
The JotForm blog does an excellent job of explaining how it works and they even have a video explaining the whole process. I recommend checking it out to see if it could work well in your classroom.
Useful Links:
1. Develop a service which looks, acts and feels just like Facebook.
2. Make it safe and secure with plenty of administrative tools to keep it that way.
3. Add in a course/class management system that allows grading, analytics, quizzes and even attendance at the teacher’s disposal.
This is what Schoology brings to the table. At the end of last week, I was introduced to Schoology by my graduate school class. After five minutes of using it, I knew this was the solution I was searching for. I’m sure you are wondering what was so great about Schoology that made me believe it would be the right solution? The answer is purely the design.
Regardless of how “powerful” or “feature rich” a tool can be for use in the classroom, if it is designed ineffectively for the minds of today’s students, it can end up being worthless in the classroom. Sometimes (and actually usually) the most simple solutions have been the most successful ones when integrated in a classroom. This is because they do not detract from the content of the class or, more importantly, take away class time so students can learn how it works. This is why, in just 4 days, Schoology is now an integral part of @iaccaril’s 8th grade English classes. One of the most telling signs that it’s working is when you overhear students talking about Schoology and the conversations they had regarding the assignment last night while unpacking their bags in the morning.
I highly suggest trying Schoology for yourself. It takes the familiarity and design of Facebook and puts it in an environment that is perfect for classroom management (discussions, calendar, tests, quizzes, participation, etc.). What is my only wish for Schoology? Please develop iPad/iPhone and Android apps so students can continue the conversation on the go!
I forgot to mention the best part. It is free.
Web: http://www.schoology.com/
Twitter: @schoology
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/schoology
8th Grade English Teacher on Twitter: @iaccaril
and her blog: A Dorm with A View
