Ted ED & Daily Tools

I've been looking for something that works as a small, interactive supplement to some of my lessons, and Ted ED is it!

Ted ED short videos are the perfect warmup for students, as well as a quick bite for students who finish up before others and have available technology.

These general links for educational purposes can help any teacher add multimedia to their classroom.

And while not TedED, this is the first video that pulled me into the TED Talks videos. Enjoy. ;)

VR & AR in Education

I'm including this video at the upstart because most of my kids can afford nothing, and the school does not have access to VR tech at any level.

However, we can salvage cardboard, find scissors, and about 75% of my 8th graders have phones. The Cardboard method is the way to go.

Some teachers are using VR like this, but in my classroom, it would look like this:

• One day of awesome, hands-on work creating their own cardboard frame.
• One day of checking out apps - and making sure they were appropriate.
• One day of finding out where we can go with it, like Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
• One day of using and sharing our experiences.
• One day of discussing what we found - and how we could improve on it.

I'd love to gather information and links from the students through Google Forms to help the students reflect on what they saw and did.

As to the appropriateness of the availability of different apps, Common Sense Education has some excellent information about what the research says about VR in the classroom. For me, it would be an excellent way to pair hands-on creativity with technology that my students have never before seen.

Citizenship: Footprint and Reputation

Not just students, but every single one of us needs to know how our actions online - whether on a computer or tablet or smartphone - leave a trail that lives forever.

It wasn't always that way. Growing up in the '80s, we could be goofy with our friends and even foolishly inappropriate with only our memories left to show for it. With today's always-on generation, social media and ubiquitous smartphones have made it easy and accessible for anyone to post anything online, and the internet never forgets.

I've given this talk before to students, as well as business professionals. Everything you record or do online is searchable, and we need to talk to students as soon as possible to make sure they understand that.

Obviously, potential employers and potential colleges will want to see what they are doing online, but the laws have still not caught up to the technology, and some employers demand logins because there is no law against it. So even if you have everything hidden online, it can still be uncovered.

And it's not just potentials, but current employers and current colleges are looking at what people are doing online, and losing a job or scholarship because of a tweet is almost commonplace these days.

The ability to communicate with others in this day and age is an amazing spectacle to have been able to watch unfold, but we all have to be responsible with it, or we reap the consequences.

Maker Spaces

Maker spaces for the always-on generation? Kenton County Public Library's space is perfect!

The expert showing us the VR ropes

We got to see a 3-D printer in action (my own design of a chair printed out), Virtual Reality explained and demonstrated with some of the other students in class, a laser cutter, paper cutting, and some available video equipment.

We all get to see what they see, though only in 2D

The VR was the most impressive of the grouping, offering everything from games to remote travel, seeing things we might never get to see in person.



In practical matters as an ELA teacher, I can see my students working this space into several projects of their own.

With the VR, they could experience places around the world with literary significance, like visiting the castle that the novel Dracula was based upon or Shakespeare's Globe Theatre or Thoreau's cabin.

Using the pixel builder and app, students could create characters from Lord of the Flies and build a short game representing one of the scenes in the book.

With the wood-cutting laser, students could design and build small, wooden models of scenes of novels like Dimmsdale's confession in A Scarlet Letter. 


With the imagination of any student, these available tools could turn into anything, and by introducing the tools and stating only that they use something to present a project, we give them both voice and choice.

And while unrelated to ELA or the Maker Space, I was fascinated that the library also lends out robust telescopes. I'm going to have to think on that a bit, but I'm sure there is a way to work that into a lesson too.

Final Reflections

Driving Question:

How can we, as future educators, create technology and media infused learning experiences to engage students in authentic ways?

Need to Knows:

• How can we deliver instruction without being a distraction?
• How do we use technology for our content area?
• How do we bring things kids are using now into the classroom so that they are learning to create authenticity?

Did we answer the Driving question?

The driving question was thoroughly covered, in much more detail than I had thought possible. As a tech person for the last two decades, this was an awesome experience.

Did we answer the Need to Knows?

Technology can certainly be a distraction, but if we monitor it, it can and should be a game-changer especially in differentiation. I learned how to incorporate technology in ways I never would have imagined in an ELA classroom - including Maker Spaces, of all things. And by bringing in real life interaction as well as student voice and choice, we create genuine authenticity.

Practice the Most

For an ELA classroom, the most practical aspects of our explorations in technology for me was the dynamic nature of the hyperdocs. My students are not 1-to-1, and getting access to a cart or lab is not always guaranteed; however, I do have a Smartboard hooked into my computer. 

The most intriguing part was the final project. While we do not   

Still Need to Explore 

This is the always-on generation, and for us to imagine that there is not a constant need to maintain awareness of the technology space and how quickly it changes would be folly. Our students at times can be more adept and thoughtful about what tools are available for their use, and the closer we are to the technology, the better stewards we can be for their minds and growth.

Specifically, I need to look more into 3D printing and how it would be applicable to an ELA classroom. I need to develop plans where the Maker Space becomes a part of the process for them. I've seen my students fully engaged with just a sheet of paper and markers because so much of an ELA classroom is simply reading and writing. Being able to get them into 3D modeling and more intriguing crafting options would truly enliven the classroom experience for them.

Plickers.com Screencast: Formative Assessment

When we're looking for new ways to use technology efficiently, but don't have every student on a computer, the choices can be limited. A teacher friend of mine recently mentioned plickers.com, a way to perform quick formative assessments with instant feedback that logs for constant teacher data while getting solid student interaction.

I decided to take a look and set up an account. This is a quick video of what to expect during setup:

While the walkthrough of the setup shows some of the nuts and bolts, this short video speaks to the "how it looks" piece of the equation. We can use this tool periodically during the process of teaching, clump it into an entrance or exit ticket, or give a whole quiz in this manner.

How does it feel to the always-on generation? I have not yet implemented this yet in my classroom (I still have to set up a Remind account to remind myself to set up a Remind account), but what I have seen from other educators is very positive. The students don't directly interact through technology, but they do get instant gratification in immediate feedback right in front of their eyes. This system is ideal for a classroom that is able to use something like a Smartboard, but has not yet implemented a 1-to-1 system of Chromebooks or other devices; the kids still get a quick reaction, the teacher gets logged data, and it's something interesting and unique.

The obvious downside would be the need for a student to keep track of a piece of paper - and the teacher to keep a stock of 2-3 spares somewhere. But the front-load of rosters and printouts is well worth the ability to track data on all your students. And it's free!

1-4 Reflection: Underserving Our Society

Students need to learn reading and writing above all; without basic reading and writing, they can do little else in any other topic, and they will struggle in life. On top of that, they must be computer and technology savvy, and not just how to text or use game apps, but to truly understand deeper levels of using and creating tools with available web-based programs as well as the proper etiquette associated with usage and communication.

I think the rewiring of the brain to be more dependent on instant gratification and multimedia, but the loss of the normalcy of face-to-face interactions is the saddest aspect of this evolution. For education, it means that students will be more familiar with doing a chat on their devices where the stream is at the front of the classroom than having an actual conversation or discussion. However, it also presents an opportunity to us as teachers to push in the other direction to diversify their experiences.

Kids are wired to shorter and shorter attention spans every day due to the instant gratification of social media, texting, and world knowledge at their fingertips. If we cannot make our teaching not just multimedia-oriented, but cut down into bite-size chunks, we will not hold their attention for very long, and the process of learning will be lost.

Digital learners certainly prefer a more multimedia experience as opposed to the slow dissemination of information from a podium. Students are constantly on a screen bouncing between websites and apps and texting and email. If we can engage them in the classroom in a way that more closely mimics their daily lives, they will find the interactions more familiar, more meaningful, and more dynamic than a single talking head.

Some of the real challenges we face - especially in low-SES areas - is the gap between the digitally conscious and those that cannot afford even the basics. Most students will have a cell phone; it is communication life and breath. But many students do not have families who can own or even understand basic computer usage while we force them into computer labs to take standardized tests without a single typing class. In today and tomorrow's wordspace, if we are truly aiming to mold our students into functional and competent members of society, we are underserving them without a base-level 1-to-1 system.

Engaging Our Students

Engaging our students through technology in meaningful ways starts with the "meaningful" part. If we have access to technology that holds the ability to enhance the experience for both the teacher and student, but we waste it on the same purpose in a different form, we have failed both ourselves and the students. For example, using a Smartboard as a fancy overhead projector does nothing to enrich our lessons or diversify the presentation for anyone. We must use what we can to create a better level of understanding. During one substitute assignment, we were working on grammar - subordinate clauses to be exact - and using a Smartboard, I was able to create a sentence in two parts with separate punctuation pieces and physically move the same sentence into two different positions, pulling the comma into the corner for the form with the clause in the second position.

Technology is especially relevant in the realm of Language Arts. This isn't just a class where we read novels and write essays. Language Arts is truly an interactive and multimedia experience for us as teachers - and especially for our screen-addicted students. Audio excerpts from To Kill a Mockingbird and video clips from "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and musical lyrics which can now hold the weight of a Nobel Prize need to be rolled into lessons on a daily basis.

It goes without saying that we need to truly understand the extensibility of the technology to which we have access, but we also need to understand the technologies our students are working with on a daily basis. Are we playing Fortnite and Clash Royale too? Are we using Twitter and Snapchat? What else are they using? What else are they used to? How can we choose from our options of possible technologies in order to be closer to their experiences?

Technology is used every day by our students, generally 3-4 screen hours per day. They are already masters of technology in some ways, but so very naive in others. While advancing their understanding of apps and web-based forms of communication, productivity, and creativity, we, as mentors, must be able to educate them in the dangers of social media as well. I've given talks from 5th grade to business owners, and the gravity of that topic has rarely sunk in. I'm hoping that with a year-round classroom I can bring up that topic at every opportunity - with a Language Arts tie-in, of course.