Make your presentations interactive!!

Once upon a time when presentations were from the "sage on the stage," I was satisfied with a PowerPoint or Keynote I had saved on my computer or USB and presented to a group of people, be it my students or other teachers. Rarely was I asked to share it, although it was a very huge email attachment! Fast forward just a few short years and I'm more interested in creating presentations that can be interactive and more easily shared...what better way to know your audience is engaged?

I chose the following four presentation programs because they could be used on any device and they are free.

Sway

People are calling Sway the alternative to PowerPoint. The more I explore, the more I'm itching to try it out and let my students use it to show their learning. It's collaborative and has some interactive aspects, such as the way charts are viewed. There is also an option to "remix" already created Sways. Hopefully my students will be collaborating on presentations with Sway this year.

Nearpod

Once you explore the Nearpod site, you can see that there are many options for interactive presentations. Teachers can "remix" already created presentations as well as run reports for students, and could easily be used as formative assessment. This is the presentation I'm hoping to do as a Get to Know you activity, as a BYOD incentive for my class.

Google Slides

My method of choice in the classroom has been primarily Google slides. Last year, I had hoped to make it interactive by students adding comments and/or editing slides, however due to my students not yet necessarily participating the way I had hoped, they are mostly informational and help me keep track of my lessons. Here's an example of the first one I made last year. It is very text heavy, I realized later in the year the students much preferred the information in the text book, so I began using the presentations to help me keep track of lessons and resources. This is the last one I made. It is possible to make Google Slides interactive and I'm hoping I can do more of that in the coming year. I found this great lesson on how to do that.

Smartboard Exchange

Last year I had a panic attack when I realized I had a mounted Smartboard in my room. Although I have yet to create my own lessons, thanks to the generosity of teachers posting lessons on the website, I have a few USBs full worth of lessons that I've either remixed or used straight off the site. There are countless games and activities and opportunities for learning.

Sample letter about the flipped classroom

Since we do the bulk of our online work on D2L, this is the type of assignment I would give to my students on a discussion forum. The intermediate students at our school are allowed to bring their own devices, phones are the device of choice for most, with one or two with iPads, laptops and/or surfaces. Any student that wasn't able to watch this video at home, would be able to watch it at school on their own device. For this assignment, students could write, type, speech to text, etc.

Last year as an intermediate division we had an issue with homework completion. Whether it was Math practice work, research, watching a video or posting on D2L, there were a handful of students that didn't do their homework. I would spend the bulk of my recesses and lunches catching them up, or I would have to show the video again in class, while those that had done their work did enrichment tasks. Or if they did complete the work, it was far below the expectations and success criteria simply because of lack of effort. As a divisional team, we are still struggling with how best do address this, not just for flipped classroom activities. My teaching partners assured me it was the age, but in turn, I reduced the amount of "homework" and increased the amount of "classwork" and I told them the harder they worked in class the less "homework" they would have. This worked really well with my group last year and I foresee it being the same with this coming group, as I have taught them before in the past. For this activity, I would probably group them in homogeneous groups eventually and I would work with the small groups to develop and self-assess their questions.

I really struggle with the idea that, for example Grade 7 students should be doing 70 minutes of homework a night when they just did a full day of school. Granted, if they are not using their time at school purposefully, or if they need to review concepts, "homework" is ideal. Having two young children at home, I know my husband picks them up from the bus, rushes home to get dinner ready, they usually play during that time. I arrive after my long commute, we have dinner and then it's the bed time routine. They are only in Grade 2 and SK, but I don't know where I would fit in time for "homework." Of course, should there be homework I would ensure they completed it. Hopefully my parent community would see the value of this activity and my students would be able to easily meet my expectations.

Sample flipped lesson:

Dear families,

In an effort to maximize our lab and collaboration time in class, I'm asking that you support our Science students by allowing them to watch Science videos at home. I usually provide the students the slide show for the unit in advance and I add points, thoughts, and questions that come up during our time together. Please refer to the big ideas and overall expectation of the unit, as well as the content from the textbook.

The textbook is a wonderful resource, but since Science is all around, I like to include current events and local issues in my lessons and that is possible with your support.

First up, please watch The Water Brother's Episode - "Water in all the Wrong Places." The video is about 26 minutes long, as you watch it, students need to be writing down thoughts/questions/connections to water issues in Ontario. Please write down the time on the video as a reference. Remember to pause the video as you write down your question/note. It is much easier for students to do this independently as not all students would have to pause at the same time, which would be the issue if we watched the video together during class.

Example: 0:58 What are the fruits/veggies that California exports to Canada?

Once you have finished watching the video, circle the questions you think will lead to the best discussion. Please reference the questioning circle as you hi-light your best questions. We will be using these questions during our discussions throughout the unit.  Please have the questions completed by the beginning of class next Tuesday.

I will be assessing the following expectations during our discussions in class:

3. use appropriate science and technology vocabulary
   use scientific inquiry/research skills to investigate local water issues
   investigate how municipalities process and manage water

Thank you for your continued support!

Your partner in education,

Mrs. Skibinski

Unit Slideshow

Did you know...D2L and the OERB

The OERB, one of the best resources around for Ontario teachers!

If you try to log into the OERB and you get this screen

https://resources.elearningontario.ca

You may need to contact your local school board to gain access.

But if you are already using the D2L LMS and you log in using this screen

https://hcdsb.elearningontario.ca/

you are already have access to all the wonderful resources available!

Embedding OERB content

As mentioned in this previous post, the D2L LMS, also known as elearningontario, gives great opportunities for differentiation. I like using the interactive learning objects in the OERB as stand alone activities for my IEP students. Here is an example of how it can be embedded into a widget or discussion.

I had the pleasure of working with Mr. Iaoce for a CODE project last spring and he mentioned to me he had some lessons on YouTube for loading content onto D2L so his links are below as well.

Mr. Iacoe's OERB video
Mr. Iacoe's content video

He does it a bit different than my video above. I would imagine that if you download any units from the OERB into a file, you could follow the second video to load it onto D2L.

There will be more posts coming about using ministry content in the OERB for your D2L. I was once asked if you could have access to this content without having the students log into D2L, unfortunately my short answer was no, because once I started using D2L and realized how easy it was to give my students engaging content, I didn't look for another alternative. Have you used the OERB resources without using elearningontario?

Being open to experiment with blended learning

I've gone from being extremely excited and enthusiastic about blended learning to being completely on the verge of giving up. My biggest lesson was as with anything in education, what worked well with one group of students, may do quite the opposite with another. As mentioned in this previous post, blended learning continues to have its ups and downs for me, but it's important for teachers to give students a voice and choice in the way they blend learning. The following examples are available through D2L, which is the LMS supported by my school board.

Primary - Grade 1 Math

A simple search in the OERB led me to this activity. The link will work for you if you have access to the LMS through elearning. I did not use the LMS when I taught primary, but I also didn't use much online content (shock!) at that time. I've seen primary teachers use D2L as their one stop shop, for videos, ministry content, other links such as Prodigy and Dance Mat. 

This example would enhance learning and teaching as it would give students extra review of Math concepts, at home or at school during a centre. I've also used activities from the OERB with IEP students who have a modified program and embedded the learning object right into my D2L widget. If I conditionally release the widget to just that student, no other student will be able to view it.

The following examples are from a presentation I've shared about getting started with blended learning using D2L.

Junior - Grade 5/6 Lit Circle discussions

My class two years ago loved doing lit circle discussions online, possibly because both D2L and lit circles were new to them. They were very engaged, did their work in class and I assessed it as part of their reading comprehension mark. I envisioned them going online at home and discussing the book, but they would usually work on it while I was doing small group instruction. The discussions can be conditionally released to just that group. I would pop into the discussions and give them focus questions and/or feedback about supporting their ideas. Although it could be done face to face, it made everyone's thinking visible and they were also able to more confidently build on each others ideas, especially for those introverted students.

Intermediate - Formative Assessment and Peer Feedback

As mentioned in this previous post about my writing process last year with my grade 7s, using D2L dropbox for writing tasks gave me the opportunity to provide timely feedback all year. Towards the end of the year we experimented with peer feedback in the discussion forums. The example below is how I modelled the revising and editing process, but my students were able to give each other excellent feedback and I was quite pleased with the final products.

Blended learning has been the best thing that's happened to my teaching practice and I hope I continue to be supported by administrators and parents next year!

Parent Letter Regarding Technology

Dear families,

Welcome to our classroom! Some of you I've had the pleasure to work with in the past, some students may know me from rotary or my having taught siblings in the past, and the last group, well we are new to each other and I look forward to working with you!

This year I'm hoping to continue with a few initiatives around technology.

We will be using the Desire 2 Learn online learning classroom. This is a ministry initiated, board supported blended learning environment. In addition to submitting paper assignments, students will be encouraged to submit work online. There is also an opportunity for students to do practice activities and review concepts, especially in Math and Science. This worked very well in my class the past two years and I hope the students will benefit from it again. 

We will continue the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiative again this year. Parents and students will be required to sign and return the contract to me before students are able to use their own devices in class. Devices are for curriculum purposes only and there will be severe consequences for any student not adhering to these rules. As per the school Code of Conduct, students are responsible for their own cell phones and electronics and are to be locked away safely in their lockers unless otherwise indicated by the classroom teacher. I usually encourage devices during Science class. I look forward to showing students that their phones are more powerful than the world's first computer and that they possess all the knowledge in the world, in the palm of their hands.

I will also be posting updates on our class Twitter page, so I encourage you to follow us! I like to celebrate what we are doing in the classroom, but I will not post pictures of student work or faces unless I have permission from both students and parents.

Last year I signed my class up for Prodigy, an exciting educational game and a fun way for students to practice their math skills in class and at home. This game is very popular with students and I hope to continue to use it again.

The last week of June, the Grade 7s and I began writing a blog about the happenings around school. We may continue to collaborate on the blog with homeroom and Science classes. The blog can be found here and continues to be a work in progress.

New this year will be Google Classroom. We will not be doing this right away in September, but we will be working on collaborating on documents, slide shows as well as many of my lessons and assignments will be posted on D2L in the form of these documents and slides.

As exciting as educational technology is, please note that the primary medium to communicate with me is through your child's agenda or to call me at the school. Thank you for your continued support. We are teaching students the skills they will need in the 21st century in order to become responsible digital citizens beyond their formal education years!

Your partner in education,

Mrs. Skibinski

Created using Bitstrips.

Blended Learning - An Uphill Battle

As I'm feeling the burnout time of year, surprisingly enough, not because of interviews or progress reports or the looming reporting period just around the corner after Christmas break, but because my collaborative inquiry project is coming to an end.

We started blended learning at our school using D2L last spring, where 6 of 13 classroom teachers were able to try activities with their classes. I was teaching a group of 5/6s who were so enthusiastic about anything we did on D2L. Fast forward to this fall, I'm teaching grade 8s on rotary for Science who are very against doing anything online for me. For the most part, they have come a long way since September. I've tried everything, blogging, discussions, videos, posting my lessons online...Tuesday was a good day, they were all ready to do their assignment online, we were all on difference devices, all set to explore a density widget, and lo and behold nothing was working! I was so frustrated that I even used an overhead for the first time this year for my lesson on Wednesday.

Tomorrow, in the computer lab, with all the devices the same, I'm hoping my inquiry task will show the Grade 8s the value of blended learning. They are very much like some teachers who don't want to give technology a chance, because sometimes when you do, things don't go as planned and you have to go back to what works: pencil and paper, the overheads and the blackboard.

Lucky for them, going "paperless" has helped me give more timely feedback and stay more organized, so I'm not giving up! Wish us luck...