Category: Classroom management
Remote Learning: Tips for Thriving in This Ecosystem
Anyone who attends online classes or any sort of remote learning knows it’s different from traditional classes. To thrive in this environment requires a mindset that appreciates the pros and adapts to the challenges. The folks over at San Diego Virtual School (SDVS) have put together a list of quick productivity tips on how to excel in this increasingly-popular learning environment:
Remote Learning Productivity Tips
Studying and working from home will share a lot of overlap when it comes to staying productive. It’s a completely different environment than being in a traditional school and it will require a much different (and stronger) level of discipline to stay successful in your studies.
So what can you do to stay on top of your lessons and ensure that you’ll be productive throughout your years of education when going remote?
Use a Clean and Organized Study Space
Studying remotely means you get to customize your study space in any way you want. It’s important to have a space that you’re comfortable in, but you also want it to be as clean, organized and clutter-free as possible. This helps keep your mind clear, and allows you to avoid unwanted distractions.
If at all possible, try not to have anything on your desk that isn’t related to your studies.
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Teacher Support in the Digital-Blended Classroom
Technology remains–still–a love-hate relationship between teachers and teaching. Yes, it enriches learning but at the price of too many problems, preparation required, and confusion. I like Felicia Zorn’s summary of how that go-nogo decision really has become ‘get with the program’.
Teacher Support in the Digital-Blended Classroom
Growing up, my generation did not use verbs like ‘Google’ or proper nouns such as ‘Siri’. We were the pioneers of the digital era. We played Oregon Trail, asked Jeeves questions for our research, and waited for hours while Napster downloaded our favorite songs. Now, children are digital natives. Children as young as two are utilizing tablets, exploring the apps on smartphones, and accessing knowledge via the internet. How do we as educators keep up with this trailblazing generation who can navigate technology at breakneck speeds? Or better yet, why should we integrate online learning into our classrooms? There are countless strategies and resources at your fingertips, but this article will spotlight the importance of digital teacher support for your blended learning environment.
Digital resources can save teachers innumerable hours of planning, grading, assigning, and assessing in the classroom. As online resources develop and create more curricula, teachers will transform classroom dynamics by devoting less time to lecturing and spending more time enriching and mentoring. Rigorous, standards-aligned content is uploaded daily to educational websites, apps, and test banks. Most online assignments are auto-graded and scores are sent directly to a digital gradebook for teachers. Assessments can be altered with settings to meet the needs of all students with a few short clicks.
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New Year, New Mindset
Every year, I make New Year resolutions and ignore them. I don’t promise to fulfill them. I don’t even check my progress and revise as needed. I make-and-forget, check it off the New Year’s To Do list and move on.
This year, I’m trying something different: resolutions that aren’t quantified, that won’t take extra time from my too-busy schedule. Resolutions that will, instead, are more about my teaching mindset. Here’s my list:
I will learn one new tech tool a month
There are so many. I get massive lists of webtools, websites, apps, extensions, and links in my inbox, mostly proclaimed as “the tool I can’t do without”. Every month, I’ll pick one and try it.
Just to be clear: Today’s tech ed tools aren’t like they used to be. The ones I’m interested in are easy-to-use, intuitive, easily differentiated for varied student needs, and free or inexpensive. Anything that requires a time commitment to learn and buckets of creativity to use is off the list. My schedule is too packed for that sort of commitment. And, I’ll unpack them with the students, authentically, as part of a project we’re doing. An example: I use Padlet to curate and share projects. Instead, I’ll use Tozzl at least once.
To get me started, would you add a comment with your favorite tool — the one I should start with in January.
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169 Tech Tip #112: How to Open 2 Gmail Accounts at Once
In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.
Today’s tip: #112–How to Open 2 Gmail Accounts at Once
Category: Email
Sub-category: Google Apps, Classroom management
Q: I have a home Gmail account and a school one. How do I open both at once so I can keep track of what my kids/home business/etc. is doing while at my teaching job?
A: I got this quick answer from efriend and tech guru Chris Hoffman: Open each account in a separate browser. It has to do with each browser keeping its own cookie.
Stepping back a moment, here’s why you might need this:
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169 Tech Tip #99: Need Email Accounts for Registration? Try This
In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.
Today’s tip: #99–Need Email Accounts for Registration? Try This
Category: Email
Sub-category: Webtools, Problem-solving, Classroom management
Q: A lot of web-based tools require email verification. Many of my students don’t have these at school or home. What do I do?
A: This is a lot easier than you’d think. Gmail ignores anything that comes after a + in a username. JonDoe is the same as JonDoe+thinglink. Use that to your advantage with student accounts. They can use your email address and append their name with the +. You can even set up a filter to send all those + emails to a separate folder so it doesn’t annoy you.
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What is #Unschooling?
The first time I read about Unschooling, I ignored it. Surely, it was a fad that would go away.
When that didn’t happen and I read about it a thousand more times, I dug into it. Inspired by the teachings of John Holt (1923–1985), this free range branch of homeschooling promotes learning through nonstructured, child-led exploration. There’s no set curriculum or schedule; students learn what interests them with guidance from involved adults. There are no worksheets, tests, or structure to provide evidence of learning or templates for teaching. The children pick what to learn, when, at what pace. The result — according to unschoolers, is a love of learning, tenacity to a task, and independent thought that prepares them for college and career better than traditional methods. In fact, if you look at the list of traits valued in popular education programs such as Habits of Mind and Depth of Knowledge, the reasons why parents unschool their children mirror the traits included in these lists.
What is it
According to Dr. Peter Gray of Freedom to Learn:
“Unschooling parents do not … do at home the kinds of things that are done at school. More specifically, they do not establish a curriculum for their children, do not require their children to do particular assignments for the purpose of education, and do not test their children to measure progress. Instead, they allow their children freedom to pursue their own interests and to learn, in their own ways, what they need to know to follow those interests. They may, in various ways, provide an environmental context and environmental support for the child’s learning. In general, unschoolers see life and learning as one.”
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Highly-versatile, Easy-to-use Form Creator–and it’s free!
Everywhere outside of the education industry (which seems to focus on Google Forms), JotForm is the gold standard for creation of forms whether on PCs, Macs, or mobile devices. It can be used to sign up volunteers, get feedback on events, enroll people into classes, ask for donations, or collect payments. A JotForm can even show different questions based on what a user answered in prior questions. Its drag-and-drop interface makes building it intuitive, quick, and easy. With a wide variety of themed templates, it’s easily adaptable to any need. Once the form is completed, it can be shared via a link or social media, or integrated into DropBox, Google Docs, and many other popular platforms.
Check this link. to see if you qualify for an education account that awards you a 50% discount on pricing.
How to use it
Set up an account and then decide if you want to start with a blank page or a template. Follow the simple drag-drop directions to build your form using predesigned name/email fields, text answers, multiple choice selections, drop-down lists, an image, an upload field (where students can send their work to you), or an input table. Format the form to meet your school theme or other design criteria using predesigned themes or one you upload from your computer. Collaborate with colleagues if desired. Share the completed form via a link or embed. Responses can be collected in a spreadsheet, the form itself, or other third-party integrations.
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4 Great Alternatives to Google Classroom
In today’s K-12 education ecosystem, most classroom management tools have moved online. This includes typical LMS (Learning Management Systems) functions like homework, classwork, schedules, quizzes, resources, and gradebooks so stakeholders–teachers and students–can access them from any location and any digital device. Because LMSs have a reputation for being complicated to understand and daunting to set up, lite versions that give up some of the robustness in favor of a more pleasant user experience have become popular. The first ‘lite’ option that most educators think of is Google Classroom. It’s easy to use, accessible from all devices, collaborative, and integrates with lots of education apps. You will find yourself most comfortable in the Google Classroom environment if the tools you use are aligned with Google Drive, your browser of choice is Chrome, and your digital device is a Chromebook.
It turns out there are lots of other reasons schools and teachers don’t want to use Google Classroom:
- It lacks many features that teachers want in classroom management such as syncing with popular non-Google apps and tools.
- If you have an LMS you love, Google Classroom often won’t work well with it because it isn’t well-aligned with industry standards.
- It’s only free if you have a G Suite for Education account.
- It’s not well-suited if you use Microsoft Office programs.
- It doesn’t allow a lot of customization. That makes it simpler to use but less adaptable to unique needs.
- It’s too “googlish”. Toolbars and symbols are easy to understand if you’re into Google, not so much if you aren’t.
The biggest for many people: Privacy concerns continue, despite Google’s efforts to put them to bed. If you’re looking for a non-Google Classroom alternative, here are four:
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft is late to the classroom management party but its Microsoft Teams is a worthy consideration. Its name doesn’t scream education though it is the sequel to the since-retired Microsoft Classroom preview. Once set up, the platform works hand-in-hand with OneNote Class Notebooks to provide a digital workspace where teachers can create collaborative classrooms, connect in professional learning communities, communicate with school staff, plan lessons, assign and grade homework, comment on work, and differentiate for student needs. Students can find and share assignments, receive feedback, and collaborate digitally. Overall, it offers similar features to Google Classroom in a different environment.
Free to schools who have Office 365 for Education, it is considered more user-friendly than Google Classroom by some while others disagree. What no one argues is that it works better with Office documents. If your school uses Word, PowerPoint, or Excel on iPads or PCs, this might be a better choice.
Kiddom
Kiddom is a free standards-based classroom management platform designed to help teachers curate individual learning experiences. Its pages are visual and easy-to-understand, intuitive to set up, and agile in their responsiveness to varied student and class needs. With its rich analytic features, teachers can quickly determine how students are doing and where remediation is needed. Because many of the statistics are linked to foundational detail, teachers can quickly dig deeper without having to click around trying to find where that particular data lives.
If you are a Google school, you’ll like that Kiddom integrates with Google Drive. Teachers can share docs, sheets, and forms directly with students without leaving Kiddom’s ecosystem. In fact, with Kiddom, you get everything you love about Google Classroom as well as the features only Kiddom brings to learning such as:
- the ability to plan, assess, and analyze via a free library of standards-aligned resources
- quick lesson planning using an integrated curriculum planner that can personalize instruction
- unlimited possibilities for student ownership as they submit work, track their own progress, and solicit feedback from teachers
- standards-based lesson plans which allow teachers to track completion of skills
- easy-to-read, actionable reports that help teachers understand individual student performance
- a flexible curriculum planner that allows teachers to modify individual student learning pathways
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169 Tech Tip #126: 7 Tips to Differentiate with Tech
In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.
Today’s tip: #126–7 Tips to Differentiate with Tech
Category: Differentiation
Sub-category: Teaching, Pedagogy
Here are seven ways to differentiate instruction every day:
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Tech Ed Resources–Certificate/College Credit Classes and Coaching
I get a lot of questions from readers about what tech ed resources I use in my classroom so I’m going to take a few days this summer to review them with you. Some are edited and/or written by members of the Ask a Tech Teacher crew. Others, by tech teachers who work with the same publisher I do. All of them, I’ve found well-suited to the task of scaling and differentiating tech skills for age groups, scaffolding learning year-to-year, taking into account the perspectives and norms of all stakeholders, with appropriate metrics to know learning is organic and granular.
Today: Classes
Ask a Tech Teacher offers a variety of classes throughout the year. These can be taught individually (through coaching or mentoring), in small groups (of at least five), or as school PD. All are online, hands-on, with an authentic use of tools you’ll want for your classroom.
Certificate
Group enrollment
The 21st Century teacher blends technology with teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. In this course, you will use a suite of digital tools while addressing overarching concepts like digital citizenship, internet search and research, authentic assessment, digital publishing, and immersive keyboarding. You will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, publish digitally, and differentiate for unique needs. Classmates will become the core of your ongoing Personal Learning Network.
Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.
Price includes course registration and all necessary materials.