Connected Classrooms- Virtual Field Trips

Field trips are a valuable educational tool.  Students need to see curriculum they study in the classroom applied to real life situations.  With tight budgets, and high transportation costs, most teachers are not able to take students on as many field trips as they would like to.

Connected Classrooms, otherwise know as Google Virtual Field Trips, is a fantastic way to bring culture and experience from around the world right to your classroom. Interact with virtual field trips in real time, or view them later at your convenience at no cost.  

Participating in a virtual field trip in real time gives your students the opportunity to ask questions and have them answered on air by the experts!  Field trip hosts often post valuable resources on the field trip page that can be used for extension activities either before or after the field trip.

Virtual field trip videos are posted after the live event ends so you can access them anytime!  Field trips are available in the subject areas of Art & Music, Science & Nature, and Social Studies.  Topics range from sea vomit to holidays at the White House.  This tool is sure to bring any topic to life.  Access Connected Classrooms via the web at http://connectedclassrooms.withgoogle.com/#.

Google Forms for Education

Google Drive can be a very valuable tool in education. Many School Districts are currently getting on the Google bandwagon by creating accounts for their students and educators, which makes using Google Forms a practical decision. Google Forms is one of the powerful resources Google provides.  This simple tool can be in a plethora of ways.

 Educators can use Google Forms as a way to help students dig deeper into their learning.  Whether the student is creating the actual survey, taking the survey, or analyzing the results, they are gaining a deeper understanding of the curriculum.  

Teachers can create quizzes using Google Forms. After the students have taken the quiz, the teacher can quickly grade the quiz using the add-on Flubaroo.  Flubaroo takes about 3 minutes to set up, which saves hours in correcting and analyzing time. Flubaroo averages the question results, gives a total score and average per student, and will even email the results to the student. 

Google Forms are also a great way to interact, communicate, and get feedback from parents. What better way to ask for parent volunteers for a field trip, class party, or class rotations than building a survey?  Teachers could create the form, email it out to parents, and then look at the responses.  This not only saves trees, but it also saves class time by not having to pass out and collect papers.

There are many ways that Google Forms can impact Education. I have only mentioned a few.  Take a look at ­­these websites to learn more about the possibilities of Google Forms:
Google Forms for Teachers- A Must Read Guide
80 InterestingWays To Use Google Forms In the Classroom
4 New Ways to Use Google Docs Forms with Students
10 Great Free Google Forms Every Teacher Should be Using

Using CSDDocs to Support Writing

     With End-of-Year testing approaching, I am finding creative ways to assist teachers in third, fourth and fifth grades, to practice and enhance writing skills using technology.  With all teachers and students in Canyons School District having access to CSDDocs, I found it most appropriate to utilize this tool in teaching writing skills.  I am working with my teachers and their students, at Willow Canyon, East Sandy and Quail Hollow, on ways to incorporate writing throughout their curriculum using CSDDocs. To begin, students are creating an electronic writing journal and sharing the document with their teacher.  The teacher can then help the student edit their work by using the 'comments feature' in CSDDocs.  This journal allows a quick write format and can be done as a whole class or in small practice stations in the classrooms.  The next step in scaffolding instruction, is to have students read an article and write a short essay, using facts from the article and then type in in CSDDocs.  The final step I am supporting my teachers is sharing articles through CSDDocs and having their students read the article, highlight information that will be used in a writing piece and to edit their final project.  These steps will be used to help support what the students will be expected to do on the End-of-Year Testing and to further develop their writing skills.  Below is the training piece I am using to incorporate Reading Street into this process:

Mini Lesson and Quick Write for Fluency (Day 1):

Step One: Electronic Writing Journal for Quick Writes

Step Two: Provide feedback to guide editing process using comments feature

*Question of the Week, ELL Poster, Read Aloud Anthology, the concept talk video

Retelling: Think Critically (Day 3):

Step One: Electronic Retell Journal for Quick Writes

Step Two: Provide feedback to guide editing process using comments feature

Let’s Write It: Different Genres (Day 3)

Step One: Electronic Write It Journal for Quick Writes

Step Two: Provide feedback to guide editing process using comments feature

Additional Steps: (Vary) Follow guide and rubric from Reading Street Teacher Manual

Unit Writing: Guided Practice to Produce a Published Piece (Writing Guide in back of manual)

(Plan and Prewrite, Draft, Revise, Edit, Publish and Present)

Part One:

Step One: Gather printed sources to use as a reference to create a four square graphic organizer- practice highlighting

Step Two: Use four square as a graphic organizer to type an essay in CSDDocs

Step Three: Provide feedback to guide editing process using comments feature

Step Four: Students edit essay in CSDDocs and Publish

Part Two:

Step One: Provide variety or articles electronically in CSDDocs

Step Two: Use four square as a graphic organizer to type an essay in CSDDocs

Step Three: Provide feedback to guide editing process using comments feature

Step Four: Students edit essay in CSDDocs and Publish

Creating Rubrics

By now, most every teacher has used a rubric for assessing student performance at one time or another. The research is out there and Canyons District supports the use of quality rubrics for evaluation in a variety of forms, so it is not a shock that many grade-level teams and PLCs in schools have started using them on common assessments to gather data. 

We know that using appropriate rubrics not only helps to define "quality," but they also help set clear goals and provide specific feedback for students. Additionally, they have the added benefit of helping teachers "explain" why a certain grade was earned on the given assignment or exam and give a tool by which to measure improvements. 

Why then, don't we see more rubrics being used in classrooms beyond gathering data? Part of the issue might be the time that it takes to create or modify them to match the new Common Core Standards. 

So, to help remedy this issue, below you will find several resources for the easy creation of rubrics for your classroom! 

• Try Rubistar, my personal favorite, for pre-made as well as customizable rubrics fast! 
• Or check out Teachnology Rubric Tools rubric collections and rubric creations sites of all kinds. 
• Also there is the University of Wisconsin- Stout rubric page with resources available for rubrics on everything from webpages and research to wikis and podcasts! 

If you need help with the use of these tools, check with your school's Ed Tech and for the content of a quality rubric, check with any of our Evidence Based Learning Specialists who would be happy to help with the creation of your rubrics! 

Become a Video Ninja

Video Ninja – Post 1

Video is a powerful resource in the classroom. Especially in the hands of a skilled teacher. It can engage students in the conversation, and give them a different prospective on a topic that can only be topped by being there first hand.

I was asked once to share some tricks about collecting video, viewing them in the classroom, and storage and distribution. I call these skills "Ninja" skills. It is a secret practice shared by a few teachers, and handed down for the betterment of classrooms. I would like to share a few here today with you, and add to this as a series of Ninja Lessons over the next couple of months.

Let's start with getting video from Youtube. This is a moving target and there have been many ways to make this happen. Youtube is the second largest search engine on the planet. There are a couple of basics tools to download video from Youtube: a browser & an extension or add on. In this example I will use Firefox and three add ons, Download Youtube Videos, DownloadHelper, and MP4 Downloader. This could be done with the chrome browser if you like.

ChatterKid

ChatterKid is a free app available in the iTunes store

Using this free app is as easy as 1, 2, 3

1. Take a picture with your iOS device, or use one of ChatterKid's preloaded photos

2. Draw a line to make a mouth

3. Record your voice, and watch your picture talk

You can also add filters, stickers and text to your photo.

Share your talking photo with your voice.

Some things this app could be used for:

Book Reports

How To's

Explaining How 

Greeting Cards

This app is appropriate for ages 6-12

ChatterKid can be used on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. 

TED & TEDx Talks by Students (Youth) from all over the World

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading". It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. TED talks are riveting talks by remarkable people...and even more remarkable are the inspiring TED talks given by students (youth) from all over the world.

In the classroom, TED talks:

• provide great content!
• bring traditional lessons to life.
• show real-life examples of curriculum knowledge being put to use in incredible ways.
• demonstrate the remarkable contributions youth have to make to the world!

TRY THIS:  Show a student TED Talk today and have your students think about the contributions they can make or hope to make in the world.  Looking for example videos?  Take a look TED under 20 or 9 Talks by Impressive Kids!

Below are a sampling of the youth TED talks you can find at TED.com and TEDxtalks.TED.com.