March 2019

This post includes:

- A teacher spotlight from Glendale High School

- Highlights of what's happening with instructional technology around the district

- Information about our featured instructional technology integration support tool SAMR.

Stacey Crooks, English teacher and Literacy Coach at Glendale High School, is utilizing the PeerMark feature of Turnitin to engage her students in peer feedback. Stacey found that PeerMark is beneficial to the peer feedback process as she can adjust the settings to increase student engagement. Turnitin allows Stacey to keep the peer feedback anonymous so that students do not know who is providing the feedback. This increases student accountability. Additionally, students are required to use language from the rubric to provide comments that can be understood by anyone. Turnitin also allows Stacey to only include students who have submitted their assignment to engage in peer feedback. This requirement holds students accountable for completing their work on time and motivates them to finish it if they are behind in order to participate in the peer feedback activity.

To create a PeerMark activity, Stacey first creates a writing assignment in Turnitin for her students to complete. Once students have submitted this assignment, she will create a PeerMark assignment which enables students to provide peer feedback on the original assignment. Stacey’s PeerMark assignments contain a combination of scale questions that require students to rate the paper on each rubric component as well as free response questions where students will provide specific details on strengths or areas for improvement for each rubric component.

Please view the above tutorial video for step-by-step guidance on how to create your own PeerMark activity. Also, here is a guide on how to create your Turnitin account and add students if you are new to this tool. Contact your Tech Coach for more support using Turnitin or your Lit Coach for best practices with using peer review to support writing in your classroom.

Apollo:

Sabrina Grader's AP US History students are creating websites with Google Sites to house and display their history projects. Her students are embedding various technology tools, such as PowToon, Animoto, LucidCharts, and online flashcards, to create a multi-media masterpiece.

Cortez:

Google Classroom is taking over more and more classrooms on campus. Math teachers are are starting to assign assignments through Google Classroom using Google Forms. Teachers provide feedback more quickly and can implement interventions faster when they use technology for assessment. Mr. Schultz and Mr. Becktold have been using this method all year; now, Mrs. Wickert has followed suit.

Glendale:

Check out the teacher spotlight on Stacy Crooks using PeerMark from Turnitin to engage her students in peer feedback!

Greenway:

Literary Demons is a professional development teacher group lead by Greenway's Literacy coach Jen Fowler. Jen uses Google Classroom to house needed resources and to facilitate communication with group members. She uses fun and innovative ways for teachers to read, watch, and discuss various teaching topics. The group has used Flipgrid to share their ideas after watching a Ted Talk. They have also used a "Book Snap", which combines both Snapchat and Google Drawings, to respond to assigned readings. Currently, the group is reading a book together. Through the Literary Demons, Jen has provided opportunities for teachers to learn about their craft as well as innovative teaching strategies using technology.

Independence:

New teachers met with the Tech Coach to discuss how technology can increase student participation. The teachers are going to implement strategies in their individual classrooms. Many teachers are excited about the changes in Google Classroom and how they are able to better organize assignments and use of a grade book.

Moon Valley:

Read & Write is a Google extension which will read any text online outloud. For struggling learners, or students who have a read aloud accommodation in their IEP, this is the app to utilize. While teaching Macbeth, Jenna Serafini uses Read & Write to support struggling learners with reading in her co-taught English class. Students who previously struggled to read the material and did not want to engage in activities based on the reading are now excited to discuss what they read.

Online Learning Academy:

All freshman at the Online Learning Academy are enrolled in an Online Success course, as well as a Keyboarding course in hopes of teaching basic technology and study skills needed for them to be successful online learners. The Keyboarding course requires students to practice hand placement, learn the keys, and practice keystrokes for maximum speed and accuracy. The Online Success course teaches students valuable lessons in using the computer, study skills, as well as basic math, reading, and writing skills. Students gain practical knowledge in linking their Canvas accounts to Google, so they can work at home, creating Google documents and folders, taking and inserting screen shots, and many other skills that are required in several of their online classes. Students also learn strategies for organization and effectiveness as well as the importance of setting goals. These online courses are available to any teacher in the district wanting to engage their students in developing these skills as well.

Sunnyslope:

English teacher James King has created a page on his class website called "Absent Info" which links to a Google Sheet. He updates the spreadsheet in Google Drive with what occurred in class each day which is then automatically published to his website in real time. Students are able to see what they missed which helps them to be better prepared when they return to class. This process can be used on any website or in Google Classroom. You first need to create a location for the absent information and then retrieve the embed code from the Google Spreadsheet by clicking file, then publish to the web, followed by embed. Once you publish and save your webpage or Google Classroom assignment, students will see changes in real time whenever you edit the Google Sheet. Here is a tutorial video if you are interested in more guidance on this process.

Thunderbird:

Renee Kaye, veteran AP Biology teacher, is assisting current students as well as preparing for her future successor by screen casting many of her lessons. Using Screencastify, along with the agenda page of her class website, Renee is archiving her lessons for future review by students and other AP Biology teachers. Students and colleagues can hover over the picture of each daily agenda to find out if there is a lesson linked, indicated by the hand symbol.

Washington:

Special Education teacher Frank Ketscheck has been using Skype in the Classroom to take his students on virtual field trips, explore career opportunities, and interact with students and content experts around the world. Skype in the Classroom is a free community that connects teachers with educators and guest speakers from around the world. This program allows teachers to connect and collaborate with other educators using Skype, find and engage with experts from a wide range of fields, and share and promote Skype lesson ideas and resources. Frank's students have had the opportunity to visit 5 different continents using Skype in the Classroom which totals to 43,704 virtual miles traveled. His students have connected with students in Lagos Island, an elephant sanctuary in Tunisian in Northern Africa, as well as a park ranger at Calaveras Big Trees State Park in California just to name a few places. Check out Skype in the Classroom if you are interested in seeing the places you and your students can go!

Substitution

At this level, technology serves as a direct replacement for a non-tech tool. This is what happens when students are typing their essay instead of handwriting it. This is a great starting point for teachers new to using instructional technology. Once teachers become more comfortable with the capabilities of the technology, they should be ready to achieve a higher level on the SAMR scale.

Augmentation

At this level, technology still serves as a direct replacement for a non-tech tool; however, tasks at the augmentation level will utilize various features of the technology to enhance the learning experience. An example of this would be using the comment feature in Google Docs to provide feedback on a paper. Google Docs serves as the substitute for paper pencil writing, but the use of the comment feature provides functional improvement to the task.

Modification

At this level, technology starts to transform the way learning happens in the classroom. Tasks at the modification level will redesign the previous task. An example of this would be having students share their writing on a blog where they receive feedback to improve their writing. Using the blog to gain feedback on their writing redesigns the writing experience by widening the possible audience for student writing beyond just the teacher or another peer in the classroom.

Redefinition

At this level, technology transforms the way learning happens in the classroom by offering learning opportunities that were not previously possible. An example of this would be having students create a multimedia presentation to demonstrate understanding and analysis of a topic. The multimedia presentation replaces writing a paper, but can accomplish the same outcome in a more dynamic and engaging way. The multimedia presentations offer more personalization and differentiation than what would be available to students engaged in writing a paper.

Click here to view examples of lessons transformed using the SAMR model.

Click here to play a SAMR review game to improve or test your SAMR knowledge!

Click here for further exploration on the SAMR model and how it can help you integrate instructional technology in your classroom.

Contact your local Tech Coach if you would like your instructional technology use to be shared in a future Tech Coach blog post.