October 2019

This post includes:

- A teacher spotlight from Independence High School

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

- Information about the featured tech tool, Calendly.

With the goal of increasing engagement and accountability in his classroom, Michael uses ClassFlow to present interactive lectures and activities to support his students' learning. This free tool is an alternative way to engage students in taking notes and checking for understanding with easy full class participation. Since students can see the presentation on their individual student devices, there is no need to rely on a projector in the middle of the room. You can see individual responses on your screen and send messages to your entire class or individual students. You can even select one student response to send to all student devices to have your class interact with their peer's work. One of the most unique features is the ability to use ClassFlow as a whiteboard where you can write on your screen or SMART Board and send the writing to each student device. Your writing can also be saved at the end of the presentation.

Teachers are able to easily create a class in ClassFlow by syncing with Google Classroom. They can also create a variety of activities for students to complete as a class or independently, such as labeling diagrams, sequencing, venn diagram, timelines, matching, and many more. These activities can be sent to the entire class or to individual students which can support differentiated learning. Check for understanding is made easy with the ability to ask just in time questions with premade tools, such as thumbs up or down, agree or disagree, scale rating, or free response. Even assessment can be embedded into ClassFlow by adding quizzes into the presentation where students can receive immediate feedback and you can see live results for your class performance. Students are able to take notes during the lesson using a digital notebook built into ClassFlow which can be shared with others and reviewed after the lesson is over. Teachers can collaborate with others when creating ClassFlow lessons which can be really helpful when working with your PLC members.

You can create a free ClassFlow account at Classflow.com. Once you have created your account, you can create a new class or sync a class from Google Classroom. You can create a lesson from scratch, find a lesson or activity in the marketplace, or upload a a previously made PowerPoint presentation to begin adding interaction. If you are looking for a new tool to enhance your technology integration, ClassFlow might just be the tool for you.

Apollo:

Sabrina Grader, US History teacher, has been working hard to effectively integrate technology in her classroom. She has recently used Synergy Assessment and loved how interactive it is for the kids, as well as how it helps her to analyze data on where students need help.

Cortez:

It was an exciting day in Anthony Groth’s Integrated Science class as his students were using Chromebooks to build a roller coaster using the principles of motion. Mr. Groth and his students overcame the challenge of using Flash on the computer and were still able to make it a productive day despite a temporary setback with technology. It is important to note that Flash is going away in 2020 and teachers may need to find alternatives to websites that still use Flash as these sites may no longer work in the future.

The intervention team is collaborating on digital solutions for tracking student attendance to support teachers serving more students with support outside of class. Teachers are are building differentiation into their instruction and after school tutoring by using tools such as Quizizz, Edpuzzle, and Quizlet. Joel Laing, ELL teacher, his built his entire course around stations that provide students with movement and differentiation using these tools, and is working on building dialog exercises for his students using videos made in Screencastify.

Glendale:

Glendale is oozing with technology being used in the classroom. Freshman science classes are flipping water bottles and using Google Sheets to effectively present and analyze their data from their experiment. Students in PE classes are using Google Slides to communicate their SMART goals while the teachers are sharing classroom materials through Google Classroom with ease. Biology teachers are collaboratively creating and analyzing their formative assessment data using Synergy Assessment. English classes are incorporating the new team feature in Quizziz to spice up content review. Geometry is using Khan Academy in their classroom to help reinforce learning objectives.

Greenway:

Tyler McKee, science teacher, lets his students use Google Forms to complete their Biology and Chemistry lab reports. Using Google Forms for lab reports streamlines handing out lab procedures, recording data collection, and analyzing data results which also has the added bonus of saving paper. He creates a Google Form that contains the procedures for the lab along with question spaces for students to input their data and observations as they complete the lab. Using the Google Form definitely helps students complete the lab and makes his grading process much more efficient.

Independence:

Check out the teacher spotlight on Michael Grandinetti to see how he uses ClassFlow to engage his students.

Moon Valley:

English teacher Rina Beukema had students create individual Google Sites as the culmination of their research on potential future careers. Students were tasked with determining the required education or training, typical income, potential for advancement, and pros and cons of the profession. They created their own personal website to display their research findings. Using Google Sites instead of simply creating a resume for the career expanded the opportunity for students to be creative as they could create an interactive portfolio showcasing their career aspirations along with the opportunity to demonstrate their tech skills.

Online Learning Academy:

Elaine Boggs, an English teacher, utilizes Google Classroom to provide additional resources to support the success of her students. She uses Google Classroom to post “How to” short videos, lists of transitions, starter sentences, information about reasoning and analysis, examples of work, and citation resources. OLA has new students enroll on a weekly basis which can make it difficult to post support items in Canvas one time and have students be able to access them throughout the entire school year. Elaine is able solve the issue of continued access to support by providing supplemental resources using Google Classroom as it is available to students regardless of which quarter they are enrolled in her class.

Sunnyslope:

Kristin Wesson, English teacher, was exposed to the tool Insert Learning while she was student teaching at Moon Valley. It is a free Google Chrome add-on that allows you to make any webpage an interactive lesson for students by adding comments, highlights, and questions. Kristen separated an article into three different Google Docs according to the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos. She used Insert Learning to highlight essential information, added comments to define potentially challenging words, as well as adding open ended questions for students to complete. The open ended questions required text based responses which was easier to do when the text of the article was located directly next to the questions. She really enjoyed using Insert Learning as it allowed her to create a student centered learning experience that was supportive and engaging. She plans to use it more in the future as she becomes more familiar with all the ways she can use the tool. Even at a basic level, she feels it has given her students a more personalized interaction with the course material.

Thunderbird:

Kime Anderson, a math teacher, has been using Pear Deck on a daily basis in her math classes. Pear Deck ensures that all her students are engaged with the lesson and allows her to see how each student responds to practice questions. She is able to immediately pinpoint where students need help while learning, so she is able to intervene before they start to work independently. She uses student paced Pear Deck presentations to guide her students when she is out for the day which enables her to provide instruction and check for understanding even when she is not there. Check out her Pear Decks for Algebra 1!

Washington:

Flipgrid is becoming a popular tool at Washington as several teachers across different contents have used Flipgrid as a tool for peer feedback. Flipgrid is a social learning platform that allows educators to ask a question or provide a prompt to which students respond by creating a video. Students are also able to view and respond to other students' posts which creates a video discussion board. Teachers at WHS have been using this tool in conjunction with the T.A.G. feedback model. In this model students respond to each others video post by:

T= telling their peers something positive (EX. "I noticed that_____", OR "I like the way_____")

A= asking their peer a question (EX. "Why do you think_____" OR "Are you planning to _____")

G= giving a suggestion (EX. "Instead of _____ how about _____" OR "Maybe adding_____would help")

This model works well with various writing responses such as a CER response, explanations to solving math problems or equations, short answers etc.

How do I access it?

Teachers access Calendly at calendly.com. You will share your Calendly link with others through your email signature, your website, your Google Classroom, or any other way in which you use to communicate with people.

Why should I use it?

There are a variety of ways teachers can benefit from using Calendly. You can use it to allow students to make appointments for before or after school tutoring or making appointments with you for individual conferencing during class or when they are signing up to give presentations. You can also use Calendly to let parents make appointments to meet with you for a phone or in-person meeting. Another way you can consider using Calendly is to let your colleagues make appointments to meet with you for support with teaching.

Integrating Calendly with Outlook

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