tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9257647171638940532024-03-29T03:25:03.333-07:00Lit and TechTeaching literacy with technology in an era of educational innovation.
By Jen Roberts @TheJenRoberts@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.comBlogger177125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-60395259590259368072024-01-06T13:05:00.000-08:002024-01-07T20:15:27.746-08:00Preserving Authenticity in Student Writing in the Age of Generative AI<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbYaigf_uqo43P8Am66bCw6cDIv6ir-NrVmnVbLuYjl725Xmo7EOKhuiIxIOQ3NB_HXHgpHH-nDkP5DsNDN6bykt5g1RaJi3KM-1e2dIlRmieb5Z86JSoNsUvNZTulzKKL8pg1Aw17OJ5O_-zuxoVmVJEfFRMrmbjaatMy-FuIuf54lPRagSOXMaH8IXg/s1024/students_writing_synthwave.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin: 10px;"><img alt="students writing synthwave" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbYaigf_uqo43P8Am66bCw6cDIv6ir-NrVmnVbLuYjl725Xmo7EOKhuiIxIOQ3NB_HXHgpHH-nDkP5DsNDN6bykt5g1RaJi3KM-1e2dIlRmieb5Z86JSoNsUvNZTulzKKL8pg1Aw17OJ5O_-zuxoVmVJEfFRMrmbjaatMy-FuIuf54lPRagSOXMaH8IXg/w320-h320/students_writing_synthwave.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ideogram: student writing synth wave<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>A huge part of the angst about generative AI centers around the generalized concern that students will use it to cheat. News flash, they will. <p></p><p>Student will cheat with AI because there have always been students who cheat, this is just a new way for them to do it. Cheating is not new. But, let's put this problem in perspective. Risk taking is normal teenage behavior. All teens take risks, some drive too fast, some jump off roofs into swimming pools, some drink in excess, some lie to their parents, and some turn in work they did not do. Some teens are more cautious and some are less cautious. Brain science, and yes I have read about this with my students, shows us that teens value rewards higher in many risky situations, therefore making poor decisions seem more attractive. </p><p>I am not trying to excuse academic cheating. It's just that I stopped viewing it as a moral failing, and I now see it as part of the risk taking, adventuresome, process of becoming an adult. I would much rather see a teen take a risk academically than jump off a roof, although I do fear that there is a strong correlation between academic cheating and other risky behaviors. </p><p><b>How to Stop Students from Cheating With AI</b></p><p>Then the next stage of the moral panic for teachers is how to stop students from cheating with AI. Many educators, having only recently found the amazing affordances of digital pedagogy thanks to the pandemic, are now sighing and resorting back to pencil and paper tasks. But, we don't have to go backward. </p><p>I'll lay out some of the things that have helped me teach with digital tools and deter plagiarism of all types, including generative AI. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuCLouiG8nJoRbyAGPWv4azOHk_E5qcoY1-7u0jpi8wviah4U3ALjDgpDvYHqPku0qsv3A8PHIEeWvs5EjWtHnwEjxWQT20gw3PxMklaouFF-nvYcaCjFtl4GhOznAjy50JiyTU6tYF4xCX8cYicfItACICtsKQADyjII-eWU3xGVxlSfnKoua6lcl-c/s1260/Screen%20Shot%202024-01-06%20at%2011.22.59%20AM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="1260" height="65" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuCLouiG8nJoRbyAGPWv4azOHk_E5qcoY1-7u0jpi8wviah4U3ALjDgpDvYHqPku0qsv3A8PHIEeWvs5EjWtHnwEjxWQT20gw3PxMklaouFF-nvYcaCjFtl4GhOznAjy50JiyTU6tYF4xCX8cYicfItACICtsKQADyjII-eWU3xGVxlSfnKoua6lcl-c/s320/Screen%20Shot%202024-01-06%20at%2011.22.59%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>When it comes to getting authentic writing from students, proactive is better than reactive. If I assign an impersonal essay and my students never work on it in class, never bring a draft to writing groups, never self assess and revise, and never confer with me about their progress, then of course I am going to see a high rate of students using generative AI to write for them. Students are most likely to plagiarize when they don't feel like they can do the task on their own, don't have support to do the task, and don't care about the topic. <p></p><p>I have found my best defense against AI writing is showing my students that I know a lot about AI writing. I use ChatGPT in front of them. I talk about the ways I've caught students cheating. I teach them ethical ways to use AI to help themselves without being academically dishonest. </p><p>I make them sign academic honesty pledges before exams and I inject a bit of arrogant humor into those statements. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYKkLxJaja-VheA9gtdCnC6ooK6m4jVVkJcu11CeJ8F1XrISz6fVT0Iaw5-U_BI2vpcYNnjz1RiwS-k2i9NzyDjCT9hHEfx8yfsq3he9DOlRmzdSO3Gl8WaDuCJQAfvXLbRDPY9gi29KcN2UWHw1zGRwwMyVl_22r827pIlfzTldWux6R7hTPlxBszK0M/s584/Screen%20Shot%202024-01-06%20at%2011.57.53%20AM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="584" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYKkLxJaja-VheA9gtdCnC6ooK6m4jVVkJcu11CeJ8F1XrISz6fVT0Iaw5-U_BI2vpcYNnjz1RiwS-k2i9NzyDjCT9hHEfx8yfsq3he9DOlRmzdSO3Gl8WaDuCJQAfvXLbRDPY9gi29KcN2UWHw1zGRwwMyVl_22r827pIlfzTldWux6R7hTPlxBszK0M/s320/Screen%20Shot%202024-01-06%20at%2011.57.53%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><b>When I create a writing assignment: </b></p><p>Assignments that students can in some way personalize are always better than those that are totally impersonal. When we read <i>Into The Wild</i>, my seniors compare McCandless to themselves or someone they know. When my 9th graders write narratives they create their own super hero version of themselves to use as their main character. When my students research topics in the news, they choose their own topic, based on their own interests. </p><p>Choice and personalization means students are more invested in the work they are doing and the assignment itself won't work out well when fed into an impersonal writing generator. </p><p>I set the assignment up so that each student gets their own copy of a Google Doc. I explain to them that doing their own writing in their own Google Doc is their best option to defend themselves against any accusation of plagiarism because they will be able to use their own revision history to show they did their own work. (Many high achieving students are justifiably worried about being accused of using AI even when they didn't. The high rate of false positives from ineffective detectors has them worried too.) </p><p>I make sure my assignments have appropriate scaffolds. For many students it means giving them outlines or sentence frames. (I gradually withdraw that support as their skills improve.) Support means we do similar tasks multiple times while students improve. It means we do a lot of pre-writing work, designing characters, planning a plot, looking at models. It means we do process work like a lesson on dialog after they have a draft, and then giving them time to go add dialog to their story. </p><p>Support means my students often collaboratively gather evidence for their writing before they get the writing assignment. <a href="https://www.litandtech.com/2013/03/scaffolding-academic-writing-to-meet.html" target="_blank">I wrote about scaffolding evidence gathering here</a>. Then they get a spreadsheet of evidence to help them with their essays. (I want them writing, not pouring through a book looking for a quote.)</p><p>Support means I show them how AI can help them ethically. <a href="https://www.litandtech.com/2023/04/introducing-9th-graders-to-chatgpt.html" target="_blank">I wrote about the lessons I used to show my students how I can ask it for an outline, a time management plan, and feedback</a>. </p><p><b>While they work on the assignment</b></p><p>Writing is a process. Teaching writing is a process. I have always wanted my students to spend time drafting in class. I use that time to confer with them about their progress. I use the preview function in Google Drive to flip through their essays and see who is and is not making progress, and then I use that to prioritize my conferences. </p><p>My students bring their drafts to writing groups. I have written about <a href="https://www.litandtech.com/2019/02/writing-response-groups.html" target="_blank">Writing Groups here</a> including a guide for getting them started in your own classroom. </p><p><b>While I assess student writing</b></p><p>First of all I read it. It amazes me that sometimes, when I catch plagiarism on a small assignment, and I talk to the student about it, their first reaction is often, "I didn't think you'd read that." Somewhere in the education pipeline they had teacher(s) who gave full credit to every student who turned in something and these students developed the theory that their teachers don't really read their work. </p><p>If, in reading it, I see something that does not seem like the student wrote it, then I investigate. I tell my students that the best plagiarism detector is 28 years of being an English teacher. I would add, "Go ahead, make my day," but I don't think they would get the reference. </p><p>My first line of investigation is usually to run it through an AI detector. I like the <a href="https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/brisk-teaching/pcblbflgdkdfdjpjifeppkljdnaekohj" target="_blank">Brisk extension</a> for Chrome that works in Google Docs. <a href="https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/origin-by-gptzero-chatgpt/kgobeoibakoahbfnlficpmibdbkdchap" target="_blank">Origin from GPTzero</a> is another extension I like because I can use it in Canvas speed grader for text submissions. Regardless of the result from the detector I still look at the version history to see if large chunks were pasted into the doc. And I can also use the<a href="https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/revision-history/dlepebghjlnddgihakmnpoiifjjpmomh" target="_blank"> Revision History extension</a> to see some useful stats about the doc. It will also play a video version of the writing process. </p><p>The version history under the docs file menu also can show me what they worked on and when. </p><p>Below is a screen shot of a student essay in development. I used arrows to mark some of the things that I mentioned above. At the top is the Origin writing report button indicating 5,748 edits. A high number of edits indicates authentic work. Clicking that button generates a more detailed report. The beige bar just above the essay is from Revision History. It lists useful stats like writing time etc. The comments on the side are from peers who read the work in a writing group. Students know their peers will call them out if they try to pass off AI writing as their own. Presenting writing to a group means the student was prepared before the deadline and this is another sign of authentic writing. Lastly, on the lower left is the Brisk extension icon. Clicking that brings up four standard options, one of which is to detect AI writing. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEBb8dROAF24sEdIoAOZWZCl5fl57iPzeIq45Y0q1NxpAoCoab6WWSuiyS3akoyY-Log86_w_rwMu-eE9iguqw3EV5NwkyeVVyf1jXQpaPwJxRzvReyat3j5doil7SzfGOZ0dMYMwtBWrygjbJj9duoNK_mvPotAl-Y-JlvERBnc-KeDmTxbf4iDpFCo/s1164/Tools%20for%20assessing%20authentic%20writing%20AI.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="1164" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEBb8dROAF24sEdIoAOZWZCl5fl57iPzeIq45Y0q1NxpAoCoab6WWSuiyS3akoyY-Log86_w_rwMu-eE9iguqw3EV5NwkyeVVyf1jXQpaPwJxRzvReyat3j5doil7SzfGOZ0dMYMwtBWrygjbJj9duoNK_mvPotAl-Y-JlvERBnc-KeDmTxbf4iDpFCo/w400-h231/Tools%20for%20assessing%20authentic%20writing%20AI.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><b>When I find writing a student did not write themselves</b></p><p>Yes, I do all of the above and I still find students who try to pass off writing that is not their own. See above about risk taking. Students with high absence rates are also more likely to turn in things they did not write because they were not in class for all the support described above. </p><p>The response to inauthentic writing depends on a lot of factors, the assignment, the student, the time of year, prior infractions, my best guess about the reason for the in authentic writing. Every single situation of plagiarism is different, and how I handle mine might not be the way you want to handle yours. </p><p>I will share <a href="https://www.litandtech.com/2023/06/how-i-convinced-my-students-that-i.html" target="_blank">this strategy</a> that I used last year and again this year. It was very effective for showing my students that AI writing is very easy to detect. It helped that this year, the AI writing I used for the lesson was submitted by a student who was in the room. They flagged their own submission as being written by AI without recognizing that it was the work they turned in. </p><p>In the past I have also blogged about <a href="https://www.litandtech.com/2021/07/the-academic-honesty-unit.html" target="_blank">an entire unit my team created about Academic Honesty</a> and about <a href="https://www.litandtech.com/2016/04/plagiarism-and-google-tools-to-reduce-it.html" target="_blank">plagiarism and tricks for preventing it</a> in general. </p><p>Generative AI does not mean we give up on teaching students to write, but it might mean we need to adapt the way we do that. If you are thinking, "Wow Jen, that sounds like you spent a lot of time on this," well I did. It is literally my job. The things I described above are what I am doing when I teach. So, yeah, most of the time I spend five days a week on it. </p><p>If you need to add more scaffolding, or writing groups, or some other strategy to your writing instruction toolkit, then those things might take you some time. I recommend you check out the resources available through your closest <a href="https://studio.nwp.org/about" target="_blank">Writing Project</a>. </p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-91550326985915382842023-12-09T14:54:00.000-08:002023-12-09T14:54:04.546-08:00How are AI image generators showing up in my classroom? <p>Can AI images be useful in my classroom? If the answer was no, then I wouldn't be writing this, so here are some of the ways they have come in handy recently. </p><p><b>Describe Your Monster</b></p><p>It was that day on the calendar at the very end of October, when every teacher knows the lesson better be fun because the students are distracted by their costumes and hopped up on sugar too. You know the holiday I speak of. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVb-qnX94LTjAgCyJrf4U4tL3OHh7b4SUp_rEbHYM4Or9Ssi1BVdZKVRO959me69V1KAT1xQlyLvWR-7kOdcLmEGqm1nIHZjA-QPEAoznfA_qpaozROSju2D-_IUFAxdhYosw2pPguAwWSkP8bi-rcLYlU0lSiGhkxQnYy8YqXb-HWwAksq_KLIovLIK8/s2440/Screen%20Shot%202023-10-31%20at%2010.44.20%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1194" data-original-width="2440" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVb-qnX94LTjAgCyJrf4U4tL3OHh7b4SUp_rEbHYM4Or9Ssi1BVdZKVRO959me69V1KAT1xQlyLvWR-7kOdcLmEGqm1nIHZjA-QPEAoznfA_qpaozROSju2D-_IUFAxdhYosw2pPguAwWSkP8bi-rcLYlU0lSiGhkxQnYy8YqXb-HWwAksq_KLIovLIK8/w400-h196/Screen%20Shot%202023-10-31%20at%2010.44.20%20AM.png" title="Monsters generated from student descriptions" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monsters generated from student descriptions</td></tr></tbody></table>I planned for a writing contest that day. The protocol is simple. I give students a prompt. They write about it for 10 minutes. Then they share their writing with their table group (six students). This takes another 10 minutes or so. The table group picks a winner and the winner from each table submits their writing to me on a Google form. I read the entries and pick a class winner. The winning table gets to leave a minute early and the winner gets a prize, usually a balloon animal. (Yes, I can make balloon animals. It's quick, fun, and cheap. Best classroom prize ever.)<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkh5t-oKTfKA3fOMHX0jn-3FZvASbEDnCFQgPsWBo4bYRh_pEvw5fD-PocPhIT23-AtUwGvdk9rC5HtN87gc0adspIWAKDTO8wqav6zF6zGIzZ0ueCF3yUBu58I198LIhmiIgkdZsfCj-OOTsFL_X5jFCEKQCXgQiGdqYO0N0n3RHYM5q2jc-e66DkQY4/s1266/Screen%20Shot%202023-12-09%20at%201.51.23%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="806" data-original-width="1266" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkh5t-oKTfKA3fOMHX0jn-3FZvASbEDnCFQgPsWBo4bYRh_pEvw5fD-PocPhIT23-AtUwGvdk9rC5HtN87gc0adspIWAKDTO8wqav6zF6zGIzZ0ueCF3yUBu58I198LIhmiIgkdZsfCj-OOTsFL_X5jFCEKQCXgQiGdqYO0N0n3RHYM5q2jc-e66DkQY4/s320/Screen%20Shot%202023-12-09%20at%201.51.23%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>On that last day in October, the prompt for this writing contest was to describe a monster. We spent some time writing, some time sharing, and each table group picked their winner, who submitted to me. Then students chose to read or catch up on work while I picked a class winner. But, my plan all along was to paste their descriptions into <a href="https://ideogram.ai/" target="_blank">Ideogram</a> and reveal the winner, not by reading their work, but by showing them their monster. <p></p><p>I set up some slides to add the images too. I was only going to generate an image for the winning entry, but it was so much fun to see their writing come to life that I ended up making an image for each table winner. And, I said I would also generate images for anyone who wanted to email me their description. Several did. </p><p>When I was ready to reveal the winner, instead of reading their entry, as I've done for past writing contests, I simply projected the image on the slide and said, "Is this your monster?" My students loved it. The winning table group always recognized the monster as the one their group mate had written. Sometimes the monsters were not depicted exactly as the description specified and we talked about why that might be the case. Some students saw the monster differently in their head and we talked about how to modify the prompt. </p><p><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkHHFlAQuNa_ofFEFP3y4jFLYRnjgxyl-XwRFDIza56sfldXEzKF9Ufph1O-tpi6d9R6r8tzW2I3kI3djKRForyRlHfWHtm5_KS8-UziR-DO-uy98mUVKRn5ob3oPQninhiW4D2AIknXCAOd9f2GEwC_j2vOI1PRBnJJyABiCLWNWZhsZ_5LqeTP2Om9w/s1024/Firefly%20A%20Shepard%20arrives%20with%20a%20flock%20of%20his%20sheep%20in%20a%20deserted%20church.%20There%20is%20a%20giant%20sycamore%20%20(5).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkHHFlAQuNa_ofFEFP3y4jFLYRnjgxyl-XwRFDIza56sfldXEzKF9Ufph1O-tpi6d9R6r8tzW2I3kI3djKRForyRlHfWHtm5_KS8-UziR-DO-uy98mUVKRn5ob3oPQninhiW4D2AIknXCAOd9f2GEwC_j2vOI1PRBnJJyABiCLWNWZhsZ_5LqeTP2Om9w/s320/Firefly%20A%20Shepard%20arrives%20with%20a%20flock%20of%20his%20sheep%20in%20a%20deserted%20church.%20There%20is%20a%20giant%20sycamore%20%20(5).jpg" width="320" /></a></b><b>Adobe Firefly</b></p><p>In the example above I was the one generating the images, but my students also have access to text-to-image tools like <a href="https://firefly.adobe.com/" target="_blank">Adobe Firefly</a> through their education Adobe Express accounts. I probably don't do enough graphic design projects with them. They did recently get to make an infographic though, and several used AI generated images for those. Many used AI enabled tools like removing the background. Just playing with text to image has become the new fun thing to do when they are done with other work. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY6dTTvRNd25nLK2jlSMGcAUV18hU82O6BxNnlxHMANcUyQakzJ2abQk_KO1MmOnpp1ARCXXmjywBg99arezhRpJZEn2yM6fA1Ue740F-dZZcz6mIht2rt2ANpbfLHkEiAwXKHC2-udvIYszLLBdJ36RAp9fS3M34ofdi1NuZOCMQcZMbjrlUuoQhG-8k/s1024/A_teenager_surrounded_by_a_community_of_people_w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY6dTTvRNd25nLK2jlSMGcAUV18hU82O6BxNnlxHMANcUyQakzJ2abQk_KO1MmOnpp1ARCXXmjywBg99arezhRpJZEn2yM6fA1Ue740F-dZZcz6mIht2rt2ANpbfLHkEiAwXKHC2-udvIYszLLBdJ36RAp9fS3M34ofdi1NuZOCMQcZMbjrlUuoQhG-8k/s320/A_teenager_surrounded_by_a_community_of_people_w.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>Adding Images to My Lessons</b></p><p>All teachers know that pictures make content more memorable and accessible for most of our students. But, finding just the right image to support a lesson is sometimes a time consuming challenge. Okay, getting an AI tool to generate an image that feels just right to the lesson can also be time consuming, but I feel a little more confident that I will eventually get to a picture that works as I refine my prompt. Plus I can suggest colors that match my Canvas course design palette. </p><p>When I needed an image to support an assignment about writing a letter to someone who shaped their identity, it made sense to generate an image of a teen with lots of people standing behind them. </p><p>While I acknowledge the valid frustrations of human artists whose work has been utilized in training AI image models, and I recognize the legitimate anxieties about the impact of generative AI artwork on their livelihoods, I firmly believe that it's crucial for our students to gain knowledge and experience with these tools. Image generators are not going away. They can improve our lessons and student learning. Also, they are very fun to play with. I encourage teachers to give these a try and show them to your students. </p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-78220354337250572402023-06-28T18:02:00.001-07:002023-06-28T18:06:20.088-07:00How I convinced my students that I could tell if they used AI<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFdwkqO_V0BEmUW_zqM0LrLRxwYNelsHPg-7ULwshGunwMPa8ghmjecBYvqICmQmZaUZ0riegE2TIc9RqBWYpOkmjaFRserQMqKIKUW0UelRSwmtLwpB-ZsTSsG7o5MlsZVSS9lam9kHbLtsKpbbn8Ll8jlbFHYHTMhz-zHgDwkOdedF5VBi_E0lVqg3M/s710/AI%20Generated%20Examples.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="555" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFdwkqO_V0BEmUW_zqM0LrLRxwYNelsHPg-7ULwshGunwMPa8ghmjecBYvqICmQmZaUZ0riegE2TIc9RqBWYpOkmjaFRserQMqKIKUW0UelRSwmtLwpB-ZsTSsG7o5MlsZVSS9lam9kHbLtsKpbbn8Ll8jlbFHYHTMhz-zHgDwkOdedF5VBi_E0lVqg3M/s320/AI%20Generated%20Examples.png" width="250" /></a></div>Part of preventing students from using generative AI to do their work for them is showing them ways it can be helpful without violating academic integrity. <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2023/04/introducing-9th-graders-to-chatgpt.html" target="_blank">I wrote about that process here.</a> <p></p><p>But another big part of keeping students from using the AI unethically, is convincing them that I will be able to tell they "cheated." This is how I showed my 9th graders that I could tell when they used AI to respond to a question. </p><p>One of my colleagues came to me because she thought one of her students had used ChatGPT for one of the short paragraphs about a book we were reading as part of a novel study. We talked about the student, why they might have done that, why she thought it was AI, etc. And then I ran it through an AI detector. As predicted by this expert educator colleague of mine, it was flagged as entirely AI written. She pursued her own actions at that point, but I saw an opportunity. </p><p><b>The Opportunity: </b></p><p>I took the AI generated response and put it on a page with two other responses I knew my students had actually written. I printed out 18 copies of the page with the three paragraphs and gave it to my students in pairs. It seemed important to do this on paper.</p><p>This is the part where I was exceptionally clever. At first I did not tell my students <i>why</i> I really gave them this paper. I just said, "Here are some student answers I want you to review."</p><p>Then, I told them I wanted them to score those answers. I use a four point grading scale and students are always asking what makes an answer a 4. So, they thought they were working to understand what made one of those paragraphs better than the others. My students worked on this diligently for several minutes while I circulated and took an interest in how they scored various paragraphs. </p><p><b>Finding the AI Paragraph:</b></p><p>Eventually, they wanted to know what scores I gave these paragraphs. I admitted that this activity was not really about scoring the paragraphs, and I asked them to look again and see if they could tell which was written by AI. I asked them not to say anything, but just to mark that one on their paper. Then I circulated again and noticed which paragraph each partner group had picked. All of them had correctly, quickly, and decisively identified the second paragraph as AI generated. </p><p>They were quite proud of themselves when I said that all of them had picked the AI paragraph correctly. </p><p><b>The Message: </b></p><p>When they stopped congratulating each other and I had their attention again, I made my point very simply. I said, "If you can tell which one is AI that easily...so can I."</p><p>The room went quiet. I don't think very many of my 9th graders were planning to use ChatGPT, but for those who were considering it, I knew this would be a memorable moment. </p><p><b>You Can Try This At Home (or at school):</b></p><p>You don't have to wait for a student to turn in work done by AI. You can use ChatGPT to generate an AI response to a short assignment and recreate what I did above, mixing two or three pieces of real student work with the AI writing. The trick is to make sure the AI version is grammatically perfect, but not that great of an answer to the assignment. You <i>want</i> students to be able to easily identify the AI part once you tell them that's the goal. Don't make that hard by using lots of real work examples. Three samples will make it easy for them to unanimously find the AI version. </p><p><b>Note: </b></p><p>I think I am pretty good at knowing if a student plagiarized, or used AI to do their writing for them. But for this activity my goal was to show them that I could spot it easily. Their perception mattered more than my actual skill in this case. </p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-57571342367613028692023-06-01T18:00:00.000-07:002023-06-01T18:00:19.070-07:00Collaboratively Written Scenes: Dialogs on Flip For The Win<p>I have found a remarkably effective way to get students writing and speaking. I let them work in pairs, specifically writing in pairs. Earth shattering, I know. This protocol works well for argument writing and narrative writing. It works equally well with my seniors and my 9th graders. It is remarkably easy to grade, and students produce really good products. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiIysWN_tZvEAM5PIT9ODgoUOkm4sPar1mfyP1yzyeS4Zjdg3S2E5YTsYGg6wZM7kLAY8yvpmZddGl7B4ByiiFm64GTqz4dQbFrlaU71gWsLQGGHXLs4CPtChnGDg1D5p1hwPiY5OqtxytevGZl4cFLPztqRumEORlp4dIauhBAl-mnKDuyLPO6SuK/s1280/IMG_1775%202.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiIysWN_tZvEAM5PIT9ODgoUOkm4sPar1mfyP1yzyeS4Zjdg3S2E5YTsYGg6wZM7kLAY8yvpmZddGl7B4ByiiFm64GTqz4dQbFrlaU71gWsLQGGHXLs4CPtChnGDg1D5p1hwPiY5OqtxytevGZl4cFLPztqRumEORlp4dIauhBAl-mnKDuyLPO6SuK/s320/IMG_1775%202.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>Process: </b></p><p>1. Students choose their own partners. (This works better than having assigned partners.) I usually don't tell them <i>why</i> they are choosing partners. I want them to pick their friends. That's fine. </p><p>2. I assign the prompt, but it is always to write a scene in the form of a dialog between two characters. For my seniors it was a scene between a director and an actor arguing about whether or not to cut a speech from a Hamlet production. For my 9th graders it was a scene about some pitfall of social media that had to tell a story with a moral. The seniors were writing to show they could argue and the 9th graders were writing to show they could create a narrative. I give them a day or two of class time for collaborative writing. </p><p>3. Once students write their script, somewhere between 500-1500 words depending on the grade level, they pair up with another group and read out their scenes for each other. This is a feedback strategy. One, it gets them actually reading their writing out loud, and two, each pair can ask questions and make suggestions to the other. It is also a rehearsal, but they don't know that. </p><p>At this point, students start to ask me, "Are we going to have to perform this in front of the class?" I play dumb and say, "What, you mean like stand up there live in front of everyone and read your scene? No, of course not. I would not make you do that." I carefully avoid mentioning anything about <i>recording</i> their scene, though. </p><p>4. Finally, I reveal that they will be recording their scenes on <a href="https://info.flip.com/en-us.html" target="_blank">Flip</a>. I model how to navigate to the topic, how to use the wonderful teleprompter feature to add their script etc. Yes, some students are a little scared to record, but they don't want to let their partner down, so they almost always find a way to get it done. (This is part of the beauty of letting them work with a friend.) I find them places in the hallway, or an empty classroom to record. It usually takes a few days for all of them to get their recording done. Procrastination is a thing, but they almost all get to it eventually. The turn in rate for seniors for this project was much higher than it would have been for individual essay. </p><p><b>Assessment: </b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97BLTlBLUyBU4ISK_VkORJ1L_sirQjEsTAIfNdXKn6Om6iJYYoc1qgDppPhVzai_lSlEPP5x5FC3i6ybSLvNJIS9Q9n_HxXHpBUJdRmMQ3hQWZAsk0Fewv0icApF1RWvjAXyGZSPsjP-7ZnluyO0fg0rtWbJOFNMcLyRCYwv96N7IQOYAvARrZ6Db/s2957/Flip-9th-English-22-23%20(1).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2957" data-original-width="2242" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97BLTlBLUyBU4ISK_VkORJ1L_sirQjEsTAIfNdXKn6Om6iJYYoc1qgDppPhVzai_lSlEPP5x5FC3i6ybSLvNJIS9Q9n_HxXHpBUJdRmMQ3hQWZAsk0Fewv0icApF1RWvjAXyGZSPsjP-7ZnluyO0fg0rtWbJOFNMcLyRCYwv96N7IQOYAvARrZ6Db/s320/Flip-9th-English-22-23%20(1).png" width="243" /></a></div>I don't grade their acting performance. (They are mostly terrible at the acting part, but it is fun to see the effort and drama some of them put into it.) I watch their videos, often on a slightly accelerated speed, and listen for the writing standards I am looking for. Did they make an effective argument? Did they support it with evidence? Does the narrative have a structure? Is there a clear message? <p></p><p>What I find, is that my seniors make much better arguments when the argument is a dialog because they naturally seem to intuit the back and forth of an argumentative conversation, a concept that is harder for them to grasp with a one sided essay. </p><p>My 9th graders tell much better stories when dialog is their only tool because the dialog has to move the story without narration. In the past, I have had students write stories that were only telling and not showing, all summative narration, no actual descriptive writing and very little dialog. I've taught so many writing lessons on show, don't tell, provided so many models and rubrics. None of that works as well as asking students to tell a story with <i>only</i> dialog. Maybe screenplays just work better for a generation raised with more video time than book time. (Sad, but true.)</p><p><b>Collaboration: </b></p><p>Writing with a partner is good for writing skills. Writing with a partner means students have to discuss a plan together, execute a plan together, write with immediate feedback from each other. They are both equally responsible for the outcome. I let them pick their partners, because they should get to write with someone they are comfortable with. And, I've noticed that students most often group themselves homogeneously. I don't worry that one partner will do all the work while the other one slacks off. That's rare. There is a certain poetic justice to seeing two students who usually try to avoid all work, gleefully pick each other as partners because they are buddies, and then realize that they are going to have to actually do some work because now that there is no one else to do it for them. </p><p><b>Results:</b></p><p>I've done these dialog projects two years in a row with both 9th graders and 12th graders and the results are consistent. My students write better arguments and better narratives, when they write them as a screenplay. Recording their scene provides extra accountability and speeds up my grading process significantly. </p><p>Added bonus: This project is engaging, achievable, and far less likely to be something students would want to ask an AI text generator to write for them. In the classroom, they literally pounce on their keyboards once they understand the task. The 'what if' statements start flying. "What if we have the director get really angry and threaten to cancel the play?" "What if the person being scammed tells their best friend about it?" At that point they really don't need me at all. </p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-5311921535753282162023-04-20T09:41:00.004-07:002024-01-06T17:20:12.707-08:00Introducing 9th graders to ChatGPT<p>First of all, most of my 9th graders have already met ChatGPT, so for most of them this tool was not new, but together we used it in new ways. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtVDEyF13Bw5kHuvqAYYjjHVy6QWZ5K7QcRv5dwyTahYEJyWERb-gvjG2QpOPU7DRsCCePMaY-JXp_LDCwnrY9jXxbH9KTquULUsUiAzj1X1RWFmv1KlqKoMSCqP7lrQlxKwI1KNQbkB1hRABKtzNsOZVTsHicDM-oxbgiAYOTRGpFqkoZ1W3FkHE5zQ/s3042/ChatGPT%20Chart%2011:23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3042" data-original-width="2662" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtVDEyF13Bw5kHuvqAYYjjHVy6QWZ5K7QcRv5dwyTahYEJyWERb-gvjG2QpOPU7DRsCCePMaY-JXp_LDCwnrY9jXxbH9KTquULUsUiAzj1X1RWFmv1KlqKoMSCqP7lrQlxKwI1KNQbkB1hRABKtzNsOZVTsHicDM-oxbgiAYOTRGpFqkoZ1W3FkHE5zQ/s320/ChatGPT%20Chart%2011:23.jpg" width="280" /></a></p><p><b>Back story</b> </p><p></p><p>We are working on a comparative analysis essay based on art my students viewed in our student art gallery. I've done this project very successfully in every year the art gallery wasn't closed due to a pandemic. <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2016/02/comparative-analysis-including-art-in.html" target="_blank">I've blogged about the project here before</a>. Resources and directions are there if you are looking for a generative AI proof writing assignment, and you happen to have some student art around. </p><p><b>The ChatGPT Lesson</b></p><p>To begin with, I asked my students if ChatGPT could write this art essay for them. I didn't explain what ChatGPT was. I wanted to see how they would respond without any other information. At first the question made them nervous. </p><p>Then a brave soul spoke up, "No, because the ChatGPT hasn't seen the art we are writing about."</p><p>"Exactly," I said with a gleam in my eye, "You will need to write your own essay because the robot can't write it for you. It's almost like I planned it that way."<br /></p><p>Nervous laughter from my class. </p><p>"But," I continued, "ChatGPT could probably still be helpful. Any ideas how?"<br /></p><p>Blank stares. </p><p>Then, I opened a tab for ChatGPT on my computer and described what we were doing. </p><p><b>Prompt to Chat GPT:</b> I need to write an essay comparing two pieces of student art. I need to write about their description, symbolism, mood, and theme. I also have to make a judgement about which piece of art does a better job communicating its message. Can you suggest an outline for my essay? </p><p>The AI chatbot promptly responded with a lovely outline. My students and I looked it over and agreed it would be helpful. I copied and pasted the outline into their Canvas assignment, so they could use it for reference. (Notice, I'm the only one using ChatGPT here, my students get to use the resulting outline because I added it to their assignment in Canvas, our LMS.)</p><p>Then, I went a step further and asked ChatGPT for an example of what the first paragraph would look like using two famous pieces of art. To be clear, I often give my students model texts like this. Need to write a character analysis for a book we are reading? Here is a character analysis from a book we read last semester you can use as an example. So, asking an AI chatbot for a model paragraph is right in line with my teaching practice. </p><p>The robot quickly spit out a paragraph comparing the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. My students and I took a look at it, to see if it was a good model to follow. It mostly was, until we got to the thesis statement. The robot wrote, "In this essay, I will compare and contrast these two masterpieces, examining their description, symbolism, mood, and theme, and I will argue which artwork does a better job of communicating its message." </p><p>My students and I agreed that was <i>the worst</i> thesis statement it could have written. It does not take a position about the art, and it starts with "in this essay," a phrase my students know is forbidden. They could see that if they tried to use something that bad as a thesis statement in their own writing, it would not go well. </p><p><b>More Back Story: </b></p><p>I regularly have <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2013/03/scaffolding-academic-writing-to-meet.html" target="_blank">my students contribute text evidence through a Google form</a> when we are about to write an essay about a book or a short story. I publish that evidence back to them as a spreadsheet and that way they have a bank of evidence to choose from to include in their writing. But, I tell them, that all of this evidence was suggested by their classmates, and 9th graders make mistakes. It is up to them to make sure the evidence they choose is right for their essay. <i>In other words, my students are used to being told that a resource is not necessarily reliable. So they are not surprised that they have to treat AI responses with some skepticism.</i></p><p><b>Why are you teaching students how to use ChatGPT? </b></p><p>My students won't be in school much longer. ChatGPT and other generative AI tools are part of the world they will live in. They need to know what these tools can and can't do. They need to understand the importance of critically reading the output of any generative AI tool. I believe that students who are knowledgeable about and comfortable using tools like ChatGPT and whatever comes next, will have an advantage after high school. </p><p></p><blockquote>The advantage always goes to those who have access to the tool and a purposeful reason to use it.</blockquote><p></p><p>I am not by any means suggesting students do not need to learn to write. Over and over when I use ChatGPT with students they see that having a high level of knowledge and experience themselves is critical to using the AI well. My seniors have seen it spit out factually incorrect information about an article they read. My 9th graders have seen it write poorly and invent facts about the novel we finished recently. </p><p>When I teach my students how to ask the AI for help, I emphasize that they should write a prompt that paraphrases the assignment directions in their own words. This means my students have to actually read and understand the assignment directions. I show them how just pasting in the assignment directions gets poor results. </p><p>For my students with IEPs being able to ask the AI for a list of steps to accomplish a task, or a time management plan for a project, is hugely helpful. My advanced students like asking for suggested further readings on a topic. And everyone can use a little help with an outline. </p><p><b>After some writing time: </b></p><p>Once my 9th graders had spent about 15 minutes working on their essays, I asked if any of them might be willing to let me show ChatGPT their first paragraph and ask for feedback. A few volunteered. They were writing in their <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2015/07/one-google-doc-all-year-long-english.html" target="_blank">English Journal Google docs</a>, so I could open their writing and copy the paragraph to ChatGPT. </p><p>The response was at first generic writing advice about adding a hook, but then it got more specific about what the student had already written. As a class we looked over the advice about specificity and adding details, and decided which parts were valuable. Many students made some first paragraph revisions based on the feedback to one student. I emphasized that getting feedback and revising your writing yourself was a good way to learn to write better and it would keep your writing from being flagged by an AI detector. </p><p>The overall message to my students is, you can absolutely use ChatGPT to help you write better, just like you use spelling and grammar checkers, but YOU still need to do your own writing, both for your own learning, and to avoid any accusations of cheating. </p><p>I'm also not asking my students to use ChatGPT. That is not an expectation. I showed them how I use it, but whether they choose to use it or not is entirely up to them. </p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-39444268217941490982022-11-23T12:17:00.008-08:002023-01-17T17:29:26.740-08:00So...About this new social media landscape<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilOnV3oq5NitNKrBAGoKTMpA7wn6t4j0Pc_jVGow3zlQ6Z9JJ87KGtvGX6T4ZJ-MAOFgJfSdaW__nFf-cMj5w-Ukjp9Iqm779RPovpH0sUPW1HMyyEqEGqYFNJWxFdrT86ddcAPg6Wwtuv4j9XdHHIfqL57j_Fl93NULTtIrY3rQlaKoG7W-3Jxquw/s555/Social%20media%20options.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Icons for mastodon, hive social, post news , and bluesky social" border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="555" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilOnV3oq5NitNKrBAGoKTMpA7wn6t4j0Pc_jVGow3zlQ6Z9JJ87KGtvGX6T4ZJ-MAOFgJfSdaW__nFf-cMj5w-Ukjp9Iqm779RPovpH0sUPW1HMyyEqEGqYFNJWxFdrT86ddcAPg6Wwtuv4j9XdHHIfqL57j_Fl93NULTtIrY3rQlaKoG7W-3Jxquw/w320-h315/Social%20media%20options.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Well this is fascinating. Billionaire buys my favorite bird app and flies it straight toward the ground. So I get curious about other options. I've found a few. I posted a list of new handles on Facebook and a friend asked for more information about them, so here is a rundown of what I'm looking at. I'm listing them from most developed to least developed. <p></p><p>Note: All of this is based on my impressions as a user of these platforms for 1-3 days. I fully admit I do not know much yet, but in some cases there isn't that much to know. </p><p><a href="https://mastodon.cloud/auth/sign_in"><b>Mastodon:</b> </a>You've probably heard about this one and been curious. Mastodon is like if Twitter and Discord had a baby. It's open source and distributed. There are separate 'servers,' and you join one of those. If you don't like the server you join, you can 'migrate.' Those servers connect to each other as a 'federated' group. You can follow people on other servers, if you can find them. The web app is the easiest place to get started and the easiest way to find people. I'm <b>@JenRoberts@techhub.social</b></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCd-fJxuRrP16xsWj-cJm-TSPuRQmLgbnUMp-vR074guMMn_Ll_mQFuow8n7dF5vRMSwWRFC94LsH2NM2r821m76iBuoDC7gAVhNmJyGOvgBQvhx7CmP4SJ8D6zLIhKXyxm0l0VnMqwP4SJ8qNSRym_Uzt29WcQoi7qKVpdLkgFIIgd-NCV4U_Nqz7/s2332/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-23%20at%208.40.53%20AM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Mastodon settings/appearance page" border="0" data-original-height="786" data-original-width="2332" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCd-fJxuRrP16xsWj-cJm-TSPuRQmLgbnUMp-vR074guMMn_Ll_mQFuow8n7dF5vRMSwWRFC94LsH2NM2r821m76iBuoDC7gAVhNmJyGOvgBQvhx7CmP4SJ8D6zLIhKXyxm0l0VnMqwP4SJ8qNSRym_Uzt29WcQoi7qKVpdLkgFIIgd-NCV4U_Nqz7/w320-h108/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-23%20at%208.40.53%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click image to view larger</td></tr></tbody></table>Mastodon has several phone apps. One is official, but the rumor is that the less official apps are better/easier to use. Hashtags work in Mastodon. Use #introduction with your first post. Fill that post with lots of hashtags that interest you to help people find you. Miguel Guhlin put out a form and created <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1beJHWsuB0MJDMqeg_q8pBRWRdQImY-n8E6PttoJLFaM/htmlview">a list of Edu folks on Mastodon</a>. There are 365 folks on there as I grab the link today. <div><br /></div><div>Navigate to your settings and choose Appearance/Enable advanced web interface to create columns that look like Tweetdeck. This makes it a little easier to navigate. Here's a recent screen grab. I blurred out the handles of anyone who wasn't my friend Judy. She is <b>@judyblakeney@mastodon.world </b></div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDpoY_ZVnkCui3FKbb7_Bm6jGQe4FfXnQBD4uZ8TIlVZ32sSzLu45pr_5Rj77tadH2qVy6gZK3yVCk4QA-rsdrxTS_OtzlN4GeHn3PVj2ADsV8vsF82ZgEpH2y9tnkykqKhgSlABvqddsi4Cv8kv7UwlBLYdKRSc7sW9yBzwaY852qGhoEwmxmxMZ1/s2852/Federated-timeline-TechHub.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="mastodon user home page with columns" border="0" data-original-height="1454" data-original-width="2852" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDpoY_ZVnkCui3FKbb7_Bm6jGQe4FfXnQBD4uZ8TIlVZ32sSzLu45pr_5Rj77tadH2qVy6gZK3yVCk4QA-rsdrxTS_OtzlN4GeHn3PVj2ADsV8vsF82ZgEpH2y9tnkykqKhgSlABvqddsi4Cv8kv7UwlBLYdKRSc7sW9yBzwaY852qGhoEwmxmxMZ1/w400-h204/Federated-timeline-TechHub.png" title="mastodon user home page" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click image to view larger.</td></tr></tbody></table><b>Tip: </b>Once you create your Mastodon handle, write a tweet that includes your handle, and then pin that tweet at the top of your Twitter feed. If you do that, people can use a tool called <a href="https://fedifinder.glitch.me/" target="_blank">Fedifinder </a>to scan their own twitter account follows and it will extract Mastodon usernames from pinned tweets. More of the folks who follow you now will be able to find you again. </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Current impressions: Mastodon seems cool. Folks on there are smart people willing to spend the time to figure it out and they share interesting things. I'm looking forward to learning more and connecting with more people. Plus, the mastodon mascot is super cute. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_18nqzSFINpay4iYpJOSrUfsgre8fHBDVWIhe0U-82_03Y40Twb3V7T8aPrPme5qnUe0oN03ViNsWwelsr8xN_Qtv7Af3EdLez8EhFFcLp0Dd01byW_IMwm4-bULHMfnZXV3T5VFd9q5gOQe2UxCWWE1yL_LHUTeurhQ-3Iygdy6aGYXiZkdq_F4z/s2780/Jennifer-Roberts-jenroberts-Stimulus.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1454" data-original-width="2780" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_18nqzSFINpay4iYpJOSrUfsgre8fHBDVWIhe0U-82_03Y40Twb3V7T8aPrPme5qnUe0oN03ViNsWwelsr8xN_Qtv7Af3EdLez8EhFFcLp0Dd01byW_IMwm4-bULHMfnZXV3T5VFd9q5gOQe2UxCWWE1yL_LHUTeurhQ-3Iygdy6aGYXiZkdq_F4z/s320/Jennifer-Roberts-jenroberts-Stimulus.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><b><a href="https://www.stimulus.com/ref/jenroberts" target="_blank">Stimulus: </a></b>(Added to this post 12/6/22)<b> </b>This one is -new to me- from the folks who run <a href="https://www.stickermule.com/unlock?ref_id=4470025701&utm_medium=link&utm_source=invite" target="_blank">StickerMule</a>. My friend Alice Keeler posted on the bird app inviting folks to follow her on Stimulus, so I signed up. Looks like Alice has been on there since May of '22, so it has been around six months or more. Spoiler: It's a lot like Twitter, but green. Also, they have give aways you can enter to win cash prizes, so there is money involved. It's hard to find people to follow, partly because there aren't a lot of users. The #edtech hashtag only turned up two people and I know both of them. It has a slick and functional user experience. They verify all users. I had to provide access to an app that scanned my driver's license. I'm not sure yet if that makes me feel safer or not. Frustrating, is that I can't find a way to see who follows me beyond the notifications page. And I can't look at another user's profile page and see who they follow. Alice and I have friends in common. If I could see who she follows, then I could probably find more people I know or want to know. Alas, that is not a feature yet. Current impressions: I like it. People seem nice. I know a few folks. It's backed by a company that has a good reputation for customer service. Find me on Stimulus <a href="https://www.stimulus.com/jenroberts" target="_blank">@JenRoberts</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Ro3dI_OSXhH41J0QMNJy7-mK_Gg1C5Z-S2h2I-L9a4I98X0VsN7cr0FCqpnn0KY5dX0eugangEd02CBPR4GOa5wxgLbVAz5kTnGPsNhd0jZIWANLIPt52P4-IIlVPOr6EYzM2qlAo9MbAr0KxpfyI7TzJ787zZv7lIR9crVUp3CgiB8FlymzIkzW/s2436/IMG_2266.PNG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Hive social user profile page" border="0" data-original-height="2436" data-original-width="1125" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Ro3dI_OSXhH41J0QMNJy7-mK_Gg1C5Z-S2h2I-L9a4I98X0VsN7cr0FCqpnn0KY5dX0eugangEd02CBPR4GOa5wxgLbVAz5kTnGPsNhd0jZIWANLIPt52P4-IIlVPOr6EYzM2qlAo9MbAr0KxpfyI7TzJ787zZv7lIR9crVUp3CgiB8FlymzIkzW/w185-h400/IMG_2266.PNG" width="185" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click to view larger</td></tr></tbody></table><b><a href="https://www.hivesocial.app/" target="_blank">Hive:</a></b> So far you can only join Hive through the app and they only recently launched a beta version of an Android app, so it's mostly folks on iOS. It's really pretty. You can customize your profile page to look a lot like Twitter. Hashtags work, but take you to a page of images. Click an images and scroll the feed for the hashtag. It's an odd extra step. It's easy to use and easy to set up. It will attract a lot of folks who want something that feels like Twitter and Instagram merged. <br /></div><div>Current impressions: I like it. I'll probably like it more when I can connect with more people. Without a web version that I can access on a computer it will have some limited utility for sharing things like teaching resources. On Hive I'm @JenRoberts. </div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>Those of you who know me from twitter will recall that I am <a href="https://twitter.com/JenRoberts1" target="_blank">@JenRoberts1</a> there. Part of the silver lining of migrating to new platforms is the chance to get in early and drop the 1 from my handle. </blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJ_4oNFASRMexQ4iMgX_5tZFo9Y03GWH1cEi_8DZ_SSM575aiNTKkoYgo1PbGY6VqkRLCZSb3uTUNONcVvw26uz9cQRwhfCibuII05RefC44OJpIhRP5WvQWeBycKoKbtruk3I8QeZ4CnGdm6a34NEuZ9Stzk6padTDHA8Y3Mt3Tp6Ky5mq2oJM2Z/s3484/Your-Profile-Post-.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Post social user profile page" border="0" data-original-height="3484" data-original-width="1254" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJ_4oNFASRMexQ4iMgX_5tZFo9Y03GWH1cEi_8DZ_SSM575aiNTKkoYgo1PbGY6VqkRLCZSb3uTUNONcVvw26uz9cQRwhfCibuII05RefC44OJpIhRP5WvQWeBycKoKbtruk3I8QeZ4CnGdm6a34NEuZ9Stzk6padTDHA8Y3Mt3Tp6Ky5mq2oJM2Z/w144-h400/Your-Profile-Post-.png" width="144" /></a></div><a href="https://post.news/?r=vJAIr" target="_blank"><b>Post:</b></a> This is the newest entry to the field. It is still in a limited beta. I got access yesterday. It has great potential. The former CEO of Waze is working on it, so that's a good sign. It has an attractive user interface, but I haven't followed anyone there yet. Right now everyone essentially follows everyone else because the only feed is the main one. That will certainly change as development continues. I'm really looking forward to how this turns out. I expect it will be pretty and functional. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>My Post handle is... you guessed it... <a href="https://post.news/?r=vJAIr" target="_blank">@JenRoberts</a>. </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Current impressions: Positive, but it's really too soon to tell. I'm optimistic though. </div><div><b><br /></b><br /><div><br /></div><div><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote>And someday soon...</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://bsky.app/" target="_blank"><b>Bluesky Social:</b></a> Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter is working on this one. All you can do so far is enter your email to join the wait list to try the beta. I suggest doing that now. </div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>I started talking to strangers on the internet on IRC in 1992. This feels almost like those early days. Get online. Say something. Hope someone says something back. Here we go again. Yippee ki-yay y'all. </blockquote><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div></div>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-7276142360349329682022-11-21T15:00:00.000-08:002022-11-21T15:53:37.524-08:00Scaffolding Academic Writing: Crowdsourcing The Evidence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiON74Knd134FtIc8tc2_bt5TJKreUoR1f8nkwr4d_Q9D6zHbEIO331CD1fOjqoEfhyEAr6oEmKRtaF_Tkuiq3i5l9RLKRzC3LLHxQ9jnkR9vRKh_DbM0eIKyjnw9MkH91mGd8Hy0V5Nk6M8LrUoEP6NNq-KYgz4KMlWFar9d8F8EQX6RR630T8Wsat/s4842/Evidence-in-Into-The-Wild%20(1).png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4842" data-original-width="1328" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiON74Knd134FtIc8tc2_bt5TJKreUoR1f8nkwr4d_Q9D6zHbEIO331CD1fOjqoEfhyEAr6oEmKRtaF_Tkuiq3i5l9RLKRzC3LLHxQ9jnkR9vRKh_DbM0eIKyjnw9MkH91mGd8Hy0V5Nk6M8LrUoEP6NNq-KYgz4KMlWFar9d8F8EQX6RR630T8Wsat/w176-h640/Evidence-in-Into-The-Wild%20(1).png" width="176" /></a></div><div>As an English teacher I have said, "Include evidence in your essay." more often than the Math teacher down the hall has said, "Show your work." At first, getting students to actually include text evidence in their academic writing was practically a moon shot. Some over achieving students would try, but most wouldn't bother to go back and sift through the text to find the sentence or two that supported their nebulous thesis. But now, thanks to a simple Google Form, my students gather oodles of text evidence, do a preliminary analysis of it, and create a resource they can all use.</div>
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<b>How Evidence Gathering Works:</b><br />I've been doing this for years. The first version of this blog post was published in 2013, so this is the update. It still works beautifully. We finished reading Into The Wild and my students knew there was an essay coming. Before introducing the prompt they would be writing about, I asked students to spend a period going back through the book and selecting quotes that they felt best represented that writers ideas. Important, they did this as pairs or even triads. No one works on this alone. <div><br /></div><div>I used the form on the right for students to submit the evidence they found along with their initial analysis. <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LJcillnzYVf4sXSfDKQkgXZSZ5fvmqn82VmtRAsvZR8/template/preview" target="_blank">You can have a copy of the form I used</a>. It's easily adaptable to other texts. <div>
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In itself this was a good way to have students review the key ideas in the book, but I knew the results of their efforts would soon be even more helpful to them. A Google Form deposits the responses in a spreadsheet and that spreadsheet can be published. I removed the student names and published their work, linking students to it in their assignment as "<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS2C-3YZjEW8zqnWWNfBQ-604jTlqkVQ7mNWKY2vvcslPPBEG64_oSLvScAZKY_p_lq40jiV3TVZYff/pubhtml?gid=1765454270&single=true" target="_blank">Spreadsheet of Collected Evidence from Into The Wild</a>." The next day, when I introduced the prompt, it came to them with their co-created resource of evidence. <br />
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As I modeled writing my own version of the essay, I showed students how I would go to the spreadsheet and select a piece of evidence that supported the point I was trying to make. I showed them how to copy the quote and then use ctrl-shift-v to paste it into my essay with the same formatting as my existing writing. (The shift key makes that work and saves lots of time reformatting.) I modeled that I would paste in the quote below where I was writing, so that I could decide how best to introduce it before I added it to my paragraph. And, of course, I modeled explaining how that evidence added to my point.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNM_jkDSEe55-HzDAqCE9KSQ8PoHY_n6mnloslvnNlb3DSnlhVxdM3I9oF6oVs6CHLsXECTD-kDwp3Z8oqZKLX2snpwENWYM8Blxeui-1JIPE-YE06WjUfnNInGfv8s6UdvY1vCAobIRbKmF7FGtRE2JVSsBZkliRUOM70VUKevNp5NPWZPrLE1VMw/s1871/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-21%20at%203.46.47%20PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="891" data-original-width="1871" height="152" margin:="5px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNM_jkDSEe55-HzDAqCE9KSQ8PoHY_n6mnloslvnNlb3DSnlhVxdM3I9oF6oVs6CHLsXECTD-kDwp3Z8oqZKLX2snpwENWYM8Blxeui-1JIPE-YE06WjUfnNInGfv8s6UdvY1vCAobIRbKmF7FGtRE2JVSsBZkliRUOM70VUKevNp5NPWZPrLE1VMw/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-21%20at%203.46.47%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>The results are stunning. Students don't have to break the flow of their ideas to find the evidence that fits their need. They are excited about having a collection of quotes to choose from that are (mostly) ready to use. I know (and so do they) that they won't always have a bank of evidence to draw from, but at least now that they have had the experience of successfully citing texts in their papers, they move on with a better understanding of how to do that in the future. </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Below are some useful points from an earlier version of this blog post.</b></div><div><br /></div><div> <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OTfnGWaENhJe_-V5BqMW3C0QrXPy-q6dokLTyOybxKg/pub" target="_blank">See an excerpt from a student paper. </a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7RnA42aC0B_2d_-drm81bZwfxzLOJCX_55zJlK17qerzSdAbaXe7gAnTSCsLyXm-7bEWQZfqNIw_86r6TAW1D_WUkpXQjvugKEfaxYAwp7vgbSNOZdJQNUt5PUbf0tRVh9rp4I7iyx2k/s1600/2013-03-01+21.47.51.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7RnA42aC0B_2d_-drm81bZwfxzLOJCX_55zJlK17qerzSdAbaXe7gAnTSCsLyXm-7bEWQZfqNIw_86r6TAW1D_WUkpXQjvugKEfaxYAwp7vgbSNOZdJQNUt5PUbf0tRVh9rp4I7iyx2k/s320/2013-03-01+21.47.51.jpg" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click to see larger image</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Several are already even talking about gathering evidence for writing <i>while</i> they read, which is why I was so pleased to see something <a href="https://twitter.com/englishcomp" target="_blank">Jim Burke</a> posted on Twitter this morning. It is a picture of a form he is using with his students (included here with his permission). He calls it Paragraph Notes. It asks students to select quotes while they are reading and to interpret those quotes as well. At the bottom students use their quotes and interpretations to write a summary of the text with evidence included. The sentence frames Jim provides are taken from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/They-Say-Matter-Academic-Writing/dp/039393361X" target="_blank">They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing.</a> (A book I highly recommend if you don't already have it.) <br />
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Including textual evidence in their writing is something students will always have to do to meet expectations. Having them co-create a resource list of possible textual evidence to use is just one scaffold we can use to support their academic writing. They won't need it for long.<br />
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<br /></div></div>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-17410938303757852092022-08-03T13:25:00.002-07:002023-06-01T19:35:55.719-07:00Follow That News: A year long current events project for my students<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZoqA_Yeo5_ofgLwUbNEgOstBC5w3vWQnyAdSRPyF7w9NO8-SC_kLclMpPOjOY0dqoP0VXHAK1KmRKd4PXL817aLIrfyrptC3mGjtntaORfet3vwbtmPYE-hX7WJzcW-anhuO5PueySy_G4Px-i1WTJ7rjWzhigiRXNUc8dJfbtbOU-1IupnFqd2J3/s3999/markus-winkler-aId-xYRTlEc-unsplash.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2666" data-original-width="3999" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZoqA_Yeo5_ofgLwUbNEgOstBC5w3vWQnyAdSRPyF7w9NO8-SC_kLclMpPOjOY0dqoP0VXHAK1KmRKd4PXL817aLIrfyrptC3mGjtntaORfet3vwbtmPYE-hX7WJzcW-anhuO5PueySy_G4Px-i1WTJ7rjWzhigiRXNUc8dJfbtbOU-1IupnFqd2J3/s320/markus-winkler-aId-xYRTlEc-unsplash.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I'm old enough to remember clipping an article out of a newspaper, writing a summary of it, presenting it to my middle school classmates, and adding it to the collection on the wall. (So yeah, me, ancient.) We had to do this once a month and it was always a completely different story. <p></p><p>As a teacher, I wondered what would happen if students followed the SAME topic in the news all year long. I created an assignment/project I called Follow That News. </p><p><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWY38X9-2kkKSIkS9CyVd3AkhIfwL6DKpJVOtWFIguk/template/preview" target="_blank">You can have a copy of it here</a>, click the link and then "use template." It's not fancy, just a lot of written directions about the project, the different assignment descriptions and some rough idea of the due dates. </p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Here is the gist of it:</span></b></p><p>In the fall, students choose a topic in the news that is of interest to them. Of course, they have to write what they already know about it, and why they want to follow that story. Then, in October, January, and April, students write an update about what is happening in that news story, including an <i>opinion section</i> so that they can separate what is happening, from what they think about it. (Separating facts from opinions, important skill huh?)</p><p>In February, students write a work of fiction based on what they know about their news story. This could be a fictionalized account from the point of view of someone prominent in the news, or someone impacted by the events, or something else. (Note, these are fun to read.)</p><p>In May, students create a slide about their topic and present to the class for 60 seconds.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGzaZJ5RZFJ_6qSMhaVEJAdANKFgCY4JxSCb__qFqqtEdh95X2wKr2Frq4wYQ_pDoVsR4ic8al-RmL076TX2LSvsJrgxqy_e6-Nibxvw0_aIr1ToQQZTScC_HW2bWDWqEwUUx1KmaahvFZfq1wvuTP6KD4Imxfb3qWwMOhywNrcE3pYUZfqk95J4T9/s2834/Period-2-Spring-presentations-22-23-Google-Slides.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1384" data-original-width="2834" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGzaZJ5RZFJ_6qSMhaVEJAdANKFgCY4JxSCb__qFqqtEdh95X2wKr2Frq4wYQ_pDoVsR4ic8al-RmL076TX2LSvsJrgxqy_e6-Nibxvw0_aIr1ToQQZTScC_HW2bWDWqEwUUx1KmaahvFZfq1wvuTP6KD4Imxfb3qWwMOhywNrcE3pYUZfqk95J4T9/w640-h312/Period-2-Spring-presentations-22-23-Google-Slides.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>In June, students write a final reflection about their learning, the process, what they got better at, and what they predict will happen next in the story they were following. </p><p>Of course you're welcome to change, adapt, add or subtract from any of that. </p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">What I like about this project: </span></b></p><p>It gives students a much more in depth understanding about what is actually happening in at least one aspect of the word. A news story they thought they knew about from the headlines can surprise them when they begin to pay more attention to it. </p><p>The project becomes something they can work on when they finish other work early, or if I have a sudden sub day. And we also spend days working on the various writing prompts in the project. Got a few minutes left at the end of the period? Have students search up their news topic and see what's new.</p><p>This project includes about 75% of the standards I need to work on with my students. We practice reading non-fiction, writing arguments, writing fiction, speaking, and listening. (Thank you <a href="https://listenwise.com/" target="_blank">Listenwise</a>.) Of course we work on those standards in other ways all year long too, but this is a great second layer of application and another way for students to show they are meeting the standards, hopefully with a topic that they might be more engaged with. </p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Resources to help you: </span></b></p><p>I created <a href="https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=77cf4097faa164bc1" target="_blank">a custom search engine made up of reputable news sites</a>. I chose sites included in this Forbes article, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/berlinschoolofcreativeleadership/2017/02/01/10-journalism-brands-where-you-will-find-real-facts-rather-than-alternative-facts/?sh=7439719ee9b5" target="_blank">10 Journalism Brands Where You Find Real Facts Rather Than Alternative Facts</a>. The article listed ten and then had a follow up list of honorable mentions, so I included those too when the site was not completely behind a pay wall. Note, if you click the link to the search engine, it doesn't look like much and you'll need to train students to scroll past the ads. You can try it out by searching in the box below. </p>
<script async="" src="https://cse.google.com/cse.js?cx=77cf4097faa164bc1">
</script>
<div class="gcse-search"></div>
<p>I also thought you might like this <a href="https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/" target="_blank">Interactive Media Bias Chart</a>. </p><p><a href="https://listenwise.com/" target="_blank">Listenwise</a> has great public radio content searchable and suitable for kids. </p><p><a href="https://newsela.com/" target="_blank">Newsela</a> is also a fantastic resource, but you probably already knew that. </p><p>If you want to create your own custom search engine for students, <a href="https://support.google.com/programmable-search/answer/4513882?hl=en" target="_blank">you can start here. </a></p><p>If you've read this far, you're probably committed to making sure students have a deep understanding of our world and what's happening. Thank you for that, and I hope the resources in this project will support you in your journey. </p><p><i>Typewriter photo credit to: <a href="https://unsplash.com/@markuswinkler?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Markus Winkler</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/news?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></i></p><p></p><p></p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-1429706690595889402022-06-29T13:55:00.000-07:002022-06-29T13:55:36.192-07:00Time Capsules in Water Bottles <p>I wanted to send my seniors off with something fun that would leave them with some lasting memories. I stumbled onto the idea of creating time capsules with water bottles. Some searching showed me some images, and I found some TPT resources that seemed more appropriate for younger students. So, I set out to make my own version. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1kxjyT1MD5HwGGJDqITHsn2Lwq5Yx24W5cy9hsJKISgmCZQcdHJ2_kRnIvmRXWHl0rb0p6xbEr-hrFzMDSJvpE9dHBDi-H3OTM5yRhIP4cZl7KyeU8GsNnd3nXiC81iCzsr2wJHgNMx97Ow1buomjY1GjAI1ctKzA3bX10OLuGmwPR73wzA3TxWe2/s3693/IMG_1753.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2770" data-original-width="3693" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1kxjyT1MD5HwGGJDqITHsn2Lwq5Yx24W5cy9hsJKISgmCZQcdHJ2_kRnIvmRXWHl0rb0p6xbEr-hrFzMDSJvpE9dHBDi-H3OTM5yRhIP4cZl7KyeU8GsNnd3nXiC81iCzsr2wJHgNMx97Ow1buomjY1GjAI1ctKzA3bX10OLuGmwPR73wzA3TxWe2/s320/IMG_1753.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div>To make this work I needed 72 water bottles. My students were happy to bring those in, often in large bags, but I would not tell them why, just that we needed them for a project we would do at the end of the year. This built some suspense. </div><div><br /></div><div>I created the 'label' for the bottles in a Google Drawing and then added that image five times to a Google Doc. (Templates below) I printed that 15 times on a color printer because our school logo was in color. I cut those with a paper-cutter to get it done faster. I also asked a student to remove all the existing labels from the bottles and remove all the caps a few days before we did the project. Making sure the bottles are dry is important before adding paper to them. </div><div><br /></div><div>I gave each student their bottle label so they could add their name, and the date they wanted to open it. Then I visited their tables to tape on the the labels. While I was doing that, my students worked on their "white sheets." This is also a good time to make a label and a bottle for any absent students. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZs-A7azmsE2YA_tLEd2o6byaTshwoS46J5Wf_n8--TqlxCCYZvwA82AebpxMnuRX5IJK1FraiXiX6KvzMP0Goyff3lNcjaLhrYIE3VJydp5DhS_7gwUHFhSVHwyByXkgvMLdUcTrhi46bGcOid5ImwQXFgEljj1h0FU1bbFmuukf0cYsyCans36eY/s958/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-27%20at%209.34.40%20AM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="958" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZs-A7azmsE2YA_tLEd2o6byaTshwoS46J5Wf_n8--TqlxCCYZvwA82AebpxMnuRX5IJK1FraiXiX6KvzMP0Goyff3lNcjaLhrYIE3VJydp5DhS_7gwUHFhSVHwyByXkgvMLdUcTrhi46bGcOid5ImwQXFgEljj1h0FU1bbFmuukf0cYsyCans36eY/w400-h318/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-27%20at%209.34.40%20AM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />The "white sheet" was where students could write about themselves; their favorites, and predictions for their life. I copied one for each student. If you want to spread the project over several days you could give students the "white sheet" as a warmup the day before or for homework. </div><div><br /></div><div>After writing their answers on the sheet, students cut it into strips, wrap each strip around a pencil and drop it into their bottle. </div><div><br /></div><div>Next came the "gold sheets," of course you can print these on any color that works for you. Our school colors are burgundy and gold, so I used burgundy ribbon and goldenrod paper. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXvngfwFTUlsfaUiZ2B5BBoGd4N-uTQJHvkBZQMYyI0kg4ND1_vlUg55q-WLXqUXkT1Ahz3Pr1Ea1f9RE6GagLEYnzLo-7F1zQv-XIqju1OP6q6vL7f_otgoftibENcRXaymAyrGOkaTwB4KpUwGIcVIA6MaTmlGHKWOVeggG6HHaobhvDBdTbiASq/s1568/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-27%20at%2010.02.59%20AM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="1568" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXvngfwFTUlsfaUiZ2B5BBoGd4N-uTQJHvkBZQMYyI0kg4ND1_vlUg55q-WLXqUXkT1Ahz3Pr1Ea1f9RE6GagLEYnzLo-7F1zQv-XIqju1OP6q6vL7f_otgoftibENcRXaymAyrGOkaTwB4KpUwGIcVIA6MaTmlGHKWOVeggG6HHaobhvDBdTbiASq/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-27%20at%2010.02.59%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>The "gold sheets" are a little challenging to set up. I wanted to be sure all students got some notes from classmates, so I included six names on each sheet. That meant I needed six sheets, with six names each to account for my 36 students in each period. That left six empty rows on each sheet for students to address to any classmate they wanted to. Having all students write to all classmates would have been very time consuming, so I opted for up to 12 students each. </div><div><br /></div><div>Again, students cut their messages into strips and wound them around a pen or pencil before dropping them into classmates bottles. </div><div><br /></div><div>Once students had dropped all their messages, we screwed on the bottle caps. If you don't have enough caps, or caps don't fit because they got randomized, you can also seal the bottles with some masking tape. </div><div><br /></div><div>For a decorative and celebratory touch, I covered each cap with<a href="https://amzn.to/3ylP1IK" target="_blank"> a square of gold foil</a> and tied <a href="https://amzn.to/3xQse68" target="_blank">some curling ribbon</a> around the bottle neck. (Affiliate links send a small percentage of your purchase to fund books for my classroom.) </div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Graduation Caps</b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiiAMbLdczHIkzr8fMLnqrPsREjMsWBu_vjdrIq3mrCJDPKGcvti_e2QuWmGeMpeVNPtcLEhrEZvrh9JV9nCRCsQxDiefdarMrUeWdkOPvjeBNtK6NtvK-3UBQflMamYDRiofdF2AbHUCfvlpLgrcHtGvpKFNjCxDqufG_g_dCyzdNKHTyBkxgiriA/s1042/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-25%20at%207.42.46%20PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1042" data-original-width="814" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiiAMbLdczHIkzr8fMLnqrPsREjMsWBu_vjdrIq3mrCJDPKGcvti_e2QuWmGeMpeVNPtcLEhrEZvrh9JV9nCRCsQxDiefdarMrUeWdkOPvjeBNtK6NtvK-3UBQflMamYDRiofdF2AbHUCfvlpLgrcHtGvpKFNjCxDqufG_g_dCyzdNKHTyBkxgiriA/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-25%20at%207.42.46%20PM.png" width="250" /></a></div></div><div>The small custom plastic graduation caps tied on the bottles in the picture above were made with plastic shrink sheets. (Think Shrinky-Dinks if you made those as a child.) My students had no experience with this. They didn't believe me that their designs would get smaller. </div><div><br /></div><div>I created the graduation cap icon with a few shapes in a Google Drawing. I added our school logo and the graduation year. I downloaded that image, and fit six of them onto a Google Doc. </div><div><br /></div><div>I printed that doc on <a href="https://amzn.to/3QQ3xj2" target="_blank">sheets of shrinkable plastic</a>. There were a few sheets that just would not print completely, so I recommend buying a little more than you think you need. </div><div><br /></div><div>I cut around the caps, leaving about 1/4 inch of space. If you haven't worked with this kind. of plastic before, it helps if you keep all corners rounded, otherwise there are sharp points after they shrink. It took me about an hour to cut around 72 caps, but it is something you can do while watching TV or enjoying an audio book. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpa5ORbTFeJiCMdNFY7CR3P3reNVngUIiHuWPkxfIsmpaYsECoT0mcNyXLMzWRofwDPmltEds8k0tszBcs55V40t2aPSWhdq2JPu3kFZ1Q846SuECjHPsFg38O5DupabORyqD2ndBcgaIL4hhhxWPWeDQa0QBp4b4xHqifsLJU9a9W_6lL1HG1rGiG/s4032/IMG_1752.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpa5ORbTFeJiCMdNFY7CR3P3reNVngUIiHuWPkxfIsmpaYsECoT0mcNyXLMzWRofwDPmltEds8k0tszBcs55V40t2aPSWhdq2JPu3kFZ1Q846SuECjHPsFg38O5DupabORyqD2ndBcgaIL4hhhxWPWeDQa0QBp4b4xHqifsLJU9a9W_6lL1HG1rGiG/w300-h400/IMG_1752.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><br />My students customized their caps with pens and pencils. Next time I will encourage more of them to use colors and markers. <b>Very important: Use a hole punch to add a hole to the grad cap somewhere.</b> I did this after my students decorated, so that I could place the hole where it would not interfere with their design. Next time, I'll punch two connected holes, so that it will be a little easier to fit the ribbon through. This year I had to use some white string to create a loop so that I could tie the grad caps on the bottles. </div><div><br /></div><div>I took the decorated caps home and baked them according to the directions on the shrink sheet package. They bake very quickly, under two minutes per baking sheet. I was done with 72 in under 30 minutes, including the time it took to preheat the oven. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, I feel like a food blogger. Not only have I just mentioned using the oven, but I am finally getting to the things you need to make this work. <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YtCy0137B37Z8Q8O9khywmK_iubjNvnT?usp=sharing" target="_blank">All the docs I created to make this project are in this Google Drive folder. </a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>That folder includes the list below, but I also linked them individually for you. </b></div><div>1. <a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/13rYLBGlbYhlwOwc2xZ4VneYycC7xqLBf9DjYKaCTdSU/template/preview" target="_blank">The Google Doc for the image for bottle labels.</a></div><div>2. <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DeKAEjwwHgBZImHBIsGtJI4_YWKLAHkru0kefR5QDQg/template/preview" target="_blank">The doc to paste that label image onto five times.</a></div><div>3. <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FhUWQY1CDMZiOOBn3QDU7wZa6YTPG6g4XQ2Iv8muD8c/template/preview" target="_blank">The student 'white sheet' about themselves. Print/copy one for each student. </a></div><div>4. <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YP51Zx9kqgV_EuYuiyslZYRt7mrKoe0aIHRm4fPyioc/template/preview" target="_blank">The 'gold sheet' for students to write notes to their classmates. </a>Add six student names to each sheet and print six times for a class of 36 students. If you teach multiple periods, you'll need a different copy of this doc for each period because you'll be adding different names. </div><div>5. <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mq8YTYbieyMI3al5r0PL3eqCZjI0RUlcEFFk_0xyn_k/template/preview" target="_blank">Teacher notes for time capsule.</a> This doc has 36 rows. I added all of my students' names and wrote a note to each of them. I printed this on the same goldenrod paper I used for the notes to classmates. </div><div>6. <a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1i8MjX8LyR7N8t-Nblc81hdSAJzNr8JPW50xDx0Wq31s/template/preview" target="_blank">The grad cap icon Google drawing.</a> Customize this with your school logo, download and see if you can fit six on a doc. You might need to adjust the size of the cap to fit six. You can of course adjust the number and size based on your class size etc. </div><div><br /></div><div>Some students asked where I would be keeping their time capsules and how they would get them from me. They were happy to hear they could take them home. I have no idea why they thought I would be storing the bottles for them. I suggested they put them in the back of a closet and rediscover them later. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE4pN3JlfcbcWcuo_cK-qBbW89TFQrEI4gkbLF_c0ikoDdNExlLfEZiaewC7IgkN7zCkhcA2DAHBjyZqI1cUdHR3UF-UKHEFc94vMw0QynklB_DjzHpT-NuMlKZ-lIJvXez-eBI7BefvIJ89m8Sto7b-as2qbrquaLCugYfmojl-bBtLPL56p4rz6B/s4032/IMG_BC9C9923B883-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE4pN3JlfcbcWcuo_cK-qBbW89TFQrEI4gkbLF_c0ikoDdNExlLfEZiaewC7IgkN7zCkhcA2DAHBjyZqI1cUdHR3UF-UKHEFc94vMw0QynklB_DjzHpT-NuMlKZ-lIJvXez-eBI7BefvIJ89m8Sto7b-as2qbrquaLCugYfmojl-bBtLPL56p4rz6B/s320/IMG_BC9C9923B883-1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>This was a fun way to celebrate the end of the year and the end of high school for my students. The time capsules ask them to consider life five or ten years in the future. Many of them hadn't thought past their plans for the summer or the next year. </div><div><br /></div><div>With a little tweaking this could also be a fun way to begin the school year. Perhaps I will do it the first week of school with my 9th graders for them to open as they graduate. </div><div><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-86304073311619162352022-06-18T11:18:00.002-07:002022-06-18T11:21:23.904-07:00Student Created Vision Statements<p>Your school probably has a vision statement, but do your students have their own? (Cringing that I just wrote a question hook, but oh well.) </p><p>I created this lesson for my seniors in the fall of 2021. It worked very well, so I want to offer it to any teacher who can use it. Everything you need to pull off this lesson should be in this blog post. </p><p>This lesson was inspired by a parent who wrote a Facebook post with a one-pager she created for her daughter. The post was widely shared and went around the world. The little girl, Ellie, was born with Down Syndrome and has special needs in school. The parent created a page about her daughter's strengths and needs to share with her teachers. <a href="https://limitlessability.wixsite.com/support/single-post/2017/06/05/how-to-make-a-one-page-profile-for-your-child-ellie-style" target="_blank">You can find her post about that here</a>. At the top of the page was a vision statement about how the parents envisioned their daughter living her life. It was beautiful, heartfelt, realistic, and optimistic. </p><p>My first thought was that I wanted to have my students make their own one-pager about themselves. (If you have the time, go for it.) Then, I decided to scale back and focus just on the vision statement part. </p><p><b>Lesson Slides:</b> This is the lesson that resulted and <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Rfd8Mpvme5udRTfoOn9Ut0Jw4PHzUIF0QLnsLXZRhy0/template/preview" target="_blank">you can have a copy of these slides here</a>. Click "use template."</p>
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="569" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vT4vNECLreP2XWenrjcBVO5ocESzbKfunWhNSG2S6skMC4DnAYGnyekyLLp1uSacsoK2BhzWhT5q5CX/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="960"></iframe><p>When you make your copy of the lesson slides, you'll find a link to the student slide template at the end, but you can also <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1t2Ik16FfLfN8dQInXKq3dGs-7GEiR830PxwmBc61P7M/template/preview" target="_blank">make a copy of the student slides here</a>. You'll need a copy of those student slides for each period you teach. The student slides give students a place to put their personal vision and add an image to go with it. </p><p>When you share the student slides with your classes, I suggest either sharing through Google Classroom, or pasting in the email addresses of your students in that period. I do not recommend the "anyone can edit" option for reasons described below.</p><p>I created an example of what this assignment could look like in Google Classroom. Remember you'll need a different slide deck for each period if you are using this with multiple periods of students. NOTE: the setting here is "students can edit file" and not make a copy for each student. This way you'll have all the vision statements for each period in one slide deck. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1QhVmxfUoPux382CErCmhN69A_Hme4bqS_9UD2U8fgupU5M3ptOxxNyMVZKu4hVAsv2UPICT8r3oUABgR_VaieBYxLqAkZdeTtPv61Kfiwr-OityB-hgHZ2GhdOte8lvPrdqLMahQM3Lu1I3BgDwDT7U16Ce6WkFCzRtH39NNt_Q4XMkiNSi0gTQU/s1792/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-18%20at%2010.45.48%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1076" data-original-width="1792" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1QhVmxfUoPux382CErCmhN69A_Hme4bqS_9UD2U8fgupU5M3ptOxxNyMVZKu4hVAsv2UPICT8r3oUABgR_VaieBYxLqAkZdeTtPv61Kfiwr-OityB-hgHZ2GhdOte8lvPrdqLMahQM3Lu1I3BgDwDT7U16Ce6WkFCzRtH39NNt_Q4XMkiNSi0gTQU/w640-h384/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-18%20at%2010.45.48%20AM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b>Technical challenges</b></p><p>There are sometimes issues when you give edit access to the whole class. The biggest problem is when a student adds a background image and accidentally clicks the button that says "add to theme." Then their background image becomes everyones background image. Control-Z can usually fix this quickly. You can also click "background" and then "reset to theme," but that means other students will need to re-add their images. </p><p>Sometimes a student chooses to do something malicious to another student's slide. I like to find out early if I have a student like that in class, so we can have some proactive conversations about what it means to be part of a learning community and respecting the work of others. Vision statement slides are a low stakes way to find out about student's technical skills and the revision history (File/Version history) can help you restore any short term damage. </p><p><b>Know Your Students Better</b></p><p>Most importantly, the vision statement slides helped me get to know my students, their interests and their life goals. I found myself going back to those slides when students asked for letters of recommendation, when I wanted to help them choose an engaging book to read, and when I was debating which modules to teach. </p><p>I've blurred out all of the content because my student's vision statements belong to them, but even through the blur, I think you can tell that they each put their own spin on this, chose their own words and images, and were generally very willing to tell me who they are and who they want to be. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgavHsh4w7XF081csJ2c3UXNfr2-o8ga_Bmb_TCHraAGvQ40RRoyR7JK5f9TWiCazUWZAP0ltPEYTFEP_gXGC2Wh0tkwzLl3lDtXUpqOUS0-Mkju18QDTCojjp8XItXpK4smb8IzwKZYi8-a9ax9LqgpuQvLpxdBy94vieNH5_chcTHbPMN59uDdwTg/s2188/Vision-Slides-Period-2-Google-Slides.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1446" data-original-width="2188" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgavHsh4w7XF081csJ2c3UXNfr2-o8ga_Bmb_TCHraAGvQ40RRoyR7JK5f9TWiCazUWZAP0ltPEYTFEP_gXGC2Wh0tkwzLl3lDtXUpqOUS0-Mkju18QDTCojjp8XItXpK4smb8IzwKZYi8-a9ax9LqgpuQvLpxdBy94vieNH5_chcTHbPMN59uDdwTg/w640-h422/Vision-Slides-Period-2-Google-Slides.png" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I hope the steps and slides for creating and sharing vision statements will be valuable to you and your students. If you use this successfully (or even unsuccessfully) please let me know in the comments or on Twitter. I'm <a href="https://twitter.com/JenRoberts1" target="_blank">@JenRoberts1</a>. </div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>
@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-61376106216716444952021-12-12T11:15:00.003-08:002022-07-01T12:41:33.628-07:00Making Your Own Teacher Toolbox<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTDLy1wTtSjkxNNysqv3rhmL-vZebjqtrAT3hXu_jHoUiVHo4jNhKjs72f5tsHQrBdGcRXjzsoEetTTIDGsqqk3ZNJ5qvF4ohIgouRce4w-7ZQ2Z3UMh4JXzY_99F-rqubdgLlCIu0V55d417VyrxZT_6CpfLMqgQE6R8D6lRPZ5fgIWieIuZ-HTiP=s4032" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2744" data-original-width="4032" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTDLy1wTtSjkxNNysqv3rhmL-vZebjqtrAT3hXu_jHoUiVHo4jNhKjs72f5tsHQrBdGcRXjzsoEetTTIDGsqqk3ZNJ5qvF4ohIgouRce4w-7ZQ2Z3UMh4JXzY_99F-rqubdgLlCIu0V55d417VyrxZT_6CpfLMqgQE6R8D6lRPZ5fgIWieIuZ-HTiP=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Over the summer, someone shared a teacher toolbox on Twitter and I went down a rabbit hole learning all about them and how to make them. <p></p><p>I bought a set of labels online, but I decided I didn't like them much and they were challenging to customize, so I made my own one day. And, because I like to share all the good things that come out of my classroom, I am sharing my creation with you. </p><p>I bought the large box on the right, but the drawers are only 5-6" deep, so I needed another solution for pens and pencils. I already had the shorter box on the right. It was stuffed with a hodgepodge of other things that fit well in the larger box, so reorganization worked in my favor. </p><p>The availability <a href="https://amzn.to/3I4PBxL" target="_blank">on the large box I bought</a> fluctuates. Sometimes it is only available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MAV3GQ6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01MAV3GQ6&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=50bf2be31e8ca1cfc00b6e409d8f75d5" target="_blank">with a red front edge</a>. (And right now the price is higher than I paid. It might be worth waiting because the price fluctuates a lot on these. $30-$40 is the reasonable range.) There are lots of drawer combinations, though. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00012FQEM/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00012FQEM&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=4868dc341165440f4e70ecd81245b4ad" target="_blank">This one is all bigger drawers</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LDH3JC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000LDH3JC&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=ad839b1067fc0a98610cb4994ceee2e6" target="_blank">this one is all small drawers</a>. Get what works for you. </p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DNUWO66/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01DNUWO66&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=6b58865364f8a57ea701654603a4dd71" target="_blank">This is a box similar to the smaller one I use for pens and pencils.</a> (Also worth price watching as it ranges from $12-25 and fluctuates a lot.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfe73YRMIaV1UCIy0pfflYjmI6c_gt_Jq5XWh2Kei559ZlQE8gK9gf-9UH-bygvdUJSv2d3ZtjLY1uIKS2NF9VQrNW1WJAaI2e1xRy6k9mKM79fUU1oJqH_nMeDfrgRRXFBuO5tbmKpzHRQHxyQH0raMHXJ4QvElPEx3EcrOJFOSAkflzUf3iU5hU5/s970/Screen%20Shot%202022-07-01%20at%2012.40.12%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="970" data-original-width="782" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfe73YRMIaV1UCIy0pfflYjmI6c_gt_Jq5XWh2Kei559ZlQE8gK9gf-9UH-bygvdUJSv2d3ZtjLY1uIKS2NF9VQrNW1WJAaI2e1xRy6k9mKM79fUU1oJqH_nMeDfrgRRXFBuO5tbmKpzHRQHxyQH0raMHXJ4QvElPEx3EcrOJFOSAkflzUf3iU5hU5/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-07-01%20at%2012.40.12%20PM.png" width="258" /></a></div><p></p><p><a href="https://bit.ly/33psRIz" target="_blank">These are the Google slides I made for my labels.</a> Click "Use Template" to get your own copy of the slides. They are free. Note that these can be challenging to get the images to print correctly. I had to download them as a PDF and <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/?promoid=TTGWL47M" target="_blank">print using Adobe</a>. The trick was to click "print as image" in the advanced settings. Printing directly from Google created black boxes in place of some images. </p><p>I found lots of suggestions online about the best method to tape the labels onto the drawers. And lot of debate about wether it was better to stick labels on the outside or the inside of the drawers. After considering lots of tape and glue options, I remembered that <a href="https://amzn.to/3yAzMMc" target="_blank">Avery makes full sheet labels</a> and I had some handy. I simply printed my slides to these full sheet labels and then cut them to fit my drawers. After six months they are still sticking just fine.</p><p>Some people like to paint the box. That was a little too much work for me and I liked the black anyway. Also, I was not confident that painted plastic would handle the wear and tear of a classroom. </p><p>I made a conscious decision that I wanted my toolbox to be easily accessed by my co-teacher and students, so I didn't include items that were just for my personal use.</p><p>So far, I totally love my toolbox. The little bits we need to keep things on track are accessible, and my other drawers are more organized without all these little parts taking up space. If you make your own share a picture in the comments or on Twitter. I'm @JenRoberts1. </p><p>*Note: The links in this post are affiliate links. I earn a very small percentage of your purchase, but the item price to you is the same either way. The slides are shared freely. The Chrome extension I love for showing me how the prices of Amazon items fluctuates is called <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-camelizer/ghnomdcacenbmilgjigehppbamfndblo?hl=en" target="_blank">The Camelizer</a>. It will usually show you the graph of how an item's price has changed over time. You can also use it to set a price watch and it will email you when an item drops below your preferred cost. </p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-19733488524115172872021-07-20T12:02:00.001-07:002021-07-20T12:02:23.468-07:00The Academic Honesty Unit<p>Academic honesty, *sigh*. It's always been an issue, but when even more student work became digital, and all of it done at home, there was surely a spike in students not doing their own academic work. I've written before about <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2016/04/plagiarism-and-google-tools-to-reduce-it.html" target="_blank">how teachers can detect plagiarism</a>, but how do we stop it before it even starts?</p><p>There is no magical answer that will make all of your students academically honest, but it does take more than plagiarism checkers and harsh penalties. Our students need an education about what academic honesty is. Many don't know what is and is not considered cheating. Several years ago my 9th grade team swapped out our normal end of the year unit, and replaced it with a unit about academic honesty. If we are going to hold our students to high academic standards, and expect them to meet those, then we need to educate them about what that means. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi951JqlDleFsdj730IDq0MeISoGexlmrJ8yskh6_vPX4TmGHH5R60q_FWXQnUt5g__rKDVow_130PqaaA6zs5zuENpRMkjwA6u8TmfmmCfiLhdv90qtVZZNfPTwIifFhPp_haORpGDJfU/s1436/Screen+Shot+2021-07-20+at+11.38.00+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1436" data-original-width="1176" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi951JqlDleFsdj730IDq0MeISoGexlmrJ8yskh6_vPX4TmGHH5R60q_FWXQnUt5g__rKDVow_130PqaaA6zs5zuENpRMkjwA6u8TmfmmCfiLhdv90qtVZZNfPTwIifFhPp_haORpGDJfU/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-07-20+at+11.38.00+AM.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sample section of the survey</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>We began with a survey. Near the end of the school year our students are often surveyed about a variety of things from the district and the state, so we tossed on a survey about academic honesty. They had no idea it was related to the unit we were about to start. It probably has too many questions, and every year I take some away. Some are a little ambiguous, so if you are using it I encourage you to make edits to the form. </p><p>We followed that with several readings about academic honesty, and applied the reading strategies and analysis writing we had done with other units. It was good to practice those skills once more at the end of the year and it also caused students to really think about these articles. We included an infographic for more practice interpreting data, and did a jigsaw of even more articles about incidents of academic dishonesty. </p><p><br /></p><p>When students were well versed in the perils and magnitude of cheating around the country, we gave them back their own data from the survey that we started with. All the teachers on the team shared the same survey, so there were hundreds of student responses. We learned the difference between quantitative data and qualitative data. Students wrote short descriptions about what the data was telling them. We gave them frames for writing about data. (The book They Say I Say was hugely helpful.) It's not easy for a 9th grader to write a sentence like 'Of the 56% of students who said they had cheated this school year, over 95% said they had cheated on homework, and 50% even said they had cheated on a test.' We find that students even have trouble understanding that this does not mean that 95% of their classmates have cheated on homework. Explaining that the 95% is only a subset of the 56% who admitted to cheating, is always challenging. (I'm guesstimating these percentages, but they are close to what the real data usually shows.) So our students are getting a chance to talk and write about real data that they are personally invested in. At first I just gave them the graphs, copied from the summary of responses page on the survey form, but then I switched to making more actionable slides to have student partners write about their interpretations of the data. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhupNwDoCDib940iTpn9k1hkidnfsANeDZh-HDrrNsIbFf_O2nJXQ-AvWqHY4vBovsk4dWM0znyzrgpR_AWdLI50VAguzaMyEFa3mI86c8kkMDGjxIPGIj18A2Xu0Wh1ratEjUvRTWLC7k/s2048/Screen+Shot+2021-07-20+at+11.40.49+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1218" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhupNwDoCDib940iTpn9k1hkidnfsANeDZh-HDrrNsIbFf_O2nJXQ-AvWqHY4vBovsk4dWM0znyzrgpR_AWdLI50VAguzaMyEFa3mI86c8kkMDGjxIPGIj18A2Xu0Wh1ratEjUvRTWLC7k/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-07-20+at+11.40.49+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Actionable slides to analyze data.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p>And then we get to my favorite part. By now students know a lot about academic honesty. They know it's an issue at our school. They know the myriad causes of it. They have strong opinions about what to do about it. They are ready. We give them a lot of choice in their final project. It's a bit like a restaurant that lets you customize everything about your ramen bowl, broth, noodles, toppings, etc. Our students choose their audience, their message, and their format. They can even choose their partners, or work alone. </p><p><br /></p><p>Some choose to make a video to tell parents to care about more than just grades. Some write an open letter to our admin team asking them to be tougher on students who cheat. Some make posters and go talk to middle school students about how cheating can hurt you in high school. Some make an infographic to hang in the copy room where other teachers can learn more about the kinds of assignments that lead to cheating. Some create instagram accounts just about spreading the word to their peers that cheating will hurt you in life. </p><p>See what I mean about choice. In all of their projects they are required to cite their sources, use at least one source from our readings, use at least some of our class survey data, and give acknowledgements to anyone who helped them with their project. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKI9wrt65OsfvD3cVyiEWA_HeEOpc4OlwvETG6FKIcT-HJxn4BM1_TkZabl8gDuYB5x74YGJP4GBfR-0uPEjYj8kaTe97JunPYL7gBC7woASWktN2tj6Zadld7WKu2TUBr2Sxu8YdGDqA/s1606/Screen+Shot+2021-07-20+at+11.35.02+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1606" height="475" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKI9wrt65OsfvD3cVyiEWA_HeEOpc4OlwvETG6FKIcT-HJxn4BM1_TkZabl8gDuYB5x74YGJP4GBfR-0uPEjYj8kaTe97JunPYL7gBC7woASWktN2tj6Zadld7WKu2TUBr2Sxu8YdGDqA/w640-h475/Screen+Shot+2021-07-20+at+11.35.02+AM.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The top part of the project assignment page</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p>If you haver read this far you are very invested in teaching your students more about academic honesty. <b><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ivNaXdbhzVTEz4uIiPzPdqJGkCCs7Cugc8-ff5O_bjc/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Here is a doc with links to all the things I've talked about this post and more.</a></b> Everything should be set to give you view access or force you to make a copy. (Note that this doc is shared with an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons License. If I find you selling any of it on TPT or anywhere else, I will hunt you down and accidentally spill a full cup of coffee on you.) But please feel free to share it with colleagues, use it with students, and even tweet or talk about it. Links to this post and credit to myself and my team are highly recommended. </p><p>Does this make our students more academically honest in 10th grade? Hard to say. There are a lot of factors that impact cheating after all, but at least our students can't say they didn't know that copying something from the internet and changing words until their plagiarism checker says it's undetectable, is still cheating. </p><p>I'd love to know if you and your team are using this unit. I'd love to hear about how you've improved it and how it impacted your students. If you have questions I'm just a tweet away <b><a href="https://twitter.com/JenRoberts1" target="_blank">@JenRoberts1</a></b>.</p><p>This post is dedicated to all the teachers about to reenter classrooms in the fall of 2021. I see you. I hope this helps. </p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-30144909837086167682020-08-21T10:18:00.001-07:002020-10-20T19:34:29.548-07:00How to make intentional groups in Zoom, quickly<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8yiROKEgx9G4vJebYrG5qEgDqN37SJfK67sOfkJkanOVrvzH4t7gUBrWcBK2Fa1t-vlJGJxsdnENLg8vcNuPrOTKlYIPRqelLF4ctVIczKpD6H-EtXn2NdpHnjS_W6x2_1mkZXBbsNnE/s844/Screen+Shot+2020-08-20+at+9.36.13+PM.png" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="844" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8yiROKEgx9G4vJebYrG5qEgDqN37SJfK67sOfkJkanOVrvzH4t7gUBrWcBK2Fa1t-vlJGJxsdnENLg8vcNuPrOTKlYIPRqelLF4ctVIczKpD6H-EtXn2NdpHnjS_W6x2_1mkZXBbsNnE/w410-h260/Screen+Shot+2020-08-20+at+9.36.13+PM.png" width="410" /></a>If you use Zoom with your students keep reading. </p><p></p><p>If you use, or want to use breakout rooms with your students in Zoom, this post is for you. </p><p>This works best if your students login to Zoom using their school accounts. It can also work if they created personal Zoom accounts. </p><p>For safety, your best bet is requiring students to login to Zoom with their school accounts. The second best option is to require them to create Zoom accounts using a personal email and then you use a form to collect those email addresses. Either way you should know the email address of anyone you are expecting to join your class Zoom session. (See #1 in the screen shot.)</p><p><b>The Fun Part: Breakout Rooms</b></p><p>Zomming with 36 students is nice for direct instruction, but for actual conversation and collaboration, break out rooms are essential. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFUaGkI7scBcCsjNxM5rYflLmFc2ddFggxSF5dGzasOPKvNJYYxcc_XaqdpPO3sHWBoUYOoukBfrwH9khxyDQ1uAiTWOCFLtsz_5eGmB1plSSh29ygrEOrYzZvi0nBR-2kpMWzCaDESvc/s771/adding+breakout+rooms.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="771" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFUaGkI7scBcCsjNxM5rYflLmFc2ddFggxSF5dGzasOPKvNJYYxcc_XaqdpPO3sHWBoUYOoukBfrwH9khxyDQ1uAiTWOCFLtsz_5eGmB1plSSh29ygrEOrYzZvi0nBR-2kpMWzCaDESvc/w513-h253/adding+breakout+rooms.png" width="513" /></a></div><p></p><p>In my classroom, I almost never group students randomly, but the prospect of having to click 36 different check boxes to assign students to groups intentionally was daunting and time consuming. I was worried my students would have to wait too long for me to do that. I thought I would have to settle for always using random breakout room groupings. Not ideal. </p><p>Then I saw that Zoom would let me create my groups and upload them as a CSV file. (#2 in screenshot) CSV stands for comma separated values. It is the rawest form of spreadsheet data. But, lucky for us, Google Sheets makes it easy to create a CSV file with a quick download. </p><p>I clicked "import from CSV" on Zoom and saw that there was a downloadable template. I used that template to create my Zoom breakout groups spreadsheet. You can have a copy of it below. </p><p><b>Intentional Student Grouping:</b></p><p>The sheet I created has a roster page. Add your students' names and the email address that they use with Zoom. Again, this should be their district email account, but you can use personal accounts too. </p><p>On the roster page, add any data you have about your students in a score column. (You can have lots of score columns.) I like to use things like recent reading scores, quiz scores, draft progress scores, any number that means something about student progress will work. (These are not grades. They are formative assessment scores that usually are just for my information.) </p><p>Now, click the letter in the top of the column that holds the score you want to sort by, and sort A-Z or even Z-A. This sort will change the order of the students on your roster, either lowest to highest, or highest to lowest. </p><p>Click the tab at the bottom of the sheet that matches the group size and configuration you want, 3-4 students, and homogeneous or heterogeneous. (I'm thinking of adding tabs for groups of 5 and 6, but I haven't done it yet.)</p><p>The sheet/tab with for the group size will just list room numbers and email addresses. Don't add names. (I don't know if adding names to this page of the sheet will cause a problem in Zoom or not, so for now I'm leaving them off.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVaYZoaj9482Mpzzum7lOHON0B_38hLjvanzie7PKeMoBpRbFwxEuy4afkfNUp-llX3cDAkCxR9qUPcC09cUHUBgCjOZrLw1sQQdYtLHAIkbJ6HBSulyMjDsb0G6q1lXaFk_WdGxX6mg/s650/Screen+Shot+2020-08-21+at+9.56.08+AM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="604" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVaYZoaj9482Mpzzum7lOHON0B_38hLjvanzie7PKeMoBpRbFwxEuy4afkfNUp-llX3cDAkCxR9qUPcC09cUHUBgCjOZrLw1sQQdYtLHAIkbJ6HBSulyMjDsb0G6q1lXaFk_WdGxX6mg/w381-h410/Screen+Shot+2020-08-21+at+9.56.08+AM.png" width="381" /></a></div><p></p><p>Go to the File menu at the top of the page and select Download>CSV file for the current sheet i.e. just the tab page you are looking at with the rooms and emails. (Very important, must be CSV not Excel.)</p><p>Go to your recurring meeting in Zoom in your Zoom web interface. Edit the meeting you want to use with these groups. Check the box for Breakout room preassign and click import from CSV. </p><p>Drag or browse to the CSV file you just downloaded from your Google sheet. </p><p>Boom! your students are pre-assigned to break out rooms based on your intentional instructional decisions. If you used homogeneous groups, you know right away which ones will need more support. If you chose heterogeneous groups, you already know that each group has a strong student to help lead the group work. </p><p><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/191SpRY3GoFHOr85wwwM4V4Duv4usiFhw25B5Jm61O8U/copy" target="_blank">Click HERE to get a copy of the Template for: Breakout Room Groups.</a></p><p>If you like this group creator for Zoom, you'll love my original <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2014/03/group-creator-make-groups-fast.html" target="_blank">Group Creator Spreadsheet</a> that I used all the time in the classroom. </p><p>If you are doing a lot of Zooming with students, you need the right gear. These are <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/03/zooming-with-virtual-classroom.html" target="_blank">my recommendations for a headset, green screen, and lighting</a>. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Helps With Zoom Bombers if You Can't Use District Accounts: </b></p><p>Students are posting the links to their classroom Zoom meetings, often with specific instructions about what time to join and even the first and last names of their classmates, so that trolls can impersonate real students in the class. </p><p>If your Zoom meeting is set to require students to sign in with their school issued email accounts, then the trolls probably can't access the meeting at all and you should be fine. (Though, there will come a time when a student will make a really poor choice and share their password.)</p><p>If you are using personal Zoom accounts, you should still set user authentication to require those Zoom accounts, but that means anyone with a Zoom account can join your class, even if they are not your student. This is why you need to collect the email addresses students are using for Zoom and pre-assign your break out rooms. </p><p>This part is hypothetical because my students have to use district accounts, so I haven't tried this, but I think it will work. If someone enters your meeting and behaves badly, even if they seem to have the name of a normal student, you can immediately launch your breakout rooms. All of your regular students will be sent to their breakout rooms, and the Zoom bomber will be left with you in the main room. What you do with them at that point is up to you, but they will likely leave quickly. </p><p>If you forget some of the instructions in this post, there is a shortened version on the instructions tab of the spreadsheet. If this helps you, leave a comment below. Even anonymous thank you messages can make my day. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUYK4D7mK6gLHETsqrjZqs-YkuVubOtXeaChaWV-E8FQp489Mrde6kn8Xzqem3xBOjZTbPAqeLuQOv0Qe9z9RGcAOM80ujLasrGXJuSVLmdPO9fOqylWvqJblTstuNhUyhynQ87jrAI_0/s1054/Screen+Shot+2020-08-21+at+10.12.10+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="1054" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUYK4D7mK6gLHETsqrjZqs-YkuVubOtXeaChaWV-E8FQp489Mrde6kn8Xzqem3xBOjZTbPAqeLuQOv0Qe9z9RGcAOM80ujLasrGXJuSVLmdPO9fOqylWvqJblTstuNhUyhynQ87jrAI_0/s640/Screen+Shot+2020-08-21+at+10.12.10+AM.png" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-77967700363154223332020-08-08T14:25:00.006-07:002020-08-08T14:50:38.093-07:00 Get More Internet: Bandwidth for Virtual Teaching and Learning<p><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ygol-Ty3DKeAbvNUkzrAJ8KZEqNHc9jwNZ8Mtg40-AAKiDCYy-QKJgUoRNaDuxMWjnz7GOEg23-nN4gK_MO0GnOL7T-zKK11cf7fzinhCHfRI6xitnzbHbDeCjqA3ziAIE20ZPsG6f0/s610/Screen+Shot+2020-08-08+at+1.30.28+PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Results of Jen's speed test, about 85 mbs down and 8.5 mbs up." border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="413" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ygol-Ty3DKeAbvNUkzrAJ8KZEqNHc9jwNZ8Mtg40-AAKiDCYy-QKJgUoRNaDuxMWjnz7GOEg23-nN4gK_MO0GnOL7T-zKK11cf7fzinhCHfRI6xitnzbHbDeCjqA3ziAIE20ZPsG6f0/w264-h390/Screen+Shot+2020-08-08+at+1.30.28+PM.png" title="My speed test results when no one is home but me." width="264" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My speed test results when no one is home but me.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are about to go back to school and most of us are about to do that in virtual teaching modules. (It's the 5th month of pandemic 'quarantine' for those keeping track.) </span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-68b2f4ac-7fff-9bfe-a0a2-c2bb02b6f9e4"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unlike the spring, my district, and state are pushing for a much larger number of live teaching minutes. For most of us, teachers and students, this means many more hours a day in virtual meetings, mostly via Zoom or Google Meet. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone is operating with the assumption that this technology is just going to work, that all kids and teachers will be able to get and stay online in video calls for several hours a day. We are even starting to see rules posted that students “must be on camera” during class. We are assuming that we can use these calls as proxies for attendance. I even heard a principal say to mark a student tardy if they leave the call early. It’s not that easy. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not talking about the social and emotional challenges of being online. There are other excellent posts about that. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cameras-damned-karen-costa/?fbclid=IwAR2Us4QA5k1OCY_bGUiMvSG-eYbgp0ah1kj5Ah1_lU4x-E6i7RR0yLCBuzM" target="_blank">See "Cameras Be Damned" by Karen Costa</a>. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m talking about the technical challenge of having 3-4 (or more) family members zooming at the same time. Each of those calls uses the internet and the bandwidth to our homes just can’t keep up. I’ll explain. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are two different internet speeds that come with your internet service, download and upload. Your download speed is typically very high. (See screenshot above.) This provides all the data you need to watch your streaming video services. Your upload speed, though is typically much lower. Our homes don’t generally upload a lot of data very fast, except when we are on a video call. Also, our internet speeds can fluctuate depending on the demand in the neighborhood. More on that in a minute.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I live with a tech savvy husband and two internet hungry kids. We have a great tech set up, and I am really lucky that way. My husband knows how to monitor our internet use in real time and rearrange the packet allocations so that every service gets what it needs to run correctly. We have an advanced networking set up and he knows how to optimize it. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In March, he started watching my internet usage while I was teaching on Zoom. He was able to show me that watching a zoom meeting with my camera off used about 1-2 mbps, but teaching with my camera on and talking could use up to 5 mbps. (mbps = megabytes per second.)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the spring, it wasn’t unusual for my whole family to be online at once, but it wasn't a daily occurrence because there was less live teaching for me and my kids. Still we saturated our upload and calls began to have issues with audio and video quality. “Could you say that again?” became a common phrase. The residential service we pay for should have an upload speed of 10 mbps, but because of greater demand in our city in March, we were generally getting about 5 mbps at our house. So, if I was teaching, no one else could be on a call. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Realizing that would not fly, my husband went to our internet provider and added <i>another line</i> of internet service to our house. We now have a residential line and a business line, and yes, that is costing us an extra $70 a month. This means he was able to give me some dedicated upload bandwidth and parcel out the rest to our kids and himself. (Again, he is super techy and I am super lucky.)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So what does this mean for teachers and students? It means there probably isn’t enough bandwidth in most homes to get everyone on a video call at the same time. It means kids will have to turn off their cameras to reduce their usage and stay on the call. It means you need to know how to test your internet speed and teach your students how to test theirs. It means that if there are several kids online at the same time, (ahem learning pods?) some or all of those students will have issues with their connection. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju9MQ86W4mFKNT_i2dwzbNft1w5EfYbGbCCr_cRCBnijedAES61TMAHYJpng2i25q7e6FGe9hiKiCeTXBhYVTv8GtOVvYojLgIbu1HFC1PG-UWCtZEqnrq4xXPtWGuW3t4hRqGw2sdRFo/s867/Screen+Shot+2020-08-08+at+1.57.33+PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="867" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju9MQ86W4mFKNT_i2dwzbNft1w5EfYbGbCCr_cRCBnijedAES61TMAHYJpng2i25q7e6FGe9hiKiCeTXBhYVTv8GtOVvYojLgIbu1HFC1PG-UWCtZEqnrq4xXPtWGuW3t4hRqGw2sdRFo/w410-h230/Screen+Shot+2020-08-08+at+1.57.33+PM.png" width="410" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click "Run Speed Test"<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So what can you do? Well, reading this post is a start. Now you are forewarned. Also, you can check your own internet speed right now. Do a search for [speed test] and click the blue button. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Figure you'll need upload speeds of at least 2-3 mbps per student in your home, and 4-5 mbps per adult (if the adults are teaching or leading meetings.) For my family of four, we need at least 12-14 mbps to get everyone on separate video calls at the same time. As you can see from the top screen shot, we don't have that, even in summer when neighborhood demand is less. This is why we now have that second line of internet. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, if your students don't have enough upload speed, they will need to turn off their camera, or they may have a hard time getting on the call, or the audio may cut out often for them and they will miss what you say, or they may have the call cut out on them and yes, it will look like they left early. Our new challenge as educators is knowing when to give grace for legitimate technical difficulties and when to hold students accountable. I lean heavily toward the give grace side because I understand the technical challenges, but I really worry that students will be unfairly penalized for technical issues that are not their fault. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Go run your own speed test. And, if you have the privilege to do so, call your internet provider and figure out a way to get more bandwidth if you need to. Educate your colleagues about the issue, and support your students as best you can. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you are having a lot of virtual meetings with students this fall, you may appreciate <a href="https://www.litandtech.com/2020/03/zooming-with-virtual-classroom.html" target="_blank">this post about the $70 worth of gear</a> (headset, green screen, and lighting) that makes my life on Zoom much better. </span></p><div><span face="" style="font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-7498159850118112742020-07-26T15:07:00.002-07:002020-07-26T15:07:15.595-07:00Tech Tips Email Newsletter: How to start your own<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqNDCoZuWci0my_88AW7RdQlJsiPu9v15GL7yKZspYRduQy9PlrDh8JIheLeb81ddvfWD5wk1Q3qWzfsYI23El5wCOFahZQb-q0dNHIW0Elar-ReWEjKFTjdI4xSwvX-hiN_nBXr1Hjes/s1600/Yes-I-want-tech-tips-.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1320" data-original-width="507" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqNDCoZuWci0my_88AW7RdQlJsiPu9v15GL7yKZspYRduQy9PlrDh8JIheLeb81ddvfWD5wk1Q3qWzfsYI23El5wCOFahZQb-q0dNHIW0Elar-ReWEjKFTjdI4xSwvX-hiN_nBXr1Hjes/s640/Yes-I-want-tech-tips-.png" width="243" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opt-in Google Form for Tech Tips</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In the fall of 2019, (pre-pandemic, remember those days?) I started an email newsletter about tech tips just for my colleagues. My thinking was that I could share helpful info and support my colleagues with tech integration. I'm not a tech coach at the moment. (I teach English.) But I have a strong interest and advocacy for technology integration. (I co-wrote a book about teaching with 1:1 pedagogy.) My colleagues regularly come to me with their ed-tech questions, and I really like helping them. I wanted a way to spread that a little further.<br />
<br />
<b>Why I chose Email: </b><br />
I've seen lots of tech coaches talking about setting up webpages of resources for their staffs. That's nice, but it requires people to go get the info, (of course they bookmarked that link right?) They need to know what they are looking for, and you have to keep it all current and applicable. To me, a massive list of links, or even pretty buttons, seems unhelpful to our least tech savvy colleagues. What they can do though, is check their email. And, they are more likely to read an email from a colleague they know, than one from the district office. And, if they have a question they can just reply to me.<br />
<br />
<b>Opt-in: </b><br />
Yeah, we all get a lot of email, and I didn't want to be sending junk mail, so, in just one all staff email, I asked folks to opt-in for tech tips by filling out a Google Form. <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1S2DOdJZYvcKETBVEx-X9SEejf7IDfMBvPg5ziyurHgU/copy" target="_blank">You can get a copy HERE</a>. The form has a checkbox list of their tech interests. About half the teachers at my site have opted in now. Each time I send out a message people seem to join because other's forward the message.<br />
<br />
<b>What's in it: </b><br />
Each message is short and topical. I typically include one new tool, i.e. Flipgrid, Edpuzzle, Padlet, etc.. Usually things that I know will have immediate applications, and are fairly easy to learn to use. Google drive tools make frequent appearances. I often include a trouble shooting tip, usually a short anecdote about some issue I saw in my own classroom, or helped a colleague with. If there are good upcoming PD offerings I will include info and links about those. If the district is changing something, upgrading something, moving something etc. I include that too.<br />
<br />
<b>Planning Ahead: </b><br />
Often, I have lots of things I want to get in there, but I don't want to overwhelm my colleagues, so I keep a spreadsheet of what is in each newsletter and what I might want to include in future emails. This keeps me from duplicating myself and give me a place to record ideas for upcoming emails. When I learn about something cool at a conference or from Twitter, I just add it to the list. The screenshot below shows that process. You'll note there are four content columns. I usually try for three out of four, because four out of four seems like too much. This also makes it much easier to write, because I never face a blank page. I always have this running list of ideas about what to include.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNE97OZOo2AhOEw4NBwMhV9vUzxmM1wJcIoIFKF4RY8d8GoWRmDLZuvYTKjy9k6OHhOG-qXfoB9Z_8GfsCKcTv3cX-B38Fv7ijIdBM1pg3aAK8mwPMyZHt1mZLxDI0lEufVVr7gwZGaBg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+1.09.44+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="1143" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNE97OZOo2AhOEw4NBwMhV9vUzxmM1wJcIoIFKF4RY8d8GoWRmDLZuvYTKjy9k6OHhOG-qXfoB9Z_8GfsCKcTv3cX-B38Fv7ijIdBM1pg3aAK8mwPMyZHt1mZLxDI0lEufVVr7gwZGaBg/s640/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+1.09.44+PM.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spreadsheet of past and future topics for the tech tips email. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I always end each message the same way, with links to sign up, and <b>a link to the drive folder</b> that has all the previous tech tips docs. (I always draft in a doc, so it was easy to share a folder with all the previous versions.) Sharing that link to the folder makes it easy for people to find previous messages. They don't need to look for a link to a site I sent them once upon a time, because each email gives them a bit of info, and links to the rest. This also helps people who join later and want to see earlier issues.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWDm5LeKgXVR44fdLTSHyw6CGfH3wLBA3ink2p_2ULs0oQJQr9c2K1Dq83tNBDI3f56t2qs1j73A4sBjfSZjpeXsEeCGGbMRKUt70uMDzqV6nWz22RaqEyTdHsvYgLQb6an18BjYjZd3U/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+2.41.08+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="369" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWDm5LeKgXVR44fdLTSHyw6CGfH3wLBA3ink2p_2ULs0oQJQr9c2K1Dq83tNBDI3f56t2qs1j73A4sBjfSZjpeXsEeCGGbMRKUt70uMDzqV6nWz22RaqEyTdHsvYgLQb6an18BjYjZd3U/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+2.41.08+PM.png" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drive Folder of Previous Messages</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>How often does it go out: </b><br />
My original intention was once a week. I did pretty well with that for awhile. Then it got more sporadic. Since this is not really my job I just write when I have something helpful to share. Lately, I've gotten back into writing them because more people want to gear up for distance learning.<br />
<br />
<b>Tips: </b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Keep it hyper-local, specific to your school and your district. That makes it useful and applicable info for your colleagues. Every district, and school has slight differences in how they handle tech integration. Teachers get so frustrated when they learn about a tool, or strategy and then find out it won't work in their district.</li>
<li>Try to keep it short of course. </li>
<li>Always use BCC to add the email addresses. This prevents any pesky "reply all" responses. It also protects the privacy of people getting the newsletter. Yes, they do all know each other, but it is still a best practice. </li>
<li>Add a semicolon after each email address and you can copy/paste the whole column from your sing up spreadsheet to your BCC field. </li>
<li>Sorry, I'm probably not going to add you to the list of folks who get my tech tips email. I wrote this post to help you start your own, but the one I write is just for my colleagues. I tend to tell them what I really think in ways I might not if the newsletter were a more public form. Plus, the whole hyper-local part makes it less useful to you anyway. </li>
</ul>
<div>
I do this because my colleagues tell me it is helpful. So often someone tells me they just tried something I suggested and loved it. Many of those conversations begin with, "I never knew that..." And then I feel a little bad because it is often something I've known about or used for years and somehow never effectively shared before. The tech tips email is helping me spread the future to my colleagues. I hope it will help you spread the future to some of yours. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuFjfgEQtlN9d3TWuQhyphenhyphenuW9vhnk18IRIYQ0eAZ9XAaiWF9q7oIMPn3HkRz2vHR4A8Qd61PNfTuTRqEotcbihEk-czoetpo2DSqZOWP6_Eu7NJpMhapGwCEOeHWv78ybpvdgKUd-0sdMWM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+2.44.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="551" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuFjfgEQtlN9d3TWuQhyphenhyphenuW9vhnk18IRIYQ0eAZ9XAaiWF9q7oIMPn3HkRz2vHR4A8Qd61PNfTuTRqEotcbihEk-czoetpo2DSqZOWP6_Eu7NJpMhapGwCEOeHWv78ybpvdgKUd-0sdMWM/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+2.44.03+PM.png" width="312" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example email from fall 2019</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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<br />@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-47419309759109537232020-07-18T14:10:00.004-07:002020-08-27T14:32:00.476-07:00Student Response Spreadsheet for Virtual Class Meetings<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRDbn4aliW8RGDt17kepYaQAclZCEmKql00zBiO43St98RMi56w-XWCQqC3EQ0dIPl-CWvH6cM3Opta8GKOpg_dH71vPAC8ofSIpk_wQO0-SyRhZXGKqh-au7xyCxX6aCsb_ve4ejD44/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-18+at+1.15.45+PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="1291" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRDbn4aliW8RGDt17kepYaQAclZCEmKql00zBiO43St98RMi56w-XWCQqC3EQ0dIPl-CWvH6cM3Opta8GKOpg_dH71vPAC8ofSIpk_wQO0-SyRhZXGKqh-au7xyCxX6aCsb_ve4ejD44/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-07-18+at+1.15.45+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first tab has directions for you. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's July and we are all trying to figure out how to get back into learning during a pandemic. In the spring, I found the challenge of distance learning and virtual class meetings was "hearing" from all my students efficiently. If I asked a question they could answer verbally, one at a time, or drop their answer in the chat, and I could try to keep up. Neither of these worked well for me, so I found another solution, and yeah, it's a spreadsheet. (It comes with a page of directions to help you.)<br />
<br />
<b>What it is: </b><br />
This is a sheet with multiple tabs across the bottom. The students enter their name (or you can do it for them) on the "Response 1" tab when they first get to "class" and then the rest of the tabs carry over their name and thus give them a dedicated space for their responses to the questions you add ahead of time, or on the fly as you are teaching.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUYK1kzVmObOgLSc11CDyhOjrDOJspLqcvqdwwfg5cENFByCKBZCb1bcql4ENfSUkEyzwB92oxRnwOqK4NFv-iDDWiRlsKfRgTNKj5Pz3cbAwvrCm1hBS36CXzl8G65Tu8fVE8pIjOivg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-18+at+1.33.03+PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="846" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUYK1kzVmObOgLSc11CDyhOjrDOJspLqcvqdwwfg5cENFByCKBZCb1bcql4ENfSUkEyzwB92oxRnwOqK4NFv-iDDWiRlsKfRgTNKj5Pz3cbAwvrCm1hBS36CXzl8G65Tu8fVE8pIjOivg/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-07-18+at+1.33.03+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Students add their names and check in.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
What this means is, you get an easy way to see the responses from all students, and you can skim them faster than trying to keep up with a chat window. You can watch students write responses in real time. You can tell if a student is not answering a question. You can ask a specific student to unmute and elaborate on a response.<br />
<br />
<b>Pros and Cons:</b><br />
All students can see each other's responses in real time, just as you can, so this is not a place to ask assessment questions or things with one right answer. It is a great place to ask students what they think, how they would define something, or have them list questions they want to ask you.<br />
<br />
To make this work, everyone needs edit access, so some students may do something malicious. (My typical ratio for malicious behavior when all students can edit one document is 1-2 students out of 180, but your mileage may vary.) You get to choose if you want to address the respect issue up front, but I would say, "I'm about to give you a link to a document that everyone can edit. It is important you only work in the line next to your name so you don't harm anyone else's work."<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWCGhyphenhyphen6hEJri8NY5kGPEaBUYIqXpyXhiYAytKa9G-3xuwNUgE2DDZRIXev_mb_IPi2FW8E3M1jXMvAYQSOTtuISWODUyYmSUyu5Cfpl0Blu-H0jvtNjrbcQPi6slCX6acKgaUAOmGdJS8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-18+at+1.33.31+PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="786" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWCGhyphenhyphen6hEJri8NY5kGPEaBUYIqXpyXhiYAytKa9G-3xuwNUgE2DDZRIXev_mb_IPi2FW8E3M1jXMvAYQSOTtuISWODUyYmSUyu5Cfpl0Blu-H0jvtNjrbcQPi6slCX6acKgaUAOmGdJS8/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-07-18+at+1.33.31+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Student names carry over, and you add your questions. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>You can have a copy: </b><br />
If you think this sounds great you can <b><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BYTJI3DTRbksz2ZCeoRFSmPbgSMiK4T5sIz6P3abm1g/template/preview" target="_blank">have a copy of the template to get started</a></b>. You'll need to click "use template" and then click "File/make a copy" to duplicate the sheet for your classes. You can delete or rename any tab, except "Response 1." Be sure to leave that one alone or student names won't carry over to your future questions. (I set up the sheet to handle up to 50 names. If you need more than this this tool is probably not the one you should use.)<br />
<br />
<b>Sharing with students:</b><br />
The best way to share this sheet with students is through Google Classroom. Make it an assignment and attach the file for the sheet for that class from Drive. Set it as "students can edit." (Do NOT make a copy for each student. The point is to have them all in one sheet.) Sending it to them this way through GC will allow you to see who is making edits. You can still drop a link to the sheet in the chat, so your students don't have to go to GC to get it, but sharing it through GC means their names/accounts will be attached to their edits. (You can delete the assignment after class, so it won'y show as a missing assignment for students, or use it for attendance tracking.)<br />
<br />
If you don't have Google Classroom you can still share this sheet with your students. You will need to set the sharing permissions on the sheet before class to "Anyone can edit," and then you can drop the link to the sheet in the chat. BUT, your students cursors will show up as anonymous animals on the sheet. This makes mischief more likely and harder to stop.<br />
<br />
If you are thinking, eh, this sounds complicated, then I highly recommend <b><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nvcm2svXRmioqUJqS5RoiwxJQt8WOyf9/view" target="_blank">this list of engagement strategies for distance learning</a></b> assembled by the amazing <a href="https://twitter.com/msemilyguthrie" target="_blank">Ms. Emily Guthrie</a> for other options. (Even if you love the sheet I'm sharing here, Emily's list offers a great variety of strategies to keep your online classes interesting.)<br />
<br />
<b>Bonus Tip: Hidden Sheets</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2XI-HX3gcZsCorMX_iYtzslsqOJHHQElW3AkG59ngHzykKFHwUkHGPAhbGbr0Igx4y8Hg8Q_6ABQGkgQ3r93EEME_9Cb6KK-YyVuKxXryNleXtOyfJ_rYcauOKGA-YPVNUueppZbLRKE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-18+at+1.41.32+PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="442" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2XI-HX3gcZsCorMX_iYtzslsqOJHHQElW3AkG59ngHzykKFHwUkHGPAhbGbr0Igx4y8Hg8Q_6ABQGkgQ3r93EEME_9Cb6KK-YyVuKxXryNleXtOyfJ_rYcauOKGA-YPVNUueppZbLRKE/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-07-18+at+1.41.32+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hiding sheets let's you save some for the end. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When I used this with students, I found some wanted to rush through all the questions. I have two solutions. One is to keep the questions vague like, "What are your thoughts on the poem we just read together?" Or, hide some of the sheets. You can hide a sheet by clicking on the down arrow next to the sheet name on the tab at the bottom, (choose hide sheet) and unhide them by going to the "View" menu at the top and selecting hidden sheets.<br />
<br />
I tended to use the final question like an exit slip, so I would keep it hidden until the end of class. Pro tip: make sure you are <i>not</i> sharing your screen when you unhide those final sheets. No reason to show students how to do that or they may unhide them for you next time.<br />
<br />
If you have questions you can leave a comment below, or ask me on Twitter, <a href="https://twitter.com/JenRoberts1" target="_blank">@JenRoberts1</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>But wait there's more: </b><br />
If you found this post helpful, you may also appreciate these.<div><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/08/how-to-make-intentional-groups-in-zoom.html" target="_blank">How to make intentional groups in Zoom, quickly</a><br />
<a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/06/five-minute-google-sheets-tutorial.html" target="_blank">Five Minute Google Sheets Tutorial</a><br />
<a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/06/google-forms-in-google-classroom.html" target="_blank">Google Forms in Google Classroom</a><br />
<a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/05/ho-do-i-organize-my-google-classroom.html" target="_blank">How do I organize my Google Classroom?</a><br /><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/03/zooming-with-virtual-classroom.html" target="_blank">Gear for Zooming Effectively</a></div>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-76108872659664170622020-07-08T13:43:00.002-07:002020-07-08T13:51:57.466-07:00House Party COVID Style: Satire about opening schools this fall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOHHOvfGw99bpRGKibmgx6-xQ7-EpLW_37mM7qE5GkDPT6irSuM4zaMCIDb5Oj2xWBMn96ztISYfYHsUw-zauS08ByUZoYhG7C0ybvRwXQJj2r94O37QdSpYP49sl3zvYgvmdqzyHw_Lg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-08+at+1.51.12+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="509" data-original-width="599" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOHHOvfGw99bpRGKibmgx6-xQ7-EpLW_37mM7qE5GkDPT6irSuM4zaMCIDb5Oj2xWBMn96ztISYfYHsUw-zauS08ByUZoYhG7C0ybvRwXQJj2r94O37QdSpYP49sl3zvYgvmdqzyHw_Lg/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-07-08+at+1.51.12+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
I originally posted this "essay" as a Twitter thread on June 30, 2020. It went a tad viral on Twitter and was also shared over 20k times on Facebook that I know of. (And yes, it is really meta that a thread related to COVID went viral. Pun absolutely intended.)<br />
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Lots of folks have asked for an even easier to share version. And I wanted to fix a few typos, while extending a few points. So here is the second draft of this satirical experiment.<br />
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House Party COVID Style</div>
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For the people advocating we open schools five days a week ‘as normal’ please immediately host a gathering in your home, for 36 children, for six hours. What? That’s too long? Okay let’s make this easier, one hour. Put on a movie give them some snacks and let them hang out because after all, kids <b><i>need</i></b> to socialize.<br />
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Note, I'm not asking you to teach anything here. Just have the kids over. Keep them entertained any way you want. All that is necessary for this thought experiment anyway, is having 36 kids in your living space.<br />
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If you want to deliver a little speech just make sure you wear a mask and stand at least six feet away, but be loud because the mask will make it harder for them to tell what you are saying, and some of them will be way in the back.<br />
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What? You just don’t feel safe having 36 kids come to your house? Because of COVID?<br />
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Oh, you’re worried about the social distancing? Your place is too small to adequately space out 36 kids at once? I bet it’s more square footage than most classrooms. Truly though, if you have less than 400 square feet, you can reduce your party to just 18 kids.<br />
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Oh, and after an hour those 36 kids need to go to the neighbors.<br />
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But don’t worry, another 36 kids will come from down the block. In fact, they will keep switching every hour until 180 kids have been through your house in one day. Also, you can’t leave. You have to supervise, fetch things they need, make sure they interact properly, stop them from congregating in the bathroom. (Oh, your poor bathroom.)<br />
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This sounds like a lot right. You’re worried one of those 180 kids in your house might be carrying the virus and give it to you or several of the others. That could happen. But hey, this is just for one day. It's not like you have to have a party five days a week for 18 weeks. And you can take precautions. Some of them will probably wear their masks correctly the whole time.<br />
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Also, you can take their temperatures when they enter your house. Oh, no, sorry, the rules just changed. You don't get to take their temperatures and there isn't enough time for that. Just have their parents promise they don't have a fever when they get dropped off in the morning. Besides, most kids carrying the virus won't have a fever anyway.<br />
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I understand this is concerning. You think things will be better in August tho? How so? Will there be fewer cases of #COVID19 by then? Would you feel safer hosting these 180 children in the fall? I'm sure things will be much better by then after a summer of holiday parties.<br />
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Won’t lots of them go to that virtual house party? Sure they will, but there is a whole other group of houses responsible for hosting those virtual parties. Your elderly neighbors, and the lady down the street who has to take immune suppressing drugs because of a transplant are taking care of those kids online. Those people really can't risk having kids in their homes. Your 180 kids are still coming to your party. After all, you don't have any known risk factors, except for you know, having lungs.<br />
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What, you want to host a virtual party for 12 kids and an in person party for 24 at the same time? That might be possible if enough kids choose the virtual party experience, but it will be a lot more work for you to make sure both groups are adequately supervised and having an equally good time. It is a party. Make sure you uphold the standards of fun. You wouldn't want to throw an ineffective, un-fun party right? The kids are counting on you.<br />
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Now you are responsible for 60 online virtual kids and only 120 in person visitors in your house today. I bet you feel better now that you got that big number down from 180 to 120. Phew.<br />
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We should add more houses to spread out the children? Great idea, but houses are expensive. You would need to almost double the number of houses in your neighborhood to make that work. Where will you put them? And you can you build them that fast? This party needs to happen fast. (I mean really. There are people out there saying, "Hire more teachers," like there is some magic bucket of hundreds of thousands of teachers nationwide waiting for us to lower class sizes in a pandemic. And another magic bucket of money to pay them with.)<br />
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Nope, your possible options are either a full party with all 36 kids, rotating hourly of course, through your house until you’ve met all 180. Or maybe a 60/120 split. Or a fully virtual party. Yes, you could get together with your neighbors and decide that this large moveable party of kids is just too much. You could advocate for moving the whole party online. That is if you just don't feel safe having them all come through your house.<br />
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What do you think? Open your doors or take it all online?<br />
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I’m not saying schools shouldn’t open in the fall. I just want people to understand what they are asking for. Of course classrooms aren’t homes, but perhaps if folks consider the situation in-terms of their own living rooms the numbers become more real.<br />
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If you aren’t willing to invite 180 kids through your home while you are there today, why do you think this is safe or reasonable for middle and high schools in the fall?@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-57598244370047256772020-06-27T13:48:00.005-07:002020-06-27T13:48:54.648-07:00Google Forms in Google Classroom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you are a regular reader you know I am a huge fan of Google Forms. I've been using them in my classroom since 2009 and I've written a lot about them.<br />
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Google Forms (as quizzes) are now an assignment type in Google Classroom, and lately there are A LOT more teachers using Google Classroom and also Forms. While I was teaching online sessions about Google Classroom in March, we kept hitting on forms, but never long enough to really explore them. So I developed a workshop on Google Forms and taught it five times in one week, but I never recorded it. When my district realized that, they asked me to teach it one more time and record. (That's why there are only a few people on this recording with me. It was very last minute. Usually, I did this session with 40-80 teachers in it.)<br />
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If you really want to understand how Google Forms work in Google Classroom, I recommend <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn8qAbAh8wQ&t" target="_blank">watching the recorded workshop</a></b>. (Fair warning, it is 51 minutes.)<br />
For a faster experience you can review the slides embedded below, but they will likely leave you with some questions.<br />
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<b>A few ways forms are different and/or tricky in Google Classroom include:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>When you create a "Quiz Assignment," GC auto generates a blank form that already has the quiz setting turned on. If you already made a quiz outside of GC you'll need to delete the auto generated quiz and replace it with your own. Or use a regular assignment type in GC and add the quiz there, but then grade importing to GC will not work.</li>
<li>After your students take a quiz you'll need to use the "Import Grades" button in GC to bring those scores in to GC. This button is on the right side and can be easy to miss. Also, you need to import grades again when more students take the quiz. </li>
<li>To view individual student responses to the quiz you will need to go to the form itself and switch to the responses tab. You may also prefer to create a spreadsheet of the responses to see more of the data at once. Many teachers have expressed confusion to me that they can't view these responses within GC. </li>
</ul>
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<b>Tips for working with Google Forms: </b></div>
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<ul>
<li>Always make the first question on the form, "What is your name?" Yes, GC will align scores to names in GC, but if you are looking at individual responses in the form, or in the spreadsheet, you will want student names there too. Trust me. </li>
<li>Explore the settings in your form. You can turn the quiz feature on and off there. You can also decide if your form is restricted to within your g-suite domain, or accessible outside of it. If the form is only for your students, then restricting it to your domain make sense. If it is something you want parents to fill out or other adults, you should probably turn off that restriction. </li>
<li>If someone wants a copy of your form, do not add them as a collaborator. Use the three dots in the upper right corner to make a copy of the form first. Then add them as a collaborator to the copy. If you skip this step they could assign your form to their students and you will have submissions that aren't your students. </li>
<li>Test your form. Click the eyeball icon and fill out the form yourself to see what that experience will be like for your students. You may find you need to change a question type or adjust some other settings as you do so. </li>
<li>Remember not all forms need to be quizzes. Most, in fact, are not. There are LOTS of other ways to use forms in and out of the classroom. You can create forms from Google Drive too, not just within Google Classroom. </li>
</ul>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="299" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vTnXO6puuHhkz8t7aSnjIQ8ZTmN4wM9xij6C2DoQ56QHiV8AYOMp_1qfIeIMmCvDmU5u9kEPOE0M_67/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="480"></iframe>
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<b>Some additional helpful posts about Google Forms: </b></div>
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<ul>
<li>What is a Google Form Good For? <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2014/03/whats-google-form-good-for-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a>, <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2014/03/whats-google-form-good-for-part-2.html" target="_blank">Part 2</a>, <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2014/03/whats-google-form-good-for-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 3</a>. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2017/06/differentiation-with-branching-google.html" target="_blank">Differentiation with Branching Google Forms</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2014/10/how-to-password-protect-google-form.html" target="_blank">How to Add an "Entry Code" to a Google Form</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/05/request-regrade-google-form-you-can-have.html" target="_blank">Request a Regrade Google Form</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2017/06/book-check-out-form-my-classroom.html" target="_blank">Classroom Library Book Check Out Form</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2017/09/self-evaluation-google-form-for-students.html" target="_blank">Self-Evaluation Google Form for Students</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/06/five-minute-google-sheets-tutorial.html" target="_blank">Five Minute Google Sheets Tutorial</a></li>
</ul>
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I hope some of that helps you use Google Forms more effectively with your students. Using forms is definitely a learning process. Be gentle with yourself as you go. </div>
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@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-83389842574046324812020-06-24T12:28:00.001-07:002020-06-24T12:28:49.477-07:00Five Minute Google Sheets Tutorial: Learn five key skills with sheets fast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCWYaJ8Gq9hps7nQJqNsZ0jGHAlLH1UQBiA2FfOhyrK4mlwwUa6E1lD-En6hq1huhgSYb4-2NFLNb7wIMWSUS6Js5YuMiP2uIEfdfUQ9lC9wpaM-W2BYr6CrGHeF9TQWlTThgljV9LVo4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-06-24+at+12.21.12+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="1347" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCWYaJ8Gq9hps7nQJqNsZ0jGHAlLH1UQBiA2FfOhyrK4mlwwUa6E1lD-En6hq1huhgSYb4-2NFLNb7wIMWSUS6Js5YuMiP2uIEfdfUQ9lC9wpaM-W2BYr6CrGHeF9TQWlTThgljV9LVo4/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-06-24+at+12.21.12+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Google Sheets are an essential tool for educators, but some teachers may experience trepidation about using spreadsheets because they seem complicated. They are a sophisticated tool that can help you collect and understand data, and we need to base our instructional decisions on student data. I find Google Sheets are easier to use than other spreadsheet programs. My sheets knowledge is mostly self-taught, but I have picked up tricks from others along the way. I want you and your colleagues to feel more comfortable using sheets and I want to tell you why.<br />
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I used to cringe when I heard the words "data driven instruction." This phrase was an indication that my administrator was about to show our staff meeting some slides with graphs about our state testing scores. And then somehow, we were supposed to take these aggregate numbers and have table conversations with Science, PE, Math, and Music teachers about how the percentage of students reading proficiently would influence our instructional decisions. (Hello, kids should read more in all classes, but there wasn't much to say past that point.) It was ridiculous and a waste of time. It was also (I thought) the only time we looked at "data." At the time "student data," to me, meant big numbers, six months old, handed down from on high. It was a long time before I connected the classroom data I was collecting and using about my students with the "data driven instruction" buzz words. I just didn't associate real time, actionable data from my classroom with the graphs on power point slides in meetings.<br />
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Then I got over my fear of spreadsheets. When my classroom got 1:1 laptops in 2008 I began to use Google Docs and soon Google Forms. (The oldest forms in my Google Drive date from 2009.) To use a form, especially back then, one also had to be able to use a sheet to view the data, and ohh there was so much data. But, it was really useful data. It was data about what my students knew and could do. It was data I could use to drive instructional decisions, and the better I was at using a spreadsheet, the faster and more efficiently I could use the data.<br />
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Now, when I teach other teachers about Google Forms and Sheets, I tell them this is about data driven instruction. I see them tilt their heads, slightly confused. I know they still see data driven instruction as big state test scores, so I explain and reframe data driven instruction as the teaching moves we make based on the information we gather about our students in our classrooms. Google Sheets, especially when combined with Google Forms are an immensely helpful tool for that process. But data is still only helpful and actionable if you can access it and make sense of it. So, a solid working knowledge of spreadsheets is now essential for true data driven instruction. (Note, I don't equate data with just numbers. I'm an English teacher. I gather a lot of data from student's writing and other responses.)<br />
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While working with my graduate students (pre-service teachers mostly) I noticed that most did not have a working knowledge of spreadsheets. I developed this quick activity to help them practice some basic sheets skills and build their confidence. Later I began to share it with my colleagues, who also found it helpful. Now, I hope it will help you and your colleagues.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/EDUCsheets" target="_blank"><b>Five Minute Google Sheets Tutorial</b></a> << Click link and then click "use template" to get started. You'll get your own copy that you can play with. The directions in the colored boxes on each tab will guide you. In 5-10 minutes you'll have more skills for managing data with sheets.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcs_FlNVcj6m4cQzQf1OuY9GLCF8TBXg1PC0ymlDSPhwK0i-VkyhwmWpewpUxyPrlMcKdfbaw9Qtx3pTOX2dlAQZCp6Njw97M8upyNcKdmUdZRzfss5z8W3C8A1DVDzm2XWjGeaSzEXac/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-06-24+at+12.27.18+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="1357" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcs_FlNVcj6m4cQzQf1OuY9GLCF8TBXg1PC0ymlDSPhwK0i-VkyhwmWpewpUxyPrlMcKdfbaw9Qtx3pTOX2dlAQZCp6Njw97M8upyNcKdmUdZRzfss5z8W3C8A1DVDzm2XWjGeaSzEXac/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-06-24+at+12.27.18+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<ul>
<li>Splitting names</li>
<li>Freezing and adding rows</li>
<li>Conditional formatting</li>
<li>Wrap and resize</li>
<li>Hide and unhide</li>
</ul>
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If you aren't familiar with Google Forms either, I recommend starting with <b><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2014/03/whats-google-form-good-for-part-1.html" target="_blank">this post</a></b>. <br />
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If you want to create differentiated groups for your students based on your data, you can check out the <b><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2014/03/group-creator-make-groups-fast.html" target="_blank">Group Creator Spreadsheet</a></b>.<br />
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If you already love sheets, you might also be interested in the <b><a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2018/07/curriculum-planner-spreadsheet-for.html" target="_blank">Curriculum Planner Spreadsheet</a>.</b>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-31802122943412914602020-05-16T11:59:00.000-07:002020-07-25T12:55:38.669-07:00How do I organize my Google Classroom? <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS3PyYKY53NpM8jADMSAlTmMAhufsNXBYAoIy6LIt10s-bpNfC-Uc7vMR0wv05l71QrTzJQ5oUyHo8KSNm4uX5_GE_i64gOTpEI7pLFM0fSm7n_cpqhc14mCxXCMRzgoYfWOQIt1btqOU/s1600/Organize+GC_.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="566" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS3PyYKY53NpM8jADMSAlTmMAhufsNXBYAoIy6LIt10s-bpNfC-Uc7vMR0wv05l71QrTzJQ5oUyHo8KSNm4uX5_GE_i64gOTpEI7pLFM0fSm7n_cpqhc14mCxXCMRzgoYfWOQIt1btqOU/s320/Organize+GC_.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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The question I get the most about Google Classroom is, "How do you organize it?" When I am helping teachers in my district, I often ask them to add me as a co-teacher to their Google Classroom. Then I poke around, and make them a screencast with my feedback. Much of that feedback is about organization. </div>
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I know every teacher out there is doing the absolute best they can in a very new situation. Most of them have no experience with GC and they are making normal, rookie, mistakes. I want to help. </div>
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I'd love to just write one post about this, but I have a feeling it's going to be an ongoing series. So, today I'll just focus on one thing, assignment efficiency. </div>
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Assignment efficiency means giving assignments in a way that makes the most sense to students, and also creates the most practical work flow for teacher evaluation. I think when teachers ask me about organization they are really asking how to assign things efficiently. I'll show you a wrong way to give assignments and then three better ways you can use to improve work flow for you and your kids. For demonstration purposes I designed a mock project where students will read an article, summarize it, find a similar article, and then compare them. During distance learning, I see many teachers giving multi-step projects like this. </div>
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<b>Not so good: </b><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS0HX2v4QtdVMxmc2jIoUe6LPS6u9G06w3bkscHohG2bqICOW18ImULosiOxvgrg9I68ffzixp9wjff1tGf12Adodkh2USI3umXPSCP_2fRdkerlm0cp1U7lZGK1kO_vz9oW0yXZ8rIio/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+10.23.59+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="742" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS0HX2v4QtdVMxmc2jIoUe6LPS6u9G06w3bkscHohG2bqICOW18ImULosiOxvgrg9I68ffzixp9wjff1tGf12Adodkh2USI3umXPSCP_2fRdkerlm0cp1U7lZGK1kO_vz9oW0yXZ8rIio/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+10.23.59+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not so good: All spread out. No clear steps.</td></tr>
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In this example, each assignment has it's own topic in Google Classroom. I've found several teachers giving assignments this way. It is not efficient. It creates a really long chain in the classwork page. It is hard to tell what belongs together. I think teachers doing this don't know that you can have more than one assignment in a topic. Each time they create a new assignment they give it its own topic, instead of grouping multiple assignments together. </div>
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<div>
The other issue with this situation, is that the sequence is unclear for students. It's actually in reverse order of what students should be doing. Students tend to work their way down a list of tasks, not up. If you only have one assignment per topic you should probably go do some reorganization in your Google Classrooms. You can edit an assignment and change the topic using the drop down on the assignment edit page. You can also drag and drop topics and assignments within a topic to help you reorganize.<br />
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<div>
<b>Better: </b></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyBnwFqgeBWA_leUHS7D_vP-IQVbTwWbL-PIsgnUM0BQUpPeSI6JBQZJzTnKaFHdL9_aXt5BgJnG6pvClmOLPpssl8EY0ACphVS0hIEqvuIDJQQHuLohGYZXspNU4rmXJJdeJt2VHZIWk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+10.45.28+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="724" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyBnwFqgeBWA_leUHS7D_vP-IQVbTwWbL-PIsgnUM0BQUpPeSI6JBQZJzTnKaFHdL9_aXt5BgJnG6pvClmOLPpssl8EY0ACphVS0hIEqvuIDJQQHuLohGYZXspNU4rmXJJdeJt2VHZIWk/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+10.45.28+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Better: All together in one topic. Clear top to bottom sequence.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A better option is to take those four separate assignments and group them under one topic with the project name. I also reordered them so students might do them in the correct sequence. </div>
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But, each one is still an assignment, and that means four things the student will "turn in," four items teachers will have to review and grade. (When one of them is really a material to read, and the other is an article to find that could be a link they put on their reflection document.) Grouping assignments in one topic is better, but students can still easily do them out of order, and/or not see the connections between them. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPN-e4nzr0WbTthoTWXGokMeLTz9xR-9AQyYFiDfu2xEJIXaOXd44fRTeSXSfhrAXt46mDC1zDK1PE_HLgce4DvB4qUbaZ3h8ZjU0nLbwDd9jhW1VszO0Gw1f0LHN_XnwjgHVEzjIYzmY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+10.28.10+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="770" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPN-e4nzr0WbTthoTWXGokMeLTz9xR-9AQyYFiDfu2xEJIXaOXd44fRTeSXSfhrAXt46mDC1zDK1PE_HLgce4DvB4qUbaZ3h8ZjU0nLbwDd9jhW1VszO0Gw1f0LHN_XnwjgHVEzjIYzmY/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+10.28.10+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even better: All attachments in one assignment</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Even Better: </b></div>
<div>
Create ONE assignment in a topic labeled by the week you want it to be done. Give clear, numbered, assignment steps, and link all the parts the student will need to do the assignment. (I think some teachers don't know they can attach more than one thing to an assignment.) </div>
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<div>
This way, the student will have just two docs to turn in as part of the same assignment. The teacher will have just one assignment to review and be able to see both pieces of the student work at the same time. Grouping materials this way will help students stay focused, and not waste time looking for things they need to do their work.<br />
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Labeling the topic by week will keep everything students are currently working on at the top of their classwork page. Grouping everything students need into one assignment will allow you to give multiple assignments per week and still keep things organized under the same topic. </div>
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<div>
<b>Best: </b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEGMO2ev6p4dlzFXODbh6lMWqwosm-a7kVF9zknl5j9qUwpqbMa4WtVPLshVjl0V8igKmCNWWt-awUN5Z5Y_nGDtn_j-kN_EspcKiZfznEfiZT3JeQuRuse_ldsTgzV_Ye5ypc7K48A0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+11.07.15+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="746" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEGMO2ev6p4dlzFXODbh6lMWqwosm-a7kVF9zknl5j9qUwpqbMa4WtVPLshVjl0V8igKmCNWWt-awUN5Z5Y_nGDtn_j-kN_EspcKiZfznEfiZT3JeQuRuse_ldsTgzV_Ye5ypc7K48A0/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+11.07.15+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Best: All attachments and work spaces in ONE document. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
Merge all the parts of the assignment into ONE Google Doc. In one document the student can get the link to the first article, summarize it, paste the link to their found article, and then compare them. Students have only ONE doc to worry about. Teachers have only ONE document to look at for evaluation. Everything is in one place, and directions and expectations are clear. </div>
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<div>
You can have a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VgRvBnG-STVEr36LGpUpxuK4Vi80zEA2nHLSxlcJals/template/preview" target="_blank">copy of the doc template for the full project here</a>. Click, "use template" to get your own copy.<br />
<br />
All in one documents like this are frequently called hyperdocs. If you like this style, I highly recommend you get a copy of <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1733646892/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1733646892&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=fbd026e3ef4233414964cf1e9cebeef8" target="_blank">The Hyperdoc Handbook</a></b> by Highfill, Hilton, and Landis. (It is required reading for my graduate students as they craft their digital lessons in my Technology and Learning class.) </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgU78-xjRuWkmO1FIqWkVM70klkepiDQl2eL3PVKaydzLfT1VWjDUq1Va2i7Hudj0Ksj-c-BJJJhugaXAF6VrCg0sO80STccISozvP55UOOC9PILLxD_9UCZlmTMT36T7wQB8emOEp3V8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+11.05.02+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="409" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgU78-xjRuWkmO1FIqWkVM70klkepiDQl2eL3PVKaydzLfT1VWjDUq1Va2i7Hudj0Ksj-c-BJJJhugaXAF6VrCg0sO80STccISozvP55UOOC9PILLxD_9UCZlmTMT36T7wQB8emOEp3V8/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-16+at+11.05.02+AM.png" width="248" /></a>I know it frustrates teachers that they can't see the "student view" of Google Classroom without logging in as one of their students. Let me tell you, for the classwork page, the student view and the teacher view are nearly identical. All of these screenshots are from the teacher side, but if I login as a student, they look almost the same, minus the numbers assigned and turned in.<br />
<br />
I hope this will help you or one of your colleagues give assignments more efficiently. If you have other questions about using Google Classroom for distance learning, or things you'd like me to write about in future posts, please leave a comment below or ask me on Twitter, <a href="https://twitter.com/JenRoberts1" target="_blank">@JenRoberts1</a>. </div>
<div>
<br />
If you found this post helpful you might be interested in the <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/04/suspenseful-moments-distance-learning.html" target="_blank">Suspenseful Moments Project</a> and/or the <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/05/famous-person-project-second-distance.html" target="_blank">Famous Person Project</a> that my students have been working on.<br />
<br />
During our distance learning experience I have also blogged about <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/03/zooming-with-virtual-classroom.html" target="_blank">Zooming With A Virtual Classroom Background</a> and <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/04/real-time-and-flex-time-terminology.html" target="_blank">Real Time and Flex Time: The terminology matters</a>.</div>
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@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-17136811871090927432020-05-11T15:37:00.002-07:002020-05-11T15:37:54.680-07:00Famous Person Project: A second distance learning project for my ELA classes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwP3iaUfshGHD61asxyW1ikAYCVAAOotGgwLw-Ogd72CgIzoNv0D7764u0LN23GlSPb0ObDt8ufUWOKJkRJ1ZPCdryZenFvRfD6-vOiw5b7Y4XsYKV6lb2r2ynpYkaiPzzhATFS-yZ8nc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-10+at+8.02.35+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="487" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwP3iaUfshGHD61asxyW1ikAYCVAAOotGgwLw-Ogd72CgIzoNv0D7764u0LN23GlSPb0ObDt8ufUWOKJkRJ1ZPCdryZenFvRfD6-vOiw5b7Y4XsYKV6lb2r2ynpYkaiPzzhATFS-yZ8nc/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-10+at+8.02.35+PM.png" width="308" /></a></div>
When we closed campus in March, and "distance learning" became the default form of schooling for all students, I took a long look at the 9th grade English/Language Arts standards. I wanted to create projects for my students that would engage them through choice, and also be clearly aligned to standards they hadn't met yet.<br />
<br />
The first graded project they did was <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/04/suspenseful-moments-distance-learning.html" target="_blank">Suspenseful Moments</a>, based on their independent reading books, and building on the analytical writing we were doing in school.<br />
<br />
Today, I launched their Famous Person Project, also standards based and choice inspired. In this project students choose a really famous person and then review multiple forms of media about that person. Their project is to analyze how that person is portrayed in the different media forms they examine. I'll list the standards at the end of this post. And, yes, my students still need further practice with analysis.<br />
<br />
Since their last project was essay based, I also wanted to offer a choice about how they show their analysis in this project. So, I'm giving them a choice between another essay, a comfort zone for many, and a slides based screencast. A deceptively simple looking option that really requires as much critical thinking as the essay, plus technical skills. And, Flipgrid now has a screen recording option, so I set up a topic in our class grid and gave students a link to that.<br />
<br />
<b>Get your copy:</b><br />
You can get <b><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e4moxtUx-CUEXgksNBKaB0hyXt7uWX2bMp2q-T7V5ks/template/preview" target="_blank">your own copy of the project doc here</a></b>. Be sure to click "Use Template" to make your own copy. I linked everything you should need for the project within that doc including the media organizer, the specific quizizz that I used, the project check in form, and the essay and slides templates.<br />
<br />
There are teacher directions in most sections that you'll need to use and then delete before you send the doc to your students. The doc will be one page after you remove the teacher notes. (In case you have to print it.)<br />
<br />
<b>FAQ: </b>(Answers without the questions to save us all time.)<br />
<ul>
<li>I built this doc in Google Docs. </li>
<li>I made the header in Google Drawings. You can <b><a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1fjh_gPZul-QAdQIjEiITJwP6vwtDSZ8-mTyqkwF_qhY/copy" target="_blank">have a copy</a></b>. </li>
<li>I'm giving my students two weeks to do this project. I mentioned this briefly as our next project weeks ago. I talked it over with some students who came to my office hour last week. (They suggested students should need my approval if they wanted to focus on an infamous person.)</li>
<li>I made the video version of the directions with <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screencastify-screen-vide/mmeijimgabbpbgpdklnllpncmdofkcpn?hl=en" target="_blank"><b>Screencastify</b></a>. Consider making your own because some of your details and due dates will be different anyway. Pro tip: Before you record use ctrl-+ to make the things on your screen bigger, or set the zoom on Docs to 100%. They will be easier to see in your video. </li>
<li>The grid on the doc is just a table.</li>
<li>I used File/page setup to change the background color.</li>
<li>Yes, I taught this way before the pandemic. I've had 1:1 laptops since 2008. Diana Neebe and I even wrote a book about teaching with 1:1. The best place to get it is <a href="https://www.stenhouse.com/content/power" target="_blank"><b>directly from our publisher, Stenhouse</b>.</a> </li>
<li>If you have other questions feel free to tweet me <a href="https://twitter.com/JenRoberts1" target="_blank"><b>@JenRoberts1</b></a>. I'll be happy to help. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Standards in this Project: </b>(From the California Language Arts Standards, but based on the CCSS)<br />
<ul>
<li></li>
<li>RI7. Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person’s life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account.</li>
<li>RI3. Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.</li>
<li>W2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.</li>
<li>W9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.</li>
</ul>
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<div>
P.S. I casually posted the screen shot of the project steps on Twitter last night and asked if anyone wanted a blog post with more information. Thanks for the 31 people who replied in less than 24 hours and let me know they really wanted to see more. I hope this helps you. </div>
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<br />@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-23397876070426388662020-05-05T19:04:00.002-07:002020-05-05T19:04:19.804-07:00Request a Regrade: A Google Form You Can Have<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe3JlogtVguZUDvzmt7Mguri1MzkjMWENb8YuP1HoA5_NSTPHELwoJDAHry8FjIcYP7eDamuOvhQPr4uVQ616-gw5f2-c9ZPLmrS_RKJbkaCMu4IZeygJXVtY3qPVW9FcYLBljyMxYcGg/s1600/Request_a_Re_grade.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1215" data-original-width="668" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe3JlogtVguZUDvzmt7Mguri1MzkjMWENb8YuP1HoA5_NSTPHELwoJDAHry8FjIcYP7eDamuOvhQPr4uVQ616-gw5f2-c9ZPLmrS_RKJbkaCMu4IZeygJXVtY3qPVW9FcYLBljyMxYcGg/s640/Request_a_Re_grade.png" width="348" /></a></div>
I teach high school English. I have 140+ students. I like to give them a chance to improve their writing. I believe in performance based grading. All that together, means I get a lot of requests to re-grade work.<br />
<br />
This used to be a fairly casual thing. Students would ask me, or send an email. I'd add them to a list. I've got that list somewhere, I'm sure. It was here a minute ago. Did I leave it at school? Did I add that new request to the list? You get the idea. I started to lose track, and things got missed.<br />
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The solution, like many of my organizational solutions, was a Google Form. Now, if a student wants me to re-grade a piece of work, they just need to fill out the re-grade request form. It's linked at the top of my class blog. If they email me or ask me in person, I remind them to fill out the form.<br />
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The re-grade request form gets to ask all the questions I would want to know about the student work. What's the name of the assignment? What did you do to improve it? Provide the link to your work. Is there anything else you want me to know about the work?<br />
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And then, all those submissions go to my next favorite tool, a spreadsheet. Not my inbox, not my ears, not a note dropped on my desk. A spreadsheet. All of it time-stamped and everything. I share the sheet with my co-teacher, and my student teacher. Any one of us can now see the request and re-grade the work. We leave each other notes on the sheet about the work or the new grade.<br />
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After a batch of re-grades are done, I copy and paste them over to the "completed" page of the sheet. That means we have a running record of every assignment we've re-graded all year long. If there is a question about when a student requested a re-grade, or how we handled that request, I have the receipts. This has been handy in parent meetings more than once. (My completed pages go back to 2015-2016, so this has been working quite well for me for awhile.)<br />
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You can <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1OvLosz6BqMG2pd3fNRjy5xhy0UwJ7D5KFPftPdPUHAQ/copy" target="_blank">HAVE A COPY</a> of the form I use with my students to request a regrade. The form has a branching section (section 2). If you don't need that, click the three dots on that section and you can delete it.<br />
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Q: Don't some students just turn in badly done work because they know they can ask for a regrade?<br />
A: Sure they do, but I have a few policies that slow that down. First, I won't regrade anything until I'm done grading all the original work from the assignment. That can take awhile. Then I might be too busy to get to the re-grades. See, I re-grade very slowly. My only promise is that I will get to it before I submit their semester grade. So, students who want to game the system may have to live with that poor grade for weeks. That doesn't mean I won't re-grade some quite quickly if it suits me to do so. I make it clear to my students that a re-grade request is <i>a request</i>, not an automatic thing.<br />
<br />
Q: Can they ask for a re-grade on anything?<br />
A: No, I make it pretty clear that re-grades are only for major assignments, essays, big projects etc. I'm not going to go back and give them credit for making up a journal entry from six weeks before when it is no longer relevant to preparing for their next big assignment. It won't have much impact on their grade and it's not worth my time. All of their work matters, but some of it matters much more in the short term, i.e. gathering thoughts for an essay, reflecting immediately on an experience. And other things matter much more in the long term i.e. showing they have mastered analytical or narrative writing techniques.<br />
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Q: How many regrades do you typically do each year?<br />
A: I can give you the actual numbers. In 16-17 228, in 17-18 199, in 18-19 137, 19-20 75 so far. Interesting trend isn't it? The number of re-grade requests has dropped every year I've done this. Are students just less interested in improving their work, or is there something I've learned about the way my co-teacher and I teach and support them <i>during</i> the assignment so that fewer of them need to ask for a regrade?<br />
<br />
Have more questions? Ask them in the comments below or tweet me <a href="https://twitter.com/JenRoberts1" target="_blank">@JenRoberts1</a>.@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-13792742320695611822020-04-26T17:29:00.000-07:002020-05-15T11:58:17.507-07:00Suspenseful Moments: A distance learning project for my ELA classes<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE3OxtRksBu0SrtsO010fMo6yiLDBMVdJFmBM3n9UhpBJBSGhwrzJOdK54OUR8j-HJWGCWtdptPjQMqqtavBnCFM8br-ME9h8RttFbh2VGqJrSoyZPze_LK0Dth1l7aPNLwkoqiHKr-D4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-26+at+11.56.30+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Six steps of the project are listed From getting a book, taking a quiz, organizing evidence, posting to a discussion board, writing an essay, and calling the teacher to read that essay to voice mail." border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="538" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE3OxtRksBu0SrtsO010fMo6yiLDBMVdJFmBM3n9UhpBJBSGhwrzJOdK54OUR8j-HJWGCWtdptPjQMqqtavBnCFM8br-ME9h8RttFbh2VGqJrSoyZPze_LK0Dth1l7aPNLwkoqiHKr-D4/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-04-26+at+11.56.30+AM.png" title="Screenshot of suspenseful moments projects steps doc" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Suspenseful Moments Project Page</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In case you are reading this months or years from now, It's the end of April 2020. We are in what we hope is the middle (and not the very beginning) of a global pandemic due to Covid-19. All schools are closed, and students and teachers in my district are doing "distance learning." I like to think of it as bionic teaching.<br />
<br />
I just assigned my students their first distance learning project for a grade. I posted a screenshot of the steps on Twitter and several people wanted more information about the project.<br />
<br />
I designed this to meet two criteria. It had to be something my students could do independently at home, and it had to be standards based. I'll list the standards below for anyone interested. This assignment is based on students' independent reading books, which means students have choices. Before school closed they were writing an evidence based analysis comparing a suspenseful Poe story to a suspenseful movie, so this builds on some of the skills and terms they were already familiar with, but hadn't totally mastered.<br />
<br />
The nice part for me is that I will get to learn more about all the books they have been reading. (Stop laughing. A lot of them have been reading.) And I won't have to worry about them copying from each other because their books are different.<br />
<br />
<b>Get your copy:</b><br />
You can get <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L2xoeS6Ro4wRM8pOI_l5y8GFvZGKmUduCGIwQMZ9d7I/template/preview" target="_blank"><b>your own copy of the project doc here</b></a>. Be sure to click "Use Template" to make your own copy. I linked everything you should need for the project within that doc including the evidence organizer, the specific quizizz that I used, and the essay prompt template.<br />
<br />
There are teacher directions in most sections that you'll need to use and then delete before you send the doc to your students. The doc will be one page after you remove the teacher notes. (In case you have to print it.)<br />
<br />
<b>Google Voice:</b><br />
In the last step, I directed students to call me and read their writing to my voice mail for three minutes, or until they finish, whichever comes first. I'm using a Google Voice number to do that. I've blogged about using Google Voice for students reading their writing in the past. You can find that post <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2015/10/using-google-voice-with-student-writing.html" target="_blank"><b>HERE</b> </a>for more information. You could also achieve something similar with Flipgrid or Vocaroo, but don't make them public. Students are nervous about calling to read their writing, but it helps them proofread their work. Since I can't do writing groups and other forms of in person peer feedback right now, I'm falling back on Google Voice.<br />
<br />
After the Suspenseful Moments project my students started their second project doing an analysis of how a famous person is presented in various media. You might be interested in the <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/05/famous-person-project-second-distance.html" target="_blank">Famous Person Project</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>FAQ: </b>(Answers without the questions to save us all time.)<br />
<ul>
<li>I built this doc in Google Docs. </li>
<li>I made the header in Google Drawings. You can <a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1OH40ZKD16miNuV0VxKnemHD6pn8WGqB7Ug1lcudVgx4/copy" target="_blank"><b>have a copy</b></a>. </li>
<li>I'm giving my students two weeks to do this project, but I told them a few weeks ago to look for a suspenseful book. Last week I gave them the organizer, the quiz, and the discussion question. They have seen a preview or even started working on steps 1-4. I just put it all together in one place because I know some students haven't started yet. </li>
<li>I made the video version of the directions with <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screencastify-screen-vide/mmeijimgabbpbgpdklnllpncmdofkcpn?hl=en" target="_blank"><b>Screencastify</b></a>. Consider making your own because some of your details will be different anyway. Pro tip: Before you record use ctrl-+ to make the things on your screen bigger. They will be easier to see in your video. </li>
<li>The grid on the doc is just a table.</li>
<li>I used File/page setup to change the background color.</li>
<li>I used the schedule option in Google Classroom to post the project steps and the essay template for my students at 9:00 AM Monday. </li>
<li>Yes, I taught this way before the pandemic. I've had 1:1 laptops since 2008. Diana Neebe and I even wrote a book about teaching with 1:1. The best place to get it is <a href="https://www.stenhouse.com/content/power" target="_blank"><b>directly from our publisher, Stenhouse</b>.</a> </li>
<li>If you have other questions feel free to tweet me <a href="https://twitter.com/JenRoberts1" target="_blank"><b>@JenRoberts1</b></a>. I'll be happy to help. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Standards in this Project: </b>(From the California Language Arts Standards, but based on the CCSS)<br />
<ul>
<li>RL1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.</li>
<li>RL5. Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.</li>
<li>W1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.</li>
<li>W4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. </li>
<li>W9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.</li>
<li>S6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. </li>
</ul>
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<br />@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-32351219575443130362020-04-19T13:39:00.001-07:002020-04-19T13:39:24.969-07:00Real Time and Flex Time: The terminology matters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-36DQ85OuUYtndl_fzCPxjTHMtFh27DT0XP1e7ojoq2gvma6l1HW7ss2j-kbGb1Cc9-NpLDKxehfzAQJZQLEWA_lb8EMxtPnT2sEXikLSgoYDgAU6oX5PfmMAGRS5ZIPPHcms-LXrQug/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-19+at+1.13.10+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="The slide says: Synchronous -Real time video conferencing and/or immediate response Asynchronous -Flex time assignments and feedback Real time office hours help either way" border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="871" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-36DQ85OuUYtndl_fzCPxjTHMtFh27DT0XP1e7ojoq2gvma6l1HW7ss2j-kbGb1Cc9-NpLDKxehfzAQJZQLEWA_lb8EMxtPnT2sEXikLSgoYDgAU6oX5PfmMAGRS5ZIPPHcms-LXrQug/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-04-19+at+1.13.10+PM.png" title="Ways to teach your students (A slide screenshot)" width="320" /></a></div>
A few weeks ago, lots of people in my orbit began using the terms synchronous and asynchronous a lot more as we moved into conversations about distance learning. These terms are accurate, highly specific, and really relevant to discussions about how we can and should teach students during this period of triage teaching. They are also long, hard to say, and harder to spell. As I found myself tripping over my tongue, and frequently relying on spell check, I developed a strong dislike for both words.<br />
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So, in a recent webinar, where I knew I would need to be reusing both words repeatedly, I renamed them <b>real-time</b> and <b>flex-time</b>. Phew, four similar, slippery syllables down to just two. Yes, I've forgone a teachable moment on greek roots, in favor of language that will make much more sense to parents and students.<br />
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I didn't invent these terms, at least I hope I didn't. I'm really just advocating for their use. I'm thinking of the parents and students who have English as their second or third language. I am thinking about making sure my plans and expectations make sense to everyone.<br />
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<b>Real-Time:</b> Should mean in the moment, happening live. The most obvious example would be a video conference, but it could be a phone call, or a text chat between teacher and student when both are active participants. It could also mean being on the same shared document at the same time for immediate feedback. Students can and should have real time collaboration and communication with each other too if at all possible.<br />
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<b>Flex-Time:</b> Students and teachers can have different schedules. Students watch prerecorded lessons, or do assignments and then turn in work for the teacher to see and respond to. They don't have to be present in the same virtual space at the same time. Students can collaborate with each other on a flexible schedule also.<br />
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<b>Which should I be using? </b><br />
It depends on your teaching context and your students' level of access. I am conscious that a real-time call requires a lot of access and privilege. I know right now that some of my students have to provide childcare for younger siblings, have to share a space with lots of family members, have limited internet access etc. In that context I don't feel like it is fair for me to expect them all to be on a call so that I can deliver a lesson.<br />
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Instead, I will record that lesson as a screencast. Students can watch it when it works best for them. They can do assignments for my class over several days. I will rely more heavily on flex-time solutions. I am grateful to my district for giving me the flexibility to make the choice that I think is most equitable for my students.<br />
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<br />@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925764717163894053.post-72308012324492161892020-03-29T13:47:00.007-07:002020-08-31T14:21:39.502-07:00Gear for Virtual Teaching And A Virtual Classroom Background<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30fgPrNbFBNS-9vfwAb8KAqLEm_KlkPe1ldMZUjVpeMKZVIq7mtvr2dXiGDN0_gJR7ucqdJ79xkCC4k-sr-1i5omBN29o58WnoChkDfbuMF-QMRMv3wwrQPYXfU0WjiZ1wKFyBL58p8k/s1600/IMG_17F47E00E3A1-1.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30fgPrNbFBNS-9vfwAb8KAqLEm_KlkPe1ldMZUjVpeMKZVIq7mtvr2dXiGDN0_gJR7ucqdJ79xkCC4k-sr-1i5omBN29o58WnoChkDfbuMF-QMRMv3wwrQPYXfU0WjiZ1wKFyBL58p8k/s320/IMG_17F47E00E3A1-1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture stylized with Prisma photo app. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A back in March I posted a picture of my classroom on Twitter and suggested teachers take pictures of their own classrooms to use as a virtual background on Zoom. That tweet has turned out to be very popular, so here is a little more info.<br />
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To add a virtual background on Zoom you will need to go into your settings in the zoom app. I find it easiest to do this if I launch a meeting and click the arrow next to the camera icon. One of the options is to add a virtual background. It remembers the backgrounds you add, and you can have more than one. There are <a href="https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/210707503-Virtual-Background" target="_blank">much more specific directions from Zoom here</a>.<br />
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Note that the full image, and what shows up on Zoom are slightly different. Zoom trims all the edges.<br />
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<b>The Gear: (Updated in August 2020 because I found some things I like better.)</b><br />
Virtual backgrounds work much better if you have a green screen. I happened to have one already and I was glad I had thought to bring it home from my classroom. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G7NSSZ9/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07G7NSSZ9&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=656e4d683a72dd0a48e330e0e1f9a2e2" target="_blank">I have one like this.</a> (Affiliate link) It works great. Right now I'm using some big binder clips to hang it from the shelves behind my desk. I think I'm going to mount some hooks to make it easier to put up and take down. <b>Update: </b>The hooks and binder clips worked great.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo0HH3TjdW4WxMZFcvh3Abwm7CaNHDOT3FiSxMLM3UyUQf6N4loKz5MgesfrtsgP7HMCKxdkRea0bIlGR0vEfzdUbBQmwkmwYmacGnD4w7vbsqKfKbcW4vOJdRfxPFfUi2eMJMVjxgQt0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-29+at+1.22.08+PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="747" data-original-width="1119" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo0HH3TjdW4WxMZFcvh3Abwm7CaNHDOT3FiSxMLM3UyUQf6N4loKz5MgesfrtsgP7HMCKxdkRea0bIlGR0vEfzdUbBQmwkmwYmacGnD4w7vbsqKfKbcW4vOJdRfxPFfUi2eMJMVjxgQt0/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-29+at+1.22.08+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jen in zoom, with her virtual background and good-ish lighting.</td></tr>
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The other thing that helps to have for video calls is a headset with a boom mic. The set I had was six years old and not super comfortable, so I borrowed my son's gaming headset and then bought my own. These keep going out of stock. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RMC5BRL/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07RMC5BRL&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=b43966ca35a6a8197bef7abc1e1ef6ce">Here is one to try.</a> If it is out of stock search [gaming headset]. Try to find one you like for under $40. (Every time we have a zoom staff meeting a colleague will email me afterward to ask about my headset. They say I sound more clear on the call than anyone else. I am usually the only one with a headset.)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>My last suggestions is about lighting. There are very fancy ring lights you can buy if you need to look really good for the television audience at home, but to just get not-so-scary-looking I suggest <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R8H6VTM/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00R8H6VTM&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=c46fe6ad41da477d1fc49442930404f6" target="_blank">this simple inexpensive USB light</a>. (Also affiliate link) It plugs right into my laptop and puts just enough light on my face to cut the pallor of this new indoor lifestyle. <b>Update:</b> I've discovered "selfie ring lights." They are meant to clip onto your phone, but the one I got clips to my computer just over my built in web-camera. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MCZ2WY8/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01MCZ2WY8&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=6699424c9c0361515097919ca92f91af" target="_blank">This one is about 3" wide, very bright, rechargeable, and inexpensive</a>. If you can't sit near a window I recommend it. It's also really portable if you need to change locations mid-call or work while traveling. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhKF968rhQofIUwitXyEbbQf22Bs0p42oj475IyNWZFlfvdDZUU2BFGtQricpaD8WrhFAACdo42B1_ZWvB3UK9kqBjSjuvr01slOArQP-7XFxioniA6bC6EThC-cbmFmEMe5kxcBeAgiQ/s218/Selfie+ring+light.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhKF968rhQofIUwitXyEbbQf22Bs0p42oj475IyNWZFlfvdDZUU2BFGtQricpaD8WrhFAACdo42B1_ZWvB3UK9kqBjSjuvr01slOArQP-7XFxioniA6bC6EThC-cbmFmEMe5kxcBeAgiQ/s0/Selfie+ring+light.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>New teach-from-home space:</b></div><div>As we get ready to head back into virtual school, I am planning an overhaul of my teach-from-home space. (I know I shouldn't have to spend my own money on this stuff, but also it's my workspace and I want to be comfortable and efficient. I saved a lot of money not attending several conferences this spring/summer, and now fall, so I'm going to treat myself to the gear that makes me happy.) </div><div><br /></div><div>I splurged on a <a href=" https://www.autonomous.ai?rid=6ab7af">standing desk</a>, it was back ordered and took several weeks to arrive, but it is awesome. I'm using a second monitor my neighbor was giving away, yay free stuff! If I had to buy one though, I would be sure to get one with the four holes on the back so I could put it on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009S750LA/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B009S750LA&linkCode=as2&tag=litandtech-20&linkId=12ab418b8184c1cbd55249537fe08aff" target="_blank">a vesa mount like this one</a> to free up desk space. </div><div><br /></div>
I'll keep updating this post with what is working best for me in terms of virtual learning gear. In other posts I'm writing about what I find to be best practices for online classes. If you found this gear post helpful, then you'll probably really love this <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/07/student-response-spreadsheet-for.html" target="_blank">spreadsheet for gathering student responses during virtual classes.</a> And <a href="http://www.litandtech.com/2020/08/how-to-make-intentional-groups-in-zoom.html">this sheet for making preplanned breakout room groups in Zoom that are not just random</a>. Thirty seconds of uploading this to zoom before class can make groups much more intentional. <div><div><br />
PS If you use my affiliate links I get a very tiny bit of the revenue from your purchase. I use that to get books for my classroom. So, thanks.<br />
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<br /></div></div>@TheJenRobertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02156539976035751361noreply@blogger.com0