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Generate Instant Pear Decks

  I’ll keep this short as the video explains most of you. Any new educational technology can be complicated to dig into from scratch as you attempt to align it to learning outcomes.  Well, a new feature that Pear Deck has introduced has taken a giant leap forward to help educators do just that.  Before we jump into the new features, if you are unfamiliar with Pear Deck and why my students and I consider it the #1 EdTech tool that helps their learning, check out the video in the previous blog post.   But if you are more concerned with why you should even dive into Pear Deck or learn about this new AI generation of Pear Deck sessions to a learning target, check out the video below. Like I said, I’m keeping it short so you have time to watch the video. If you have questions, please contact me at mohammam@elmbrookschools.org or the Pear Deck Learning team at support@deck.peardeck.com . Also, check out the amazing Stacey Roshan's video on this update. 

What I learned at Camp

Today I am attending EdCamp Milwaukee.  EdCamp is an unconference where educators pitch ideas for sessions the morning of and attendees go to sessions of choice and "vote with their feet"

This is my 3rd year attending edCamp MKE.  It is hosted by Tammy Lind, Chad Kafka, and Beth Lisowski.

1st session I was in dealt with Standards based grading. My biggest takeaways were

What grade is a 3? Should it be an A? Sorry, I can't get away from grades.  We're not there yet.

Why as a teacher should I be defining what "exceeds" mastery looks like?  Shouldn't students show me what it looks like for them to exceed?  I'm going to be scratching my rubric for our next summative assessment based on this concept.

Can I create skills rubrics that might have long term measurement while having content rubrics that have short term measurement?

If we're going to do this, it has to be clear to both teacher, parents, and students what all these numbers and standards mean.

(While I was in this session, I was live streaming a session about Twitter via a Google doc and learned about TweetDeck for laptop.  Game changer!)

2nd session I attended was about using technology to streamline communication.


The big takeaway from this is trying to find the best way to communicate with different groups might be different.

I learned about Voxer which looks like a fantastic app.  Look forward to playing with it later.

I also learned that chromebooks have the Remind app.  We're going 1:1 with Chromebooks over the next couple of years.  This will create a quick way to communicate to all students instantaneously. Without cell phones or the need to email.

At lunch, there was a great gadget presentation.

Chemistry 4D is a fantastic augmented reality app that allows one to see elements up close and to perform actual chemical reactions!!

Catch box is a soft and safe mic to pass around at meetings or in the classroom.

Finally, what I want is myo with this you can use gestures to control your device from a distance.

3rd session I attended was focused around maker spaces.


To be honest, I have no idea what a makerspace would look like in my class. Now I've seen how it can truly free up my students to choose their mode of learning from digital media down to hands on construction to demonstrate content mastery.

I am very excited to research products like LittleBits to help students build and redesign as they learn content and skills.

Finally, I went to a session on text coding with iPads.

You'll have to forgive me becasue I'm running out of steam.

Here's a link to their great presentation.




Not done yet.

At the closing, I got to play with Makey Makey thanks to Tricia A Louis.



Best EdCamp yet!

See you next year.

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