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Generate Instant Pear Decks

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  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. 
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Passion + Physics + PBL = Personalization

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As our first term of the year comes to an end, we have wrapped up our term long project.  There will be a lot more reflection to come.  I haven't gotten very far into the grading but had to take a moment to share one of the videos (I'll be sure to share others in future posts.) When I saw this one I had to share it out because it really struck me that it did more than we had intended for the project to do.

Our driving question was "How can I use physics to hack sports?"  So the intention was for students to make a connect between physics and a sport of their choice.  When given voice in the topic that they would cover, students gravitated to sports which played a major role in their lives, sports they were passionate about.

The result is a product which doesn't simply tie physics to sport.  It ties physics to something the student is passionate about.  So, although the video tells us about physics and sport, it tells us just as much about the student.  It's a beautiful realization I never thought I'd see, but it is powerful.

As a science teacher, the traditional approach to a lab report creates a distance between the author and the data.  A product like this does just the opposite.  It shows how we live in a world governed by natural laws and why we need to understand them.  The student who created this video is Danyell Chupp.  If you enjoy her video, I'd encourage giving her a shout out on Twitter @danyellchupp.





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