Skip to main content

Generate Instant Pear Decks

By
  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. 
Post a Comment

Sharing Personal Learning Projects Through Conformity

Image
By


Students wrapped up their personal learning project today.  On exam days, our classes met once in the morning and once in the afternoon.  The morning was for sharing and the afternoon for putting all of their learning process pieces together.  I'll focus on reflection in my next post, but it was tough for me to see how I gave students such free freedom in their learning but dictatorial control in their sharing.

Morning Session


In the morning, students did a gallery walk of the one sheet posters. The one sheets were created using the student's program of choice.  Many used graphic friendly sites like Canva or Pickochart, but using Google Docs or Draw worked fine for others thanks to the host of formatting available to text and visuals.  During the gallery walk, students walked around the halls with a smartphone or tablet and a pair of headphones.  By looking at a one sheet displayed on the wall, they were informed about the topic and the process of that particular project.

They used the Aurasma augmented reality app was used to view the video students created related to the topic.  The videos were made in only two class periods which is part of my regrets that I'll discuss in the next post.






The results of the one sheet and video ran the gambit in terms of quality of presentation of information, reflection on the process, and overall design.  I know I can learn as much about the assignment from the ones that were good as I can from the ones that didn't meet expectations.  But right now, I can't help but be a little disappointed in some. But it's the first time we've done this so there is lots to learn from.  I've posted images of some of the one-sheets below.

If you want to see the videos attached to the one-sheets below, do the following:
  1. Download the Aurasma app for your smartphone or tablet
  2. Open the app
  3. If the app is in camera mode, tap the magnifying glass at the bottom.
  4. In the search bar type in "bcphysics"
  5. Select "Bcphysics's Public Auras" and follow.
  6. Tap "back" and tap on the purple viewfinder button at the bottom of your screen to scan one of the images below. 
  7. When the concentric circles appear, the video is loading.
Here's a gif version of the process
















Afternoon Session

In the afternoon, students worked on putting all of their documentation together into a page of their portfolio.

On the portfolio page, the collected the following items:
  • One sheet document (The poster)
  • Video explaining what was learned or created
  • Progress and Reflection sheet (this is the document submitted for each check-in) 
  • Human contact sheet detailing a human source used as a resource
  • A sheet detailing the major resources used in the project other than the human contact.
  • Brief reflection providing feedback on a strength and weakness of the design of the assignment




I really think the portfolio was a great place to collect all of this work that went into the project rather than having them include it as a part of the main presentation of information.  Regardless of what I decide on options for future products, I think I will always leave the collating of resource and progress documents find their home in the portfolio as opposed to the major product.

The next post will focus more on reflections on the project.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twitter Cards for Blogger

By
So, I’ve been seeing people with beautiful Twitter Cards in my Twitter Stream. They make it clear that there is a web page to visit and give a quick preview of what would be found. Something like the one below: I’ve been wondering how to get one of the cards to appear when I tweet out a link to my latest blog post.  Since I use Blogger, there is not a simple button to click to turn this on.  I had to find a way to paste new code into the HTML code of my blog.  It took some searching from multiple sites to get a completely functional.   This site though was quite helpful.  But, I’d like to walk you through my process and hopefully it helps a few out. There are a few types of Twitter Cards.  Two that at most frequently see are the basic summary card and the summary card with large image.  Below you can see the layout of each, but realize that they both have the same content pieces. This is going to look like a lot ...
14 comments
Read more

Personalized Learning Tasks and Roles

By
Yesterday, I read a great post by Jim Rickabaugh dealing with the roles of learner and teacher in a personalized learning environment by looking at tasks . The roles were set up on a continuum. This article timed perfectly with a reflection on part of Students at the Center by Allison Zmuda and Bena Kallick on idea generation and task development I had in mind. These two works are the focus of my reflection here. I think a key misunderstand teachers have when it comes to digging into personalizing learning is that for planning purposes, we no longer begin with standards but with student desires.  I believe like all good instruction, we need to start with the standards.  Think about it, standards are what we want all learners to know and be able to do as a result of passing through our educational system. That is why it is essential that we make sure that standards are representative of what we believe is important for learners to be informed and productive in th...
1 comment
Read more

Pear Deck 101 + Q&A

By
  Last week, I presented as a part of Pear Deck’s Pear Fair 2020. My presentation was Pear Deck 101 for Google Slides. During the presentation, there was a live chat. Many people said it went too fast for a 101 Session. Luckily, it was recorded so it can be rewatched.  Also, many said that they wanted to know how to build a Pear Deck first. I structured the presentation to show what Pear Deck was before showing how to make one. Perhaps that wasn’t the best structure. But, I’m going to stick with my philosophy of showing what something is before showing how to make it. The presentation, which can be watched below, was structured in several different sections What is Pear Deck? Providing an overview of the experience from the Teacher and Student perspectives. How do you build a Pear Deck in Google Slides? How do you start a Pear Deck presentation? How do you end a Pear Deck presentation? Here is the Slideshow I shared during the session bit.ly/pearfair101 Time really flew in...
2 comments
Read more