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Showing posts from April, 2020

EdCamp Still Rules

  Looking Back at 10 years of EdCamps Oh how the time flies, EdCamp Madison is turning 10 this year!  It will be held Saturday, February 3rd at Sun Prairie West High School. Which can be found at 2850 Ironwood Drive in Sun Prairie Wisconsin from 8:30 am - 3:00 pm.  Get more information and register here: https://sites.google.com/sunprairieschools.org/edcampmadwi/home   I will always remember sitting in my first EdCamp opening session at the very first EdCamp Madison and having no clue what I was in for. So, I’d like to take this space to go over some of the basic rules of EdCamp. No One Will Pitch It for You EdCamps are unconferences. By this I mean that they have a blank slate of sessions for the day. There may be a few predetermined sessions, but ultimately the session topics are determined by attendees during the pitch & plan session that opens the day. If an idea gets pitched there will be a session on it. If a topic doesn’t get pitched, there won’t be a session on it. So, it i

That's a Bingo: Rethinking Assessment in Virtual Learning

In this new landscape of Virtual Learning, I've lost many of my favorite activities and labs. But thanks to ideas from my Professional Learning Network and the support of my administration, I feel like I've been given the freedom to think differently. To not simply retrofit activities and assessments into a virtual model, but to try something different and leverage the change in instruction and environments. In a recent podcast, Kasey Bell presented 12 practical tips for remote learning that forced me to rethink what I was trying to do . It was a fantastic episode that moved me to question my current practice and try something different. So, I took a tip from another one of her episodes on Choice Boards . As we finish our energy unit, I wanted to create a more unique opportunity for learners to demonstrate mastery. So, I created an Energy Bingo Board. I would not consider this a true choice board for a couple of reasons. But, I'd like to discuss the design of the ass

Student Portfolios: You've Got Time for That

As we find ourselves outside of the classroom attempting to find ways to utilize the digital tools and ask learners to demonstrate mastery on new or past content, I continue to see the power of student portfolios for this task. The portfolio could be used for different purposes, but Google Sites can work as a powerful platform to house this product. Many districts have students create a portfolio that covers multiple years and courses. But in these times, the ability to coordinate this type of project might not be feasible. So, I’ll focus on the use of a portfolio in one course. These purposes center around providing artifacts that could be used to highlight Mastery of Unit Outcomes Mastery of State or National Standards Habits of Mind Learner Strengths or Growth Over Time We’ll get to how this decision of purpose will drive organization. But let’s start with how students can create a new google site. Create sites In the video below, you can see how you can create a new

Student Paced Flashcard Factory for Distance Learning

I was thrilled when I learned all about a distance learning hack for Pear Deck's Flashcard Factory from Stacey Roshan. If you're not sure what Flashcard Factory is, it is a free platform for students collaboratively to build digital flashcards that include text and visual representations. These flashcards can then be printed, saved as a pdf, or exported to the online quiz game Gimkit. You can learn all about Flashcard Factory from the Pear Deck Website here. As we are all involved in distanced learning right now, students can't work on Flashcard Factory in real time. This hack from Stacey will allow all learners in the class to work on creating a set of cards that can be used by the whole class. The main difference is that instead of students working in pairs, they are working on their own. Be sure to set a firm deadline. After the deadline you can go in and approve or reject cards. Then, share the PDF with the class, or launch a Gimkit with them. Don&