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Showing posts with the label EdTech

Less Physics Mo Problems

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Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs.  In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year.  Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home.  I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms that are
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The Creator's Guide to the NEW Flipgrid Camera

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  With all of the new updates that were released to the Flipgrid Camera in August, I updated The Creator's Guide to the Flipgrid Camera. You can access it at bit.ly/flipgridcamera My favorite new addition is the ability to add Backdrops to the camera. This is a built in green screen where users can choose from a gallery of backdrops or upload their own image! I won't spend more time in this post because I'd rather have you check out the guide and then play around with the new camera! So again, check out the guide at bit.ly/flipgridcamera and share it as you see fit.
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Many Uses for Pear Deck

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Pear Deck is a tool I have been using in my classroom for over 5 years now. It is consistently the #1 tool my students say helps their learning in our classroom. So, I'd just like to give a brief overview of the different ways we deploy Pear Deck for Google Slides in our classroom. Instructor Paced Notes This is probably the most traditional use of Pear Deck. Essentially having a lecture session built in Google Slides with Pear Deck interactions built in. This has been wonderful this year when I have a mix of students who are in person and virtual. All learners get a chance to interact and be heard by the teacher and their voice can be shared with the class.  While this might seem straight forward, there are some best practices to keep in mind. Start out with a question to preview content or tap into prior knowledge.This can be a good check to see what the class and individual students already know about a topic. It is also provides an opportunity use their words to help guide def
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EdTech Tools That Are Saving Me

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With the holiday break only a few hours away, I decided that I should probably get one post in before the end of the year. I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really had the energy too. It's not that I haven't had things to share. It's just that I haven't had the energy to take the time post anything more than a tweet.  At my high school, we are currently in-person everyday. But, students had the option to attend class virtually. In person, we are socially distanced (at least 6 feet) in class and wear masks at all times. This means no sharing of materials, no working in groups, and no physical labs. This has challenged the way I teach even more than when we were all asynchronous virtual in the spring of this year. These restrictions could easily have led me down the path of a sit and get classroom. This is what I spent so much of my 20 year in education moving away from. So, it has been a struggle knowing that I am not giving my learners the science ex
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Evidence of Mastery Presentation in Flipgrid

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  One of the summative assessment options I love is something I've termed Evidence of Mastery or Mastery Defense Presentation. In this, students will present evidence from the unit to show that they have mastered all unit outcomes and present it to me face to face. When we do this face to face, I can then asks them questions or have them elaborate on points that they may not have covered. It takes time, but it gives me a clear idea of a students understanding of a concept. Due to social distancing in the classroom, I didn't have a good workflow for this in our 1st unit this year. I've brought this summative assessment option back and using Flipgrid to leverage it.  Traditionally, I had students construct their own slideshow presentations from scratch. This time around, I decided to make them a template of what I wanted them to specifically present to me. I put in space for them to present work that they had done in the unit. Specifically in this unit, it was graphs from lab
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Captioning in Zoom

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  Last year when we went 100% virtual virtual learning, my district was using Google Meet. This year, students have the option to attend face to face or virtually. To support those students who have chosen the virtual option, teachers are using the Pro version of Zoom instead of Google Meets. While there are many upsides to this, one major downside is the lack of free live closed captioning in Zoom. Zoom does have the ability to have an individual type in live captions, but we don't have the resources for that. There are also paid services that can be added to create live closed captions. But, I was looking for a free support option. To support those learners who would benefit from these captions, there are two workarounds for this. The first is using the tools generated by Google. I use Google Slides and Pear Deck for all of my presentations. When presenting in Google Slides, you can turn on auto closed captioning in the presentation menu. The audio picked up from the microphone i
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