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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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InstructureCon 2016 Volume 3: Return to Camp Canvas

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I've made my way through 70 sessions that were posted on YouTube from InstructureCon 2016.  Now, I didn't watch them all in totality. Certain sessions were focused on administration of a Canvas instance and as a classroom teacher, this is something that I don't have to deal with.

There are a lot of great videos from the Con in which you can hear the stories of districts implementing and growing their implementation of Canvas. But I'd like to focus on a couple that I found extremely informative from the perspective of a classroom teacher.

Join the LTI Camp
Christy Steffen Noblesville Schools
This is a great session for people who don't know what LTI tools are or who are already using them in their Canvas course. If you haven't investigated LTI before, this will give you a great place to start. If you're an LTI guru, you're bound to find something new.




Using Canvas and Blogs for Student Publishing and Reflecting
Terence Priester Newington College
This session does a great job of framing how teachers can utilize blogs as a reflection tool in their classroom. The presenter does a great job explaining the why behind student blogging. But, he also shares a blogging course he has created in Canvas Commons for any teacher to get students started blogging.



Hacking Canvas: Making the Rubric Tool Work for you
April Lynn Millet & Stevie Rocco Pennsylvania State University
I am all about innovating my use of rubrics in Canvas. So, I loved this session. The presenters do a great job of walking through the different types of rubrics and how one can build them in Canvas. They also include best practices for rubric design. I had so many takeaways from this one. They also shared out their slideshow.




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