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"Are you open to your own evolution as an individual and as a professional?" Couros, G., & Novak, K. (2019). Innovate inside the box: empowering learners through Udl and the Innovators Mindset. Place of publication not identified: published by IMpress, a division of Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. Five years ago, I was hearing the buzz about student portfolios. So, I took the big leap of integrating student portfolios into my classroom. I was using Google Sites as the platform for creation. It was free and at the time our school was just beginning to use Google Apps for Education (now known as G Suite). If ever there was a case in which I felt like I was innovating inside of the box, this was it. Google Sites had lots of opportunities for customization. Almost any type of media could be added and the look of any part of the page could be adjusted. Students could add artifacts, create blog posts, and comment on each other’s work. The big drawback was that the interface w

This will be my 6th year using Google Sites for student portfolios. A lot has changed along the way and I’m excited to iterate again with a feature that I feel has always been lacking in my portfolio process. That piece is reflection. Whether it be a portfolio to document growth or a portfolio to showcase the best work, the ability to reflect is essential. But, the ability to provide multiple forms of reflection has been a bit cumbersome. In all the time I have been using Google Sites, typed text responses to prompts has been the form that reflection has taken. After learning more about the amazing things educators are doing with Flipgrid, I have realized that not only is it a tool that can be used for sharing ideas, it is a great tool for video reflection. These video reflections can be kept private between the student and teacher. What I did not realize was how these videos created by students can easily be added to their Google Sites portfolio by the student. So what is the proc

Too often the grade is the goal for our students, and we lose sight of learning in pursuit of a number. School needs to be something bigger than a grade. Couros, George & Novak, Katie. Innovate Inside the Box: Empowering Learners Through UDL and the Innovator's Mindset . IMPress. Kindle Edition. Reading the new book by George Couros and Katie Novak Innovation Inside the Box has me rethinking how I communicate purpose in my classroom. It is so easy for me to fall back into a mode where I accept compliance from my learners as an excuse to not define the purpose of what we do in class. Too often the compliance mindset sees the grade as the goal. It is the grade that is earned not the process or even the product. So, once the grade or credit has been earned the work can be forgotten. In the 1972 film The Candidate , Robert Redford play presidential candidate Bill McKay. The clip below shows the ending of the film when -- Spoiler Alert -- McKay wins the election. “What do we do n

The first day of school is a prime day for hearing the voice of learners. In some way, many teachers use a variety of tools to learn about the students they are welcoming into the classroom. The first day of my class is spent having students make passion pages . But like many of us out there, this information doesn’t necessarily transform the learning in my classroom in the ways that it could. In their new book Innovate Inside the Box: Empowering Learners Through UDL and the Innovator's Mindset , George Couros and Katie Novak make a point to stress the importance of discovering students passions One of the best ways to work with people is finding out what they love and tapping into it. The teachers who spent time finding out my passions made me feel like they had a genuine interest in who I was and what I loved. Couros, George & Novak, Katie. Innovate Inside the Box: Empowering Learners Through UDL and the Innovator's Mindset . IMPress. Kindle Edition. A quality formal

The new Flipgrid Camera has many incredible features that can be utilized in the classroom. If you are unaware of these features, read about them here on the Ditch that Textbook blog post. In this brief post, I will touch on some possible applications in the classroom. Student Generated Keys By using the whiteboard background, students can work through the problem solving process. Not only can they show their work visually, students can talk through the problem solving process. The key here is making use of the pause feature in the recording for simple breaks. If students don’t have touchscreens and drawing is too difficult with a trackpad, encourage them to use text boxes. Check out this amazing video by Jen   Saarinen! Student Introductions At the beginning of the school year, many students are asked to complete worksheets explaining who they are in terms of who they are as a learner and person. Many teachers have innovated this process by having students introduce th

Well this week was my 2nd time attending the ISTE conference. This year I was able to attend a bunch of wonderful sessions. I even presented. I’d like to that the time to share out the resources from my sessions and the sessions I attended. I’d like to thank the people who were most directly responsible for me attending ISTE. Barbara Bray for inviting me to present as a part of her sessions. Dana Monogue the director of teaching and learning in my district when the opportunity arose for finding resources to support my journey. Dana is now the superintendent of another great Wisconsin school district. Finally, the innovative work done in my classroom is done in partnership with my co-teacher Andelee Espinosa . Learner Agency Learner Voice and Learner Choice are two major components to providing Learner Agency in the classroom. Too often, voice and choice are seen as a single aspect. In our session, Barbara Bray, Kerry Gallagher, and I teased out key aspects of and examples fo

It takes a special type of educator to attend a conference in June. Many teachers have only been out of school for a couple of days. These are professionals who thrive on reflecting on their practice and gaining new ideas to improve their practice. These are the teachers who look at the world and see ideas that they can bring into the classroom tomorrow. These are the type of educators who attend University School of Milwaukee Summer Spark. This is my second year attending USM Summer Spark and I am amazed at the talent that they bring in to share out at sessions. With such an engaged groups of educators, I imagine it is one hell of a draw. Angela Maiers gave a rousing keynote focusing on the connections we make with learners and making them realize they matter. While there were many takeaways, one that stuck with me was setting up a structure to make every student in the classroom feel awesome at least once a week. The idea of recognizing 5 students from my classes a day in a person