HyperDocs... Giving Students a Choice

With the blended and personalized learning push in classrooms, students are able to take ownership of their learning.  They can set goals, choose the pace they work at for each assignment, and even choose the best way for them to learn about a specific topic.  As a teacher, giving the students the tools they need to learn can be hard to manage.  This is where HyperDocs come into play.  HyperDocs are Docs, Slides, Drawings, Canva... any tool you can think of... listing resources and videos to engage students in the learning process.  You can list multiple resources for each learning standard and let the students decide which resources they find best suited to their learning style.  

They can be in the format of:

• a menu where students choose one starter, main course, and dessert
• tables with Explain and Task column headers
• a Tic-tac-toe board where they have to get three in a row to cover all topics
• any interesting format you can design!

               Image Credit

HyperDocs were originally in Google Docs; however, using Slides and other tools beef up the interactivity and how you can share the learning resources.    

Below you will find links to more resources on HyperDocs including templates to utilize: 

Hyper What?

What's the Hype with HyperDocs

HyperDoc Templates

HyperDoc Samples

Primary Example

If Kindergarteners Can Do It, All Our Students Can!

The Kindergarten team at Sandburg is rocking technology throughout the school year.  Elizabeth Deuser, Stefanie Young, Kayla Adams, and Michele Rosenow started the year having their students use technology to help express their thoughts and opinions at a time when letter recognition is still new to many students.  Using the Clever badges to login, kindergarteners started by recording themselves expressing thoughts and ideas using FlipGrid.com. To introduce FlipGrid and get students use to the program, they had students record their favorite color. From there, students discussed what career they would like to have when they grew up.  They utilized FlipGrid for many following units. Students have even gone back on, when done with other work, to respond to a prompt again or to a classmates video.

After introducing FlipGrid, the team introduced Google Slides to their students.  First, they had their students create posters on paper for a unit. For a following unit, they took the same idea but had the students create posters on Slides instead.  They gave the students a template and assess to an image folder that allowed the students to dress up the Caillou and his background based on the season they studies. In an upcoming unit, students will create a 4 slide slideshow as an assessment piece for the unit.  

I love how these teachers are using one tool at a time, scaffolding the learning, to introduce the kindergarteners to the new tools. Great job Elizabeth Deuser, Stefanie Young, Kayla Adams, and Michele Rosenow.

Equality vs Equity - Using a Blended Learning Environment to Break Down Barriers

Image Credit

We are expert at making sure each child gets an equal opportunity.  We are experts at giving each student the extra support they need to thrive, but how do we remove the barriers altogether?  I am not exactly sure the best method for all of our students; however, I believe it needs to start with each class and branch out from there.  I also believe it is imperative that we do remove these barriers and a blended and personalized learning environment can be key. 

According to Dictionary.com, "blended learning is “the use of both classroom teaching and on-line learning in education.” In essence, it is a combo of both the traditional teaching style and one where the students learn while utilizing technology.  Students have more choice and voice in the platform and way they learn opening the learning up to all and breaking down those barriers.  Students also have more freedom to work at their own pace, being able to slow down in some areas and speed up in others to gain the most from the content.  My favorite part about a blended approach is the ability for teachers to have more time to meet with smaller groups to focus the learning on what the group needs most.  Once again, removing the barriers to the students learning.

To learn more, feel free to contact me or join us at our A Blended Approach to Personalized Learning trainings to learn more!

A Blended Approach to Personalized Learning training dates and times:

• 02/20/18 (3:45-5:15)
• 02/26/18 (3:00-4:30)
• 03/06/18 (3:00-4:30)
• 03/21/18 (3:45-5:15)
• 04/17/18 (3:00-4:30)
• 04/25/18 (3:45-5:15)

Hoops for 86 Fundraiser Tomorrow

Come out and support your fellow teachers and me as we play basketball to help fundraise for the Foundation grants that are awarded to District 86 teachers each year.  Also, come support our elementary and Jr. High school cheerleaders.  Admission is $1 for kids and $2 for adults.  See everyone tomorrow!

Per our district website,

"SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 03, 2018
Hoops for D86 Fundraiser
01:00 PM - 04:30 PM Joliet West High School - Field House401 N. Larkin Ave.Joliet, IL , 60435
815-791-3230

The Joliet Grade Schools Foundation for Educational Excellence will host its fifth annual “Hoops for D86” fundraiser, presented by ExxonMobil, on Saturday, February 3, 2018 from 1:00–4:30 p.m. The basketball tournament will take place in the field house at Joliet West High School, 401 N. Larkin Avenue, and feature players from Joliet Public Schools District 86 schools. In addition, District 86 administrators will play members of a community team during a game scheduled for 2:15 p.m.

The event is open to the public. Admission is $2.00 for adults and $1.00 for students.  Concessions and raffle tickets will be available to purchase. Entertainment will be provided by cheerleaders from M.J. Cunningham Elementary, Dirksen Junior High, Forest Park Individual Education (I.E.), Hufford Junior High, A.O. Marshall Elementary, Pershing Elementary, Sator Sanchez Elementary, Isaac Singleton Elementary, and Woodland Elementary Schools. Student drawings will also take place during the event."

The Power of Avatars

Our students want to have an online presence, but as teachers, we are scared to have their image, name, or any elements of their personal identity online.  In our need to keep our students safe, this can cause us to shy away from effective learning tools.  This is where avatars come into play.  Avatars can give your students a voice and a presence on the Internet while still protecting their identity.   Students can use their avatar as their profile picture on Google.  

Avatars can also aide student creativity.  They can create avatars

• to go along with an original story they authored

• help compare and contrast two presidents

• that talk, in Voki or Blabberize, to help with reading fluency.

There are a plethora of ways to use avatars.  If you would like to know more, please let me know.  I would love to come work with you.  

The following blog has a few good avatar resources:  http://rechargelearning.blogspot.com/2018/01/fun-avatar-creation-tools-who-will-you.html

I would also recommend Blabberize and Voki for talking avatars.

 

Take Coding Beyond the Hour

Great job participating in the worldwide movement of Hour of Code last week.  We had an amazing turnout.  Let's keep that momentum going!

I feel as educators, it is our job to open the world and prepare our students to succeed at the next level of school and in the real world.  Showing students coding is just opening another door to their future they may have not previously noticed.

Currently, Code.org has 18 different hour of code programs ranging from Star War to Minecraft to coding with Elsa and Anna. They also have programs that are for pre-readers, programs that align with algebra courses, and programs that take up to 20 hours.  There are many programs left for your students to explore.  As a teacher, I assigned my students the courses, gave them the logins, and let them learn coding when they had the availability.  It could be on the student's own time, at indoor recess, or after they finish work.  I found that the interested students would even code at home, after school, and on the weekends.  If they are interested, they will find a way!

I like how Code.org let's a teacher track the progress of each student in an interactive and visually pleasing table. See an example below:

Also, computer science is currently the number one paying job for graduates with bachelor degrees!

For more resources to inspire your students, click here!

 

Fake News

As teachers, we want our students to be safe and to also be lifelong learners who direct their own learning.  We give them many resources and tools to help them succeed and take that ownership.  Our goal has to be that they are able to learn creditably and safely at school and at home, especially when using online resources.  For my part, I want to make sure the knowledge gained is valid and the  information can be utilized to learn.  To do this, I am likely to not only give the students safe search engines but to also show them how convincing uncredited websites look.

The past week and a half, a few of my awesome 6th grade teachers and I have been introducing the research topic by having their students research The Dog Island website.  It is a very convincing website that talks all about how you can give your dog a place to live free range and with over 2,500 other dogs living on 3 different islands.  It gives visiting information, stats, and even weather and food details.  First, we have the student find and blog, using Classroom, about 3 facts based on what they read on www.thedogisland.com and then comment on facts other students found.  We then opened up the discussion whole class deciding and decided if we would send our dogs to Dog Island.  After the discussion, we introduce the safe search engines and remind students that facts and all credible information should be checked and repeated on multiple sites.  Students then use the safe search engines to search Dog Island.  They find a vacation rental sites for humans.  Sometimes, they find a website telling them that Dog Island is fake.  Overall, they find little information confirming any facts.  Many students then come to the realization that it is false information.  We then use that realization to spark a conversation on validating sources, and the best way to complete the task.  The students can be frustrated with this lesson, but they are learning not to trust content and you can see the light bulbs lighting up in the classroom!

Below are some safe search engines we recommend along with a few spoof websites you can use to help make your students aware of the false information on the Internet.

Student Friendly Search Engines

Kiddle.co

Fact Monster

Kids Click

Sweet Search

Don't forget Britannica which is found in Clever!

Fake Research Sites to Get Students Thinking

The Dog Island: http://www.thedogisland.com/
Octopus Tree: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
Spaghetti Tree Hoax: Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm 
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU