This is a rerun episode from the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. Most of the classes at the middle and high school I work at will be starting new again next week as we run on a semester schedule. This seemed like a good time to have a rerun and share some ideas on technology tools and lessons to help build new relationships.
IDEA ROUND UP
Happy first day back to school and welcome to a new season of Tech Tuesday! I’m starting things off early this year and I’ve made a few changes around here. I’m now editing episodes using WeVideo, hence the new intro and I’m trying out green screen for the first time. If I did this right, you should see a office background behind me and not green. I’m very excited that everyone is back and I can’t wait to see what we do this year! For this first episode, I am keeping things light and sharing ideas that you can use with students to help get to know each other and start building those relationships.
When I first became an ITRT, I used Twitter to make connections with other educators and over time, I got away from it. This past school year, I started venturing back and I’ve been really happy with the ideas and other educators and technology integrators I’ve connected with and I’ve seen a ton of ideas for the first week of school about making connections, creating goals, and some really cool icebreakers and wanted to share them with you. So here we go!
BACK TO SCHOOL WITH G SUITE
Kasey Bell, the creator of Shake Up Learning, has activities to use with Google Apps 1) Create a student interest survey in Google Forms and asking questions such as the name you want to be called by and what students are passionate about. 2) Vision boards with Google Slides – if some of you don’t remember I did a training on this for the start of spring semester last year. If you would like to see another training, drop me an email! and 3) Learning goals in Google Keep. Now, if you don’t know what Google Keep is – this is a hidden gem! This is both a website and an app. I use it for both work and at home for to do list, grocery shopping lists, and to take notes. You can also share lists and have multiple people editing the same list. Chris and I did this at the beginning of August to jot down the items that needed updating before everyone else came back to work. I also really like the idea of using Google Keep for learning goals with our ESOL and SPED students because you can collaborate with individual students and then both of you have access to those goals and can physically check off the boxes when each goal has been met. The goals might be specific tasks, objectives from a unit, or goals on an IEP. I’ll add a link to the description area of the YouTube video so you can check out all of Kasey’s ideas.
GOOGLE AND PADLET
Another first day survey I really like is by Catlin Tucker, a teacher and edtech speaker. I think Catlin’s survey goes a little deeper than Kasey’s asking students when they learn best and in what types of environments. There are a couple of questions about access to wifi and devices that you can take out, but the best part is she lets you make a copy of her Google Form so you can edit as needed. Catlin also has a cool icebreaker using padlet called “It’s Time to Take a Selfie”, where students post a selfie in response to a question. You could also do something similar to this in Flipgrid.
FLIPGRID
Speaking of Flipgrid, if you haven’t heard of this site yet, hang on tight! This is THE new tool everyone is talking about! A couple of teachers on Twitter posted how they are going to be using Flipgrid during their first week: Kathi, from NJ shared this chart of ideas for intro videos. I really like “intro your family”, where you interview members of your family, including pets, that will be fun for our younger students or create a video with fun topics, like talking about 5 Favorites. Stephanie, another educator, tweeted that she is sending home a letter with a flipgrid link and asking students to introduce themselves before the first day of school, so she will already have a chance to get to know them. That’s a pretty cool idea.
DITCH THAT TEXTBOOK PINTEREST BOARD
From one other tweet, I discovered a pinterest board Matt Miller of Ditch That Textbook fame created with back to school ideas. Not this Matt Miller, but this Matt Miller (we have a math teacher at the high school with the same name). Here’s a tip, this is going to be very important come next week to know which one other teachers are referring to…stay tuned! So on this board, I found one of my favorite things: Hyperdocs! There’s one students can do about goal setting and thinking about their futures. Karly Moura and Rachel Marker created this Hope and Dreams Hyperdoc. As a teacher, this would be a great way to try out one if you haven’t before and simultaneously introduce it to students. I know a lot of you also like to have students discover what type of learner they are, so this Hyperdoc by Jen Gripman will be great for you! I also really liked “This Is Us” by Nicole Beardsley. This is a Google Slides template where every student works on the same slide deck but on separate slides responding to questions and adding pictures. Nicole has directions for how to use her template and I want to add a couple of tips, because this can be confusing at first. Instead of letting students grab any blank slide, which could end in students fighting over the same slide, add your students names to the slides ahead of time and tell them to find the slide with their name on it. Or assign each student a number and that’s the slide they will use. I’ll add the link to the board where you can find other ideas too.
GOOGLE DRAWINGS
Finally, here’s an idea of my own: Last year and again at new teacher training, I did a PD session on Google Drawings and challenged participants to make their own self-portraits. You could do this with students, as well or have them create their alter egos, like a superhero or a rock star.
TECHNOLOGY PROCEDURES
And one last tip: As you are also teaching your students about your classroom procedures during the first week, don’t forget that you should also include procedures about technology! This is very important, because even though our students have been surrounded by technology (these guys) their entire lives, what they use in their classes are very different and so are their teachers. The way you want something turned in might be different than another teacher in another subject. Students may also not be as familiar with some tools, so this is a good time to ask what kinds of programs they’ve used in the past. Another idea is to discuss LanSchool and take a few minutes to show them the different ways you plan on using this and practice; this is a good time for you to play with the program. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, training will be at the MS on Aug. 16 and the HS on Aug. 22.
HAPPY TO HELP
If you have any questions about any of these ideas or tools, please send me an email, I’ll be happy to help!
Welcome back and have a great first week!!
LINKS TO RESOURCES
Kasey Bell, @ShakeUpLearning, Back to School with G Suite activities https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/back-to-school-with-g-suite-6-activities-for-the-classroom/
Catlin Tucker, @catlin_tucker, 1st Day Survey and “Time to Take a Selfie”.
- https://catlintucker.com/2018/08/1st-day-survey/
- https://catlintucker.com/2018/07/selfie-icebreaker/
Kathi Kersznowski, @kerszi, Flipgrid Intro Video Ideas
Stephanie Cardoso, @CardosoTeaches
Matt Miller, Ditch That Textbook, Back to School Ideas Pinterest Board https://www.pinterest.com/ditchthattxt/back-to-school/?sender=651262933522719118&invite_code=814d5393ff95459da7fed7cd52c7fba8
Karly Moura and Rachel Marker, Hopes and Dreams Hyperdoc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KWtmQTVWefyGbcxh2g6lUUXVjlJRVIiMeV7xFi0w7M4/copy
Jen Gripman, What Kind of Learner Are You? Hyperdoc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dyv7KObAio8WK4XMvLU-Lsj–6zmUWKEWFTcVaMRA9U/copy
Nicole Beardsley, This is Us
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16oqfiuiUVKmMxWtKjxqQEUkWkGUFoeEEMFkR-7Wpcuk/edit?usp=sharing
Intro to Google Drawings, Tech Tuesday Season 2, Episode 1
Ms Priester EDU 