5 Great EdTech Tools for Assessment

There are loads of opportunities for using technology for assessment and review. Here are five really great online tools. 

Flubaroo - This is a Google Sheets Add-on that automatically grades quizzes submitted through Google Forms. Flubaroo will grade your quiz and will supply you with data on most-missed items so you can adjust your instruction.

Kahoot - This is a great interactive quiz tool to do class reviews. Students get to the “game room” by putting in a unique code, then questions are displayed on the board and kids use their chromebooks as responders.

Schoolnet - This is the new assessment tool that replaces ClassScape. The improvement over ClassScape is that teachers will now be able to create customized test items and passages and will be able to collaborate on common assessments. Oh, and the test grades pop instantly into your grade book!

Kaizena - I briefly demonstrated this app in a couple of PDs already, but with Kaizena you can supply oral feedback to your students. This makes feedback personal, and gives you the power of project or paper conferencing on your own time.

Moodle - Did you know you could build quizzes in Moodle that give students

instant feedback? Did you know kids can complete a voice recording assignment in Moodle? You can even share common rubrics with each other.

4 Google Chrome Extensions for Better Workflow

Our Professional Development theme for the month of September was Communication and Workflow. Now as the month draws to a close, I wanted to add just one more post about some great Google extensions I have found helpful for my organization and efficiency (which, I promise you, I need all the help I can get!). You can find all these extensions and more in the Google Chrome Store. 

Black Menu for Google
This one is pretty cool. Instead of going to a new tab, then to my Google Drive, then to a folder in my Drive, I click on my Black Menu extension, then my Google Drive items are already there, as are my Google sites, my Calendar, my notes in Google Keep, and the latest news and trends.

I can customize my menu by dragging and dropping the items I want most. And I have a ton of shortcuts to other Google Apps and a built in search bar as well.

    

Do it Tomorrow
This is the tool that every ruthlessly organized procrastinator needs. First I set up the app through the play store, then I grab the extension. I can enter items into my to do list from the extension, then go directly to my list and cross off the items. I can move tasks to the next day myself, but the awesome part is that at the end of the day, the app moves any unfinished work to the next day for me, so I never lose a task!

OneTab 
Often my brain is a lot like my computer - too many tabs open. OneTab can help me organize my many tabs into something way more manageable. When I'm researching and I have several tabs open that I want to keep, I hit the OneTab extension and all my many open tabs are synthesized into one list, from which I can open an individual page, or I can bookmark the entire list for later. Teachers and students can use OneTab to curate resources for bibliographies or web quests.






Time Stats
Ever think about how much time you're spending on a particular project? Ever feel like you worked all day but you don't feel you actually accomplished anything? Ever wonder where your time went? Time Stats lets you find out how you spend your online time. Just install the extension and then open up the very neat pie chart that monitors your time on particular pages. I can see from my stats I have spend an awful lot of time writing this blog and preparing other publications as well. You can also categorize your sites so you can see the breakdown of work vs. play time. You can even share these stats with others.

These are just some of the great Chrome extensions out there. Find the ones that work best for you! 

All images taken with Microsoft snipping Tool directly from my computer. 

Taming the BUTWHATIF Beast: Strategies for a Well-run Digital Classroom

If you are walking into a 1:1 classroom for the first time, or if you've taught in a digital learning environment and are acquainted with the unique frustrations that entails, you can fall victim to a truly heinous animal called the BUTWHATIF beast.
       

  BUT WHAT IF they don't all have devices?

      BUT WHAT IF they misuse the device?
          BUT WHAT IF they just play games all day?
               BUT WHAT IF....
              BUTWHATIF.....

Honestly, the BUTWHATIF beast can completely paralyze you from using your technology effectively, because you're too darn scared of everything that could possibly go wrong. 

Here's a secret that's not so secret: something will go wrong. 

You can't avoid any and all possible problems with technology, mostly because the humans using the technology are, well, human. We get distracted. We explore where we shouldn't. We are inexplicably drawn to videos of cats in cardboard boxes and ice bucket challenge fails. 

What you can do is use some simple strategies to help you get control of your class and tame the BUTWHATIF beast for good. 

Strategy 1: Timers

Kids actually do care about finishing in a timely manner. Use an egg timer, or post one from the web on your board via your projector. Bear in mind you do need to hold the kids accountable for actually finishing, because when that timer dings and you add "just 5 more minutes," the ding won't mean a thing anymore. 

Also, don't set a timer for 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Those times aren't as concrete feeling as 7 minutes or 11 minutes. 

Here's a good online timer fromTimeandDate.com, which also has some cool global clocks and calendars. Steep.it is another fun online timer that actually darkens as your tea steeps - it's a cute visual cue to the class that time will soon be up. 

Strategy 2: Active Engagement

Really think about how and why you're using technology in the classroom. If you're only using it to digitize what was previously done on paper, you may be adding a small amount of efficiency to your class, but you're adding a massive amount of distraction as well. Instead, have kids use their technology for creating projects or for research-based and problem-based learning. If they are actively solving a problem they find interesting, they are much less likely to misuse the technology or get off task. 

Strategy 3: Have a Plan B

Actually, you want to have a plan C and possibly D. When technology goes awry, you need to be able to continue without losing too much traction. Something as simple as a few extra paper copies for students who may have forgotten their device goes a long way toward maintaining control and momentum. 

Strategy 4: Monitor Monitor Monitor

If you're at the front of the room talking and the kids are looking at their computers and you can't see their screens, they are off task. There's no question. Just think about how many meetings or professional development sessions you've attended where you were checking email (or Facebook) while you were supposed to be listening. 

• walk around your room - It's amazing how simple proximity cuts down on most off-task behavior
• get a wireless slate or keyboard and teach from the back
• have kids close or clam-shell computers to listen
• learn to spot the red flags, like too many open tabs or multiple browsers open at once

Strategy 5: Model Good Behavior

We've heard the old saying "do as I say, not as I do," but we can't afford to live by that maxim in education. We have to be daily models of good character and good citizenship for our kids. That means we need to keep our personal and professional online accounts completely separate. We need to model good organization of online resources. We need to carefully watch what we say on social media, because it can and will get back to kids (or parents). My grandfather used to say to live so that you don't wind up in the newspaper. In our digital world, you want your online reputation to be such that you wouldn't be embarrassed by a Google search. 

These five strategies are just the starting point. When you feel like you can face the BUTWHATIFS with a clear head, then the technology your kids use will work in your favor instead of against you. 

Image citation: Feller, Patrick. "The Eyes of an Old Black Cat" Flickr, 30 July 2009

Work Smarter: Embed a Google Calendar into your LMS

It's always a struggle to clearly communicate with your students and parents. 

We all know the value of clear and timely communication, but with so many technology options and communication platforms available, it can become confusing and tedious to try to communicate to a wide audience operating on various devices.

The teachers in my district use Moodle as our designated LMS, and some use Google Sites as their information page for parents. It's important to have clear, consistent information across platforms, so embedding a Google calendar helps my teachers streamline their workflow and communication.

First, go to your Google calendar settings. then go to your list of calendars and choose the calendar you want to embed.

Once you've chosen your calendar, choose to "Share this calendar" and then click the box to "Make calendar public." Doing this ensures that anyone can see your calendar.

Now go to "Embed this calendar." From here you can adjust the size of the calendar, change its colors and borders, and even choose to display more than one calendar at a time. Once you have made your adjustments, copy the embed code above the calendar and paste it into your site's html settings. Be sure to "turn on" your html by selecting the little carrot brackets! < >

You can use the same code to embed your calendar on multiple sites. When you update your calendar, your changes push through to all your platforms instantly, meaning you never have to visit each separate spot to update individual calendars. Plus, students and parents can copy your events to their own calendars.

With so many demands on teachers, having the ability to streamline your communication is key. Consider using an embedded Google calendar to effectively and efficiently reach your students and parents. I have found it to be an excellent way to keep my teachers up to date (yeah, I meant that pun!)

Cultivating Persistence with Games, Badges, and Challenges

This is my son Caleb: 

As you can see, he is a silly, energetic lad who enjoys technology. In this picture, he's taking a funny selfie with my phone while my husband captures his efforts.

After the first six weeks of first grade, we knew he was behind on his reading and his math. We needed to do something to support the teacher at home, but we knew that we had to choose our strategies carefully. Caleb is like many 7-year-old kids, and can get bored or discouraged easily. He's also  pretty persistent when he can see that he is progressing. When he plays baseball, he will ask us to throw endless pitches and pop flies so he can perfect his techniques, so we knew that in choosing tools to help him academically, we needed to pick activities that would foster that persistence.

His teacher suggested improving his reading with a program called Raz-kids. This site provides leveled e-books for students and walks them through listening to the book, reading it, recording themselves reading the book, and taking a comprehension quiz. As students complete the activities for a particular level, they move up to the next level and get slightly harder books.

Kids can also earn points for completing activities, which they can use to buy parts to build their own virtual robot. After only using this program for a month,Caleb had advanced a reading level, and once he got on grade-level, he took off and became the second highest reader in the class and won the most improved reader award at the end of the year.

This summer, I thought my boys should practice their math, so I got them both on Khan Academy. My oldest needed some seventh grade review. Caleb watched his older brother completing mastery challenges and earning points and he wanted to "play" too. I set him up with the beginning math activities and had to pry him off the computer so I could work.

The other day, Caleb was frustrated because he was doing some activities with area and was confused. He kept opening the hints and looking at videos. He was actively searching for direction and practicing on his own. Finally, he got five area questions correct in a row and here's the screenshot from that exploit:

This impressed me for a couple of reasons. First, see the number of tries and hints and wrong answers he went through before he got five right in a row. This is what we should be encouraging in education: persistence. Also notice Caleb won a persistence badge for his efforts. He didn't know he was going to get it, but when he did, it reinforced the success he felt in finally understanding the skill. It was a bit of surprise recognition, and I think it's as important to recognize effort in education as much as we recognize success.

By the way, I wondered why he was having so much trouble with the concept, then realized he was working on third grade math, "because the beginning stuff was so easy" (his words).

Not every activity in education should be a game, but if we could do more to reward persistence in skills practice and remediation, we could see vast improvements in both our students' understanding and in their ability to stick with problems despite frustration.

ISTE: A Transforming Experience

I'm home from the ISTE Conference in Atlanta, GA. It was a great four days for us, and now I'm ready to reflect on everything I've learned and how I will use what I have learned to help my teachers in the coming school year. I have to admit that I wasn't that excited about coming to ISTE. For me, the last two years in my new position have been difficult.

Floundering

I just completed my second year as an Instructional Technology Facilitator in North Carolina. I was feeling like a ship at sea with no oars, no sail. I had tried without much success to deliver monthly professional development to the faculty at my schools, but I was faced with many obstacles from an ambivalent school culture to my own inexperience. I felt like I was doing little more than keeping my head above water. In all honesty, I felt pretty useless, and I knew I was failing my teachers in a big way by not providing them with the very best support possible.

It reminded me of being a first and second year teacher. Even though you know the curriculum, even though you understand the list of standards you need to teach, in the first few years it's difficult to see how to make individual lessons coalesce into a unified vision for the semester or year. Over time, your passion for your subject drives your vision for the course. That hadn't happened for me yet in this new education role. So that's where I was - at square one, needing a vision.

Focusing

The conference was, in many ways, like other conferences I've attended. I was inspired by great poster presentations on student choice and voice, TED in the classroom, and digital 3D student projects. I sat in great panel discussions on 20 percent time and digital citizenship. I got cool little geeky prizes and goodies from the vendors. And like all teachers and administers and tech folks, I was buzzing with ideas - too many, in fact to even think about implementing because I had no way to focus it into something clear for myself or my teachers. That little boat was being tossed by some big waves, and I needed to find an anchor.

Then I attended a session on Blended Professional Development with Andrew Miller. Andrew talked about the ways I could make school level professional development meaningful for my teachers by creating a blended environment where they can opt into different strands of PD and mix their online and face to face time. He said, and rightly so, that teachers will not appreciate or use our PD unless they see how it will affect the students. He said that without choice, you're poking teachers with a professional development cattle prod. He said that we need to do away with "drive by PD." He said a lot of things. He's a fast talker.

Finding Vision

Ever have one of those moments when you feel like clouds have parted and a thought you've been struggling with just comes into pinpoint clarity? That so happened for me in Andrew's session. Andrew asked us to tweet an idea for how we could begin blending our PD, and I decided to turn my existing site that is currently just a collection of resources into a learning hub for my teachers where they'll be able to choose, mix and match for customized PD that will be valuable for them. There's so much research to do, so much planning, that I'll be shocked if I have even a third of it complete before school starts again. 

I finally feel like I can truly begin with the end in mind and produce real, meaningful professional development for my teachers. I am truly grateful that I came to ISTE, and I'm especially grateful that organizations like ISTE exist, because I didn't just find a vision for myself, I found the passion I had been lacking these last two years. 

Here are some of my favorite presenters from this year's conference. They are some of the most intelligent, inventive, and passionately driven people I've had the pleasure of hearing: 

Andrew Miller  @betamiller   

Vicki Davis  @coolcatteacher

Marialice BFX Curran  @mbfxc

Don Wettrick @donwettrick

Here's Andrew's Slideshare from his presentation. And you'll want to check out his blog as well. 

Practice First: Engaging Students with Meaningful Activities

We've all been there. 

We've had to sit through the staff meeting, the PD session, the "workshop" that isn't a workshop at all but rather someone talking to us and pointing at slides. 

It makes us feel a lot like this guy. 




If we're lucky enough to have a computer in front of us, we can at least look like we are busily taking notes, when in reality we are answering emails, recording grades, or chatting with a colleague two seats over. 

We know how mind numbing it can be to be talked to for an extended length of time. 

So why do we simply talk to our students? And why do we wonder why they can't pay attention? 

Here's the real issue: 

I recently read through an interesting presentation titled "Why Technology is Failing in Public Schools." The main theme of this presentation is that teachers are not using technology purposefully to create substantial change. 

For adults and for students, technology is a tool, but we see the purpose of that tool differently. Adults use a computer to work efficiently. Students use it to connect with others. For one group, it is a production tool; for the other, it is a social and entertainment tool. 

So it makes sense that, when a student is sitting passively in class, being talked to and not actively doing anything, he will look to his social / entertainment tool to break the monotony. Because in that student's mind, that's what his computer is supposed to do for him. 

The solution is NOT to take the technology away. The solution is to actively engage the students in learning, but how do we do this? 

We have to stop just talking to them. 

How do we change things? 

I observed a business class a month ago, in which the teacher was giving a lesson on logistics. He was teaching from a power point and asking the students, all sitting passively, to "think about what it takes to get a product from the factory to the distribution center to stores and into a consumer's hands." Really? THINK about it? Why not have them do it? 

How much more effective could that lesson be if students walk into class to find themselves in small groups, with a product on their desk. One group has toothpaste. Another group has canned vegetables. Another group has a video game. 

The groups should then proceed to research where these products are manufactured; how many distribution centers the company has; what sort of transportation they use; their transportation costs; how many units are shipped at a time... and several other facts. 

Students create their own presentations about their products, working in the vocabulary terms the teacher needs them to know, and each group teaches the others about what it truly takes to make, move, and stock that product. Isn't that more meaningful? Doesn't that really make them THINK about the lesson? 

If you think this means you now have to do projects for every lesson, then you're over-thinking things. All you have to do is present students with a challenge. 

• Give students a math problem that's a little bit beyond what they already know, so they have to use what they know to work through it. 
• Introduce a unit on the Civil War by asking students to create a timeline with what they think are the six most important events of the time period, then defend their choices.
• Present science students with a description of an animal and have them figure out the habitat to which the animal belongs.

These are questions they can't answer quickly, and are often questions that will prompt them to actively seek answers. In trying to work through these problems, students also better understand what they need to know and are more receptive to the material once you begin teaching. Teachers can use these challenges as a means of formative assessment as well, so you can identify gaps in understanding before you begin your lesson. 

A final thought:

Technology will not be meaningful in schools until students are able to recognize these tools as something more than a source of entertainment. Technology will also not be meaningful in schools until teachers see them as more than just a means to deliver content. Students need to be actively engaged with the technology to use it effectively. This means doing inquiry-based and project-based learning. This means teachers need to create lessons that challenge the students to solve problems and create and share their results. 

Image citation: GRPH3B18. A Bored Person. 3 Nov 2011. n.p. Web. 1 April 2014. 
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bored.gif

Four Things to Consider When Choosing a Tech Tool

So why do so many teachers use the wrong technology tools to address student understanding? 

As an Instructional Technology Facilitator, I tell teachers repeatedly that they don't need technology for this or that part of their lesson. Shocking, right? But my job is not to "sell" technology to them or make their lives more difficult by making them learn a new tech tool. My job is to help them do a few important things: 

1. Help their classes run more efficiently
2. Help them integrate technology in meaningful and appropriate ways
3. Help them model good digital citizenship for their students

So when a teacher asks me what tech tool can replace their long-standing paper project, I ask him how the project fits with the content and objectives of the unit and why they want to move this project into the digital sphere. 

If adding the tech component is meaningful, if the project is made better with the integration of that technology, then go ahead. If the teacher doesn't know why he wants to use the tech, then his students won't be invested either. If the tool isn't right for the job, you're not teaching effectively. 

Some activities work better on paper. Some are made better with the right technological tool. Using technology for its own sake without letting the goals and standards drive instruction is like taking a hammer to a hard drive - you'll make a big mess and it'll still be broken. 

So how do you go about choosing the right technology for your lesson? Here are some guidelines: 

• Know yourself & know your kids' needs - It's okay to step out of your comfort zone with technology, especially if you have a tech support system in your school, but understand your capabilities and limitations and those of your students. Trying to use a new flashy tool nobody understands will only make everyone frustrated. 

• Put the cart BEHIND the horse - We have all gotten excited about a new app or website and couldn't wait to try it. Don't. Think about your objectives and your content before choosing a tool. Remember, the first priority is to master skills, not apps. 

• Get opinions - Ask other teachers. Ask students. Ask your tech facilitator or the really tech-savvy teacher down the hall. Check out the blogs. Investigate. 

• If you use it, evaluate it - Compare student performance. Experiment. Use a tool with one class and compare the outcomes with another class. Use pre and post assessments. Figure out if the tool is really contributing to student understanding. If not, don't feel bad about getting rid of it. 

Good teaching transcends everything else. A good teacher can teach without technology, without books, without even a classroom. We should never make our teachers think that they MUST use technology to deliver a relevant and engaging lesson. At the same time, we should show teachers that they do have a wealth of options for expanding the lessons they have and providing students with real world learning opportunities. When teachers find that balance between what they're teaching and how they're teaching it, they'll be able to choose the right tool for the job.