Revisit Your Class Expectations

Now that we are into the seventh week of school, it’s time to ask….how are your class expectations around device use going with students?

If you think you the devices are clearly not causing a distraction problem, now it’s time to stretch yourself and have your students use their phone to extend various elements (take a photo or video and attach it to an assignment w/i the Classroom app, VR w/ Cardboard, w/ Kahoot etc).

I know many of you are doing this VERY well! Please help your colleagues out if you are doing this well and put it on the pineapple chart. If you are still struggling perhaps revisit the phone tower post from Aug.

Increase Understanding w/ VR

As Evans pointed out in Kim’s Atlantic article, The Good and the Bad of Escaping to Virtual Reality, virtual reality (vr) is, “both functional and escapist, and potentially offers a wondrous parallel universe of unlimited possibilities.” With the increase of free vr content available, a tremendous opportunity to transform students conceptual knowledge around certain topics now exists. VRs immersive properties can be intense, and having students escape and dive in to this intensity can bring obscure concepts to life. I have curated a few of my favorite 360 videos and vr apps (all free) to help get you started, so check them out as well as the helpful tips for using vr in the classroom.

Helpful tips:

Equipment needed-

Viewer (*we have some Google Cardboard in the IT Office, but quite a few students have their own viewers)
A buddy: as stated above vr experiences can be intense, so making sure that a students is paired with a trusted other student not immersed helps ensure the physical (tripping, getting dizzy etc.), and emotional (getting choked up) safety of this type of learning experience.
Content suggestions part one (each week I will add a different content area:)Science: Science channel below, Discover Channel VR, Random42 (Inside the human body), InMind (explore the human brain and psychological disorders), Save Cells from Destruction, Molecule VR, Chemistry VR, Proton Pulse

Phone Tower- Classroom Norm

It’s unanimous! Our favorite means to navigate phone usage with groups of students (& adults) is to have all individuals stack their phone in a designated corner (or box, or basket etc.) when they enter the learning space. It sends a signal that our time together is valuable enough that we need to be distraction free. Phones are fantastic tools that can really extend and transform teaching and learning, but we cannot escape that they are VERY GOOD AT DISTRACTING US.

Having your group stick to the norm of stacking their phones in a tower creates the context to have a bunch of teachable moments. For example:

phone dings= teachable moment about how audible alerts divert our attention (*see Foroughi, Werner, Hatcher, Lopez, Zafar & Boehm-Davis, 2014 for more)
phone vibrates= teachable moment about how even a phone on silent can be distracting (*see Turkle’s 2015 piece in the NYTimes for more)
students need to capture their learning= teachable moment about when and why phones should be used in class

If You Don’t Have Time to Read/Watch This….Do it Twice!

A recent message with the subject line: “If you don’t have time to read this…read it twice.”…it goes on, “Stop. Breathe. Now, think about how you’re managing your time.”

I know that many of you, given your teaching schedules, have to be a little more creative with scheduling make time beyond Tuesday/Wednesday mornings, but strongly consider what this looks like for students too.

Act: Define exactly when and where you will reserve this time for you, and perhaps your students and then put it in your calendar.

Ahhhh Focus

Check out Noisli for white noise induced focus.

Gamify Learning Extensions

Helping to guide students from good to great, a 5 to a 6, a 3 to a 5 etc. is tricky and resource intense. Below are three examples below that leverage the power to gamification worth checking out:

Vocab.com as I have previously shared is one way to gamify subject specific vocab. Ask your ELL or English colleagues if you would like insight into how it’s being used at ZIS.

Quizup goes beyond Quizlet in that it matches individuals up in real time to compete in their knowledge of a selected topic..need more convincing… check out an IB Bio teacher at ASB’s experience.