Zaption is a means for making videos interactive and a strong tool for your mastery learning tool kit that will be available to us by the end of the week. Check it out and ask Cathleen D, Sean M or Jason W to see how they is using it with Science and Econ Videos. Also here is a great tips sheet from a techy science teacher at ASB, Rory Newcomb.
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.
Esther, Mary Ann and our English colleagues are using Vocab.com with students, and you can too!
To access vocab.com, make sure you are signed in to your school Google account (Chrome works best) and go to vocab.com in any of the following three ways:
Through Moodle’s left navigation bar |
Directly in Google Apps
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Straight through the url vocab.com
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You can make your own vocabulary lists based on subject specific vocabulary and share them with your students. Talk to Esther, Liz or Ian if you want a brief tutorial, or read the instructions on the website itself.
Interactive writing is one of the elements listed on Wes Fryer’s digital media creation grid I shared last week. At ZIS Upper School some of our most efficient digital tools for interactive writing are:
These are all great digital tools, but in an of themselves they do not get at what’s needed most, quick, appropriate, timely feedback! However, pair one of these digital tools with the right method for checking for understanding, and you and your students are on the road to formative assessment bliss. I use the word bliss purposefully, because what most teachers and students want to avoid at all costs is the opposite:)
If you need some ideas check out this comprehensive list of 53 ways to check for understanding from Edutopia.
How do you digitally enhance content with thick and rich context for students? Below are three examples that simple and immersive ways to give context to new or difficult concepts:
INTRODUCE A NEW TOPIC/CONCEPT: Google Cultural Institute New Voices in Contemporary British Music as full immersion using a variety of multimedia
In Search of Beowolf Google Lit Trip including audio and video
IB ASSESSMENT using Google Maps:
Group IV Project – To what extent does a human construct have an affect on the diversity… (consolidated data) project at the International School of Prague
NEWSELA is a database of non-fiction articles that can be adjusted for up to five different reading levels. In an article by Beth Holland (EdTechTeacher.org) (2014), NEWSELA + Google Docs = Differentiated Collaborative Reading explains how to use the combination to engage students in conversation with each other around reading prompts.
Check out Linoit.com or padlet.com for digital exam review. Both offer multimedia and open posting.
Setting up one of these spaces for your students to collaborate on exam review offers lots of versatility. Linoit for example, supports eight of Marzano’s Nine High-Yield Instructional Strategies.
Once again, MIT Media Lab will offer a MOOC titled Learning Creative Learning. This massive open online course is full of fantastic resources about engagement, passion driven learning and tinkering.
If MOOC’s aren’t for you but you would like to explore a little more about this style of learning check out this TED talk by Gever Tulley: Life lessons through tinkering founder of tinkering school.
http://embed.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_s_tinkering_school_in_action.html
This documentary covers a plethora of information about learning differences and disabilities. The site also includes great interactive experiences such as reading while distracted.
Yes, I’m mentioning it again:) Why, because it’s essential that we use technology in ways that actually make learning better. As Eisner (1991) would say- our ability to make fine grain discriminations among complex subtle qualities, seeking out what’s truly worthy, is not an easy task, thus we must revisit this concept often.
Tech Tuesday 