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

Timing is Everything

When communicating in general, timing factors into how your message is received. Take this digital and time can mean the difference between your message being seen at all and consumed the way you ideally want it to. When communicating with students, the schedule feature in Google Classroom can support directing students attention. Some examples are below:

-Schedule an announcement or assignment to post during a specific time when your class is in session. This helps students see it on top as their first message in the stream, and also helps from you interrupting your fellow colleagues when you are connecting with students during their class on your prep period.

-Purposeful place the due dates of assignments or questions when you are prepared to enter information into PowerTeacher Gradebook and follow up with the Late Work Policy. This will prompt the students to see work that is late indicted as late in red on their to do list.

Extend Inquiry w/ New Features in Google Slides

Google Slides now has a built in Q & A feature. Consider using this feature to facilitate a backchannel for your more introvert students if you are lecturing.

Refinement Challenge Week 6

Click here to see the post about how it works and the previous weeks aims of inquiry or here for last weeks challenge. This weeks series of questions is aimed at inquiry related to communication:

Communication

Audience. How are students communicating?
- Alone / In pairs / In triads / In groups larger than 3
- If with others, with whom? (circle all that apply)
  - Students in this school / Students in another school / Adults in this school / Adults outside of this school
Communication Technologies. Are digital technologies being used to facilitate the communication processes?
- Yes / no
- If yes, in which ways? (circle all that apply)
  - Writing / photos and images / charts and graphs / infographics /
    audio / video / multimedia / transmedia

~~Discipline-Specific Inquiry – April~~

~~Authenticity/Relevancy- April~~

~~Deeper Thinking- April~~

~~Personalization-May~~

~~Agency-May~~

Communication-May

Collaboration-May

Assessment-June

Visualize Your Email

Sometimes email can seem like a black hole of time and energy. How much email do you actually send? How much do you receive? Who emails you the most? Check out immersion, a visualization tool developed at MIT’s media lab to help you reflect on your use of email and perhaps find ways to optimize communication with your top connections. If as a faculty member you have a lot of student communication within email, brainstorm ways to move these conversations into a more appropriate realm like your digital class space or within the work itself with comments.

Below is a screenshot that takes you to a demo:

Ahhhh Focus

Check out Noisli for white noise induced focus.

How’s Your Class Management w/ Phones Going?

By now all of us have clear routines related to phone use in our classes, whether it be a phone tower, box or basket all of these methods go a long way towards appropriately navigating the distractions phones present. Below is a conversation that takes this one step further with Sherry Turkle related to the psychology behind such distractions…check it out!

https://www.wnyc.org/widgets/ondemand_player/wnyc/#file=/audio/json/538202/&share=1