So, have you heard about this really cool thing that connects with Google stuff and is yet another way to get your students actively engaged in class but you have not even tried it yet?
No?  It's just me?  You mean I'm late to the game again? (audible sigh)
​

There is this thing called Pear Deck that works with Google Slides and I have actually known of its existence for quite a while now, but never tried it...I'm embarrassed to admit. 
Last week, I got an eblast from a blogger that I have subscribed to (Matt Miller) and he wrote a blog post about Pear Deck.  I like his blog posts because he is very "techy" and always give tons of easy ways to incorporate QUALITY tech into the classroom.
After perusing his post about Pear Deck, I decided to play with it.  

I won't bore you with the tiny little details about how to use Pear Deck because there are TONS of resources out there (check out the links at the end of this post), but the basic idea is the teacher makes a Google Slide presentation and then by enabling Pear Deck (via the Add Ons menu in the slide presentation) you can get a code that students will type on their own devices which allows them to access your slide preso.  
Once they are "in" you as the teacher guides the class through your slides and YOU get to set the pace!  The teacher controls the advancement of the slides.  The kids see the slide that YOU want them to see.  They can't just click through your slides and yell, "I'm done!!" ten seconds after you've sent them the link! I hate that! 
Pear Deck has templates that you can add to your presentation that allow for the students to answer questions, drag items, make lines and drawings; and you get to see their responses in real-time! 

Here's how I used it for the first time:
I made a Google Slide preso about Volcanoes.  I wanted to choose an exciting subject to help with the motivation.  There's nothing worse that trying out a new thing in your classroom and then choosing a topic that makes the kids yawn even before you finished your "Hey everyone, we are going to learn about..." sentence.
When I was ready to have my students ​access my presentation, I clicked on Add-ons and opened up Pear Deck where I got a code that the kids must enter on their own devices.  On my teacher computer, I can see how many students are "in" my presentation. 

The reason I LOVE using Pear Deck is the absolute CONTROL I have!  I control when the next slide appears on the students' devices.  I control the pace of the lesson.  I can even add in a Pear Deck question slide right then and there!  The kids absolutely LOVED it!  They loved how interactive the special Pear Deck slides were.  Some slides asked them to type a response to a question, some were simple multiple choice questions, some asked them to draw lines matching vocabulary words and definitions and some asked them to label a diagram.  Pear Deck has many slide templates to choose from.  

Check out these resources:
The Pear Deck website has ideas, example, tutorials, and much more.  It's worth a look, for sure.
Alice Keeler's blog post about Pear Deck
Pear Deck's You Tube Channel

So, I have been home all week with my sick child and making 4+ days of sub plans has left me a little twitchy!  By the fourth day, I was desperately trying to think of something I could have my 2nd graders do that they would enjoy and hopefully not make the sub pack up and leave by 9:00am!

I decided to have my students make Book Report videos.  The kids had to complete a standard book report page first.  You know, the old-fashioned "Write the title and author.  Write a summary of the book.  Would you recommend this book to a friend?  Why or why not?" kind of report.

Then I put together a quick Google Slide presentation with directions, added the assignment in Google Classroom and then I sat at home on my couch and watched the flipgrids come in.

Now, I'm not going to lie...I was nervous and sort of kicking myself about setting my little squirrely 2nd graders free to make videos with a sub. 

I imagined all sorts of things especially from a few of my "rough and tumble" boys.  But overwhelmingly I was VERY pleasantly surprised.  I saw many of my students using their "scripts" (the written book report page) while making their flipgrids.  A few of my kids even made more than one video!  

Here are a few of their book report flipgrids...

What I loved was that ALL of my students (no matter what their level) made great Book Report videos using flipgrid.  

I am a self-proclaimed Google Queen (at least this is what I tell my students all the time..."I am the Google Queen, how dare you question my authority!" -- not really, just joking) and I have had 1-to-1 devices in my classroom for going on 4 years now. So I have had a lot of time to experiment and "play" with technology with my students.  
​
I am kind of snooty about bringing in new technology websites into my classroom.  With each new tech trend, I ask myself "How is this (website, link, etc) better than what I am already doing?" If I can't come up with a good enough reason to sacrifice the time, energy and hair-pulling to teach my class to use the newest tech thing...I don't.  I let it pass me by.

So far Flipgrid meets my strict criteria:
1. It was EXTREMELY easy to teach my 2nd graders to use.  (*this is HUGE...all of you elementary teachers out there know what I'm talking about!)
2. It offers something I don't already have going on in my classroom.
3. It "hits" my kids on a whole different academic level.
4. It allows ALL students to be successful no matter what their skill level is.
5. It offers MANY possible ways to implement and use

Please check out my earlier post about Flipgrid for more of a description of how Flipgrid works).  

So, a super techy teacher at my school site turned me on to Flipgrid recently.  It's a website where students can easily make up to 90 second videos.  The cool thing about Flipgrid is that as the teacher, I can set up "topics" and record my own short video explaining what I want the kids to make their videos about.

Last week, I taught a 5-minute lesson on how to make a Flipgrid video.  I'm serious!  5 minutes! Go here...type the code...click the big green plus sign...make your video.  That was it!  By the way, did I mention I teach 2nd grade?
Then I sent home a "homework" assignment for the kids to make a Flipgrid video about their favorite animal/pet.  Take a look at Neo and Natalie's flipgrid.

I know these videos are very simple and some can even make you seasick!  But I love the level of excitement/interest the kids have when they make their videos.  Now, I'm not going to lie...with this "favorite animals/pets" homework assignment, there were a few (well, really just one amazingly enough) who thought he was a full-fledged "You Tuber".  His video showed him doing handstands, talking like a Youtuber, and in general just showed him messing around.  Flipgrid has a very simple way of dealing with kids who make videos that are shall we say, "less than desirable"...all you do as the teacher is DELETE them.  It's very simple.  I go to my Flipgrid teacher dashboard and find the  off-topic video and click "delete".

Another really cool thing about Flipgrid and using it for Homework is that I can get a little peek into a part of my students' lives that I don't ever get to see.  I have a student who can be somewhat challenging  (oh, let's get real here...I have about 4 or 5 "challenging" kids!) and his favorite pet video was adorable! It was a chance to see a softer, gentler side to this guy that I don't get to see at school. After watching his video, I am reminded that as teachers we sometimes miss things that seem insignificant and unrelated to the business of "school" but are extremely important in the "business" of dealing with children everyday. 

There is a wonderful educator named Holly Clark (follow her on Twitter @HollyClarkEdu) and she wrote a very clear blog post about her Top 10 Reasons she loves Flipgrid. ​
I also stumbled across this very detailed Padlet with TONS of Flipgrid ideas.  

So it's my last day of Spring break and I am...take a guess.  Sitting on a beach? Camping? Kayaking? Reading? Having lunch with a friend? 
Nope.  None of the above.
I am playing with a Stop Motion video maker and thinking of the classroom applications.  
​I know...I'm stupid.  

It took us 1 hour from start to finish.  Our video was only 11 seconds long, but as you saw above; it was pretty spiffy even if I do say so myself!
It was super easy to make.  My son manned the iPad and took all the pictures and I moved the pieces.  Once we had all of our pictures taken, it was a simple matter of saving the video to the camera roll on the iPad and then uploading it to YouTube. 

The next step will be how to use this in the classroom.  As you can guess, I have a few ideas already!  Stay tuned...I'll let you know what my students did with this cool little app!  Oh, did I mention that this app is FREE!  Apparently, it does have fancy features that you do have to pay for.  But for my purposes, the free version will work just fine!  
​Check out the Stop Motion Studio app in iTunes here.

So what exactly do I write about myself?  I hate this!  "I have been teaching for 20-something years. Some years in this district and some in that one.  I enjoy teaching because I am passionate about waking up little minds.  I have led many workshops and I love teaching teachers. Blah blah blah blah."       Seriously?!
That bio could be for any teacher anywhere.  

"Most days I love teaching.  I feed off the energy of those little human beings that run around my room.  I can get almost all of those little people to do what I want at any given moment.  Every once in a while, I still have nightmares of children standing on their desks screaming and throwing paper airplanes.  (Come on...you KNOW you've had that dream too!) I love challenging my students and then seeing the pride on their faces when they make it to the end of the challenge!  I love struggling all school year long and then all of a sudden, I notice that my classroom seems to run itself.  The kids start looking up stuff on their own, they start taking ownership of their learning and spend their "Fun Netbook Time" researching and creating things that show what they have learned.

So how's THAT for a 4 to 8 sentence bio?

Every year, I seem to have one or two students who shine with "googliness" and this year that student is Jake.  Jake VERY quickly became a Tech-X-Pert in my 2nd/3rd grade class.  He would go home and make all kinds of Googly stuff and share it with me.  I would get emails at 9:00pm and it would be him sharing something with  me.  A Google Drawing, Google doc and many, many Google slide presentations. 

 In the beginning, he loved to make Google forms for his friends.  I was thoroughly impressed with that!  Then one evening, he shared a Google Site with me.  Yes, a Google SITE!  I thought to myself, "no way!".  
​Have you ever tried to make a Google Site before?  Holy cow! Even I (the self-proclaimed "Google Queen") found Google Sites tedious, difficult and confusing to say the least! ​

As it turns out, Google completely re-vamped sites!  It is SO simple to use now! Here is a video of Jake talking us through how to get started with Google Sites. It's a bit blurry, but since he's a 2nd grader showing off his "Googliness", I think you all will forgive me. 

I LOVE making Google Sites now and I owe it all to Jake! So, thanks Jake...you truly are the "Google King" in my book! ​

One of the things I seriously SUCK at is allowing my 2nd and 3rd graders (yes...I have a combo this year) time to reflect and think about their thinking.  I have read/heard hundreds of times how important it is to give students time to really think about what they are learning.  I do it myself, all the time.  Every day after the kids leave, I think about how the day went.  How did the new Math lesson go today?  The kids had a hard time with that writing activity, how can I "fix" it and make that lesson better? Should we revisit a concept or move on?  Teachers reflect like we breathe...without even thinking about it.

I was actually very proud of myself!  I asked my students to think about their learning and even introduced the term "mathematical thinking"!  WooHoo for me!  Honestly, I wasn't expecting very much.  I figured that for this first try, I really wouldn't get much out of my kids at all. Yes, I did get a few "I like the _______ activity because it was fun and mathematical."  And I got a few responses that skipped over the whole "mathematical" part entirely..."I liked the pattern blocks because I made a flower and it was fun."  Kind of like the journal you see below...Ugh! 

But as I continued to read what my students wrote, I found that there were a few who did seem to get the whole "think about my learning" concept!  One student wrote about building a tower and using a ruler to measure the height. Another student actually built a tower that was taller than the ruler and asked me "How do I measure this?  The ruler is too small!" and as I smiled and said, "Wow...I don't know.  What do you think you could do to measure your tower?"  Another student came right to the rescue and gave her a really good suggestion (I just LOVE it when they solve each other's problems!).

This student talked about using pattern blocks and figuring out which shape/color would come next!

This student is a 3rd grader and reads at a beginning first grade level but clearly understood the concept of math helping to "grow his brain"!  Way to go "growth mindset"!

So after today, I think I will ask my students to reflect and think about their learning MUCH more often!  I feel like this was a great way to start this conversation about how we learn best. 

With the current movement to encourage more STUDENT choice and to try to instill a sense of STUDENT empowerment, it confuses me why TEACHERS are still so devoted to their precious state-adopted textbooks.
Whenever I attend a training or PD day, there always seems to be a statement about how current adopted texts are not aligned with the Common Core standards.  There is always an audible sound which means "yes...we agree" that rises from the crowd after such a statement.  
I do NOT subscribe to the "I-use-this-textbook-because-that's-all-my-distrct-has" pedagogy!
With the vast amount of resources that are available for teachers today, we can really stretch our creative "wings" and experiment with materials, techniques, activities, modes of instruction and really begin to fine-tune our teaching expertise.  
I personally LOVE having the freedom to choose how my students learn and/or "show what they know".  I LOVE not being tied to a set of adopted texts/curriculum.
Will I make a screencast for my students to watch?
Is there an awesome You Tube video another teacher has made?
Will I have my students make a video/presentation/poster, etc.?
Will I send information to my students through a Google Doc or our Google Classroom?
Will we ask/answer a question by using TodaysMeet.com?
The choices are practically endless!

This is the blog post that got me thinking about all of this today.  Take a minute and read John Spencer's blog.  Then stretch YOUR teaching "wings" a bit.  Show a You Tube or Vimeo video about fractions, or ask your students to create posters to teach a science topic to another group of students at your grade level.  Please leave a comment below, I'd love to hear about how you've stepped out of the textbook box!

My grade level held a Native American Parent night last night.  Our students made Native American projects and we displayed them for the parents to come and see.  My school district has Parent Conferences in a couple of weeks and I was talking to my teacher/partner/friend about how I planned to lay out a clip board with a Parent Conference sign-up sheet on it and I was going to have the parents choose a conference day and time during the Native American night.  
Well, my BRILLIANT partner came up with the idea of putting up some chart paper with Post-Its all over it.  On the Post-Its, he said I should write down the individual conference dates and times and simply have parents pull off a post-it, write their name on it and give it to me.  I have to admit...at first it sounded like MUCH more work than just laying out a clip board with a schedule on it and lay out a couple of pens.  

I had 20 (out of 30) parents choose a conference day/time last night!  All I have to do now is send home reminders and track down the remaining 10 parents.
I LOVE my teacher partner/friend!  Thanks for your brilliant idea! 

The response was insane!  The discussion that followed was incredible!  Within just a few minutes there were several people all weighing in on student blogging pros and cons and whether a digital portfolio was in fact the same as a blog.  The discussion moved on to the idea that student blogs should have an authentic audience and a focus.  
The discussion then moved on to worksheets, why some schools still do not have adequate technology and providing feedback on digital assignments! Crazy cool stuff!  

Ok...I know that's a VERY strong statement! But seriously, it's true (at least for me it is)!  I have learned so much from the people I follow on Twitter.  The educators on Twitter are the best group of people.  They go out of their way to share ideas, answer questions and I have no doubt that I am a better teacher because of my interactions and discussions with these people.

On a whim, as I was getting ready for the 2nd TLAP Google Hangout; I tweeted out an invitation to Matt Miller (author of Ditch That Textbook) to see if he'd like to join our TLAP GHO on Air.  I expected a very polite, "I'm sorry, I just don't have the time." Guess what?  Within minutes, he accepted! Holy cow, was I excited!  It was so much fun talking with Matt that for the next GHO, I sent a tweet to Keith Hughes (HipHughes History video Guru) and again I expected a polite "No".  He accepted!  This was HUGE!  For one thing, I am a BIG fan of Keith.  I love his educational philosophies, his tweets always make me laugh and his videos are awesome!  
You can probably guess what I did for our last TLAP GHO on Air...yep, I tweeted out another invite.  This time, Don Wettrick (author of Pure Genius) joined me for the last TLAP GHOs.  
Check out the video playlist below.  Skip to #2, #3 and #4...those are the videos with my "special guests".  We had some really great discussions...well worth your time!

I could not believe that these "famous" Twitter celebs actually agreed to join a "nobody" like me to discuss educational stuff!  It was such a great experience to be able to "share" these people with teachers in my district and I had an absolute blast talking with all of them!  And it was all because of Twitter! Yes...I LOVE Twitter and I will try my best to convince anyone who will listen to me to join the conversation!  

Below are links to some of the books and people I talked about in this post:

Alice Keeler
@aliceKeeler - Twitter
AliceKeeler.com - website
50 Things To Do With Google Classroom - book

Matt Miller
@jmattmiller - Twitter
DitchThatTextbook.com - website
Ditch That Textbook - book

Keith Hughes
@hiphughes - Twitter 
Hip Hughes History - website
Hip Hughes YouTube Channel - scroll down to find his playlist of “Teacher Stuff”

Don Wettrick
@DonWettrick - Twitter
The Innovation Teacher - website
Pure Genius: Building A Culture Of Innovation And Taking 20% Time To The Next Level - book