I've just discovered this really spiffy website, called Formative. With Formative, you can very quickly create quizzes for your students. The website has a very simple, clean look and it's super easy to sign up. If you are a GAFE district or have a google account, that's even better! Just click Sign up with Google and you're in!
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I have been using Formative with my 3rd graders and I really like it! Formative stands out because as the teacher, you can see your students' work in REAL TIME! I can immediately see which students "get it" and which ones do not. I can give guidance at the exact moment that I see they are getting "off track"...that is nearly impossible with other kinds of assessment tools. Unless you are standing behind a student looking over his/her shoulder while they are working, you wouldn't be able to see the EXACT moment that he/she is heading in the wrong direction! But with Formative you can!
The video below shows what I see while my 3rd graders are taking a quiz in Formative.
So far, I've been using Formative for quick Math "check-ups". You can create Multiple Choice, Text Response and Show Your Work (my favorite) type of questions. In the video above, I used the Show Your Work type of question. The cool thing about the Show Your Work question, the students can use the track pad on their computers to "draw" their answer and they can also add text boxes to explain their answers.
Again, if you're a GAFE district, student sign up is super easy.
This video shows what the student sees when taking a Formative quiz. (By the way, this video was made by one of my super spiffy 3rd graders AT HOME...just because he wanted to!) Oh, be still my heart!
The support at Formative is amazing! I signed up and I immediately received an email from Craig Jones welcoming me and letting me know if I had any questions to let him know. He really meant it! I've gotten a few more really friendly emails with tips and how-to videos to watch. I had a question a few days ago, so I emailed my question to Craig and within a few minutes I got an answer! Super spiffy! Check out Formative...it's way cool!
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All I knew about Vine was my 14-year old son saying, "Mom! Look..." as he shoved his phone in my face with this looping video playing on it. (hint: Click the tiny sound icon on the bottom right corner...I muted it while writing this. UGH!)
And,we mention Twitter...again!
After reading a few tweets and a blog post by@teachthought about using Vine in education, my curiosity was piqued! So, I downloaded the Vine app on my phone and started to play. First I made a Vine of me feeding some ducks at the lake.
It's ridiculously easy to make a Vine! You literally touch the camera icon and then hold down your finger. This green bar moves across the top of your phone so you can see how much recording time you have and that's it! I'm serious!
Now the fun part!
Now that I mastered the Vine making process, my creative juices started to flow! Check out a few of the vines I made for teaching/reviewing Math concepts!
How cool is that? Please leave comments with how you have used Vine in your classroom. I'd really like more ideas!
Really? That's it? That's the whole definition of "status quo"? Five tiny little words? And you can tell that the dictionary tried to "spiff-ify" the definition, too! Why then, is it so extremely difficult to go against the "Status Quo"?
Lessons in "Status Quo"
I can remember my first "lesson" in status quo. It was the very first year of my teaching career and I taught at a school in an extremely rough part of Los Angeles. I had a student who was creative, quiet, and "quirky" (which actually meant ADHD at a time when it was considered to be the student's problem not the school's). I really liked Kevin. Yes, he had a VERY difficult time getting his work done. He struggled with reading and math, but he drew the most wonderful pictures and his smile was glorious. One day I discovered Kevin under his desk with his shoes off. I was just about to make him to get up and put his shoes back on when I noticed that he was actually working! So, I left him alone. The next day during Math, Kevin was again under his desk and shoeless. And again, Kevin was working so I allowed him to continue. About a week later, a veteran teacher came into my room and saw Kevin under his desk without shoes and she asked me why. As I proudly explained what I discovered about Kevin, her face crinkled up and she said loudly, "This is NOT how we do things here. Get that child up off the floor!" That was Status Quo lesson #1.
Lesson #2 came the next year. I was walking with one of my students down the hallway and another teacher stopped us and began to yell and berate my student about his clothes and his attitude. I just stood there watching this whole demeaning episode and I said NOTHING! In my defense, I was brand new and I felt like this teacher knew more than I did. But, again the lesson in status quo was "loud and clear"...different was not acceptable. Another story, again from early in my career; I was on the Leadership Committee and my principal was discussing whether we should add a "Warning Bell" and have the students line up 5 minutes early so that they were inside and learning by the official start of the school day. I, along with the other teachers on the committee agreed. After this new bell routine was announced, a veteran teacher lectured me about how I had jeopardized all that the "old-timers" had worked for and that I had just given away teachers' before school prep time. Status quo lesson #3...don't change anything because "it's always been done this way."
Then something wonderful happened. Something that has completely changed the way I teach. Something that has given me the confidence to kick "Status Quo" to the curb! Last year my district went to 1:1 devices and along with Common Core Standards, and a supportive administration; I swear to you, I am now more excited than ever to get to work! When we got our netbooks, an exciting world opened up not only for me but for my students! We began to learn in ways that I've never before experienced! I began to share the wonderful little things that my students were doing with my district's Director of Tech and I found an unexpected "cheerleader", a kindred soul. I was constantly emailing him and saying, "look what my students did today!" and he would always answer back with "...just imagine what they will do tomorrow."
That Amazing Thing That Is Twitter...
I was perusing that wonderful place that is Twitter one day and I came across this quote tweeted by @Justintarte and it really made me stop and think.
That quote was just what I needed to take a deep breath and kick "Status Quo" in the ass! I am no longer under the crushing thumb of "Status Quo"! I am proud that I am different and that my ideas are crazy! I have revived that rebellious spirit that was always inside of me and it now roams freely! At the beginning of this school year, I threw out ALL of my student desks. My room looks more like a comfy coffee shop than a classroom and we all LOVE it!
I have a bulletin board covered in bright green fabric for making greenscreen videos. We have a Graffiti Wall. My homework is optional and parents know this! From the first day of school, my students understood that THIS year will be different! From an impromptu learning session about Katydids because one flew into our classroom, learning about audience by writing in student blogs, to student-led parent conferences; my students have been on a vastly different learning path this year. For the first time in many years, I am proud and excited to be an educator!
Join me...
Here is my plea...Join me! All of you rebellious, non-conformist, wild and crazy march-to-your-own-drum, wonderfully innovative people; join me and tell "Status Quo" to kiss your ass! Let's find each other somehow and form a giant "Anti-Status Quo" conga line grabbing people along the way so that our dancing becomes so infectious that people can't help but think and reflect on how schools should work! Let's nurture each other's ideas! Instead of saying "I wish we could...?" let's ask, "How can we make this happen?". After all, has anyone ever done anything truly great by keeping the "Status Quo"? I think not.
Not happy...
A few schools in my district have been asked to pilot a new Math Game/Learning website. Teachers have gone through a bit of training and our students are working on the website fairly regularly. Guess what? Shhhhhh....don't tell anyone but, I don't like it! There are many reasons actually, but the two main reasons are after the "honeymoon phase" is over, the kids don't engage. They get on the website and click around, but they do not actually ENGAGE in the learning. This particular website was supposed to make learning math so much fun, that the students "wouldn't even know they were learning". Well, when I run a usage report at the end of our 20-minute work time and a 1/3 of my students are showing ZERO minutes engaged on the report because they are just clicking around...that's proof that the website is not doing its job. And that 1/3 of my class is a pretty heterogenous group...highs, mediums and lows. This has happened MANY times, and the kids are on the correct website because I've gone over to see why they are not "showing up" on my report. If I have fuss at the kids to "get to work" on a website that is supposed to make learning "fun" then that website is not for us!
Another reason I have issues with this math website is that the skills do not transfer. The look of the website is very "cutesy" and looks a bit like a Las Vegas version of Club Penguin. Lots of sounds, animations, bells, whistles and froo-froo. In my opinion, my third graders need REAL math skills practice, with instant feedback on how they are doing with a minimal amount of practice time. DISCLAIMER: I am NOT an educational researcher!
So, being dissatisfied with the website that my district is piloting, I decided to strike out on my own and look for other math websites to compare. Boy, did I find websites! If you looked at the GiF at the top of this post, I'm sure you noticed how many hits I got when I searched for Math Learning Websites...over 28,000,000!
There are some really great websites out there, many of them free or super cheap. The one I discovered and really like is called IXL.com. They have a 30-day free trial that you can sign up for. The platform is VERY clean and the students can get instant feedback on their progress. (In the annotated screenshot below, the students' view would not have all the red boxes.) One step further...
As I began to have my students explore different Math websites; I started thinking, "Which website would my students CHOOSE to work on?". And so, my experiment began! I gave my students about 20 minutes each morning to work on a website of their choice (I put a list on the white board of about 6 different sites) and while they were working, I went around and tallied their choices. As I continued to do this over the course of about 2 months, a clear pattern emerged. My third graders were consistently choosing other websites far more than the website my district is piloting.
More experimentation...
By now, my curiosity was skyrocketing! What if I split my class in half and had one half work on the website my district was piloting and the other half work on IXL? That's exactly what I did! I chose a math standard that both websites covered, split my class and gave them approximately 30-ish minutes to work. I then made two separate but identical Google form quizzes (one form for the piloted website group and the other for IXL group) that had questions similar to what the kids were practicing on the two websites. I also included a "real world" question where the students had to complete a multi-step problem and explain how they got their answer. Now just so you know, neither website had this kind of "real world" practice; but since we are working with CCSS, I felt I needed to include it. I wanted to see if there was a difference in the groups being able to apply what they practiced. To be quite honest, I wasn't expecting any real difference in how the groups performed on my quiz.
...and the envelope, please!
Interesting, huh? I was quite surprised to see such a noticeable difference in the two groups! Below are the results of the "real world" question on my quiz. Again, I was surprised to see the difference. (The correct answer for the question below is "yes".)
Variety Is The Spice of Life, as they say.
My point is, don't be satisfied with one choice when it comes to learning websites. Don't settle on the first website you find or even the website your district is telling you to use! Try out as many as you can before you commit. And like that song from the '70s that goes something like, "If you like pina coladas, gettin' caught in the rain. If you're not into health food, if you have half a brain..." you might find that you'll fall back in love with a website that you have always used. But at least, you'll have "played the field" and checked out all of your options!
Just to clarify again, I am not an educational researcher. These opinions are completely my own and I am not even saying to go out and use the website I talked about in this post. Do your own "research". Make your own decisions based on what is best for YOUR students! Experiment!
You know where I'm going with this...My third graders collaborate WHILE using their computers all the time! My students have worked on many assignments with partners or groups this year. From creating a Google Drawing to show how they solved a fraction problem to working together to make a Google presentation. Why I Love GAFE (Google Apps For Education)!Students can work together on a Google doc, drawing, presentation and more with a simple click of that SHARE button! This is a ridiculously powerful thing! I will have students share with me also, so I can give comments/advice/feedback AS THE STUDENTS ARE WORKING! This is huge! Earlier this week, my third graders worked on a "Collaborative Flash Research" assignment. They had to pick a partner, open the google doc via Google Classroom, share that doc with their partner, choose an endangered animal to research, complete all the parts of the assignment together before the 40 minute time limit was up. No big deal, you say? Here's the kicker...they had to complete the entire assignment WITHOUT TALKING! Not a word, not a whisper, not a grunt...nothing! They couldn't even sit together! I had students sitting across the room from each other and the only way they could communicate was through the chat function within the google doc. So, do you think they had to collaborate to get the assignment done? You bet they did! Click HERE to see the assignment. Now the REALLY spiffy part...On the day we were working on this assignment, one of my students was home sick. By chance, another of my students noticed that he was online and I quickly emailed EJ (the sick student) and shared the same google doc with him that all the other students were working on. How cool is that? EJ was at home, but was able to "join in" with something the rest of the class was doing! So while EJ and I were working on the google doc together (ok...I wanted to play too!), I was so excited that I tweeted a link to the doc out to Alice Keeler and she jumped right into our doc! Oh my gosh...I can not tell you how excited I was. My geek-i-ness was through the roof! Alice chatted with us for a while and gave us some tips to make our Google searches more efficient. That is the beauty of GAFE, you can give instant advice and feedback right there IN the doc (or drawing or presentation)! So, is tech the enemy of collaboration?Absolutely not! With the integration of technology into my lessons, I have been able to do more than ever! It is so easy to have my third graders share and work together. One student might have the directions to an assignment up on his/her computer and the actual product they are working on might be on the other student's computer. One student might use the computer's webcam to take a picture and then email that image to his/her partner so they can both have access to it. I've had students make screencasts and share the videos with each other. The possibilities know no bounds!
Please leave a comment. I'd love to read how your students collaborate while using technology. I consider myself pretty "Googley". Last summer I went to Google headquarters in Mountain View for a Google Maps training, I have a Google backpack (that I bought at THE Google Store) and a Google coffee mug. We are a GAFE (Google Apps for Education) district. If any of my colleagues needs Google help, they call on me. Having said all that, it seems I still have a thing or two to learn about Google stuff! I got Schooled! Last week I got schooled by two of my third graders! Yes...I said third graders! We had been working on making Google Presentations and Kevin's slides looked really spiffy! Way spiffier than any presentation I had made thus far! I was thoroughly impressed! Watch this video to see how he did it... Jasmine's Google Drawing Hack Jasmine is one of those spiffy kids whose curiosity and eagerness to learn knows no bounds! She has been working with a small group of students and they are making a sort-of play about Trash and Littering. When they started brainstorming costume ideas, Jasmine made a Google drawing and shared it with her group. Now, I absolutely LOVE the whole Google sharing and collaboration thing; but with 3rd graders you run the risk of someone messing up your work...and with 3rd graders; someone ALWAYS messes with something! Jasmine had a brilliant idea to help solve this! She inserted text boxes over anything in her Google drawing that she didn't want anyone to touch! Try it...it totally works! Crazy cool, huh? What "hacks" have your students taught you?
Please leave a comment, I'd love to read about them! Should each student be treated exactly the same? This is one of my third graders explaining a project to her parents during her Parent/Teacher Conference. (Click HERE if you'd like to read my post about how I implemented student-led Parent Conferences.) A Little Background... My students have been learning about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and how trash on land ends up in our ocean. One of their assignments was to create a Google Presentation with facts, sources and images about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Well, Jasmine came in all fired up after learning a bit about our topic. She had (at home!) created a skeleton Google Presentation and had already picked out a few students (7 be to exact) to be in her "group". She led this little group to write a script and they are turning this project into a play/video that will teach others how to take care of "Mother Earth" and not litter. Here's my question... Should I have NOT allowed her to take on this project because it was NOT what I had assigned? She (and her group) are still working with the same topic, but they did not complete MY assignment. Jasmine's end product will be way more interesting than my simple Google Presentation activity. Is it "fair" to make everyone complete the SAME assignment, even though each student in my class has different talents and needs. In Jasmine's case, the answer is an obvious "Of course not"; but now switch the scenario a bit. What if a student struggles with an academic area? What if that student is not able to show their understanding of the topic in the same way as the rest of the class. Should I "excuse" that student from the assignment or worse; force that student to do his/her "best"? Or should I allow that student to show what he/she knows in a way that works best for him/her? Maybe the struggling student can create a poster with only images and then has to verbally explain his/her thinking to me? Is that not giving the struggling student the same opportunity as Jasmine? Should I treat all my students "equally" or with "fairness"? We take what we get. Students come to us with a whole slew of talents, backgrounds, hang-ups, deficits and issues. The "playing field" is NOT equal, and it never will be. It is our job to take them from wherever they are, and help them grow a little bit more each day. That means that some students will take more of "me" than others. Some students need that 1 minute check-in and others need to sit right next to me talking about every step. There IS no "equality" in my classroom, only what is "fair" to keep each student moving forward. This is Parent Conference week and I was thinking about the true purpose of conferencing with parents. Is it to get the kid in trouble with his/her parents by showing how unmotivated or ill-behaved he/she is? Is it to show parents that their child has problems completing worksheets? Or is it a time to celebrate what that kid has accomplished, no matter how minor that accomplishment might be? Obviously, I think the purpose is to shine a light on each child's accomplishments. Kids have a hard enough time remembering to keep their socks picked up and putting their dirty dishes in the sink, I don't need to add to the list of "Things To Get Nagged About". I made a Google doc that lists all the projects and websites that I want each student to show his/her parent when they come for a conference. The students will lead their own conference by talking about each item on the list and they will have a chance to show off what they have been working on. Let's use parent conference time to let our students shine...just a little bit.
As a teacher, do you celebrate your students' curiosity? Think about that question for a minute. In our hectic assess-our-students-every-time-they-turn-around teaching environment, the word "curiosity" usually doesn't even get mentioned unless it's a vocabulary word in the reading textbook. Sometimes my 3rd graders need a chance to embrace their natural curiosity. As teachers, we get so caught up with the daily schedule and making sure we are "on-track" (whatever that means), that we forget to allow our students the opportunity to LEARN something that they WANT to learn...not what WE want them to learn. That kind of self-directed, self-selected desire for learning is what we are trying to get our students to do, isn't it? So, put your spelling packet away. Put those Math worksheets back in their binder. Don't even open that Grammar workbook. Send home a different kind of assignment next week. Allow your students to be curious, and give them time to show off what they learned. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!
This is the second year having 1:1 devices for my students. With 30 students in my class EACH with his/her own Netbook, things like passwords and user names became a brand new headache to worry about! I'm sure I'm not the only one with this issue so, I thought I'd share how I handle keeping track of all those user names and passwords. It's really very simple...I don't! I'm serious! I refuse to help with passwords! I had my students all make a Password Ring. This is where they write down (or glue) passwords and user names. They are also responsible for keeping track of their ring. I have a place behind my white board with 30 little hooks so they can hang up their ring when they are finished with it. It's March and we've only lost one ring! I have dedicated part of a bulletin board and this is where I post names of the Tech-X-Perts in my class. I have Tech-X-Perts for all sorts of things. We have a Google Doc Tech-X-Pert, a blog Tech-X-Pert, a Google Drawing Tech-X-Pert, an Insert an Image Tech-X-Pert, etc. When a student comes to me to ask how to do something on his/her computer, I send them to the Tech-X-Perts board and have them find someone to help. This Google Doc chart has been up in my room since September. No one ever looks at it now, but the resource is always available.
That's how I operate. I am NOT the giver of all knowledge in my room. My students have as much tech know-how as I do and by forcing them to look to each other for help, it creates a really nice environment where we learn from each other. |
AuthorI'm a nerdy 3rd grade teacher who has a passion for tech, Google, and coffee. Follow me on Twitter
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April 2017
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