Could I even call myself an occasional amateur blogger if I didn't post sporadically?
I should be more consistent. But let's face it, I'm busy. You're busy. We're all busy. But do you know what I have time to stop for?! AI AI is revolutionizing education by storm and I'm here for it. I must admit, I didn't jump in head first like some. I took my time.. testing the waters... seeing if others were going to get eaten by sharks first. Turns out, water is warm and the waters are friendly! Check out my AI presentation below. Shoutout to Matt Miller for the AI prompts!
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I recently collaborated with my Assistant Principal over professional learning along with four other Digital Learning Coaches in our district to create a learning experience for teachers over student engagement.
Take a look below! As always, I create most of my content on Genially and most of the examples here are created with Genially. I have a few other posts about Genially so take a look if it's new to you! Reach out if you have any questions! If you haven't taken a look at Solve in Time, stop what you're doing and visit their website. Solve in Time is a problem based learning and design thinking activity. Their website says "The goal is to creatively explain a solution to a relevant, real-world problem within a set time limit." Facilitation can be F2F or virtual, so your students who are learning from home can still fully participate! Solve in Time has instructions, templates, and resources on their website and the F2F cards, including expansion packs, can be purchased on their website! Another DLC and I facilitated Solve in Time with some of our amazing assistant principals from around the District. Here are our resources:
I'm using this activity with Biology tomorrow and Thursday so I will update my post then to include pictures and a debrief of how we modified it to be more geared to support our TEKS! Here is a link for our F2F students - each class will have a separate Google Slide. Here is a link for virtual facilitation - each virtual class will have a separate Google Slide.
I'll admit that my blogging has been lacking lately. Covid hit in the Spring and my email and now office has become a revolving door. I went from meeting with teams during PLC time and helping them create digital lessons to attending EVERY virtual PLC in the spring from 8AM to 4:40PM and creating content for students after that. I spent a lot of hours away from my family trying to make virtual learning equitable and engaging for students, as I know many of you did as well. This has not been easy on teachers, digital learning coaches, librarians, admin, and countless others!
Some of the largest hurdles we've faced since Covid hit is really how to make collaboration happen in a virtual environment. When kids aren't engaged, they have their cameras and microphones off and don't participate. How can we change that to ensure our virtual learners are getting the same quality education as our F2F learners? (We've been F2F, or at least had it as an option, since August here in Texas). With my teachers, we've taken the blended learning, station rotation model, and converted it to work in a zoom world in breakout rooms, we've taken review material and created even more digital escape rooms, and we've made voice and choice a priority for every lesson. We've also really dug into personalized learning for each individual student and incorporated more digital badging. I've also made it a priority to not push new technology or programs with my teachers, which goes against a lot of what I've done in the past. My goal this year was to simply build capacity with the tools we're currently using: MasteryConnect, Canvas, Nearpod, Kami, and Genially. Take a look at some of the activities below. Reach out if you would like a copy of anything! Virtual Station Rotation ExamplesDigital Escape RoomsChoice Boards
This one is still a work in progress but I wanted to share what we had so far!
Personalized Learning with Digital BadgingI've shared several gamifying ideas in the past but I felt it was time for a dedicated blog post about it. Gamifying your lessons can really engage your students. It allows students to have fun while they learn.
Why Gamify? Games. Are. Fun. Plain and simple. We like them and so do they. Gamifying lessons you already have will 100% increase student engagement. How do you gamify a lesson? I like taking lessons that teachers already have and just spicing them up. Instead of reviewing on paper, create or work with your instructional technologist/digital learning coach to help you create something digital! My favorite ways to do this is to take a board game and throw it right into Google Drawings or Genially! There are also some fantastic templates out there already created you can go grab. Feel free to grab any of ones I've linked in this post and use them with your students! What are some great resources? Genially, Google Drawings, Google Slides, (really, any G Suite tools), digital escape rooms, websites like Kahoot, Quizizz, Gimkit, Flippity, Decktoys, and Quizlet or Apps like GooseChase! Consider using playlists and choiceboards and incorporating digital badging! Check out @Ditchthattextbook's post here on 15 ways to gamify your class! Check out a few examples of how we've gamified lessons below!
How have you gamified lessons? |
AuthorDigital Learning Coach & technology lover. Constantly looking for innovative ways to engage students and facilitate 21st century learning. Archives
October 2023
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