Share Tools and Techniques
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Blended instruction requires teachers to develop a lot of familiarity and comfort with digital authoring tools, online learning resources, and promising systems and techniques for shifting teaching and learning towards greater differentiation, rigor, and personalization.
Post a reply to the prompt below in which you share PROVEN or PROMISING tools, resources, and tricks that could likely be of use to other folks who are building a blended course.
Challenges:
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Some great blended techniques to be found right here on YouPD...
Alright, as a community we're still in our fledgling stages in building up great user-generated content on YouPD, and some of the stuff that's been posted is a bit rough (mine included), but there are already some decent short videos that may offer help as you think about how to structure, proceduralize, and build systems to support blended learning this year.
Here are some of my picks that could stir your thinking around how to build up an effective blended course:
All of the above folk above have profiles on YouPD. If you are interested in their work, recommend it to others, leave a comment or question on the post, and reach out to them for resources or opportunities to visit their classrooms next year!
Just posted two new videos on how to make screencasts
There's been lots of buzz around the Khan Academy and Sal Khan's relatively easy-to-replicate approach to screencasting. While there's plenty of evidence that traditional lecture / direct instruction, by itself, is not necessarily all that effective, Khan and other proponents argue that this practice is actually more revolutionary than it seems. Here are some arguments I've heard:
If you are at all intrigued or persuaded by these arguments, I've recently posted two short videos showing folks how to screencast like Khan. Here they are:
If you want to read or learn more about "flipped" instruction, these are some good articles:
July 2001, Wired Magazine article on Khan Academy
Blog post by a group of teachers with lots of experience "Flipping"
32 Ways to Use Google Apps in the Classroom
Google's Senior Education "Evangelist," Jaime Casap, recently presented at one of our EdTech Blenders. Afterwards, he shared a link to this interactive presentation with me that has 32 concrete examples of how to implement Google Apps in meaningful ways in your classrooms to increase efficiency, collaboration and engagement. Most of the slides have links to examples where you can try them yourself! Very worthy of a test drive.
Advantages of Online Writing Resources
1. Students may work at own pace: With writing lessons (screencasts), activites (application of lesson), and assignments (responses and papers) posted online, students are free to work at their own, individual pace.
2. The presence of lessons online means that students may re-watch lessons in and out of school to ensure comprehensoin.
3. Higher-skilled students are encouraged to exceed the standard, and lower-skilled students are free to work at a slower pace, increasing comprehension of content and competancy in targeted skill areas.
4. All students are free to work outside of class on assignments, increasing time on task.
5. The presence of the lesson suite online frees the teacher up to work directly on writing with the students on their writing.
6. The use of the Web/Google Docs increases student fluency with technology vital to success in higher education/workforce
7. Word processors simplify editing/revising processes.
8. Typed responses/Google Docs enable teacher to read and edit student work with increased clarity and efficiency in real time.
Additional thoughts:
1. The teacher must train him- or herself to use online resources. That is, instead of expaining a concept to a student, direc tthe student to an online resource in which the concept is explained. The teacher should then follow up and clarify any other points in need of clarification.
2. Screencasts should be as short and engaging as possible so as to help facilitate repeat viewings.
3. To the extent possible, a blended protocol should be established in class and adhered to, so as to promote student familiarity and conflidence with the format.
4. To the extent possible, online work should be intuitive, using core competencies to produce easily reliable, repeatable results.
5. Online content should not be aspirational but realistic. It's easy when we find ourselves in front of a computer to get carried away with awesome, complicated, sophisticated lessons. It's important to remember that our students have to sit down and do the work.
Proven and Promising Tools, Resources, and Tricks
Proven:
1. It sounds silly, but basic email skills are really useful. This gives students a way to contact teachers (and each other) when they are working on their courses outside of the classroom. I find that students are sometimes more likely to work on classes outside of school and struggle through some activities if they know that help is easily accessible if needed.
2. I find that in order for students to be successful in the blended learning model, they need guidance in maintaining progress on the online portion of the course that they are expected to manage on their own. One-on-one conferences with students in which we discuss progress, challenges, and goals have proven to be effective in helping students complete their courses.
3. Posting content online in multiple formats is really useful for differentiating instruction and reaching different types of learners. I have been able to post a written (like a textbook) and visual (images) format of the same lesson and allowed students the choice as to which format they prefer. I have yet to do something for auditory learners, but I suppose I will be learning all about that with the upcoming screencast...
Promising:
1. Wall Wisher - Wall Wisher is similar to stickies on a Mac. I think this will be a useful way to facilitate discussions and allow students to brainstorm ideas asynchronously.
Tools and resources
1. I make videos teaching students essential literacy and social studies skills. I use the flip camera to record silly videos, upload it to i-movie, edit it and add a semi-powerpoint explaing the skill. After this is created I upload the movie to vimeo--you can sign up for the free vimeo and still have plenty of room (free room--because i-movie compresses the time). If you are using google sites you can then embed the movie onto a webpage. Note: I usually integrate modern music that the students are into to help keep the students interested and involved. To check their comprehension I usually embed a google form assessing their understanding of the information I presented.
2. I use google groups as a forum for answering "do nows" and/or "exit slips". I like the google groups I would like however to have a more instant feedback forum like g-chat or a twitter application. If anyone has any feedback it would be greatly appreciated.
Video and Google Docs
Dave,
In #1 you mention the use of Vimeo, which I've seen lots of teachers using. Now that Google Docs can accept videos, I'm curious if this approach makes more sense for teachers like you...especially if you run your courses in Google Sites. The Google Sites page editor lets you add videos directly from your Docs collection in a pretty seamless workflow, meaning you don't have to click between services, logins, copy embed codes over, etc... The downside appears to be that the NYCDOE blocks the URL "video.google.com" by default, so you would need to request to have this unblocked at your school for this approach to work... You'd also need to make sure that the sharing settings on your videos were set so that students and/or the public could actually see them.
#2 - Agreed that Google Groups is powerful / useful....especially if you want the kids emailed everything that's happening in the group. As far as realtime chat functionality for a classroom, I've seen some creative uses of Google Docs in this way, where students all join a single shared document as editors via a link and then use it to engage simultaneously. I've seen this done in two specific ways that could have powerful tie-ins to Common Core literacy:
1) Multiple students use the "Comment" tool to respond to a teacher-provided text and this gets projected in the front of the room.
2) A shared Spreadsheet or form can used this same way, with responses showing up in realtime on the projection screen.
From watching you teach, and knowing EBCH's commitment to common core, I had a thought on #2 at a powerful mechanism for enhancing the way you teach argumentation based on evidence: A group of grad students studying the teaching of argument at my last school had pairs of students engage in live, online, point-counterpoint debates using shared, pre-structured spreadsheets. The transcripts of the debate were assessed and also used by students to iterate on their thinking in future classes, where they had the same debate again with a new pair, often defending the opposite position. The ability to look at and refine an argument was the main benefit they saw in using the technology...whereas verbal debate tends to produce a lot of unexamined, easily forgotten, and poorly supported points of opinion, having the transcripts allowed for the kind of examination they claimed was needed to drive the evolution of evidence-based argument skills in kids. Food for thought.
Google Forms for Item Analysis
Leading into last years Geometry Regents exam, I had students enter in their selections for multiple choice questions from a practice Regents examination on a google form. Then, I entered their scores on long answer problems into the spreadsheet. Next, I formatted cells to display in green, if answers were correct and red, if the answers were incorrect.
Later in class, I selected topics based on the problem areas of students. To add support to why we were viewing certain topics I showed students the color distributions (with names omitted). This created a very easy to see picture for where we as a class had to improve prior to the Regents examination.
The students really bought into this, because they could see where they had problems.
Proven Tips for Google Docs
Last year I started using GoogleDocs for in-class and take-home essays in my history classes. I was really excited abou using this format for student submissions because, as a teacher, it allowed me to literally witness their progress at home and offer feedback. By asking students to list me as owner and themselves as editor I could set online deadlines for final essay edits, ensuring that every student, regardless of class period, had a uniform method and amount of time to complete an essay assignment. For the most part, I found this to be a really successful use of online instruction because students could recieve rough draft feedback, guidance and editing advice from me regardless of being at school or at home. Many students took advantage of their ability to send me updated versions as they worked and asked for suggestions that I could immediately send back, eliminating the delay that teacher feedback usually requires.
However, there were a few struggles I had with using Google Docs exclusively for essays. Some students had very poor typing skills and this made submitting their work in Google Docs much more overwhelming for them, something I wanted to avoid considering many struggled with writing an organized essay in the first place. While I certainly want to see my students develop their typing skills and I recognize the extreme importance of being able to write essays on the computer, I am not a typing teacher and my primary concern is that they are able to write a strong essay, regardless of the medium. On the Regents Exam all essays are hand-written so students must be capable of legibly writing by hand for hours and this is not easy for all students. The more they practice writing Regents essays in the assessment format the more comfortable and familiar they will be with the actual Regents Exam. Not surprisingly some students did not have good computers at home or internet access at all times therefore they were at a disadvantage. Finally, from my end, I found grading essays in Google Docs to be much more time consuming than grading them by hand. While there are tools to underline, correct, highlight and comment throughout a Google Doc, doing each of these things takes more effort than simply writing directly on a hard copy. Plus, I am confident that most of my students did not log back into their Google Docs just to read my feedback when they could simply see their grade in Edline. I get much more assurance that they are looking at my comments when I hand the essay to them and give them some time to look at it in class. So after this long explanation, here are my personal tips based on my experience for using Google Docs for writing assignments:
TIPS
1. Do not require every assignment to be submitted through Google Docs (either suggest it as an option or require it for only some assignments so those who do not have equal internet/computer access or advanced typing skills are not always intimidated by writing assignments). Make sure students can also write essays quickly and legibly by hand, especially in Regents courses.
2. Set extra afterschool tutoring time for those who need to develop their typing skills (or familiarity with Google Docs) so they can work under your supervision
3. Once final drafts have been submitted, print out hard copies and write comments/grades by hand. This makes grading and feedback much easier for the teacher.
Using Google Forms for Homework and Spreadsheet for Class
Every now and then I assigned homework that the students would complete in a form I created in GoogleDocs. A certain time would be given as the due date for completion and after that had passed students' work would no longer count for credit. This is very easy to determine since all of their responses are time stamped. I would then read through the response in the spreadsheet and color code the answers by highlighting the cells. If an answer was fantastic I would highlight it in yellow, if it was just satisfactory it would be highlighted blue, and incorrect and incomplete answers I would highlight in red.
I would then copy the spreadsheet and delete the column with the students names. From this I created a PDF which I would use during my lesson for class discussion. I projected the PDF file (without any names) and this is how we went over homework. After we had gone over it, I would then post it to the class website so the student could use it as a reference when studying.
I found that this exercise motivated my students to put more effort into their work. Seeing the responses of their peers was enlightening for some of them and made them reflect on what they were producing. The students whose responses were highlighted in yellow would be very excited and I believe it pushed others to want to do better.
Tools
There are many tools that I have found to be very effective for online learning. I have noticed that everyone is raving about Google, which is extremely helpful to my practice as well. Another resource that I have used is Teachertube. I incorporate this site into my classes to add videos to supplement my course content. Another tool that is helpful is the online test maker by Easytestmaker.com. This site is very helpful because it has a thirty day free trial where you can create different assessments through by using their helpful templates. Another site that I love is called WebEnglishteacher. This site has a variety of tools to enhance an ELA curriculum.
Diagnostic Exams on google forms
Last year we gave the incoming freshman an online diagnostic exam using a google form. The diagnostic tested their knowledge of rules of grammar, reading comprehension, and writing skills. Then at the end of the year, we gave a similar exam and compared the results. As a tool, this has great potential. The only problem is that I don't know how to compare the results of each exam side by side. Mark is helping but of course he's very busy. I would very much like to learn how to do this on my own.
Flubaroo dos and don'ts, and the wonder of forms!
I have used a ton of forms for homework assignments in my AP Calc site, with great results. Student responses are at 100% on most days, since everything is easily accessed and there's no paper to lose. Hurray!
I'm using Flubaroo to grade. It's fantastic but has its drawbacks...Pros include insta-feedback to students, answer keys along with their performance to help them with corrections (mandatory in my class), and a basis for immediate discussion of individual review needs. The main "con" point is specificity; if a student's answer deviates the slightest bit from the key, then it is marked wrong.
To solve this, it is possible to alter the grades in the "Grades" sheet in the form's spreadsheet, and when grades are emailed, the script seems to pick up on the edits. I've done this a few times, for example, to award credit when students typed f(x) instead of g(x) or some other minor deviation that didn't really alter the correctness of the answer in an essential way, or when a student found an alternate right answer to the one I'd thought of.
I can't rave enough about this mode of homework assignment delivery.
Flubaroo dos and don'ts, and the wonder of forms!
I have used a ton of forms for homework assignments in my AP Calc site, with great results. Student responses are at 100% on most days, since everything is easily accessed and there's no paper to lose. Hurray!
I'm using Flubaroo to grade. It's fantastic but has its drawbacks...Pros include insta-feedback to students, answer keys along with their performance to help them with corrections (mandatory in my class), and a basis for immediate discussion of individual review needs. The main "con" point is specificity; if a student's answer deviates the slightest bit from the key, then it is marked wrong.
To solve this, it is possible to alter the grades in the "Grades" sheet in the form's spreadsheet, and when grades are emailed, the script seems to pick up on the edits. I've done this a few times, for example, to award credit when students typed f(x) instead of g(x) or some other minor deviation that didn't really alter the correctness of the answer in an essential way, or when a student found an alternate right answer to the one I'd thought of.
I can't rave enough about this mode of homework assignment delivery.
Diagnostic on google docs, cont
As Clayton's coteacher, I shared in the creation of, and frustration of, the freshman diagnostic for English classes. Something we've worked on this year is using flubaroo to grade the diagnostic. We've streamlined the diagnostic to test five basic grammatical rules which we've found 9th graders to struggle with in the past. From there, we gave increasingly difficult versions of questiosn to test the same grammar rule. I am not creating a flubaroo answer key to automatically grade the responses. With Mark's help, we will color code incorrect answers, to give us quick feedback on the diagnostic.
Proven and Promising Tools
I teach every lesson using the Smart Board. As I was fidgeting around with the other Smart tools, I discovered a Recorder function.
As students come up to the board, I have them explain how they solve the problem. But before they do, I make sure to start recording. As they explain, the mic on the mac/pc picks up on their voice while the work they're putting up on the board is being recorded.
I have been using the videos as evidence of student participation which is part of their grades. It also serves as a way to assess the student's understanding as well as my own teaching.
The next step for me is to take the best of those videos and put them online so that they can be used as tutorials for students who are struggling or students who were absent for that lesson.