Wondering how to talk to teens glued to their phones who primarily communicate through SnapChat and TikTok? The new book, Does Your Teen Talk? No, But They Text, Snap, and TikTok, offers tips to get adults and teens talking more in a digital world. 

Author Nicole Rice, a high school technology teacher from New York, collected years of insight from teens to conclude that they really do want to have conversations and form stronger relationships with adults. The trick is learning how to have these conversations when battling for their attention. 

Here are 5 tips that parents and teachers can take to better communicate with teens:

1. Text me, Snap me 

Texting may be the best way to communicate with a teen who is attached to their phone as if it’s a new appendage. It may be the only way until you reel them back in. Email isn’t a sure thing, but you have a 100% chance that a teen has opened your text. They may not reply, but they will see it. 

On average, teenagers send more than 100 texts per day and mainly communicate through Snapchat and TikTok. Teens have groups to stay in touch with friends and family, so creating a Snapchat group with your students can be a great way to collaborate on a class project with pictures, messages, and emojis all in one place. 

Lola, age 13 says, “My mom and dad don’t understand technology at all, and it drives me crazy.” Talk to your students on their platforms, and you can have a whole conversation motivating your class and it does not even have to be in complete sentences. A text saying, “DNF your test tomorrow and GL” (“Don’t forget your text tomorrow, and good luck”) just might lead to more time studying than saying it as they walk out your classroom door.

2. "Class, take out your cell phones" 

Cell phones are an integral part of a teen’s life. Jay, 17, says, “When my phone is broken, I can not do anything else until it is fixed.” 

Join students on their turf and encourage them to use their phones for exploration lessons. It is surely better than fighting for their attention while they hear their phone vibrating in their book bag under their seat with every new notification and cannot concentrate on anything else. 

Ninety-four percent of students want to use their phones for school research, so encourage them to learn the proper way to find reliable sources, fact check, and download information, all without ever leaving their spot. Teens and smartphones are an unstoppable force and seeing the adults in their life giving them credit for using their device in productive and fun ways can be a great environment in which teens want to learn. 

3. Get street smart 

Become street smart, such as hallway monitors naturally do. You hear teens talking, and sometimes it can shock you, but monitors learn what students are going through and can provide insight -- boys are not mad at one another all that much, or don’t stay mad at least; girls get offended by the hour, and are best friends this week and enemies next week, and then it’s like nothing ever happened. 

Jamie, 16, says, “I have FOMO (fear of missing out) all day, every day, every minute, wondering if I should be somewhere else.” Give teens a place to go, and allow them to have group meetings in your classroom much like when they have their friends over to their house.  You want to know in person who they are hanging out with and that they are doing good things. When they come, make the environment unique and welcoming, offer snacks, a clean place to sit, technology access, or a fun atmosphere so they don't just end up in their room at home with the door closed.

4. Make a TikTok 

During quarantine together and shelter in place, kids were roping their parents into creating content. 

Sarah, 15, says what she likes to do most for fun is, “Scrolling through TikTok and making TikToks with anyone that will.” Kids spend hours each day engaging in ideas with one another through screens. So teachers can tap into these connections with their students; the same also applies to parents. Encouraging creativity in connecting is the hook in how to communicate better with teens. 

In our digital video classes, you see kids creating TikTok videos that include all the production parts of the intro, supporting content, and a snappy conclusion, all while engaging and sharing their final project with a real audience. You cannot get a more suitable audience to motivate kids to do their best work than their own followers, and future followers they gain from making remarkable content. 

Teens also need to see the purpose or reason they are learning something or you are going to get the “Cuts like a knife" reaction of "Why do we have to know this?" Or worse, "I am never going to use this."

5. Know the code 

The coded language of teens can be good to know. Teens can be creative and quick with social media acronyms. Educating yourself on some of the slang so you can better understand what teenagers are saying and show you too are keeping up can lead to better messages over devices. 

Some acronyms may surprise you as well, such as POS (Parent Over Shoulder) or Salty (upset or mad over something minor). Chris, 16, says, “I scroll through my dad’s phone all the time to see memes he sends the guys, but I don’t want him even glancing at my screen.”

Find more tips on talking to social media-addicted teens, including real hallway stories, real quotes from the teens, and cartoons to help you survive having teenagers in your day in Does Your Teen Talk? No, But They Text, Snap, and TikTok. Order the Amazon Audible version here. 

Email the author at nicole@deruyterlake.com to receive a code for a free audiobook version. 

• How Can TikTok Be Used in the Classroom?
• Best Tools for Teachers

When it comes to classroom design, the pandemic is responsible for a lot of change. 

“It's causing us to rethink how we design everything from a lecture hall to a small classroom,” says John Pfeffer, a team member of IT Customer Service at University at Buffalo who is charged with classroom and learning space design, as well as determining future plans as technology changes.

Prior to March, modern classroom design was very focused on creating active learning spaces designed to facilitate all the students in the space being able to collaborate, says Julie Johnston, acting Associate Vice President of Learning Technologies at Indiana University. 

Active classroom design prioritizes writable surfaces, moveable chairs, and multiple displays so every student can clearly see the material the teacher is presenting. Since March, there has been an effort to extend that active learning environment to students who are not in the room and make spaces suitable for hyflex and hybrid learning. 

Better Acoustics and More Mics

“We've discovered how important acoustics are,” Pfeffer says. “When you've got remote students, and local students, they need to be able to hear each other so that they feel like they're part of the same group.” 

This means more mics, placed not just at the podium but throughout the room so student discussions can be captured. 

To do this at her institution, Johnston says, “We are creating audio zones for the student zone versus the instructor zone, and the ability to mute the student zone so that you don't have the ruffling paper when you just want to have the instructor having a conversation and not opening it up to all.”

At San Diego State University, leaders have designated hybrid-video class ready rooms as “connected classrooms,” says Rebecca Frazee, a faculty member of the Learning Design and Technology Program at the School of Journalism. Frazee, who is also associate director of FLEXspace.org, an online community and resource dedicated to sharing classroom designs, adds an important component of a COVID-safe connected classroom is ceiling-mounted microphones. “They're all over the room and you can pick up the audio really well, but they're also not being touched and handled,” Frazee says. 

More Cameras and Display Surfaces

The modern classroom features cameras that will track a professor’s movement, and offer more camera angles and different perspectives, Pfeffer says. 

“Traditionally, the goal is to just capture as much of everything as possible,” he says. “Now the goal is going to be more about capturing the individual instructor and the individual students in much greater clarity for the remote students to see. And vice versa, how are those remote students seen? We need to consider ways to show those remote students as well as the content that's being talked about.” 

These video and audio components in new classrooms are being designed with lecture capture technology in mind for students who may be participating online asynchronously, says Frazee. 

Educators anticipate these trends continuing even after the pandemic. “We don't have a crystal ball,” Johnston says, “But we do believe that this has the capability of changing what students want and opt for. Thus, having the ability to provide a more improved, quality hybrid experience in our classrooms is the direction we are heading.”

Sharing Resources

Educators looking to upgrade learning spaces should tap into the global community that's interested in learning about classroom design, says Frazee. FLEXspace, a favorite of designers, has more than 5,000 members who upload and share their designs from campuses all over the world. “You can take a sort of virtual field trip to see what other campuses are doing,” Frazee says. 

In addition, Frazee recommends resources such as Educause, Learning By Design Magazine and the Association for Learning Environments, which focuses primarily on K-12 institutions. Still, it’s important for universities to look at what’s coming up from the K-12 pipeline, says Frazee. 

In general, she advises university officials to look at the spaces that have won awards in the past from all these organizations. “I think that's a great way to see some of the innovative thinking that's going on around the world,” Frazee says.  

• Best Sound Technology for Hybrid Classrooms and Remote Instruction
• How to Manage a Hybrid Classroom

Project-based learning (PBL) has been around a lot longer than its recent history might lead us to believe. If you have been reading headlines, tweets, or Facebook posts, you would think PBL just emerged on the scene. In truth, the idea of “learning by doing” has been around since the time of Confucius. Critical thinking has been a focus in education for centuries. In fact, entire education systems have been built on getting students to not just memorize, but experience the learning.

John Dewey took experience-based learning even one step farther when he suggested that student interests should be considered. Dewey’s work on pragmatism (the use of hands-on, real-world experiences) in education is the foundation of today’s PBL.

Using the same tools Dewey used in the early 20th century does not help students much today. However, PBL offers a scaffold to guide students to make the most of their learning, and makes the perfect spot for the use of more modern technology tools.

The Buck Institute for Education: PBLWorks is one of the premiere resources for leaders and teachers looking for information on PBL. Everything you could need to get up and running is here, including ample useful examples of lesson plans and tips. For example, “Essential Project Design Elements” outlines the seven elements that, combined, make up a truly transformative PBL experience. 

Today’s technology has the power to facilitate a more in-depth exploration of these elements than ever before. Each element has its own goal and may require various technology tools. Ultimately, a resource such as PBLWorks can help students complete a meaningful project and work on advanced real-world skills at the same time. 

Challenging Problem or Question

The focus of the project for the student will be a challenging problem or question. Teachers can decide to use current events, past events, or something fictional. The problem can be something student-discovered or teacher-directed. It can be local or worldwide. The real goal of is to provide a good starting point. It needs to be open-ended enough to provide room for exploration, but specific enough to guide students in their search for a solution.

Since this is the basis for the project and all the learning involved, the importance of a solid question can’t be overstated. Since the subject and student age are more than likely pre-determined, you will want to start with the topic to be covered. From there, you can use an online conversation board like Padlet or Google’s Jamboard to ask for student input. You could create a board with areas for what students already know about the chosen topic, and one for what students would like to know. If teachers are struggling to come up with driving questions, the PBLWorks Projects page can be a good place to start.

Sustained Inquiry

In PBL, inquiry can involve many different sources. The process of sustained inquiry is not one that will be completed quickly, and it will involve more than one or two research sessions. Inquiry is the idea that students should keep digging and searching until they have reached a satisfactory solution. 

Book or online research may not be the only thing students do, but it may take up a large chunk of time in the inquiry process. Students need to know how to find reputable, verified sources of information. Common Sense Media has two programs that touch on Digital Literacy: Digital Passport for grades 3 to 5, and Digital Compass for grades 6 to 8. Both these programs will help students be better digital citizens while moving through the inquiry phase of their project. 

Authenticity

 Part of the reason PBL is such a meaningful practice in education is its connection to authentic, real-world issues. Students can be guided to a project involving problems in the school, their neighborhood, or the world. Establishing such a connection makes the learning worthwhile for them.

It is sometimes hard to imagine helping people in places you have never seen. This is where a tool like Google Earth might be helpful. Students can see the landscape of the area their project is based on, which may radically change the solutions they are able to develop. For example, the platform could be used in a project such as designing a city park so that children have more space to run and play, which would require students to find an area to place the park, determine its measurements, and then design the park accordingly. 

Student Voice and Choice

Teachers know that when students have a say in their learning, they feel more engaged and become my invested. Giving students as many choices as possible in their project will keep them from seeing it as just one more thing to do. Allow students to let their creative side shine with tools such as Canva or Buncee, two multimedia creation tools. If there is a chance to let the students decide, take it. 

Reflection

The process of reflection is a large component of the PBL approach. Teachers should schedule time to allow students to check-in, debrief, and give feedback. Having prompts structured around the learning targets will help students better connect the project to the classroom content. 

Flipgrid is a perfect fit for teachers looking to “clone” themselves. It allows teachers to record a video prompt, which students can respond to in video form as well. Then teachers can watch the reflections when they’re able to and can be prepared to respond to the students’ needs. 

Book Creator is another tool worth considering. It can be a wonderful place to keep track of research, solutions that have been successful or unsuccessful, and reactions. Having all the pieces and parts of the project in one place (that can be shared with a teacher) would be helpful for student and teacher organization. 

Critique and Revision

Giving and receiving feedback is an art that students must learn to be successful. PBLWorks asks students and teachers to focus on high-quality critique with helpful revision suggestions. It is suggested that students review their own learning as well. Rubrics and other structures can and should be used to guide students in their critiques. 

Feedback can also come from adults from outside of the school, perhaps in areas of expertise pertinent to the project. For example, teachers could connect with local architects to give feedback on student home designs, or with a large-animal veterinarian to give feedback on a new saddle for students with disabilities. For this type of connection, teachers may not always be able to find a local professional, which is where a video conference tool can be very helpful. Zoom, Skype, and other video connection apps can allow for collaboration with professionals from anywhere in the world. Why not have your project on the repercussions of the Cold War critiqued by an actual Smithsonian representative? Imagine how much learning would happen then! 

Public Product

The idea of having a product to display at the end of the project gives students something concrete to work toward, although there is no “right way” to showcase solutions--the sky's the limit!

Tinkercad allows students to design a 3D object, such as a bridge over a particular span of water, then print it with a 3D printer to display and test it. Presentation software like Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint are also popular choices, with many students appreciating the automatic cycling feature. Many schools host some kind of display night, allowing students to interact with an authentic audience of adults from their school community.

Project-based learning is such a wide umbrella, and there are many ways to have a positive impact on student learning through hands-on experiences. What the Buck Institute for Education: PBLWorks has done is given teachers a starting point, a guide to getting started with PBL. From there, who knows what shape PBL will take in each individual classroom? That is one of the joys for teachers: seeing how the process encourages curiosity and morphs as students take ownership of their own learning. 

Spectrum Industries Inc. introduces its newest lectern, the SLIM Lectern.      

The SLIM Lectern is Spectrum’s thinnest lectern that aims to convert any classroom into a lecture hall. Its two shelves can store and hold laptops, iPads, and other learning materials; it also features AV cutouts and rack units to facilitate integrating technology. 

Spectrum’s newest lectern is available in a variety colors from Spectrum’s Expressions Line.

Using the Science of Learning to Redesign Schools

A new policy brief from the Center for American Progress challenges policymakers and educators to reimagine the American school experience. The brief cites data that less than half of US students are prepared for college-level math or reading. Some schools are being restructured to fit the needs and interests of students—a practice called school redesign. This brief specifically examines the ways that learning science can support school redesign. Science shows that practice improves learning, however most students don’t get enough time to develop what they’re learning. Adjusting schedules by extending the school day and year is an easy way for schools to offer more opportunities for student practice. An analysis of nearly 200,000 research studies found that feedback is one of the top influences on student achievement, having a greater effect on student performance than many other interventions. Redesigned schools can strengthen instruction, as well as student outcomes, by creating more opportunities for students to receive feedback—in particular, immediate and individualized advice on how well they do on a given task. States and districts should also reevaluate assessment policies to encourage the use of formative assessments that provide teachers and students more real-time feedback. Also, students need opportunities to apply what they have learned, especially to familiar, real-world contexts. Creating senior-year internships is a terrific way to encourage students to learn by doing. 

 https://tinyurl.com/yalvm4dm 

Follett today announced it is partnering with CrisisGo to sponsor the release of their Safe Classroom product to PreK-12 Schools nationwide free of charge.

Supported by the School Superintendents Association (AASA), Safe Classroom is an emergency alert crisis management application for PreK-12 schools that allows building staff to send an audible alert, enable two-way communications to every computer or mobile device in the school, and automatically escalate to the appropriate first responders. CrisisGo’s customer base includes more than 14,000 schools and organizations, including large districts such as Boston Public Schools, and its Safe Classroom product is currently in more than 6,000 buildings as part of an arrangement with the AASA.

[SAFE YOUTUBE]

For more information about CrisisGo’s Safe Classroom, visit www.crisisgo.com/offers/safe-classroom.

Even projection display hardware needs to be evaluated through the lens of its impact on student learning. Educators know that interactive collaboration impacts the classroom environment by shifting the mode of teaching and increasing student engagement.

What are the key factors that districts should be aware of when choosing new classroom display options?

In this white paper you will learn:

• Why display size matters – the 4/6/8 Rule
• The impact of interactivity on student engagement
• Creating a cost-effective digital ecosystem that supports learning

Click here to read the full white paper.

Imagine taking students for a walk around the solar system during their lesson. Creating more immersive visual experiences with new types of instruction models, such as lesson capture, are possible when digital devices such as document cameras, student devices, and audio equipment are networked with interactive projector displays.

This eBook details how today’s projection software can be used cost-effectively, including:

• Take notes and then send work back to the projector—no PC required.
• Connect up to 50 devices, with built-in moderator features.
• Project web pages to enhance high-quality images on the big screen.
• Share, manage, and annotate displayed content easily and intuitively.

Click here to read the full white paper.

At a CTO summit this summer, I joined a group of educators discussing the effect of spatial design and furniture selection on learning. It was clear that attempts to influence learning by changes to spaces and furniture had not always met with success. One tech director described how the new flexible furniture was still being arranged in the same uniform rows as the old table-arm desks. He was frustrated that the time and effort to remodel the space appeared to have been wasted.

The facilitator in the CTO discussion, Maureen Miller, has not yet had the opportunity to fully renovate all classrooms at Winnetka School District 39, in Illinois (the District is just completing an educational facilities master plan). However, her district was successful in encouraging students and teachers to innovate and modify their current spaces. The district has given away design grants for teachers to modify their spaces and furniture. Maureen shared that teachers have implemented improvements like flexible furniture and marker boards on horizontal rails, to enable the existing spaces to be more adaptable.

When I visited this Maureen’s district a few years back, there was a sense of excitement from students. I saw examples of students energetically attacking unstructured problems and taking ownership in their learning assignments. Two of her students recently served as panelists at Tech and Learning Live Chicago.

A school renovation project I was involved in underscores the role of spatial design in supporting instructional practice. In addition to my District CIO role at a past school district, I was also the building committee co-chair for a complete high school renovation.

[What’s New: New Tools for Schools]

As the building design team grappled with the possibilities for technology, furniture and spatial layout of classrooms, we decided to create prototypical classrooms. Teachers could sign up and use the prototypical classrooms, have their classes experiment with audio-visual technology, and try out student desks, student chairs and teacher furniture. They could also check out a breakout room for small-group discussion.

Student and teacher feedback influenced the selection of student desks, chairs and the teacher’s station. The labs also helped the design team to refine the materials for the room, ultimately settling on full-height marker surface on two walls, and tackable surface on a third wall.

Earlier this spring, I toured the renovated high school, about 6 years after it was completed. I saw students working individually and in groups, in breakout rooms, in hallways, and throughout the classrooms. The math department chair told me about students working out math problems on every available writing surface, including desks, the marker surfaces, and even on windows.

My site tour showed a school where spatial design, technology and furniture combined to enhance individualized student learning. What made this deployment successful when others in my summer discussion were still looking for results? From my experiences in this district, I know that individualized student learning was already taking place before the renovation. In discussing this question with the math department chair, he remarked that the push for individualized learning was really driven by the classroom teachers, with leadership by department heads, and strong support from curriculum and administration. Classroom teachers were ready for the renovation because they had already been planting the seed of innovative instruction in the existing high school.

Winston Churchill said, “we shape our buildings and afterward they shape us.” However, Churchill was referring to how to rebuild the House of Commons, which had been badly bombed at the end of the Battle of Britain, during World War II. He worried that if the shape of the House of Commons were changed by expansion, it would change the look and feel of the proceedings there. He was not trying to create a new type of behavior. In his mind, the crowded, intimate setting of the House of Commons meeting room encouraged the kind of healthy debate that was already taking place there. He felt that debate was essential to Great Britain’s democratic process and should be sustained.

In the same way, I think the redesigned high school I visited was encouraging the type of healthy instruction that was already taking place there. A new school design would not necessarily have led to new instructional methods, but the new design did make it easier for teachers to allow students to flourish.

Wherever you are at in the design and renovation process, I encourage you to develop a wholistic approach to your thinking about the elements of technology, furniture and spatial design. Start with your instructional direction, then use of all three elements to foster the type of instruction your district desires. While these elements by themselves will not generate changes in instructional practice, they will certainly provide the soil to nurture best-practice instruction, to the ultimate benefit of your students.

Craig Williams has 30 years of experience working with schools, focused primarily on providing visionary consulting and support. A former school CIO, Craig emphasizes pragmatic improvement in all areas of IT, from internal infrastructure, to effective instructional software and public-facing technologies. He is the Director of Infrastructure Consulting Services for Client First Consulting Group (www.clientfirstcg.com).

Prezi Classic

Stylish presentation creator with a unique 3D zooming effect

Pros: Attractive, easy-to-use, built-in templates produce professional looking presentations; free upgraded account for teachers.

Cons: No easy import for audio files, and, without solid content, the animation can seem gimmicky or distracting.

Bottom Line: An elegant, flexible alternative to other online slide software tools, but it requires some finesse to make the effective use of the features and infinite canvas.

[Professional Development By Teachers, For Teachers]

Read more.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

By Common Sense Education

Even projection display hardware needs to be evaluated through the lens of its impact on student learning. Educators know that interactive collaboration impacts the classroom environment by shifting the mode of teaching and increasing student engagement.

What are the key factors that districts should be aware of when choosing new classroom display options?

In this white paper you will learn:

• Why display size matters – the 4/6/8 Rule
• The impact of interactivity on student engagement
• Creating a cost-effective digital ecosystem that supports learning

Click here to read the full white paper.

Loom

Create, present, and assess with free, effortless screencasting

Pros: Simple to learn, tons of support, and many exporting features, including Slack integration.

Cons: Only works on devices that support Chrome extensions; once recorded, editing options are limited to trimming.

Bottom Line: This intuitive tool is excellent for recording and responding to screencasts of any length.

[Simple Writing/Note-Taking Tool Includes Text-to-Speech Option]

Read more.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

By Common Sense Education

Spectrum Industries Inc. has expanded its Expressions Line, now offering new color options for its products.

Added to the Expressions Line were five new colored laminate and eight new metal finishes options. The new metal color additions include spectrum blue, yellow, signal red, light blue, orange, lime green, white, and warm gray. The new laminate colors include royal blue, island (green), café sienna, navajo red, and gray.

[New Tools for Schools]

“With color being an important part of the educational environment, we wanted to add more colors to the Expressions Line to help brighten up the classroom,” said Dave Falkner, Spectrum’s Product Manager. “Based on customer feedback from our partners and end users, color is important. The 13 colors added to the line creates a great amount of color combinations suitable for any environment.”

The AV industry has never backed down from a format war, protocol battle, or competing technology race, but the choice between lamp or laser projectors is a simple one with limited overlapping applications. That is according to Mike Morin, Manager, Strategic Sales Development, Hitachi America, Ltd.

“When it comes to projectors, lamps and lasers each have their own space in the AV industry,” says Morin. “They’re truly designed for different types of installations and the features reflect those differences. It’s for this reason that Hitachi offers a comprehensive range of lamp-based and Solid State Light-source (SSL) projectors; allowing integrators to provide solutions that end-users both need and can afford.”

Solid State Light source optical engines are powered by lasers, rather than a bulb. Laser projectors have a typical life of 20,000 hours and require less maintenance, and therefore less maintenance costs. Laser projectors are ideal for installations where the projector will be running for a long period of time, like sports bars, auditoriums and for digital signage. SSL projectors are also ideal in installations where the projector must be mounted in a hard-to-reach place like in house of worship facilities and museums.

Technology has been improved over the years to offer better total cost of ownership for lamp based models with lower lamp replacement cost, new hybrid filters and longer lamp life. As such, lamp-based projectors are less expensive and may be optimal where the projector is getting occasional use and is easy to access for lamp and filter replacement; these installations include classrooms, conference rooms, and mobile house of worship facilities. Other installation features that are ideal for lamp-based projectors are installations in rooms that must remain lit while using the projector.

“Hitachi is committed to providing projection technologies that empower integrators and dealers to serve end-users in education, corporate, entertainment, retail, hospitality and worship,” says Morin. “That means delivering the most cutting edge, high-performing technologies alongside the most proven and affordable technologies. Integration partners and customers tell us that in today's market, lamps complement rather than compete with laser, and we’re pleased to deliver the best of both.”

Otus

Free LMS feels rich in offering data-driven differentiated instruction

Pros: Extensive features and options for classroom management rival those of many paid systems.

Cons: Laborious data entry and high learning curve may intimidate some teachers.

Bottom Line: This teacher-created site solves more problems than it causes, but it will take some up-front professional development to take full advantage.

Read more here.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

By Common Sense Education

Spectrum Industries Inc., has introduced the Pivot Jr. Workstation, which offers height adjustable features, mobility and flexibility to be used as a student desk or small lectern.

Features include:

• Backpack and cup holder
• Height of the Pivot Jr. can adjust from 27-42 inches
• Available with either casters or glides

The Pivot Jr. is made of a scratch-resistant powder coat and high pressure laminate worksurface.

In Fair Haven Innovates, students from 4th to 8th grade follow the same design process. They use our design process to solve problems, create solutions, and turn these solutions into real products that they can sell to turn a real profit. If you’ve never heard of design, I’ll give you the simplest, best definition as created by my good friend and design mentor Kevin Jarret: Project-Based Learning + Empathy = Design. I can go on and on about how design-based learning should replace problem, project, and passion-based learning (this -based learning stuff is getting out of control), but what I wanted to share today was how I redesigned my design rubric a few months ago and have been thrilled with the results. Here are the 5 ways I’ve redesigned my rubric and how they’re having a big impact on student learning.

ADD IMAGE HERE

1. I Can Statements.

Often, we write rubrics from our point-of-view. Design thinking challenges us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. When I rewrote my rubric, I researched and tried to come up with ways to make my expectations sound like something a student would say after experiencing a eureka moment. I can statements came to mind. After rewriting everything as an I can statement, I needed to trim the fat. My rubric had too much information. I cut down the expectations of each design stage from 4-5 and wordsmithed them until there were only 2-3 per stage. Further, you can see I eliminated all the other columns of the rubric but one. With rubrics, less is more.

I also thought about language in the redesign. I tried to make the expectations as clear and concise as possible while using simple words since I wanted to create a rubric that students would use their entire time, four whole years, in my program. I’m really happy with the way my I can statements came out. I feel like it walks students step-by-step through our design process, captures everything I want my students to leave my program knowing how to do, and is much easier to understand.

Here’s a happy accident I’ve found after switching over to I can statements that has totally sold me on them – I spend at least five minutes with every team during class. During this five minutes window, I have been simply rephrasing I can statements into questions so students can tell me about what they’ve been doing. “So what have you learned from analyzing test data and user feedback about your prototype?” “How did the interview help you gain empathy for your user?” “What was the thought process behind moving these 2 ideas to the make stage?” Because they have the rubric with the I can statements in front of them or on their computer, students are starting to anticipate my questions and their ability to thoughtfully answer them has been improving. Now, I feel confident in saying that a rubric should help students be able to predict questions you will ask when delivering feedback. Reframing my I can statements as questions so kids can anticipate what you will ask them has been a welcome surprise!

2. Moving to a 1 Column Rubric

I was recently listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Cult of Pedagogy by Jennifer Gonzalez. One one episode she talked about the idea of a 1pt rubric. I took this idea and ran with it and created a 1 column rubric. To simplify my rubric, the only column with I can statements is the meeting expectations column. I deleted anything in the not meeting expectations column and anything in the exceeding expectations column. I then renamed these columns as Not Yet… and Yes And… because words matter.

If a team or student has not yet met my expectations, I hand write what they should work on if they want to get to the meet my expectations column of that design stage. I feel students have been exceeding expectations, I hand write why I feel that way or give them an opportunity to tell me why they think they’re exceeding expectations. I went this route for two reasons. The first, multiple columns/rows of a rubric full of expectations, that are usually only marginally different, makes rubrics overwhelming. Using this style of rubric allows me to give students targeted, timely personal feedback on next steps they should to improve rather than just pointing out what they did wrong with no clear path toward success. Secondly, leaving the exceeding expectations column open-ended spurs innovation. When I was teaching high school English, as soon as a student earned the first A for a project, students started to copy what that A student did. I’m seeing this even more frequently in Fair Haven Innovates likely because the class revolves around coming up with innovative ideas. Letting students figure out what Yes And is to them by not limiting them to what’s in the box has led to more risk taking and less copying. Use a one column rubric to encourage innovation and deliver target next steps to struggling students! I’ve been happy with the change it’s brought to my classroom culture.

3. Linking to Useful Resources

I encourage students to use graphic organizers to help them organize their ideas and plan next steps as they move through the design process. You cant click the links on the picture of my rubric, but I hyperlinked the appropriate graphic organizer for each I can statement in the evidence column so students can use the graphic organizer they need whenever they need it. With the I can statements and the links to the graphic organizers students should be able to move independently through the design process. When students complete a checkpoint, an assessment I use in tandem with the new rubric, they can submit completed graphic organizers during a checkpoint to show me they’ve be working through our design process and mastering our design techniques. If you don’t teach design, this evidence column should be a link to anything process related that will help students be successful. When I was an English teacher, this column would have been links to videos I made to teach students, say, how to write a thesis or transition between paragraphs.

4. Linking Examples

The last column, example evidence, will link students directly to a student-made example of that graphic organizer that exceeds expectations. While I am still building up my library of student-created “A+” work, the ability to open a blank graphic organizer and an example of the same graphic organizer that exceeds my expectations will help kids model better understand what I’m looking for. The combo of I can statements, ready-to-use graphic organizers, and examples of outstanding work will help students learn and move more independently as they get better at design.

5. Adding a Soft Skills Section

Long time readers of this blog know how important I think helping students develop soft skills is. I wanted to make sure my rubric had a section that gave students clear I can statements around the skills we are focusing on in Fair Haven Innovates. Include the main soft skills you want students to learn on your rubric, coach them up, and give them every opportunity you can to reflect on the soft skills they’re developing. They’ll be better for it. Because it’s like Patrick Murphy said, uncoachable kids grow up to be unemployable adults.

6. Rubric Storage?

I’m not officially including #6 because it is still a work in progress. I need to find a better to “store” rubrics. As of now I leave students with the paper rubric so they can take action on my feedback, but I also want a copy so I can grade them on their design progress over time. My best idea right now is to have them take a picture of the rubric and upload it to Drive or Classroom but that has been a pain. I might order the rubric in duplicate so both students and I can have a copy, but that also may be a pain because that means I’d have to hold on to paper copies, which, being I see 300+ students a week, would add up quickly. I tried translating this rubric into a Google Form, but I didn’t like it. Maybe I should scan rubrics into the computer? I’m not sure, but I know I need to find a way to make sure they have the paper copy and I have a digital copy of their rubric. Hmmm.

I hope you can pull out one thing from this post to make your rubrics better. Feel free to share your thoughts, opinions, and takeaways from this post, too. I can always make things better. We can always do better and we teachers are better together. Share!

Until Next Time,

GLHF

cross-posted at Teched Up Teacher

Chris Aviles presents on education topics including gamification, technology integration, BYOD, blended learning, and the flipped classroom. Read more at Teched Up Teacher.

Cozmo

A little robot with big personality brings code to life

Pros: Cozmo encourages play and collaboration while challenging students to experiment with code.

Cons: Limited classroom support leaves teachers on their own to integrate Cozmo into the curriculum.

Bottom Line: From Cozmo's engaging personality to endless programming possibilities, this little robot will capture your heart and spark imagination.

Read more here.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

By Common Sense Education

Are your students collaborators and creators? In my book Tasks Before Apps: Designing Rigorous Learning in a Tech-Rich Classroom I share strategies for collaboration and creation in the classroom with examples from my favorite open-ended tools, including the fantastic app and web-based Book Creator.

I’ve been a big fan of Book Creator for quite some time and have even worked with them to create and host a series of webinars sharing best practices for the classroom. During this school year it’s been very exciting to work with teachers and students on the new web browser-friendly version of Book Creator. With Book Creator on Chrome, students on a Chrome web browser can create their own ebooks and easily share it with their teacher.

Book Creator Collaboration Feature

Book Creator on Chrome has a few extra features from the iPad app version. In this post from last year, I share some of the reasons why I’m super excited about the web version of Book Creator along with details on its features.

Well the team at Book Creator has released a brand new feature that lets students collaborate with their peers to create a book together! Whether your students are already familiar with the collaboration features in other tools (like Google Docs) or they are totally new to this concept, you’ll definitely want to explore this new feature. The video above provides an overview of how this looks in action.

Collaboration in the Classroom

Why would you want to introduce collaboration in the classroom? Here’s an excerpt from my book Tasks Before Apps on the importance of collaboration:

“When students collaborate with one another in class, they participate in experiences that ask them to speak, listen, and apply their learning authentically. As educators, we want our students to be collaborators—to know how to communicate effectively, compromise, and work together to demonstrate their understanding.

Outside the classroom, students collaborate all the time, whether it’s working with teammates to win a soccer game or perfecting a new song with a band. As educators, we have an obligation to prepare students for collaboration in professional contexts as well.

Students need to understand how to collaborate using digital tools— to problem-solve and exchange feedback with partners as they consume, create, and interact with content. Collaboration is an essential component of effective teaching and learning that translates to everyday experiences and innovations.” (p. 58-59)

Download my free Tasks Before Apps poster!

Collaboration with Book Creator

How can you use Book Creator to foster collaboration in the classroom? With this open-ended creation tool students can work together on the same page of a book to add text, images, video and voice to their ebook. Students can make a plan, provide feedback and work together to create their book.

What is special about this real-time collaboration feature is that students can work on a collaborative book while sitting side-by-side and chatting during the process, while sitting miles apart and talking together using a video conferencing tool on their device, or during different parts of the day if there are a few time zones between them.

Since Book Creator is an open-ended tool there is no “right way” or “perfect project” for this awesome website. Coming back to the concept behind Tasks Before Apps, you’ll want to root these activities in the learning goals you’ve identified for students and leverage the features of Book Creator (like the use of images and voice recording) to meet the needs of your students.

Your students might capture interviews with local veterans to share at a community center, or snap pictures of a science experiment to document the steps they followed… the possibilities are endless!

Real-time collaboration is a paid feature in Book Creator (available to anyone with a paid subscription). But you can try it out now using the 14-day free trial. Head over to Book Creator’s website to get started!

cross posted at classtechtips.com

Monica Burns is a fifth grade teacher in a 1:1 iPad classroom. Visit her website at classtechtips.com for creative education technology tips and technology lesson plans aligned to the Common Core Standards.

New Mexico’s Loving Municipal School District (LMSD) today announced a new four-year partnership with Discovery Education that combines Discovery Education’s Streaming Plus digital service with STEM Leader Corp, a four-year system for professional development.

Through Discovery Education Streaming Plus, students can access a variety of digital assets including images, primary source documents, podcasts, oral interviews, books on tape, articles, videos, and more.Teacher resources include lesson plans, instructional strategies, and content collections organized around themes, as well as a collection of new STEM/STEAM resources.

In addition, the STEM Leader Corp capacity building model, aims to support the adoption of new strategies and best practices for building and sustaining a culture of STEM in their schools and guide them as they master new STEM instructional approaches.

For more information, visit www.discoveryeducation.com.

I recently had the chance to review the new research conducted by Adobe Education on creativity in the classroom. Their study is titled, Creative Problem Solving in Schools: Essential Skills Today’s Students Need for Jobs in Tomorrow’s Age of Automation, and covers a topic on the minds of educators I meet during my travels.

Creativity in the Classroom

When surveying educators from across the world, they identified key creative problem skills for students including, (1) independent learning, (2) learning through success and failure, and (3) working with diverse teams, just to name a few. You can read the complete research findings here. So how can we promote creativity in the classroom and turn students into creators across the content areas?

If you’ve taken my Writing Reboot course you know how strongly I believe in the power of digital tools in the hands of writers – regardless of the content area. As you design learning experiences that promote creativity in the classroom, finding the “right” app or website can be a challenge. I feature tools like Adobe Spark in my books Tasks Before Apps: Designing Rigorous Learning in a Tech-Rich Classroom and Taming the Wild Text: Literacy Strategies for Today’s Reader because they are open-ended creation tools and give students the flexibility to document their learning in a variety of ways. If you are looking to promote creativity in your classroom, the Adobe Spark tools are free, easy-to-use and compatible with a wide range of devices.

3 Ways Adobe Spark Promotes Creativity

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

Shmoop

Pop culture plus solid content equals legit learning

Pros: Well-written, engaging material that uses humor and teen-friendly lingo to clearly convey concepts.

Cons: Students can't record quiz scores or easily track progress through most of the site -- and teachers can't do much without shelling out some cash, either.

Bottom Line: Cleverly written content divided into digestible sections offers solid educational value.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

Turnitin

Encourage original work and give feedback with this valuable tool

Pros: Between the accountability and valuable feedback, it offers students and teachers a positive way to get real about improving writing skills.

Cons: Only schoolwide accounts are available, so individual teachers can't subscribe on their own; overall design could be improved a bit.

Bottom Line: Beyond the convenience factor, it's almost a necessity for the teaching of writing in today's digital world.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

Chalkup

Elegant LMS tool keeps classroom conversation, collaboration going

Pros: Courses organized well to foster collaboration and student engagement.

Cons: Hands-on, experiment-based, and/or math courses may find difficulty transitioning, but could benefit greatly.

Bottom Line: The rare LMS designed for ease of use, and it doesn't sacrifice functionality with tons of opportunities to maximize learning, collaboration, and organization.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

Showing videos or films in your classroom? Use TodaysMeet as a backchannel for real-time chat. With the help of a backchannel, students and teachers can discuss screenings silently as they watch.

Get more tips on using video in the classroom from Common Sense Education.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

inside mathematics

Dynamic videos and printables support CCSS math practices

Pros: Free lesson videos and worksheets provide excellent support for math teachers.

Cons: The resources provide guidance for teaching a concept, but formal curricula with written lesson plans are not provided.

Bottom Line: An excellent, free resource for educators who need support and inspiration for teaching and addressing CCSS and mathematical practices.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

MATHia

Comprehensive math practice provides teachers with actionable data

Pros: With built-in hints and constant progress monitoring, students feel supported through each lesson.
Cons: Problems are lengthy and text-heavy, and don't provide built-in audio support for students.
Bottom Line: MATHia's polished, highly adaptive design and clear, actionable data help it stand out in a crowded field of math websites.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

Henry County Board of Education (HCBOE) and K-12 analytics platform BrightBytes, today, announced the expansion of a multi-year partnership in support of the district’s efforts to scale personalized learning through an eight-year initiative that will utilize 36,000 devices to create a 1:1 computing environment across grades 3-12.

BrightBytes’ platform was selected, in part, due to its ability to measure and report on dimensions of student growth and success that extend beyond traditional academic factors.

“BrightBytes helps us to be able to measure the things we value -- metrics that matter -- that aren’t measured well anywhere else,” says Aaryn Schmuhl, HBCOE Assistant Superintendent for Learning and Leadership Services. “The data is clean and clear, the insights are helpful, and it is all in one place.”

Learn how to use Google Classroom's assignments feature to create and manage group projects for students. Simply create a new assignment, de-select "all students," select the student in the appropriate group, and title the assignment to clearly identify the responsible group.

Get more resources on managing group work from Common Sense Education.

Site of the Week picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best edtech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

Listenwise

Bring real-world stories from public radio into the classroom

Pros: Vast range of solid current event info and historical stories from public radio let students make genuine connections.
Cons: Audio-focused site could use a few more videos and images to entice kids used to snazzier visual content.
Bottom Line: A fantastic resource that brings both historical and current event public radio stories into the classroom.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

CDI Computer Dealers launched today the latest addition to its fleet of charging carts for schools – the mobiLAB® MN142VS charging cart from eduGear®. The new cart can hold up to 42 Chromebooks or Notebooks that are up to 15.6 inches in size. CDI is launching the cart in conjunction with TCEA 2018 (booth 1922), which takes place Feb. 5-9, 2018 in Austin.

Features include:

· Compact design with a durable steel and plastic structure

· Sliding drawer with cable management

· Front and rear doors that can be locked by a padlock

· 5-inch casters with brakes, plus a handle

· LED indicators for charging and power status

· A Smart Charging Controller to optimize charging time and prevent a power overload

· A lifetime warranty on parts and a limited 3-year warranty on electrical components

For details, visit: https://cdicomputers.com/education/mobile-charging-storage/.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

NOVA Labs

Online science, mastered: exceptional content within meaningful tasks

Pros: This is NOVA: superb, well-narrated science videos, now used to support meaningful, (fun!), interactive tasks.
Cons: Teachers will want more tips and pre-made tools for integrating the labs and the classroom, as well as options to accelerate or support students.
Bottom Line: Serious, sophisticated science engagement -- but be prepared to take some prep time to connect these labs with your classroom.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

Vernier Software & Technology has added 15 new Go Directsensors to its wireless sensor family. Designed primarily for biology, physics, physical science, and middle school science, these new sensors feature Bluetooth wireless technology and USB connectivity for data collection, can be used with more than 300 teacher-tested experiments developed by Vernier, and are supported by the free Graphical Analysis 4 app. The Go Direct sensors will be on display at TCEA 2018 in Austin, Texas on February 6–8, 2018 at Vernier Booth #1539.

The Go Direct sensor family now includes an Acceleration Sensor, CO Gas Sensor, Current Probe, EKG Sensor, Energy Sensor, Glass-Body pH Sensor, Motion Detector, O Gas Sensor, Optical Dissolved Oxygen Probe, Respiration Belt, Rotary Motion Sensor, Sensor Cart, Surface Temperature Probe, Tris-Compatible Flat pH Sensor, and Wide-Range Temperature Probe, in addition to others.

To learn more about Go Direct sensors, visit http://www.vernier.com/go-direct.

TabPilot is inviting all school districts using Chromebooks in the classroom to participate in the free ChromeTools public beta program through the end of the school year.

ChromeTools is a cloud-based classroom management solution providing a variety of tools that allow teachers to monitor and keep students on-task when using Chromebooks in the classroom. Tools include:

Class View: View thumbnail screens of entire class at a glance

· Screen View: See detailed view of individual student screen

· Screen Lock: Get class attention with “heads-up!” message

· Tab Control: View list of all open tabs and remotely close

· Open Sites: Remotely open one or more sites for entire class

· Site Lock: Lock students into one or more specific sites

There will be no charge to participate in the beta release. Pricing after beta, starting summer of 2018, is expected to be $3 per device per year. To participate in the free program, IT administrators can sign up at www.tabpilot.com.

Accelerate Learning announced today a new platform using the best of CNN’s digital content to create a new science education product.

Stemscopes Science powered by CNN combines the Stemscopes K-12 digital science curriculum with content curated from CNN’s news and current events archive. The science solution challenges students to innovate, create, and problem solve while connecting them to real-world events and issues. It includes a variety of assessments, from multiple-choice to claim-evidence-reasoning assessments, as well as extensive support for teachers such as embedded professional development and instructional resources to support a differentiated learning experience for each student.

Vernier Software & Technology has launched the new Go DirectSensor Cart for middle school, high school, and college physics students. The wireless dynamics cart allows students to explore force, position, velocity, and acceleration using Bluetooth wireless technology.

Go Direct Sensor Cart can be used for hands-on kinematics and dynamics demonstrations, but the built-in sensors can also be used independently.An encoder wheel reports position, velocity, and acceleration. Attach the cart to a turntable to study centripetal acceleration using the 3-axis accelerometer. Hang a mass and spring from the ±50 N force sensor to study simple harmonic motion or measure pushes and pulls.

Additional features include mass trays for adding mass, a plunger for collision and impulse studies, low-friction wheels for uniform motion, and exchangeable magnetic and hook-and-pile inserts for elastic and inelastic collisions.

To learn more about Go Direct Sensor Cart, visit www.vernier.com/gdx-cart.

I've had the pleasure of working with this company. All opinions are my own.

A few years ago I was searching for free, easy-to-use creation tools for students that were compatible with multiple devices. I was getting ready to lead a workshop for teachers on writing in the digital world, and I knew there would be a mix of devices in the session. I came across two awesome, free tools – then called Adobe Voice and Adobe Slate. It didn’t take long for me to see just how powerful these two tools could be in the hands of students and educators who were ready to document and share their learning.

Fast forward a few years, and I am still raving over the student- and teacher-friendly tools from the folks at Adobe. Now called Spark Video, Spark Page and Spark Post, these three open-ended creation tools from Adobe Spark have totally transformed the way students are telling the stories of their learning. From documenting the steps to solve a math problem to creating a portfolio to document their accomplishments to sharing facts about sea turtles, the possibilities for using Spark with students is truly endless.

If you’re a regular follower of my website or subscribe to my free Monday newsletter, you know how much I love the Adobe Spark tools. If we’ve met at an event where I’ve shared the Spark tools – like FETC this past week – you’ve probably heard me raving about these Spark or watched along with other attendees as I’ve shared examples of student work created with Spark Page, Spark Video, and Spark Post. New to the Spark tools and want to see what all the buzz is about? Click here to learn more about Spark.

Adobe Spark Announcement

Well, last week the team at Adobe Education made a big announcement that will make access to Adobe Spark and all of its features easier for students of all ages. Now, I’ve been on Twitter for almost six years, and on Tuesday I tweeted the press release from Adobe sharing this news… As I’m writing this blog post draft that one tweet has had over 400 retweets and more than 600 likes – far and away the most popular tweet I’ve ever shared. Click here to see the latest numbers.

So what did this tell me? I’m not the only one who was grinning ear to ear with excitement over the big announcement from Adobe Education. Educators from all of the world agreed, this announcement is a big deal. Why? Well Spark, and all of Creative Cloud will now be available to all students, including minors, with school login. The new School I.D. integration will let students access Spark and Creative Cloud apps with single sign-on. This feature means students can use their school identification to log into these applications at school or at home – letting them create anywhere, anytime! Click here to see the full press release with even more details.

In addition to the big news about Spark being available for students who are under-13, Spark Premium will also be available to all schools and universities at no cost starting in April. The Spark Premium features are fantastic. I use them all of the time to create images for social sharing, slides for presentations, and videos to share updates and new blog posts. I wrote two posts at the end of last year that discuss how the Spark Premium features can be used for school branding and personal branding.

Download –> my Spark Video planning pages or check out these other posts on using Spark in the classroom.

Storytelling in K-12

As a former elementary school teacher and someone who now works with educators and students of all ages, this news was especially fantastic. The fact that students of any age will now be able to access the Spark tools opens up a world of possibilities for children as storytellers of all ages. One of the reasons I love these open-ended creation tools is how easy it is for students to jump in and get started.

With Spark Video, students can record their voices to retell a moment from their day or to reflect on the favorite part of a book they’ve just read. With Spark Post, students can place a single word or short phrase on top of an image to explore new vocabulary or share a thought about their learning. With Spark Page, students can take a document they’ve typed up in Google Docs and bring it to life with images, videos, and hyperlinks. The possibilities are endless!

Why is storytelling important for students of all ages? If you’ve ever walked into a kindergarten classroom, you know most five-year-olds have a story to tell you. They might share what they ate for breakfast, a funny thing that happened with their puppy, or tell you all about the castle they’ve built in the corner of the classroom. Although older students might model their own storytelling after a YouTube star or blogger, or write a lab report or business proposal, students of all ages have stories to tell.

Head over to Adobe Spark’s website to learn more about these awesome open-ended creation tools for students!

cross posted at classtechtips.com

Monica Burns is a fifth grade teacher in a 1:1 iPad classroom. Visit her website at classtechtips.com for creative education technology tips and technology lesson plans aligned to the Common Core Standards.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

ClassFlow

Robust lesson-creation, presentation tool offers built-in assessment

Pros: An efficient way to deliver interactive lessons across multiple devices.
Cons: It's a tool that takes time to feel confident using, but can be worth it in the end.
Bottom Line: This powerful tool supports connected and blended learning from instruction to assessment, though it's best used to enhance already great instruction.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

A new research study, conducted in Washington State, suggest a positive impact in the classroom with the use of Microsoft Learning Tools.

The study, from RTI International‘s Center for Evaluation & Study of Educational Equity, shows evidence that learners’ use of Microsoft Learning Tools both improves reading comprehension by 10 percentile points on a nationally normed assessment, and that it ‘levels the playing field’ of learning for struggling readers.

The Microsoft Learning Tools set is natively built into the Office 365 and Microsoft Edge applications, and supports reading, writing and comprehension. The immersive reader capability in Learning Tools gives users the ability to have content read aloud to them, and lets them adjust settings to break the words into syllables, adjust text size or background colors.

Teachers found Learning Tools supports cognitive processes that improve learning. Learners chose the reading voice, pace, background color and font, the spacing of words, and how parts of grammar are identified. Teachers reported these capabilities gave learners from all grade levels a sense of greater control and responsibility for their learning. Learn more in the full report.

Boxlight is holding its second annual Boxlight STEM Day (#BLSTEM) in the United States and Latin America.

On February 16, students from schools with a Labdisc portable STEM lab can join the company in a hands-on, inquiry-based learning event designed to help them learn critical STEM skills. This year, students in Latin America, Texas, South Carolina, Missouri among others will use the Labdisc data logger to perform experiments that examine the relationship between speed, time, and distance.

For the activity, students will use the Labdisc distance sensor, which transmits an ultrasonic wave that travels through the air, hits an object, and then echoes back to the sensor. The Labdisc uses the time that passes between transmitting the sound and receiving its echo to calculate the distance.

Participating schools will be able to download a MimioStudio™ interactive lesson file or PDF containing experiment information, collaborative activities, assessment, and more at boxlight.com/BLSTEMDAY2018.

The first chapter in my newest book, The Kickstart Guide to Making GREAT Makerspaces, focuses on the seven attributes of a GREAT makerspace. One of those attributes is ‘Differentiated’ with the idea being that makerspaces effectively meet the needs of mixed-ability learners, allowing students of all abilities to participate, experience success and ultimately flourish.

One of the ways I suggest differentiating in a makerspace is to allow students the opportunity to take ownership over the process they use for making and creating. Many educators integrate the process of Design Thinking (or other similar models) into their makerspaces as a tool to guide students through the process of making and creating.

The Stanford d-School highlights the importance of iteration and making the process your own. In my book, I suggest several ways in which educators can approach this. One of the ways is to help students uncover and articulate the process they use to make and create through questioning.

In our makerspace, we recently had a student, Alisa, embark on a maker journey and due to the open-ended nature of our makerspace, she was led down unexpected paths. Initially, Alisa was drawn to our makerspace thanks to a challenge she saw posted in our space, based on the television show, Flea Market Flip.

In the process of refurbishing the old cabinet in this challenge, Alisa needed some wood. Our principal alerted us that the school had many old wood pallets, so immediately Alisa, with the help of some friends, ran down to get them. In taking apart the pallets, Alisa's project changed directions and she decided that before she refurbished the cabinet, she wanted to create something out of the pallet wood, which she had never done before. She decided she wanted to create a shelf. After some initial sketches, Alisa began building, sanding and painting. In the end, she ended up with a beautiful shelf, that is now hanging on a wall in a house, her first experience with entrepreneurship.

Alisa has not stopped at just that shelf. She continues to build and create out of wood, as well as beginning to explore other themes in our makerspace, such as computer science. Although Alisa was familar with the process of Design Thinking, she indicated to me that it really was her own process for making and creating that she has followed. Through the questioning strategies outlined in my book, I have begun to work with Alisa in helping her uncover and articulate her process. My questions and her answers below:

What did you make/do?

I made hanging wood pallet art with floating shelves and hooks to hang jackets.

What did you do first, second, and so on?

First, I got an idea by looking on Pinterest and social media, kind of getting a feel for what people have done. After finding something that looked interesting, I drew it out. After receiving a wood pallet, I took it apart and placed it in the order that I had drawn out. I then took the nails I pulled out of the pallet and nailed the boards together in the formation I made. I then took old paint samples and painted the boards, using different shades and mixing to create a distressed look. By using a paper towel I was able to smudge to paint out and thinned it over the existing colors. I then tried to cut wood and create shelves, but I realized that they did not fit slack to the wood like I wanted to. So I came up with the idea of floating shelves, and cut simple wooden planks. Then I drilled 4 holes and fed a piece of twine into each hole and tied it together at the top. I nailed a nail (also from the pallet) onto the top and placed the twine onto it. I then took new hooks and scratched them with sandpaper to give the rough look. I then screwed them in. And that was all.

What materials did you use/work with?

The materials I used consisted of a wood pallet, screws, hooks, twine, paint samples, acrylic paint, nails (from the wood pallet) and plywood. I also used a drill (to drill holes and put in screws), a paintbrush (to apply paint), a ruler, and a pencil. I used simple items and made sure to waste as little as possible.

What surprised you during the process?

The part that surprised me the most during the process, was how well it came out. Being that I was just experimenting the whole time, I was expecting it to come out way worse. But finding someone who wanted it and would put it to use, that made me the most surprised of all.

What frustrations did you experience, and what did you do about them?

I don't believe I got too frustrated with anything, but there were drawbacks. Design flaws that forced me to go back and change something, was a bother. Or even having to wait for something to be done (that was out of my control), took up time.

What steps did you use this time that you might want to use again?

Realizing what you have and what you can do with them is important and I will use in all of my future crafts. I will continue to ask questions and use my resources wisely to get the job done. Another thing to realize is that the ideas you have in the beginning will (most likely) not be part of the finished product, so adjusting is a necessity.

What steps do you think you want to try next time you make something?

Steps I would like to try next time to make something would have to be different style of distressed wood. Also different hooks, maybe even painting a quote onto the wood. Another idea is turning the wood horizontally and trying something that way.

Following her own process for making and creating has provided Alisa with a flexible, self-directed learning experience that has empowered and enhanced her unique abilities. In the words of Alisa,

It's all about laying down the first brick, then everything else just falls into place…

Cross posted at worlds-of-learning.com

Laura Fleming has been a classroom teacher and media specialist in grades K-8 and currently is a Library Media Specialist for grades 9-12. She is a well known writer, speaker and consultant on next-generation teaching methods and tools, and the author of the best-selling Worlds of Learning: Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School

LEGO® Education announced today the LEGO Education Master Educator Program for pre-K through high school educators located in the U.S. who currently use LEGO Education solutions in their teaching. Candidates should be passionate educators that embody the LEGO Education mission and are dedicated to enabling success for all students through playful learning experiences.

The 100 LEGO Education Master Educators will receive access to like-minded educators, insider news of special LEGO Education offers and events and recognition. They will also be in invited to participate in potential LEGO Education Master Educator gatherings and invited to provide feedback to LEGO Education offerings and programs.

Educators can submit their applications until March 2, 2018. Selected Master Educators will be announced in April. To apply and learn more, visit here.

I’ve had several recent conversations with friends, educators and non-educators, about discomfort. Many of them were driven bt the news of a school pulling “To Kill A Mockingbird” because it made kids uncomfortable. My Goodness! And, all of these conversations revolved around today’s students and how education treats them in regards to their discomfort. For whatever reason, fear of lawsuits, not enough resources to deal with the parent complaints, wanting desperately to be “short term liked” by the student, or whatever else it may be… education has fallen down the slippery slope of helping students avoid discomfort. It’s not the students’ fault...they’re kids! We cannot expect them to know how good discomfort is for them and their future self. Yet we help them avoid discomfort as if THEY know what they need. We allow them to blame outside forces all too often by turning verbiage into a perpetrator that we call a “trigger word”. Our focus has shifted to the outside force instead of building capability to deal with it inside the impacted person.

We are the adults and WE should know that real life will make us uncomfortable, no matter how smart we are or how well our intentions may be. Life WILL force us into uncomfortable situations and the only way to better deal with it is to engage with discomfort as often as possible when we are young and DO have support to help us learn how to deal with it instead of avoiding it. As educators, we need to model this for our kids. We have amazing opportunities for improving our craft, all around us. Implementing new instructional models, technology, structures, grading practices, etc.. can be scary and will be uncomfortable. Being able to model this for our students is a huge teaching tool we can and should leverage to help them prepare for real world discomfort as opposed to assisting avoidance.

So, how do we help kids “deal with it” once we commit to refraining from helping them avoid it? I think there are a ton of different frameworks that can work. Different people have different ways of talking about facing discomfort and tackling it head on. But, I don’t think this is a “one and done” topic for anyone. Like staying healthy, it’s a lifestyle approach that needs to be constantly fed. I feed my skill in dealing with discomfort with these three simple (it has to be simple if it’s gonna work for me) moves that I believe are simple enough to use with kids as well:

Find The Funny

There is comedy in discomfort! Having the ability to laugh at reality is a crucial life skill, even though sometimes the laughing is at one’s own self. One of my biggest areas of discomfort used to be the “awkward silence”, especially when in groups. For me, I spent a LOT of my life uncomfortable with the absence of sound. About 10 years ago, I was attending regular meetings led by someone who was magnificent at creating awkward silence. I absolutely hated it at first. Then a co-worker (also in regular attendance of those meetings) said to me, “You ever look around the room during the awkward silences? It’s hysterical.” That right there cured my discomfort with awkward silence...for good. If we can help kids find the funny in discomfort, we can help them laugh and laughing cures quite a bit of things...even discomfort.

Own The Squirm

A good chunk of my discomfort comes from trying to hide it from others. I’ve found that I can usually cut (if not eliminate) discomfort in half if I can conjure up the energy to make it known, to everyone involved, that I’m uncomfortable with something. Simply pushing out the words, “Holy cow, I’m so not comfortable with this right now” does wonders for me and the anxiety that buddies around with discomfort. If we can help kids own what makes them squirm, we can help them rid some of their nervousness that hinders their performance during uncomfortable situations.

Go Alone

Finally, the coach in me wraps up with “Practice Practice Practice”. Getting better will not just happen, especially when under pressure, even if we know about tips and tricks. Les Brown says “If you do what’s hard, life will be easy.” So, I do things that are hard to get better at doing things that are hard. I am constantly finding ways to put myself into uncomfortable scenarios that, in the grand scheme of things, don’t truly matter. I do triathlons for two equal reasons: 1. To stay healthy 2. Because it makes me better at being uncomfortable. Triathlons and the associated training are my way of practicing being uncomfortable, by myself, in low stakes settings. If I suck at it, nobody knows or really cares. It allows me to find the funny by laughing at myself when I vomit in the middle of a run. It allows me to own the squirm by talking to other racers about how nervous I get at the start line. I’m not saying that we should all be long distance racers. But we can all help kids find something to do on their own that initiates the practice of getting better with discomfort in situations where screwing up won’t have life altering impacts.

So, next time a kid (someone else’s or our own child) starts squirming, complains of discomfort, let’s help them through it instead of getting them out of it!

Sean Crevier is a Technology Integration Coach and Business Teacher at Vernon Hills High School in Illinois. He is a TEDx Organizer, Chrome Classroom Certified, FlipClass Certified, and Google Certified Teacher. Read more at busedcrev.blogspot.com.

Blackboard Inc. today announced a new collaboration with VitalSource, provider of “Inclusive Access.”

The collaboration provides students with access to course materials in an Inclusive Access model within Blackboard’s leading learning management systems (LMS), Blackboard Learn and Moodlerooms. The collaboration also makes VitalSource’s extensive catalog of digital textbooks and publisher learning platforms available, while also lowering the cost of course materials for students.

Features include:

• Delivering materials directly in the LMS
• Providing students with the ability to purchase digital course materials at a significantly lower cost
• Ensuring that all students automatically have access to the correct course content on or before the first day of class

VitalSource provides students and educators access to the catalog of digital learning materials which are consumed on Bookshelf, the company’s exclusive eTextbook platform. All content consumed in Bookshelf can be integrated into courses within Blackboard Learn or Moodlerooms.

The integration is expected to be available for clients of both companies in the U.S. in spring 2018.

At FH Gizmos, our 6th grade edcorp, our slogan is your problem is our project. It turns out, however, that our own problems turn into our projects, too. Over a year ago, FH Gizmos was hired by Slack to create a desktop toy for their employees. During the initial phase of our Slack design project, students worked together to create 12 desktop toy prototypes to send to Slack so they could vote on their favorite.

While the prototypes were out at Slack for review, we emailed every address we could find associated with New Jersey’s Manufacturing Extension Program (NJMEP), a non-profit dedicated to innovating manufacturing in NJ. We emailed them because we wanted help finding manufacturers who could turn our prototypes into real, finished products for Slack. The people who responded to our emails at the NJMEP couldn’t have been nicer. They loved the idea of turning students’ prototypes into real products and saw it as a way to raise awareness for New Jersey manufacturing, which has been hit hard in recent years, while also teaching students about the manufacturing process and potential careers in the field. The NJMEP introduced us to a machine shop that said they would love to help.

Around this time, word from Slack came in that the S-shaped fidget spinner was their favorite prototype. We sent pictures of the S-shaped prototype to our manufacturer and within a month or so, on June 19th to be exact, we got the first of the 100 S-shaped spinners we ordered. The kids were excited, I was excited, Slack was excited – and then school ended.

We had told Slack we would have the fidget spinners to them by the last day of school. We had missed our deadline. While I was disappointed the kids wouldn’t be able to send Slack the finished fidget spinners themselves, I figured I would just box them up and send them and share the pictures with them. But a week went by, then a month, then it was August. We still only had one fidget spinner. The machine shop who agreed to help us kept giving me reasons why they were behind, until one day in August he simply said he had to close his shop. We had just gone from fulfilling a manufacturing contract with a huge client to being back where we started in June.

Slack, let it be known, was nothing but wonderful and understanding through this whole ordeal. They too understand how much authentic learning projects like these can teach students, but I can’t lie: I was crushed. I don’t like failing. But, in the spirit of what I teach my students throughout our design process, I tried to learn from this failure and turn it into an opportunity.

To start this school year off, I explained to my returning FH Gizmos Innovators the situation we were in. Together, we drafted an email to the NJMEP explaining what happened, and a pitch for them to share with any potential manufacturers who wanted to work with us. In late September, we heard back from VEP Manufacturing who not only said they would remake the S-shaped fidget spinners on rush, but that they would cover all the cost for the first 100 we ordered. Two months later, we got our finished products and finally filled our order for Slack.

I share this story because it is a great reminder that the struggle is real learning. Doing great things, big or small, often takes a long time and doesn’t follow a perfect path. The authentic learning my students do in Fair Haven Innovates is often messy and imperfect. It can be hard and confusing. The correct path is often unclear, if there even is a correct path. Such is life. By allowing students to experience the struggle, they get to use everything they’ve been learning in school’s silos, in an authentic context while also developing the soft skills they’ll need to be successful.

I started working on long term, authentic learning projects like this with my students way back in 2013 with The Be About It Project. Then and every time since, not one project has ever been completed without a struggle. Persisting or pivoting through obstacles is something every student should have the opportunity to practice before they get into the “real world.” In fact, I long for the day that I don’t have to put real world in quotes when talking about the learning done in school because school will have been updated to be more like the real world, full of real and relevant learning for students.

Further, the beautiful thing about the struggle is that the struggle comes with opportunities. Through documenting our progress with Slack on social media over the year we were working on the project, FH Gizmos was able to land two more huge clients. I’ve mentioned before that my students having been pitching ideas to Barnes & Noble for the last four months. This week, students will make their final proposal to the regional buyer of B&N in an attempt to get them to carry our student-made products in their stores. On top of this awesome experience with B&N, we’ve just added another new client to the FH Gizmos portfolio: Skype!

Last week my students interviewed Ross Smith, lead engineer for Skype in the Classroom, as we prepare to help Skype redesign Skype in the Classroom. Here’s what amazed me about our interview with Ross and the overall progress we’ve made in Fair Haven Innovates so far: when my kids started with Slack a year ago, many students were nervous and unsure they could complete a project of that magnitude. Now, the creative confidence and excitement for this big design project for Skype is much higher. Where I had to speed kids up with Slack, I have to slow them down with Skype. Further, both with B&N and Skype, it was sharing our stories of overcoming obstacles that impressed them the most and likely convinced them to work with FH Gizmos. Had we not struggled, we may not have been in a position to take advantage of these opportunities. Understand, the payoff of the struggle might not be immediate, but the lessons will sink in overtime for students because the struggle is real learning.

cross-posted at Teched Up Teacher

Chris Aviles presents on education topics including gamification, technology integration, BYOD, blended learning, and the flipped classroom. Read more at Teched Up Teacher.

PrometheanTM, a global education technology company, announced expansions to its interactive flat panel portfolio which includes the ActivPanel® and ActivPanel® i-Series. The ActivPanel offers a natural writing experience using InGlassTM technology, while the ActivPanel i-Series is an interactive flat panel for customers looking to replace their projector-based systems with a long-term solution.

The ActivPanel automatically detects differences between pen, touch, and palm erase. The new instant whiteboard allows free-form writing with practically no script-lag, pinch-zoom navigation, and pre-loaded teaching tools.

Available in 65-inch, 70-inch, 75-inch, and 86-inch sizes, the ActivPanel provides teacher-controlled wireless screen sharing, connection to Bluetooth® devices for hands-on learning, access to free educational apps, compatibility with third-party device management software, central management by IT administrators.

The ActivPanel i-Series offers a bright, high-resolution display that does not dim over time. Schools have an option to add the ActivConnect® AndroidTM module to enable a tablet-like Android user interface and access to teaching tools such as the instant white board, screen sharing, and free educational apps. The ActivPanel i-Series is a maintenance-free solution available in 65-inch and 75-inch sizes.

For more information about the latest ActivPanel and ActivPanel i-Series, visit www.prometheanworld.com.

It's National Puzzle Day on the 29th. Learn about spatial relationships and boost your understanding of numbers by customizing and assembling these cool jigsaw puzzles that display symmetry.

courtesy of Knovation

Edsby® learning and analytics platform has introduced new ways to capture and report on evidence of student learning.

Because kindergarten and early elementary educators don’t assign traditional grades to young learners, they have to take unique approaches to track student progress, including assessing student learning through 1:1 conversations, projects and interactions with others. In partnership with teachers, Edsby designed and implemented a new subsystem in its K-12 learning & analytics platform to facilitate these types of assessment.

Edsby’s new evidence of learning features enable teachers to take pictures or record videos, tag them by standards or learning goals, share them with parents and organize them to document growth and streamline reporting on student progress. Through the system, young students can showcase their work to peers and parents.

The new features’ performance on mobile devices enable teachers to capture digital artifacts in the classroom from phones and tablets.

To learn more, visit https://www.edsby.com/evidence-of-learning.

Blackboard and ReadSpeaker are furthering their partnership to help instructors worldwide improve the accessibility of course content for their students. Currently, ReadSpeaker is Blackboard’s exclusive text-to-speech provider that is fully integrated within Blackboard’s learning management systems, supporting Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Now, as part of this extended collaboration, ReadSpeaker’s text-to-speech technology will also be integrated within Blackboard Ally as an offline audio alternative for course content. This allows students to automatically access an MP3 version of content added by the instructor into the LMS.

Blackboard Ally integrates with an institution's existing LMS and identifies common accessibility issues within course materials. The solution generates a range of more accessible alternatives of the instructor's original content including audio, Semantic HTML, ePub, and electronic Braille. .

To learn more, visit https://www.blackboard.com/accessibility/blackboard-ally.