Tech Happenings @ LvHS

A user-friendly Learning Management System provides the foundation for online course content, formative assessment, discussion and lesson organization. Using the built-in assessment tool (or an external service like Socrative) gives teachers a way to quickly gather feedback, measure understanding, and demand engagement. Another way to engage in and beyond the classroom with an LMS is through discussions . Ours has both graded and open discussion formats, depending on the purpose of the online discussion. Open discussions allow students to engage with each other about class material, while graded are teacher-led and have specific requirements. Students can also upload files to the discussion, and comment on others. Ours even has a "hide other posts until the student posts one" feature which can be helpful to avoid the "yea, what she said."

Engaging teachers can be harder than engaging students. Their commitments to their students and planning and family and commuting and grading and everything else makes it very hard to command their attention. And getting the most out of limited PD time leaves me struggling with how to reinforce good teaching strategies, work with the variety of attention spans and needs of adult learners and introduce exciting new tools all at the same time. I've turned to a model lesson approach that leverages our learning management system, incorporates formative assessment, gives choices, and allows teachers to self-select their level of challenge. This way I can cram in many things at once and keep them engaged. It reminds me how much fun teaching is and how hard it is. Response to these lessons is really good, and evaluations are very positive. I have used my LMS to organize a PD lesson with the following elements: goals and objectives for the PD session materials that can be accesse...

Clickers are fun. Clunky. Extra piece of equipment. with a 1-1 program you do not need them! We need a quick formative assessment tool, that's REALLY EASY and REALLY CONVENIENT so that we actually USE IT REGULARLY! And don't have to pass out and collect and maintain a set of clickers! Who wants to do daily exit tickets with clickers?! and Socrative has one thing I like: it's REALLY EASY and REALLY CONVENIENT because the students don't have to create accounts, just enter your "room number" and go. Yes, you can download results, and yes it works on any device. Looks like on an iPad there is one app for teachers and a different app for students. I only see one app for Windows 8, so on Windows 8 students would go to the web site to sign in as a Student. Teachers could use either one. Can we embed the quizzes in our LMS class or lesson page? Looks like NO but you can certainly link to it, good 'nough.

There are several good tools out there for InfoGraphic development that students can use for free. Piktochart Glogster InfoGram Easel.ly ThingLink and I'm sure there are more! The weight should be put on WHAT goes into it and HOW to design it. The tool is personal preference.  ThingLink adds hot spots to any image. You could make your infographic interactive (like glogster does) by putting your Piktochart into ThingLink to add hotspots. I enjoyed trying out Piktochart, it was easy and flexible and fun. great templates. Here is my 10 min sample:

I have become so dependent on the simple snip tool in Windows that I wish my Apple devices worked this way. click, snip, save or copy. That's it. I also recommend "pinning to taskbar" so that it's there all day when you need it. I think the ability to pin the snip tool to my taskbar is what makes the huge convenience factor over all my other devices.  Here is a nice little video about how to use the snip tool if you need it... but you probably don't need it! Find it and pin it to taskbar, life-changing. https://youtu.be/kQFTIloeWbw

Hi, this is not great quality (used my galaxy phone) but here is a Photosynth which takes your pictures and stitches them together into a manipulative 360 degree environment! This took me just a few minutes to shoot and upload, then the program does its thing for a while and produces this: https://photosynth.net/preview/view/df2e9563-dab9-45e2-b0de-dc5209f4ee99?startat=0 Here is a sample of an object shot from all around, stitched together like Matrix movie view. How cool for students working on projects at home that they cannot bring in to school. It was my first try, so not great but you get the idea. https://photosynth.net/preview/view/1702605a-4e7b-4089-9c17-902832dbdcbb?startat=20 If you go on a trip to somewhere special this summer and want to share with students, or you see an object you want to shoot from all angles, try this out. Very cool. They store the big images on their web site.  Requires some downloads so see David if you are interested in making some o...