Happy Not Perfect & Edmodo

Edmodo has partnered with the mindfulness app, Happy Not Perfect, to deliver educationally-focused mindfulness content to educators and students via the Edmodo mobile app.

In and out of the classroom, Edmodo can also support students’ and teachers’ mindfulness and well-being. On the Edmodo mobile app, students and teachers can access mindfulness content created by Happy Not Perfect (HNP). Take a brain break by engaging in a daily mindfulness workout and choose from unique meditations developed specifically for students and teachers. 

Out of the classroom, students and teachers can individually access the content on their personal devices and engage in a personal mindfulness workout or choose from the myriad of meditations.

In the classroom, teachers can access the HNP content on their devices and lead a whole class meditation by broadcasting the meditation via speakers. To help my students prepare for final exams, in the week leading up to the exams, we would take about 5 minutes every other day to engage in a whole class mindfulness activity. Then on the day of the final exam, we began the exam period with a meditation. While some students take the activity more seriously than others, I stressed (see what I did there?) the importance of dedicating 4 minutes to getting centered before beginning a stressful activity.

By making mindfulness part of an ongoing commitment to social and emotional learning, anxiety and negativity can be reduced, thereby helping students be more focused and prepared for the challenges they may encounter at school and in the world.

Quick Fix: Edmodo Quiz Timed Out

Edmodo is the hub of my virtual classroom, and the Quiz feature has been a time saver: from quick quizzes to final exams, Edmodo Quiz is my go-to assessment tool because all questions and quizzes are banked, the quiz feature has versatile security features, and feedback is delivered in a timely fashion to students. If you want to learn more about creating Edmodo quizzes, check out this post. But what do teachers do in the moment when students do not complete an Edmodo Quiz in the assigned time?

Before we even address the solution, let me provide some preventative measures:

• First, I train my students to answer all of the automatically scored questions first. This includes multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, and matching questions which Edmodo automatically scores when the students submit their quiz. Students can track their progress through the quiz by paying attention to the icons next to the list of question numbers. When students return to their quiz results, they will be able to see their correct/incorrect answers, so there is not an opportunity to finish the automatically scored questions later.
• Second, when setting the time limit for the quiz, I always build in extra time. For example, my class period is 43 minutes, so I set an Edmodo Quiz that is expected to take the entire period to at least 60 minutes. 
• Third, if the students need to finish typed-response questions, I direct them to type in the words NOT FINISHED in the response box. This small step will come in handy later when it comes time to score the responses.

By teaching students test-prep skills and allowing for some wiggle room, I can mitigate issues.
But, what do teachers do if the preventative measures did not work? Here is what I recommend when students get timed out of an Edmodo Quiz:

1. Reset the Quiz:  this requires the least amount of work for the teacher.  With a quick click, teachers can reset student quizzes easily. Students restart the quiz from scratch as all of their previous answers have been deleted. 
2. Typed Responses Only: this requires more work on the teacher's part and dependent on the types of questions asked because students will be able to see the correct/incorrect answers for automatically scored responses when they view their quiz results. If the student needs to finish typed responses, the teacher allows the student to view his/her results and can either finish writing their response on paper or a Google Form. The teacher can then either grade the responses on paper by hand or copy/paste responses from the form's Google Sheet and copy/paste answers to the comment area of that question on the student's quiz.

When we concluded our film study unit of West Side Story, my 9th grade Honors students were assigned to complete a summative test using the Edmodo Quiz feature.  This "quiz" is a doozy and worth a substantial amount of the marking period grade: students are asked to complete 27 automatically scored questions and three typed responses that ask them to analyze and synthesize information into a cohesive and concise paragraph response. I anticipated that students would spend about 10 minutes on the automatically scored responses (20 seconds per question, if that) and about 10 minutes per typed response for 30 minutes total on that section.

As first period started taking the test, I realized that some students were taking much longer than 10 minutes on their typed responses. Now, I could have been a stickler and said to the straggler students that they must finish in the class period and they will only be graded on what they complete, but I prefer to assess my students' understanding and not their time management skills in this case.

So, as we neared the end of the class period, I reminded students to answer all of the automatically scored questions and to type NOT FINISHED at the end of any responses that were incomplete or in the response box for any typed-response questions that were not started. At the end of the period, students submitted their test and moved on to their next class. Students who did not finish were directed to return to my room to complete their test during their studyhall period or after school.

So that students can complete their typed-response questions, I created a Google Form.

When students returned to my room, I opened the results for the test so that students could copy/paste from the responses that they had partially completed to the Google Form if needed.

By typing in NOT FINISHED, I knew to not grade the response just yet and to check the Google Sheet for the students response. I then copy/pasted the completed response from the Sheet to the comments area on the Edmodo Quiz question.

By having students complete their responses via a Google Form, I can sort their responses alphabetically and by class period on the Google Sheet. As I transferred students' responses from the Google Sheet to the comments area on the Edmodo Quiz question, I would change the color of the students' name on the Sheet to denote that I had completed the action.

As long as a student typed something in the response box, I would be able to complete the above listed actions and score the response without issue. I copy/pasted the students response to the comments area, typed in my scoring comments under their response, and updated the scoring box with the score.

The only snafu with this process is when a student leaves the answer response area blank. Edmodo will automatically score this as incorrect and not allow the teacher to adjust the score with partial credit.

While I can still copy/paste from the Sheet to the comment area of that question, I will need to manually adjust the final score of the quiz in my district gradebook.

While this fix for allowing students to finish Edmodo Quizzes beyond the assigned time may seem multi-faceted, it is fairly quick and allows me to authentically assess my students' understanding without their scores being comprised for poor time management skills.  The hope is, that while some students may initially struggle with time management, with continued practice students will become more adept at composing responses in the time allotted.

Digital Dashboard Document

This year I am trying a more transparent and strategic approach to my technology integration.  I've always been mindful of the purpose of the tool, but I wonder if I've consistently conveyed that purpose to my students and colleagues.  I have a plan. I know what I'm doing, but do others see it?

So, to get things started, I created a Digital Dashboard Google Document on which my students will see what sites we will be using consistently, the rationale for using that site, and an area in which they will type in login information---not their actual password, but hints or clues in case they forget. There are important class links to district sites, as well as extra rows for students to add additional sites they may choose to frequent.

Both Edmodo and Google Classroom give users the ability to generate an editable copy for each student with the file name and sharing permissions, so in the event that someone does not remember his/her password, the student can access the doc or I can offer clues.  Many of the tools we will employ in class allow the teacher to reset passwords, but I want students to be responsible for their accounts before I access my dashboard.

If you like this design, go ahead and snag a copy, customizing it for your students. In the comments for this blog post, please share how you convey the purpose of technology integration to your staff and students.

Snow Days & Stomach Bugs in the Paperless Classroom

You may have noticed that it has been a while since I last blogged... since November... which coincides with the start of swim season (look for a future post on what edtech stuff I'm doing with the swimteam).  Between practices, meets, and keeping up with the other day-to-day activities of teaching and family, I've neglected my blog, but today's surprise snow day offers up some "free" time to write.

Germs & Bugs
I've been wondering about the unintended effects of having a paperless classroom.  Up until this week, I've been fairly healthy this school year, but I was stricken with a stomach bug Tuesday morning, which just so happened to be the day after I collected a stack of department-mandated Quarterly exams from every one of my freshman English students on Monday.  Could this be a mere coincidence? Probably not, considering students have been absent for the same reason. So this begs the question, how germ-ridden are student papers? While grading papers may make some teachers metaphorically sick, I wonder if grading papers makes teachers literally sick due to germ and virus transmission.  I'm being serious!

I saw a post the other day on social media about the 23 things you'll understand when dating a teacher and thought back to the years when I started teaching and was sick with bronchitis, pneumonia, and strep or the years when my husband and I first started dating, and he was constantly coming down with something. Granted our immunity has improved over the course of my 17-year career, but in the past three years of bringing Chromebooks into the classroom and flipping my assessment techniques, I've seen a decrease in the frequency with which I've contracted an illness.

Less-Paper Assessment
So what am I doing differently with assessment?  How am I going paperless?  I still give my students papers (ask them about Baker's infamous packets), but the key is I don't collect them to assess them.  Since flipping my classroom, I am freed from the spotlight of the stage at the front of the room.  Structuring the period with student-centered learning activities, I can walk from desk to desk, ask students to show me their paper to read, ask them to flip the page over so I can continue reading, and then make quick marks and provide verbal feedback with my pen, never laying my actual finger on the paper. Plus, by speaking directly to the student face to face, the student has the opportunity to ask questions immediately.  I was always so frustrated when students would give a cursory glance to the comments I spent hours making on their papers back in the days I collected, scored, and redistributed their work.

Using Edmodo and Google Classroom, students are turning in their work electronically.  From submitting links to Edmodo discussion posts to turning in typed outlines on Google Docs, my students are generating an informal online portfolio of the work that can be accessed at anytime with a mobile device or computer.  Assignments are never misplaced in the bottom of a bookbag or lost after a folder has exploded in a crowded hall.

It has taken me a bit of trial and error, as well as help from online colleagues to figure out the most efficient ways to score online assignments.  Pairing Google Classroom assignments with the Doctopus and Goobric Add-ons seems to be the most efficient system I've come across:  few clicks to make, links and scores organized on a spreadsheet, rubrics pasted in to the Google Doc, scores emailed to students. I had tried out Doctopus prior to Google Classroom and it just didn't work for me, but NOW... holy moly guacamole!

Doctopus & Goobric Set-Up

1. Create your rubric for an assignment on a Google Sheet.  The first column will be the focus areas of your rubric, while the first row will be for numeric values.  Type in your qualities for each focus area and score.                                                                                                   
2. On a new, blank Google Sheet, go to the Add-on menu and select Get Add-ons, then locate Doctopus.                                                                                                                       
3. Open Doctopus and follow the directions in the side panel, selecting "Ingest Google Classroom Assignment,"  then selecting your Classroom Class and Assignment, and then attaching a Goobric (your rubric that you made in Google Sheets).  The add-on will fill in all the information on the Google Sheet, listing students' names, email addresses, links to the scoring screen, and the student documents, as well as scores as you enter them in on the scoring sheet. I've purposely hidden student names and email addresses on the screenshot below.  You will need to enter in the SUM or similar formula to calculate the total scores in the Grade column. For those of you who do proficiency based scoring, you can use conditional formatting to color-code the scores in the spreadsheet (which I didn't do in this screenshot below).
4. To score student work, click on the hyperlink in the Goobric Link column and the scoring screen will appear in a new tab.  
5. On the scoring screen, you can see the rubric for entering scores, a dashboard for submitting and advancing to the next student, and the student's document where you can enter in comments as needed.                                                                                       
6. After scores are submitted, the spreadsheet automatically updates and you can set it so that students are sent an email with the scores and the rubric is pasted at the bottom of the Doc with the appropriate cells highlighted to signify the scores.                      

So why do I like this system?  Well, after set-up, scoring takes place on one screen, and I have minimal clicking to get through the class set and students are immediately sent their scores.

If you'd like more information on setting up Doctopus and Goobric, take a look at this public Google Doc and make sure you send a thank you tweet to Andrew Stillman, the mastermind of Doctopus and Goobric.

Snow Day Papers
So here I am at home on a snow day, happily blogging.  But, I've also found another reason for going paperless.  Remember those department-mandated Quarterly Exams I collected on Monday?  Guess where they are sitting right now.  Yup, that's right... on my desk at school.

After being out on Tuesday and Wednesday, I was busy catching up on all the things from being absent and left them on my desk, thinking I will get to them on Friday.  Well, it looks that groundhog was wrong and the weather-folks underestimated this "brush" of a snow storm because here I am sitting home on a snow day without my stack of papers to grade.  Guess I'll have some catching up to do again....

Link to Posts in Edmodo

Every post in Edmodo has an unique URL.  Grabbing the link to a post in Edmodo is a simple process as shown in the video below.

Why would you want to grab a link to a post?  This is an easy way to track student participation in a group.  Rather than trying to tally up how many times a student posted or replied in a group, create an assignment where the student turns in the links to either the posts they created or replied to.  I use this method to keep track of participation in our Scribe City writing group.

If you notice in the above assignments, the students are posting their writing/replies publicly to the group AND turning in a 5-10 sentence reflection on the process which only I will read.  This step helps to build metacognitive thinking skills. Using this process of turning in a link to a post saves me time with assessing student participation and keeps the students writing.

Creating Student Community Writing Spaces

Using Kidblog, I tried blogging with my students during the 2013-14 school year, and while they did fine writing, we struggled with finding an authentic audience to comment on the 130 individual blogs.  I wanted to generate traffic with #comments4kids, but my district was very leery of having student writing set free in the wilds of the internet.  I understood the administrations skepticism and kept my students in a walled garden.  So our blogs became nothing more than online journals.

I know there are teachers and classes out there who are very successful at blogging, but for me it just could not continue outside of the classroom.  Quadblogging with other classes was out because I couldn't guarantee consistent access to computers for my students.  I entered the 2014-15 school year with PARCC looming and defeatist attitude towards blogging with my students.

But I did spy a certain kind of hope: my ELAFlip Voxer group is ever the wealth of ideas and support. And I asked the group if they would be willing to create an Edmodo writing group. Sticking with the theme of gamification for one of the teachers, we named the group Scribe City.  In this group, students post drafts of their work and receive feedback from students. The group is very organic. Teachers assign tasks as they align with their lesson plans. We don't have a set schedule for posting writing or giving feedback, and even when PARCC acquired all technology in my building, we could keep participating in Scribe City because students could access Edmodo on the phones or at home.

In Scribe City, students post writing as either part of the Edmodo Note or an attached Google Doc any time, and anyone in the group can comment. We encourage the students to comment on content, grammar, diction, style etc by providing constructive criticism--something that will make the writing better and not just confirm (ie "good job!")--even suggesting resources that would help. We also tell the writers that they are to provide an explanation of the task/assignment and state what they specifically would like feedback on or help with. We want students to engage in a conversation with the others about writing. General digital citizenship rules apply as students demonstrate collegial communication skills. Teachers monitor the group to make sure everyone is appropriate. To make sure the group is active, we let each other know when our students are posting assignments.

Scribe City has also become a haven for my artistic, introverted students, with one student making it her writing residence. Maddy was an Honors student in my 8th period 2013-14 freshmen class. Gifted writer, she was painfully shy and never spoke up in class. When I started Scribe City in 2014-15, I sought Maddy out in the halls and told her about the group. Giving her the join code, I encouraged her to jump in and share her writing even though she was no longer a freshmen. Without any additional prompting, Maddy posted her poetry and short stories.  She engage in conversations with the other students without trepidation.

Maddy's identity has been protected by a disguise. 

No matter what tools we share or strategies we devise, as educators we are constantly seeking out what works for our students and ourselves.  While blogging didn't quite work as well as I hoped, Scribe City has been success.  If you are interested in join the group, please contact me.  I also welcome any comments on how you've implemented blogging or created other places for students to write for an audience.

Evolution of the Lecture: Trojan War Stories

My freshmen students have begun learning about the background information for our study of Homer's Odyssey.  In years past, I would give a two day lecture to the entire freshmen class on the Trojan War, repeating the stories during seven 43 minute periods per day.  It was an epic task-- I had to keep my pace and remembered the tales as I channeled the muses, but I enjoyed every minute of it, modeling age old oral storytelling techniques: pacing, repetition, voice variation, etc.

Years later due to scheduling constraints and other curricular demands, the other freshmen teachers and I decided not to continue with the live lecture. I still would tell the stories to my students in class. But when I started to give the tales last week, something changed.  My enthusiasm waned as it became an epic task to keep my freshmen students focused for the lecture.  I tried. I really did, but when they constantly wanted to interrupt and needed to be redirected back to listening, I realized I didn't have the strength of Hercules to continue.

Not wanting to face defeat, I decided to take a different approach.  Saturday morning, I wrote up a 10 page script to go with my Trojan War Stories slides and I recorded a screencast of the tales.  Using TechSmith's Camtasia to record and edit, my 90 minute lecture became a 54 minute video that still made students focus on listening skills.

Anticipating that playing the video for the whole class would still result in me having to redirect student behavior, I pulled it into EDpuzzle today and spent about 30 minutes putting in questions in the video to check for student understanding.  I purposely chose where to insert the questions, chunking the material.

Tomorrow students will wear headphones, watch my lecture in EDpuzzle, complete the questions, and submit a reflective writing task in Edmodo on the process and comparing/contrast the live lecture to the recorded one. I am looking forward to the formative data and reading what the students write, and I anticipate that most will state that they enjoyed the video more than the live lecture.  I will share screenshots of the data and student feedback later.

For now, you can check out the Stories of the Trojan War as told by me, Mrs. Baker.....

Manipulating Texts: Unmagnetic Poetry

Since reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, my 9th grade students have been focusing on the concept of the American Dream, analyzing companion texts such as Steve Jobs' 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University, MLK's I Have a Dream, and Ashton Kutcher's  2013 Teen Choice Award Acceptance Speech. We close read them, answered comprehension questions, and made comparisons with how each text answers the question, "What is the American Dream, and how does one achieve it?" Wanting to provide them with a "fun" (ok English teacher's definition of fun) way to engage with the texts, I divided my students into groups and had them compose original poems from the words a la magnetic poetry. 

I'm sure we all remember the magnetic poetry kits.  I may still have a few hiding in a box somewhere from when we moved to our house four years ago.... Magnetic poetry kits are useful for sparking creativity, but there is no need to rush out to the store (or in my case, tear apart boxes in the attic).

To create the kits, I copy/pasted each speech into a Google Doc (Word works fine, too), played with the font and size of the text, and deleted common words, then cut the words out by hand and stashing them in their own envelope.  At first I tried creating word clouds of the speeches in Wordle, but the variation of font size and the way in which the words were laid out on the page made it difficult for cutting the words out. I was also running out of time and had to quickly devise a new method when I realized the word cloud wasn't working out as planned.  The Word doc worked fine and I varied the font per speech.

Students got into groups of 3 or 4, making a table top out of their desks. Each group received an unmarked envelope and got to work composing their poems and snapping pictures that were uploaded to our Edmodo class group. It was interesting to see how students initially maintained a linear structure for their unmagnetic poems, and it took prompting by me to try out other formations.

Towards the end of the period, I reconvened the class and we discussed their artistic choices and if they recognized the original text. Students easily figured out which speech was which, and we had a lively discussion about diction and theme.

Check out some of their poems below:

In the Teacher's Lounge: Using Edmodo to Teach Digital Literacy

I had the pleasure on Tuesday last week to give a webinar on how I use Edmodo to teach my students digital literacy skills and help prepare them for digital assessments.  My students piloted the PARCC last Spring and it became clear that knowing how to effectively navigate through a website will impact student scores on the Common Core assessment.  Not only are my students being assessed on reading and writing literacy skills, but they are also being evaluated on understanding how to navigate and use a website.

Watch the webinar to see what I do and how I do it.

Here is a copy of my Google Slides so that you can access the resources linked in the presentation. There are lots of Easter eggs hidden in the slides, so use your digital literacy skills and explore!

Interested in crowd-sourcing a catalog of digital tools that target specific skills? Add your favorite tools here!

#Flipclass Workflow: Differentiated Instruction

Chatting this morning with Stacy Dawes on Voxer in the #ELA Flip group, we were discussing ways in which we can differentiate and diversify our instruction for students, especially those who are ESL/ELL immersed in mainstream classes.  Thinking about how to use technology to differentiate instruction in the flipped ELA classroom, we came up with the following ideas:

• In your main Edmodo class, create small groups in which the students are leveled, then post tailored assignments to each of the small groups.  If all students are working with the same content, they will not know that they are receiving different versions of the same assessment or activity. Resources to assist that particular group of students can also be posted. Students can be in multiple small groups, but they can only see the content posted to the groups they are members of. 

• Using Edmodo's quiz feature, create quizzes designed for each small group level. All questions and quizzes are banked in Edmodo, so it is super easy to create custom quizzes for groups of students. Assign the custom quiz to the Edmodo appropriate small group.  Keep in mind that Edmodo quizzes do not have to be used as traditional test assessments.  Thinking about the SAMR model, the Edmodo quiz feature can be used for quick homework checks, group quizzes, and summative assessments.  

• Use Curriculet to differentiate reading instruction. Much like Edmodo, in Curriculet, teachers can create multiple versions of layered annotations, quizzes, and questions for texts and all versions are saved in the teacher library. Teachers can assign canonical texts or upload documents from their files or the web into Curriculet's interface meeting both literature and informational text reading standards. To manage assigning the texts to the students, I recommend creating reading groups by level instead of traditional classes.  Managing classes in Curriculet is very easy and students can be in multiple classes from multiple teachers at the same time.  So rather than having a Period 2 class in Curriculet, name your Curriculet classes to differentiate the reading level. For example, Level I, Level II, or Reading Group A, Reading Group B, etc. Assign the the particular custom curriculet to the particular group and track student performance.

• Newela could also be used to differentiate informational text reading instruction since articles can be adjusted to meet student lexile levels. Newsela is an excellent resource for differentiating current event articles. Where as Curriculet anchors the text with the question and quizzes being adjusted, Newsela enables the text itself to be adjusted to meet student reading ability.  Students also take quizzes to assess their reading comprehension. 

As far as classtime is concerned, students could complete differentiated instructional tasks on asynchronous working days or at home.  Teaching 9th graders, I do not give them free reign, but instead give them small chunks to work asynchronously, usually about 2-3 days at a time.  We will start a task in class and then homework becomes whatever the students need to finish.  If they were productive during classtime, then homework can be avoided.

While the above ideas are focused on ELA instruction, they could also be applied to all subject areas.  What ideas do you have for using technology to differentiate instruction?  Share! 

#Flipclass Workflow

With the start of the new school year looming, a favorite topic of discussion among #flipclass teachers is workflow.  Rookies want to know how to make flipping work with class procedures, and veterans are always tweaking what they do. Edmodo, Curriculet, and Google Drive are essential to productive workflow in my class.

Essentially, this is what I do:

• Organize students into classes on Edmodo with all resources, agendas, links to edtech tools, assignments, and quizzes are completed in Edmodo.
• Students go to Curriculet for reading texts.
• Students use Google Docs for typing up essays and other assignments.

Edmodo

Edmodo is my online classroom space. Everything that I do face to face with students is also completed via Edmodo.  From posting the daily agenda to taking quizzes to connecting with others, everything is done in Edmodo as you can see from the list below and public folder of classroom examples.  

I create a main classroom group for each level I teach because I want to promote the online PLN experience.  So all of my Honors 9 students are in one group regardless of period and all of my English 12 students are in another group. Students interact with others that they may see in class or merely pass in the the hall. When I name my groups I always use the following naming convention:  School Year & Level.  For example, 2013-14 English 9 or 2014-15 Honors English 9. 

• The daily agenda is posted as a Note with any attachments needed. I always date it and put a heading in all caps as well as a numbered list of activities for the day. I type up my lesson plans in a Google Calendar which is posted on my class website, and merely copy/paste from my plans to create the daily agenda.  Click here to see a sample.

• All work is turned in via Edmodo Assignments.  Whether it is a final project or an online activity or a photo of a paper worksheet, students turn in their work on Edmodo because the assignment is automatically added to Edmodo's gradebook or Progress area which keeps a spreadsheet record of all assignments assigned to that group. This spreadsheet is my working gradebook and replaces the students' three-ring binder. Students still keep a notebook using any method they choose, but I no longer have to do paper-notebook checks.  When parents, counselors, or administrators have a question about a student's performance, I have a record of the student's work at my fingertips.  I can also see the student's performance in relation to other classmates. I transfer by hand scores to my district's gradebook as applicable.

• All tests and quizzes are completed via Edmodo's quiz feature. I refuse to ever grade a multiple choice test by hand ever again.  From taking quick quizzes as a homework check to group quizzes to summative tests, Edmodo's quiz feature is my go to feature for assessment.  Click here to learn some tips/tricks and read more about how I use Edmodo's quizzes with my students. 

• Preparing for digital assessments, students complete quick Edmodo Snapshot assignments. Snapshot provides students with standards-aligned assessments for math and ELA. I can quickly choose the standards I want to assess and assign the questions to my students.  Edmodo takes care of the rest from selecting the passage to writing the questions. I set the due date and track student progress, assigning later Snapshots to address deficiencies. Snapshot will be a weekly automatic assignment for my students in the coming school year. 

• Students access Edmodo apps for automated tasks or projects. The No Red Ink Edmodo app is added to my Edmodo groups so that I can quickly assign students grammar tasks without having the students log in to another site or make more work for me.  Students also have access to other apps such as Powtoon, Pixton, Audioboo, and Dogo News for other online projects. I often ask my student to "Show Me" what they know using any online tool. 

• Students communicate and peer review in Edmodo small groups.  I break up each main classroom group into smaller sub groups.  I just go right down the roster and select students in alphabetical order.  The small groups then becomes a place to share work that is turned in or complete online small group tasks.  I may ask students to find a resource about parallel structure and post it to their small group or have them share copies of essays for peer review.  By posting in small groups, we are keeping the main classroom page relatively clean.

• Students are added to other main groups throughout the year. I will create other Edmodo groups for collaborating with others or delivering content in an asynchronous manner. When collaborating with other teachers and students across the country or globe, I (or the collaborating teacher) will create a new main group to which we add our students for sharing their work or completing collaborative tasks.  I'm excited to try out a Writer's Corner group with California teacher Beth Oing and Maine teacher Natalee Stotz.  This group will be an informal space for students to share whatever they are writing for peer review and feedback.  For delivering content in an asynchronous manner, I will create a separate group for each unit.  Check out this post on how I gamified The Odyssey using Edmodo. 

Curriculet

Curriculet is my go-to tool for reading instruction.  From uploading my own documents or articles found on the web to reading canonical texts to preparing students for PARCC assessment, Curriculet is essential to tracking my students' reading progress online. I've successfully flipped reading Romeo and Juliet and A Tale of Two Cities with my students. We've also read Great Expectations, Pygmalion, and current event articles related to the Great Depression and The Olympics. With Curriculet's premium library of contemporary texts being released this Fall, I'm excited to get my students reading more.

To use Curriculet, I create classes and give my students the classroom code.  I'm not worried about my students having too many log ins because they click on the "Sign in with Google" button since we are a Google Apps for Education school. Their Google credentials can be used to create and sign into a Curriculet account.  I assign an entire text to my classes and post a reminder in Edmodo for students to access Curriculet.  The students read the text at home or in school on smartphones, tablets, Chromebooks, or computers, answering questions and quizzes embedded in the text to check their understanding.  To see the student view, watch this quick video.

I use Curriculet's data analytics for formative assessment-- my students are allowed to make mistakes without too much penalty.  I take a look at their time on task and their accuracy for answering the questions and quizzes and give the students' a holistic score in my gradebook.  Using the OSU rubric, students receive Outstanding (100%) if they completed the task in an average amount of time and with an accuracy rate over 88%.  Students receive a score of Satisfactory (88%) if their accuracy was in the range of 78-87%, and Unsatisfactory (75%) if they completed the reading too quickly (ie. they clicked through the questions instead of reading) and scored below 78% on questions and quizzes. All summative assessments are completed in Edmodo as either an Edmodo Assignment or Edmodo Quiz. I allow students to have Curriculet open in another browser window while completing the summative assessments.

To see behind the scenes in my Curriculet account, view this video.

Curriculet is also available as an app in Edmodo, but since many of my students have smartphones as part of my district's BYOD initiative and Edmodo apps are only accessible on computers and iPads, I do not utilize the Edmodo app version of Curriculet at this time. For elementary schools or 1:1 iPad districts, I would recommend accessing Curriculet through Edmodo.

Google Drive

Google Docs has replaced Microsoft Word in my classroom. While I still access files I created in Word or PowerPoint, my students primarily create documents and slides using Google Apps.  We will have access to Microsoft 365 this year, but the simplicity and versatility of Google Apps have won my students over.  I needed a word processing option for students on smartphones and Google Drive fulfills the need. Students can complete notes, Do Now activities, quick writes or other journal writing on their smartphones through the Google Drive apps. 

We are a Google Apps for Education school, so the workflow is seamless. Students have accounts already created through school, so getting started is easy. Even though student Google Docs are shared with me, I still have my students turn in the link to their document in an Edmodo assignment.  Again, I keep a record of all things in Edmodo.  I'm excited to see what Google Classroom will do in terms of streamlining sharing documents with students, but in the meantime, this is how I used Google Drive with my students.

• For assignments, I used Autocrat and Google Forms to deliver individual documents to students. Learn more by reading these posts: A Gaggle of Google Docs and Creating Certificates with Autocrat.
• Daily directions, assignments, or Do Now activities are on Google Slides with the link to each presentation posted in Edmodo. Information is nicely chunked on each slide and it is easier for students to read than a lengthy Google Doc assignment.

Instructional Design

Edmodo is the hub of my classroom with Curriculet and Google Apps forming the spokes of our wheel of learning.  

The daily schedule may vary, but essentially I follow this routine in our 43 minute class periods:

• 5 mins. Do Now Activity and review of answers-- as students walk into class they get started
• 3 mins. recap of objectives and timeline
• 25 mins. asynchronous activities or group work
• 5 mins. wrap up 

This is my general plan per week:

• Tuesday: introduce a new concept
• Wednesday thru Thursday: work asynchronously or in groups applying the new concepts
• Friday: whole class teacher-led activity reviewing and synthesizing  the material
• Monday: assessment on the previous week's content

Last year I was 1:1 with the Chromebook cart on Mondays, so I liked having students take Edmodo quizzes or finish up individual digital work on Mondays because we had guaranteed access.  Sometimes I could get the cart mid-week, but it was never a guarantee as I shared the cart with four other teachers (each teacher taking a different day). So our mid to end of week activities featured BYOD, paper, and face to face tasks. While I do not let technology drive the learning in my class, technology is a vehicle for learning so our access to technology does factor in to our schedule.

I'm interested to read what others are doing with their students. So please reply with your questions, comments about #flipclass workflow methods.

Flying thru Social Learning Theory

My life-time flying experience is fairly limited: senior trip to Disney in high school,  a 1 once a year training trip to Ft. Lauderdale with my college swim team, a vacation to California 15 years ago when I first started teaching, another vacation 13 years ago to the Dominican Republic, an Edmodo-sponsored trip to Edmodocon last August, and now, a trip to CUE 2014 in California sponspored by Curriculet. Having always flown with someone else, most recently Liz Calderwood, I always followed the lead of others. This time there is no one with me, and I have to rely on all that I learned from LIz and figure out what to do based on what I see everyone else doing.  This is social learning in action.

I’m not a herd animal, but I am always watching what others do. I am fiercely independent (rather appropriate considering my birthday) and I rarely like being told what to do (just ask my husband), so this experience of flying on my own is an experience in social learning: I must follow the rules and protocols of the airline business or I will not reach my destination, and the only way to know the rules and protocols is to follow the leads of others.

Thinking about prestige-bias as an adult learning in a new environment, I was selective with who I modeled. As a professional adult on a business trip, I was not going to model my behavior after young children, but instead those who looked like they were also business travellers. As I boarded the shuttle bus from the parking lot to the terminal falling in behind the woman in front of me and watching her place her bags, I first realized what I was doing: I was observing her behavior and mimicking it.  After disembarking and entering the terminal, I used what I remembered from my last trip with Liz to locate a check-in kiosk and confirm my flight--recalling retained information.  Then as I stood in the security line, I craned my neck to observe the scanning procedures: what needs to be in the bin, where do my shoes go, what can stay in the bag.

There is the stress of making sure I perform well-- while I can make some mistakes, if I don’t pass this “test,” I will not be able to continue on my journey--exactly aligning with the threshold guardians of the Hero’s Journey motif (not that I’m calling myself a hero-- oh no!). The Hero’s Journey motif is a journey of transformation and growth, and through the process of the journey the main character evolves. In my case, I’m evolving from an inexperienced traveller to a capable frequent flyer.

Speaking of social learning, I am documenting my trip for the folks back home-- my family and friends will know I’m safe by my myriad of Facebook posts and Tweets, and my students will feel my virtual  presence in the classroom as I share my travelogue on Edmodo. So not only am I demonstrating social learning, but I’m also letting others learn socially from me.

Sitting in the airport, I make the most of the free wifi
and stay in touch with my students on Edmodo.

Curriculet & Edmodo: #BetterTogether

This week Curriculet announced the release of an Edmodo app version that allows teachers and students to use Curriculet using their Edmodo credentials and classlists. The app is a portal or gateway and opens Curriculet inside Edmodo. I am ecstatic about this announcement!

I've been using Curriculet (previously known as Gobstopper) for two years now, and I can't say enough good things about it! Get me started talking and I can't stop! But my one tinsy, itsy-bitty complaint--which has nothing to do with Curriculet per say-- is that my students continually forget their username and password. While Google log-in is also available for Curriculet on the web, there is at least one student who struggles with remembering his/her log-in information. Trust me; I've taught them naming conventions for passwords, but there is always one. Now that Curriculet can be used inside Edmodo there is one less log-in for students to deal with.  I wish more web tools would partner with Edmodo for app creation, because not having to worry about logging in is so valuable for students to continue using a digital tool.

Also, class creation on my end of things is seamless with the Edmodo app. The classes or groups I have created in Edmodo will automatically be created in Curriculet with just a few clicks of adding the app to my groups. Click on this link to learn more about adding an Edmodo app to your group, and click on this link to learn more about launching an app in Edmodo.

Here is a behind the scenes look of my classes using Curriculet:

While Curriculet may seem geared towards the English Literature classroom, it can also be used to support reading informational and fictional texts in History, Science, and World Language classes. I bet you could even find texts to use in Math! Please let me know if you do! Take a look at the screencast Edmodo Support Ambassador Mr. Jose Angel made for Spanish-speaking users.

If you are wondering, why bother to use Curriculet or thinking that the traditional way of teaching and reading a text works. Take a look at this inforgraphic.  When reading Romeo & Juliet, Curriculet saves me 50 hours worth of administrative tasks.  Imagine freeing up 50 hours of your time!

Shall We Play a Game (& Learn)?

Since chatting with Tom Driscoll via Google Hangout and Brian Germaine at the EdSurge RIDE event in the Fall, meeting up with Chris Aviles at Techspo14, viewing Mr. Lewis' Edmodo Webinar on Gamification, and engaging with my #TeamMAITs in class, I'm intrigued by the didactic nature of games. I've been thinking about how to use gamification with my students to restructure the learning activities to mimic aspects of a video game that encourage student involvement in the classroom.  Using a simplistic approach, I decided not to go full tilt with a backstory and XP spreadsheets and instead tried this out by first changing how I deliver content to the students. Because gamification promotes blended-flipped learning, behaviorism conditioning techniques and self-paced instruction, I'm hopeful that this instructional design will help meet the needs of some of my lower-level, reluctant learners.

Deploying a combination of 1:1, BYOD, and paper-based activities, I am able to give my students an opportunity to pace themselves through the levels. Scheduling consistent time in the computer lab, 3 days a week throughout the unit we are 1:1 with Chromebooks and computers. But keep in mind, while the students are allowed to go at their own pace within the window I give them, they do not have to work alone. Even when in front of the computers, my students discuss the material and engage with each other. The other two days a week, we are in the classroom using BYOD for group and teacher-led activities.

Instructional Game Design

In Edmodo, I created a separate group exclusively for our Greek Mythology and Odyssey Unit. On the main newsfeed, there is one welcoming message that provides an overview of the design and unit. All of the subtopics for the unit are organized in individual small groups, of which all of my students are members of. I also have all groups set to read-only. Students will access resources and assignments in the small groups, but all discussions and sharing of their work will take place in our original class group. Students can only see the small groups they have completed or are currently in. As students successfully complete the tasks of one group, I "unlock" and add the students to the next small group--my version of "leveling up". 

Take a look at this screencast to see the group set up:

I think this is an effective design because the students won't get lost scrolling through the myriad of posts that appear on our ever-updating class newsfeed. All content is organized by subject/keyword, so if a students needs to refer to resources on the gods and goddesses of Greek Mythology, they simply go to that small group and see the 5-10 items listed on the newsfeed. Organization and archiving of resources is much more manageable than trying to rifle through a three-ring binder or online folders. 

Also, I like this design because I will have student performance organized by topic/unit.  I see very quickly how well a student performs in this particular unit, as opposed to my district gradebook which keeps a running tally of all grades for the marking period. I can also use the Edmodo gradebook as my leaderboard for the "game". 

I'm considering setting up all of my units for next year using this "game" design with each unit having its own Edmodo group, and as I become more proficient I can incorporate more gaming techniques.

Behaviorism is a Game

Video games are behaviorism in action. We've all felt the addictive pull of playing a video game: look at the popularity of games such as Candy Crush, Plants vs. Zombies, Fruit Ninja, and systems such as Xbox, Wii, and PlayStation. We are bombarded with positive and negative reinforcement every time we play: extra points, bonuses, difficult levels, and the thrill of success. So attempting to mimic these elements, I use badges, positive comments, and quick tasks to encourage students to "level-up" to the next small group.

In Edmodo, I created badges specific to the Odyssey unit and award them as students perform. I am surprised at how badges positively reinforce the students-- they keep doing more to get more badges. I can barely keep up with them! Some badges are awarded for completing a level, other badges are awarded for behavior (helping others, quick problem solving, etc.). Luckily badge making in Edmodo is very simple and adding badges to a group is even easier. I'm torn though: I'm glad that my students are motivated, but I wish that they weren't so externally motivated. Then again, you can't have intrinsic motivation if you are told to do it.

Since the tasks in each group take about 15-30 minutes maximum, students can quickly level up after demonstrating proficiency. This was a big tip from Tom Driscoll: in order to keep students hooked, they should be able to "level up" quickly. So rather than cramming a bazillion assignments in each group, I created more groups with few assignments in each. This also helps to keep me on track with grading. I have caught myself procrastinating on grading big assignments because they take so long to grade, but with smaller assignments, I too can feel the success of leveling up and completing a task because I can grade a set of small assignments quickly adding positive and constructive comments as needed. By increasing the frequency of completion, we all receive the positive reinforcement more often.

I will agree that gamification seems gimmicky, but keep the notion of the game in mind. How many levels are in Candy Crush? How many can you get through in one sitting? And what happens when you can't get through a level quickly? Yup, you use up all of your "life," get bored and walk away from the game. But progress quickly and you find enjoyment playing. But I can't help wonder: Do we play the game because we want to, or do we keep playing the game because we've been conditioned to? 

I'm still figuring this out as I go, and I have lots of room for improvement both in design and execution. Look for some more posts on this topic and my students and I continue our quest. If you have any tips, tricks, or best practices, please share! 

FINALLY! Chrome Screencastify!

As a work around for not having screencasting capabilities on my Chromebook, I would do a Google Hangout by myself, capture to YouTube, and screenshare to record the screencast. Then I'd have to go back and edit out my initial clicking around to screenshare. While this worked, it was cumbersome and inefficient. I've been patiently waiting a Chrome screencasting app that doesn't use Java, and have instead been using Screencast-o-matic on my school and home computers. So imagine my excitement when Richard Byrne's post sharing Screencastify came across my newsfeed! After installing the extension in my Chrome browser, I immediately tried it out.


To record a tab, click on the icon in your browser and a window appears to access settings and start/pause/stop recording. To learn more about how to use Screencatstify, check out their YouTube video.


I had some issues with it dropping audio and frames and had to change the setting to 1FPS to record the following screencast and it wouldn't let me direct upload to YouTube.  Now I was using this on my home WiFi network which is limited in bandwidth, so I wonder if I would encounter the same issues at school on a better network, and I have 2 different Google log ins (one for school & one for home), so I wonder if the multiple log ins contributed to not being able to upload to YouTube. I was able to save the file to my Chromebook and then upload it manually to YouTube without issue.

Overall, I can't complain, and since Screencastify is still in Beta, I anticipate that any issues I have will be resolved with time as the developers receive feedback. I've waited this long, so I can be patient for just a bit longer.