#EduGIF Guy. Speaker. Tech Integration Specialist. Google Apps for Edu Trainer. Nerd. #EduDuctTape Podcast Host.
In the 12th mini-episode, I talk to technology integration specialist and middle school teacher Mike Feldman about strategies–including gamification–that he used as a tech coach to motivate teachers to try new technologies in the classroom. Mike also talks about his passion for using a wood lathe to craft pens and how it benefits students when they see their teachers as makers.
In the 11th mini-episode, I’m sharing a discussion that I had with Special Education Consultant David Allan at the KySTE Conference in March. David shares some of the accessibility features available on Chromebooks. Also, I share a special announcement before the interview.
Today’s mini-episode was actually recorded back in early January before most people were aware of the coronavirus and well before the possibility of extended school closures came to those of us in the states. Ironically, I think that the strategies that Dan shared back in January could be incredibly useful in #RemoteLearning. If you are giving any feedback to students during remote learning, especially if it pertains to writing, please listen to this one!
In the 10th mini-episode, I’m sharing a conversation with Technology Integration Coach Dan Stitzel about the success that he had as a middle school language arts teacher with using Screencastify to give students feedback during the writing process.
In the 9th mini-episode, 1st-grade teacher Missy Paden and I reflect on the first iteration of the Educational Duct Tape Workshop along with Missy’s goal of using Choice Boards, her experiences with using tech in the primary grades, and her growth and excitement around #edtech in her 18th year in the classroom.
Note: For the foreseeable future, mini-episodes, recorded live and on-location at a conference or event, will come out every other Wednesday morning.
My 8th mini-episode features an interview with high school science teacher Christina Florence from the #TeachBetter19 Conference in November 2019. Christina shares about her plans to start using Scratch in her Anatomy, Biology, Chemistry and Biology 2 courses to creatively represent scientific concepts.
Note: For the foreseeable future, mini-episodes, recorded live and on-location at a conference or event, will come out every other Wednesday morning.
If you could be a fly on the wall of an average classroom, it’d be pretty likely that you’d hear something like “Don’t forget to study your vocab words tonight!” or “Remember to review your flashcards tonight!”
While there’s been a move away from the rote learning of yesteryear, most educators agree that having a firm grasp of content area vocabulary is still an important piece to the learning process. I think that there are two important goals for learning vocabulary in content areas: (1) retention of the words (sticky learning) and (2) application of the words.
In Episode 34 of the Educational Duct Tape Podcast, I spoke with Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, author of Stop Talking, Start Influencing, about both of these goals.
A week after that episode came out, I was joined by dozens of “Duct Tapers” in the #EduDuctTape Twitter Chat to discuss the podcast episode, including these two goals.
Below are some strategies that you can use in your classrooms to increase your students’ ability retain and apply their vocabulary learning. Some come from the chat and others come from the episode. Continue reading Strategies for “Sticky” Vocab Learning!
It’s safe to say that most educators agree that feedback should be given to students not just at the end of an assignment, but also during. Many educators would even say that the “during” feedback is more important, especially in writing. But, how do we do that efficiently? Reading & assessing student work twice takes up lots of time.
Well, I have 4 tips that I think can help.
By comparing a rough draft (or earlier draft) to the final draft (or most current draft), the teacher can assess the changes being made and decide if additional changes are necessary. It’s also a great way for teachers to see what areas for improvement students are and are not catching.
Google Docs offers some great functions for doing this. In this post, I’ll share 3 tips with you to help with this process.
Continue reading 4 Tips for Assessing Growth in Student Writing in Google Docs
This idea–a true moment of educational duct tape (using technology to solve a classroom problem or goal)–actually came to me while recording an episode of my Educational Duct Tape Podcast!
In Episode 5, I played a question that Linda Hummer shared to the Educational Duct Tape Community FlipGrid along with Abbey Thomas’ answer. Linda’s question was, essentially, what is an alternative to Chatterpix that works on Chromebooks? Abbey’s answer was Blabberize. And the question was answered! Or, so I thought…
After the episode aired, Dan Gallagher shared on that same grid some words of caution: Blabberize’s Terms of Service indicate that it’s not appropriate for all ages. So, in Episode 6, I shared this and then, on the spot, found a hack for a solution:
I’ve posted about #StopMotionSlides a number of times (here are my tips for making them) and they make a pretty good solution for this. Put a picture into a slide, use some careful cropping and then leverage a stop motion technique. Not only can you make the mouth move up and down, but you can then publish the animation (#13 in these tips) and then record them with Screencastify (or your screencasting tool of choice) with a voiceover (#14 in these tips)!
Voila! Not as easy as Chatterpix, but at least it eliminates the need of adding another tool and another set of terms of service to what you use with your students: you likely already use Google Slides & Screencastify!
Plus, unlike ChatterPix or Blabberize, you can have multiple characters, your characters can move, the scene change… You–and your students–can get super creative!
Here’s an animated GIF of the process, followed by a step-by-step breakdown.
Continue reading A Google Slides Hack to Replace ChatterPix or Blabberize
Ever wish that you could tell people something when they open up your Google Docs? Maybe “Make a copy of this document, answer the questions and share it with your teacher!” or “This is a draft!”
Well, it’s possible. Some simple coding in the script editor and you can make it happen. I know that some of you are thinking “Simple . . . . coding. . . !?” while making this face, but it’s true. Just follow the steps below and you’ll make it happen.
Before we jump into the how, or what it looks like, a few notes:
Now that you know those notes and limitations, let’s dive into it. First, an animated GIF of how to do it and then, below the GIF, the step by step with code that you can just copy and paste.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Another note: You can actually edit the appearance of the popup with some HTML and CSS coding, but that would take me longer to explain that 1 GIF can handle!
Credits: I learned this from one of Google’s Applied Digital Skills Courses in the “Code Welcome Screen” Activity. You can learn about adding some formatting to your popup in that course.
When my friend Dave Ternent and I started teaching a middle school STEM course back in 2012, one of the first tools that we selected for the course was SketchUp.
After seeing the awesome Matt England present at a local tech conference about his use of SketchUp with middle schoolers we even had information from someone who had used it about how to best introduce it. Matt was kind enough to share his resources during the session.
Based on Matt’s information, we had our students make shapes with certain dimensions as they learned to use it (see image). After that, they moved up to creating a 3-hole putt-putt (mini-golf) course that fit within a certain area (see image). They got very creative with those courses, which is great, but you could also extend this to tons of curriculum standards! Surface area, Roman architecture, volume, locations from literature, measurement, earthquake-resistant houses, perimeter, developing cities . . . I could go on and on. But I stopped using SketchUp. Why? It didn’t work on Chromebooks.
Until recently! SketchUp is now available on the web, which means that you can use it on Chromebooks! Check out the animated GIF below showing me using SketchUp. Imagine the possibilities for students!
(Note: this post previously linked to an “old” post from SketchUp for Schools. I updated the link to point to a newer post on 9.12.2020)
