#EduGIF Guy. Speaker. Tech Integration Specialist. Google Apps for Edu Trainer. Nerd. #EduDuctTape Podcast Host.
In the 3rd and final part of Episode 17 of Season 2, Jake continues his coverage of edtech ideas and suggestions for Remote or Home Learning during the covid-19 pandemic closures. In this episode, Jake shares the perspectives of 3 educators (plus his own) for tracking students’ progress during remote learning.
Teachers have been scrambling over the last week or so to figure out how to connect with and instruct their students during extended school closures. One of the first questions that many seeked to answer was “How can I do a synchronous video chat or lesson with my students?”
People rushed to test out Google Meet (formerly Google Hangouts), but red flags appeared quickly:
Well, Google for Education has reacted swiftly and effectively. Last night, they released an update to Google Meet for gSuiteEdu users. This update remedies the 3 issues listed above.
In my tests so far today, #1 and #2 above are already fixed. Issue #3, however, still persisted in my test and it looks like it’s because that part of the rollout won’t be quite as swift (the post lists that it may take as long as 2 weeks to roll out to everyone).
I have already seen some “too little, too late” comments on Twitter about this. I do NOT agree with that.
First off, if you switched to Zoom because of this issue with Google Meet, there’s no reason to switch back to Meet. You’ve got a solution that is working for you. Just stick with it. Don’t ask your students to learn a new platform.
Now, if you want to say “You were too late on this, Google!” slow. your. roll. Like every other tech tool that we’re using, Google Meet was not built for synchronous remote video lessons. They could’ve easily said “too bad, That’s not the intended use of Google Meet,” but instead they said “We’ll fix that for you.”
And not only that, but they went from becoming aware of the problem to fixing the problem within 1 week. 1 week! That’s tremendous.
Not only is that the kind of proactive, growth mindset, seeing a problem and fixing it mentality that we want our tech companies to have, it’s the kind of mentality that we want our teachers and students to have!
Think about that: they tried something out (essentially, a beta, as they call it in the tech world or a pre-assessment as we may call it in education), observed a flaw, listened to feedback and put improvements in place. In the classroom, we call that formative assessment. In the landscape of remote learning? We call that awesome.
In the 2nd part of episode 17 of Season 2, I continue my focus on the use of technology for #RemoteLearning, #HomeLearning or #DistanceLearning in the age of school closures for the coronavirus (covid-19). Multiple guests share their advice for formatively assessing students in these scenarios. Tools discussed include Quizizz, Zoom, Google Forms, Google Classroom, Screencastify, Edulastic, EdPuzzle, PearDeck, and Formative. Also, my son Cohen joins to show off his comedy chops.
The 17th episode of Season 2 is the 1st part of a special episode focusing on the use of technology for #RemoteLearning or #DistanceLearning in the age of school closures for the coronavirus (covid-19). Multiple guests share their advice for using live, synchronous video in these circumstances. We discuss StreamYard, OBS, Zoom, Google Meet, Screencastify and Flipgrid.
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!
Over the last few days, I’ve shared some of my most popular content from 2019 (top posts, top Instagram posts, top tweets, top retweets & top podcast episodes). However, it’s important to own the things that weren’t popular or successful. It’s also important to learn from those things!
Here are my top 5 Lessons Learned in 2019!
Here’s to more successes and more lessons learned in 2020! Happy New Year!
Mike Mohammad joined me in episode 28 of the Educational Duct Tape Podcast to discuss 2 questions that an educator might have. One of the topics that we discussed was learner profiles. Mike posed the question, “How can students create a profile of themselves as a learner to share with an audience beyond the classroom?”
While Mike and I did not discuss the it during the show, I want to quickly compare and contrast the terms learner profile and digital portfolio. While there are similarities (both are typically curated by the student, both showcase the students work in school and both are often done digitally) there are also some differences (typically, digital portfolios are a showcase of academic work and growth while learner profiles also often focus on the students’ capabilities, characteristics and aptitudes as a learner).
Regardless of which end result you’re looking to cultivate in your school (learner profile, digital portfolio or a blend of both), there are plenty of tools that you can leverage.
A week after the episode in which Mike and I discusssed this aired, I hosted a Twitter chat about the questions from our talk.
Here are some of the participants’ responses to the question about learner profiles:
Scratch is a block-based programming tool from the MIT Media Lab that gets pigeon-holed as a tool for introducing students to coding & programming. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great tool for that, but it’s oooohhhh sooo much more! In my mind–and in the minds of many students who have used it–Scratch is a place with infinite possibilities for creation.
That creation can be, well… just about anything. And that anything could relate to games or music or jokes or…. science, math, social studies, language arts, world languages…. you get the picture. ANYTHING. It could be a great classroom tool. Especially when put in the hands of students.
So, let me give you a little intro to Scratch. Let’s SCRATCH the Surface.
I’ll update this post periodically, adding a few new #EduGIFs at a time. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll know when new #EduGIFs are added.