Thoughtful Thursdays: Empowering Our Learners & Leaders

A big trend here in the land of Wisconsin goes with our state university at Football or Basketball Season: Teach Me How to Bucky. If you haven't heard of this before, watch the YouTube Video Below.

This video got me thinking so much about what we do to teach our students and allow for personalized learning and universal design - we flip the learning. Kids learn from watching how other people have worked through a learner progression, and rewind/rewatch as needed. 

With this notion of learning comes another thought - empowering our learners and leaders through videos. As my school is preparing for a 5-8 device rollout, we brought up the idea of having learning modules to teach the tech tools and ways to use them. These app flashes are not only universal and grounding for our students, but also for teachers to have an opportunity for those conversations alongside our students and embody the mantra of lifelong learning together with and for our students. What a better way to start our journey!

Have you done the groundwork with a student tech team around learning modules? How would you envision this? Share your ideas - let's collaborate together!

#OnWisconsin

Tracy's Tuesday Tech Tip: Renewed and Rejuvenated

I always love the start to the New Year - a fresh look at something new, reinvigorated for the second half of the year with my students! Definitely a fun time look at new things to do in the classroom, getting back to or refreshing routines for learning, and taking a risk for something you perfected over winter break.

Yet, in the start to the New Year sometimes comes that point of "where do I start," "what do I do," "what comes next," or, just a thought of "I need something fresh."

In a time of new beginnings, I wanted to share a listing of some GREAT resources where other educators and professionals have put together to share out ideas that are organized and just what you might be looking for:

Class Tech Tips is filled to the brim with ideas! Through a thorough summary explaining the tech specs and uses of apps or web tools, Monica Burns collaboratively shares her thought on the latest and greatest and best tech specs.

Corkboard Connections is a great resource from Laura Candler about ideas and structures to implement in the classroom. 

Free Tech 4 Teachers has some awesome information on it and great tutorials to learn from. Richard Byrne offers many guides for web tools and more within his website and is a great starting point as you are breaking into the #edtech world.

Smart Exchange is build for SMART Notebook files that are created from teachers, for teachers! View and download something that works for you and upload something that you think can work for someone else!

We Are Teachers is filled with anything from classroom management to lesson plans to grants and blogs and more! It's a great resource for ANYTHING Education you're wondering about.

As we start a new year, take a look to take a risk and make a commitment to trying something new with your learners. I often find when I'm trying out something and a little unsure and am upfront with my students, they end up teaching me many lessons along the way!

Looking for more ideas or to collaborate and share what you're doing! Comment and share out with us - we'd love to learn together!

Tracy's Tuesday Tech Tip: Reach Out

Two of our fifth grade teams of students are geeking out right now - it is the eve of their Google Hangout or Skype with Ms. Abigail Harrison, an aspiring Astronaut Student, and also Dr. Thomas Marshburn, a NASA Astronaut! As excited as they are to ask their questions and hear the answers of these individuals, I think it's safe to say that we as teachers are just as excited for this opportunity for them!

When it comes to tech, there seems to be a new app or instructional practice around every corner. Something new and "shiny" to interest us as well as our students. It's really interesting to hear the latest talk about the "next big thing" in their eyes, that they're doing - and it's ever so engaging and empowering when it's something where our learners can take the lead in for their learning to demonstrate their understanding around a concept or a skill. 

Yet, what happens when you get stuck? What happens when you're fresh out of ideas, and the tank has run dry? Herein lies the power of collaboration, which is beyond just the communication, but the co-working and co-creating with educators together to design new lesson and ideas with our learners in mind. From EACH OTHER we can learn so much and figure out what's best, brighter, and brilliant for our students.

Through this thoughtful process, we take our thinking and our students' thinking to new levels, with the trudacot model, or Technology-Rich Unit Design and Classroom Observation Template - click for more info - which couples well with our SAMR Model for technology integration. With this thinking and guide, we can challenge ourselves to how we can take our lower level thinking lessons to higher levels - moving our students to richer, deeper levels of inquiry, demonstrated with their uses of technology. 

But, as has been a central theme, it doesn't have to be big or the next Skype or Google or the coolest tech tool - it's about starting small with that collaborative nature of students and teacher in mind. It's those conferring notes and reflections from our students that allow us to see the process of their thinking, and our next steps as teachers to make the "educational magic happen." Go beyond the C of communication to Collaborate. Create together. Reach out.

Tracy's Tuesday Tech Tip: Start Speeding!

As I have grown as a teacher from my first year until now, I've taken on many new things into my classroom. I remember my second year where trying to do some project-based learning was something new and different and it totally freaked me out! Well, I ended up liking it so much that I began to bring in the technology, and my passion for learning, integrating and coaching about technology just grew into what it is today.

This year, one thing I have been focusing on is how I get and receive feedback from my students - what ways I can leverage my assessments so that they "make sense" and are engaging for my learners. While it's nothing new, one way my learners have grabbed onto is the use of exit tickets. I presented it initially by saying that "we've sped through the material, this is a way to let me know if I should pay a fine, or can keep going past the checkpoint." They loved it, and now when we use this as a quick formative at the end of the lesson, they will tell me they caught me speeding as they line up and hand it off. It makes my day that they're so engaged and like this method of communication.

The thing is, I could put anything on that exit ticket - have them work out a problem, have them write a definition or connection...it's just a sticky note and can become anything!

As I was browsing around for other ways of Formative Feedback, I came across a great Edutopia Article. Edutopia is a great resource about innovative tools. David Wees, a Formative Assessment Specialist at New Vision Schools, put together a presentation called "56 Examples of Formative Assessment."

What a great resource that is super easy to browse through and can BLOW UP the way we assess - both low tech and high tech ways are evident - but through these great strategies and forms of assessment, we can make our learning even more meaningful for our students to make it visible for themselves and others!

Tracy's Tuesday Tech Tip: Being a Play-Caller

When you live in Wisconsin, Packer Nation is everywhere. You hear LALALALAMBEAU about every-other-commercial break on various TV Stations, people bring out the cheeseheads on Sundays, and the bumper stickers are posted proudly on Ford Pickups and other vehicles in Packer Country.

Regardless of your fan support of the green and gold or another team, one cannot deny the importance of the quarterback, the play-caller of the game. He's the one who makes the decisions, sees the intangibles, and is responsible for key communication to all members on the field.

In many ways, teachers are play-callers - they are the ones who have their eyes scanning all corners of the room (for more than checking in on behavior). But they also scan assessments to regroup students, the expressions of learners' of confusion or understanding during a mini-lesson, and also the first to cheer on a new touchdown of a student "getting it" after a lot of hard work.

Quarterbacks collaborate with their teammates - they get other perspectives of coaches, wide receivers, running backs and more to truly enhance their craft of route reading and learning the intangibles. Those intangibles to us are the teachable moments - where something went on a path we didn't expect, but allow us to build connections with our team of learners.

Ever-important in this process is building our community of learners - our learning team - together. Creating a PLN as was discussed in SDW Tech Integration Now can bring new learnings and perspectives to the classroom just as an offensive coordinator does with the quarterback. Viewing teaching and learning in a different light allows us to reflectively tweak and modify for the benefit of our learners.

One way that has worked in bridging key learning concepts and strategies with technology is with a student tech team. Each of our tech team members completed both an application and training modules to get the job as an iTechU Team Member. This practice allows for these students to become the play-callers and lead small groups through infusing technology practices. 

Students have their own way of teaching. Often, when they've demonstrated true mastery of the skills, there is so much rich fulfillment in watching them take the lead. As much as I love web-browsing, chatting online or exploring new ideas, they are just as much of a valid part of my PLN as anyone, as they have taught me many new ideas and strategies for teaching when they've had the opportunity as play-caller.

Try out a student tech team today! Who knows, they just might throw a touchdown...