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Artistic expression through clothing of high schoolers.

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Mr. Cote and the kids talk about fun times at Heritage. by Heritage Podcast

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Mr. Cote and the kids talk about fun times at Heritage. by Heritage Podcast

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Flipgrid with Bethany by Ready to Innovate!

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Flipgrid with Bethany by Ready to Innovate!

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This episode is a quick look into how flipgrid can be used in the classroom to help students who are struggling.

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Station Rotation with Targeted Pull-Out.pdf

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Find content's deeper meaning

"By telling thoughtful stories, we clarify our own thinking about what we have learned to share with others in a profound way that sticks with us over time."
-Annette Simmons, The Story Factor

In an age of mathematical, logical, and scientific thinking, storytelling is often considered appropriate only for language arts projects for young learners. However, in today's information-loaded world, storytelling is being rediscovered as an effective tool for helping us make sense of this data barrage. According to the brain research explored by Roger Shanks, storytelling provides a memory structure and depth of context that engages learners in a sense-making of facts.

The digital storytelling process helps us transform isolated facts into illuminated, enduring understandings. By "living in the story," we make information come emotionally alive. By exploring "lessons learned," we go beyond telling about content to find its deeper meaning.

Storytelling Builds 21st-Century Skills

Creating digital stories provides us with important opportunities to practice and master a number of specific 21st-century skills, content, and technology standards (NETS). The process of crafting the digital story becomes rich in technical, communication, collaborative, oral speaking, creativity, visual and sound literacy, and project management skills. It also helps develop a range of digital communication styles necessary to function in a knowledge society. Since every good story requires great content that is worth sharing, digital storytellers must first become "meaning makers." The written script requires deep understanding of the topic. From initial investigation to rough draft and then through refinement as draft after draft is polished and improved, writing should take about 40% of the project-building time.

Building 21st-Century Skills

1. Creativity and inventive thinking

2. Multiple intelligences

3. Higher-order thinking (lessons learned)

4. Information literacy

5. Visual literacy

6. Sound literacy

7. Technical literacy

8. Effective communication (oral, written, and digital)

9. Teamwork and collaboration

10. Project management

11. Enduring understandings

The final narrative script is next recorded as a voiceover for the story. The author must work to ensure that the oral delivery has power and emotion. When an author "feels" his or her words, the voice becomes a conduit for others to experience the message.

Storytelling enables innovation and creativity. Authors become creative in designing information and communicating understandings with the images, graphics, movement, and music of digital media. Digital storytelling provides a unique opportunity to mix and dance media together until they coalesce into something that did not exist before.

Communication Across the Curriculum

Organizing story prompts around the type of communication expected of authors helps focus students as they develop the content of their stories. Here are four ideas for types of communication that connect storytelling with curriculum.

1. Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales

Myths, legends, and tall tales provide a familiar place to start. Most families and organizations use legends to represent values and pride. Myths help explain our cultural origins, values, and beliefs. Tall tales are romanticized exaggerations that highlight accomplishments or events. Justine, a classroom teacher in Arizona, has invited her third-grade students to create a multimedia tall tale about themselves, exaggerating their great qualities and achievements in a way that will be passed down to family and friends for generations to come.

Create a myth about the origins of a modern-day invention to share with future generations.

Develop myths from "what would happen if."

Create myths of "how things came to be" in your life, family, school, or business.

Change a current event into a tall tale or myth.

Develop a legend of a family member's life or accomplishments.

Create a legend of your own life for your great, great grandchildren to pass on.

Create a fractured fairy tale using something from your own life.

Create legends or tall tales of a literary character, mathematical concept, or social studies event.

2. Docudramas

Story prompts asking students to act as if they are living in the times or events they are studying helps make facts come alive for both authors and the audience. These docudramas require students to conduct in-depth research and practice their creativity to role-play a storytelling narrative as George Washington, a freed slave, a character in literature, the life of pi squared, a circle's happiest accomplishments, or the lessons a Granny Smith apple learns from her life cycle.

Docudramas require learners to "step into the shoes" of a person or an object as a creative personal approach for weaving together significant facts. The event, person, or learning experience is expressed first-person, during which students demonstrate understanding of key concepts and deliver a lesson learned to reveal deeper thinking about their topics.

Jeanne Halderson's Coulee Kids Podcasting students developed a community project honoring the contributions of women to their town. After the interviews were recorded and posted to iTunes, students created docudramas and reenacted the events and stories shared by the interviewees, synthesizing the entire interview and crafting a personal story showcasing the lesson learned.

Create the storytelling journey of a leaf eaten by an earthworm. Make the facts come alive from beginning to end as if you were one of the digestive parts along the way.

Be the youngest child of a Japanese family living in California, unfolding the facts and emotional experience of the Japanese internment camps.

Be a decimal point, sharing your journey of being misunderstood and needing to clearly make a difference in the world.

Be a literary, scientific, or historical character sharing a defining moment when a choice you made touched the world forever.

Dialogue with another person across other eras or time periods, sharing your perspective and lessons learned on issues and events.

Dialogue as parts of the brain on memorable experiences with the body.

Be the pen that signed the Declaration of Independence, a treaty, or one of the Amendments, and explain how your life has impacted the lives of countless others.

Thread the beads of your facts together with a plot, so they don't roll away.
-Annette Simmons, The Story Factor

3. Describe and Conclude

Describe and conclude tasks often require students to simply tell about a topic. To deepen the learning, ask students to share the wisdom of what they learned from the topic-the "so what?" developed from learning about people, events, or situations. A personal point of view can be added by asking: how does the event affect my life, thinking, or beliefs? How does knowing the facts about a famous person or event influence my own thinking or beliefs? This type of storytelling reflects the author's full intellectual and personal engagement with the subject, not just a reporting of facts and information.

Describe an event and why it matters, connects, or makes a difference to our humanity or communities today.

Tell about a person and what his or her life or work has taught us-or perhaps how his or her work or choices in life continue to touch our lives today.

Describe bees and what you now realize about their contribution or importance to our world.

4. Advertising or Public Service Announcements

This type of digital storytelling uses the power of personal appeal along with voice, music, and images to create influence and impact. Authors combine their personal messages with the lessons learned to provide a compelling call to action. A popular television version of this approach is the "Above the Influence" series calling attention to the consequences of choices made or not made.

Help convince others to make better choices by sharing a defining moment when a decision or experience (e.g., drugs, guns, Internet chat rooms, dropping out of school, drinking, smoking, recycling our garbage, helping a friend, or stopping the bullying of others) changed or touched lives forever.

Be a squirrel, eagle, bear, whale, or toucan convincing others to take care of the environment through a personal story of what happens when you do or what happens when you do not.

Telling stories together about things that really matter has an extraordinary effect on people. This effect is further magnified when the story is distributed and related meaningfully to the world community through the Web. May your students discover the magical power of releasing their own storytelling into your communities!

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Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum

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"By telling thoughtful stories, we clarify our own thinking about what we have learned to share with others in a profound way that sticks with us over time."-Annette Simmons, The Story Factor In an age of mathematical, logical, and scientific thinking, storytelling is often considered appropriate only for language arts projects for young learners.

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Articles to help you use digital storytelling to engage students in deeper thinking and help them become powerful communicators in today's digital world.

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Digital Storytelling Featured Apps Final4

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Develop higher-order thinking skills and engage students with technology tools

It's difficult to think about doing creative, authentic projects with students when the school is consumed with test prep fever and the state tests are just a week away. Testing has, indeed, had a tremendous impact on curriculum and instruction in our schools.

While tests give us benchmark data on where students are with knowledge and skill development, they often fall short of helping students develop the higher level thinking skills that 21st century students need for a technological workplace.

Creative projects, on the other hand, almost always engage students in analytical and evaluative thinking. They are not about giving the right answer; rather, they are all about extending information to find solutions or develop new ideas.

Over 50 years ago, Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues developed a framework for determining the extent to which objectives and activities engaged students in higher-level thinking. Known as Bloom's Taxonomy, it became the standard for educators to use in creating activities that use higher-level skills. Bloom's taxonomy covered three areas: cognitive (mental development), affective (attitude), and psychomotor (physical skills). The cognitive taxonomy relates to helping students learn content and skills to solve problems.

Within the past few years, David Krathwhol, who was on the original Bloom project, met with others to update the taxonomy. A comparison of the original and revised taxonomies appears below. In the revised taxonomy, the categories have changed from nouns to verbs, reflecting teacher and student actions. Some categories have also been changed, such as evaluate moving to a lower place on the taxonomy, to show a more logical progression of thought.

As teachers, we need to be aware of the level of thought of activities so we can be assured that we are providing a variety of experiences for our students and helping them develop higher levels of thinking. It is important to remember, though, that students can't just jump to creating complex products and ideas (the highest level) if they haven't mastered some lower level skills such as remembering and understanding. If students don't remember or understand the information they are studying, they are unlikely to be able to apply it in a new situation or analyze and evaluate it to develop products or ideas.

Implementing Technology Projects that Develop Higher Level Thinking

Let's take a look at some typical topics that are covered in the classroom. Starting with a traditional approach to teaching these topics, let's see how the revised Bloom's Taxonomy might illustrate how higher levels of thinking are promoted.

After reading a story about the farm, students traditionally write a fact about an animal (Remember) and draw a picture to illustrate to show the fact (Understand). In the Let's Go To the Farm! lesson, students use Pixie or Wixie to create a class Web site about farm animals. This Web site will provide information about what each farm animal eats, the animal's job on the farm, the sound the farm animal makes, and a picture of the animal. While this lesson certainly includes the same lower level thinking skills a traditional approach uses, it also requires students to analyze the material, make decisions, and create an end product that showed understanding.

Historical Figures

After watching a movie about a historical figure, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., students traditionally write a report about his life using facts they have learned (Remember) to show comprehension (Understand). In the Design a New Dollar Coin lesson, students use their visual skills and Share to create a coin design that represents the work of a person who impacted history and write persuasively about why this person should be honored on this new dollar coin. While the first activity could have merit and might be aligned with standards, it does not have the higher level of thought that this coin project has.

Angles

In a traditional classroom, the teacher shows a series of angles in pictures of real objects and students name (Remember) the type of angle shown (Understand). In the Angles all Around lesson, students use a digital camera to identify and capture their own examples of different types of angles they find around their school. They use Pixie or Wixie to identify the type of angle by painting on the image.

In the hands of a good teacher, the traditional examples could also involve some levels of analyzing and evaluating, but these higher level processes are not inherent in the activities. Projects work because students must engage in higher thought to develop an end-product of quality.

A Quick Strategy for Assessing the Level of Activities

Not all lessons or projects involve all levels of Bloom's. That's fine, because to engage students in very involved projects all the time would take more classroom time than most teachers have. There is a time and place for more didactic, lower level lessons.

A quick way to check on the level of the lesson is to answer these two questions.

1. What will the students (not the teacher) be doing in this lesson, recalling and showing understanding (lower) or analyzing and evaluating to create a product (higher)?

2. Will students be expected to respond with specific, known answers (lower) or will they be asked to generate original thought (higher)?

The answers will give us a snapshot of the levels of thought in our lessons. If students are predominately responding with the right answer and are demonstrating that they understand a concept, then the lesson is lower level. If the lesson's objective is to show that students comprehend the material, then lower level activities are appropriate. On the other hand, if the objective is to extend basic knowledge and apply it to new situations to develop a new product or idea, then the response to the two questions should reflect higher level thought.

One way teachers can get an overview of the Bloom level is to review their plan book over the course of a typical week. After asking the two questions above about each lesson, they can mark the lesson either L (low level) or H (high level). Looking over the course of a week or longer will reveal a pattern of lower and higher level activities. It is up to the teacher to decide if the balance is appropriate.

The bottom line on all of our teaching is to have students learn, not just for "the test" but for successful performance throughout life. A good balance of lower and higher level experiences will help students develop a solid background of content and skills as well as the analytical and evaluative tools to apply them. Creative projects are a proven way to engage students at higher levels. By using projects in balance with content and skill development activities, we will be preparing our students well for the future.

References

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives: Complete edition. New York, Longman.

Bloom, B. S. & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.) (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals, by a committee of college and university examiners. Handbook 1: Cognitive domain. New York, Longman.

by David Cochran, Ed.D.

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Stay creative with Wixie!

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It's difficult to think about doing creative, authentic projects with students when the school is consumed with test prep fever and the state tests are just a week away. Testing has, indeed, had a tremendous impact on curriculum and instruction in our schools.

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Free interactive classroom resources - Get activities, games and SMART Notebook lessons created by teachers for teachers

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The pressure is on, and educators are feeling it more and more.

Principals and school boards everywhere are requiring teachers to integrate technology into the classroom. Sometimes, the change is as simple as adding a computer class to the curriculum, other times it requires teachers to literally flip their entire lesson plan into a hi-tech beast!

Although these flipped classrooms give students an edge, they may also give their teachers a headache! Don't worry, I'm here to show you that whether you teach 2nd-grade math or high school biology there is a simple way to 'techify' your existing lesson plans.
Sit back and check out these 13 ways to integrate technology into any lesson!
1. Mission Impossible Challenge - Present a challenge to your students with this super engaging " Mission impossible" Template, complete with spy music! All you do is add your own images and Text!

2. Skype an Expert - The 'Live' version of anything online is awesome. Simply get in touch with an expert in any field, (this can be a college professor, the local museum curator, or even a fellow teacher). Schedule a Live Skype or Zoom session where the students can ask the expert questions - in real-time. If you teach Literature you're in luck, there is a website dedicated to connecting with authors - Skype an Author!

3. Five Facts about "Subject" - This is the most useful template for an in-class assignment or as homework (if students have the tech capabilities). Simply choose a topic, and write 5 facts about a said topic. "Hi, I'm H20 and I do 5 things really well..."

4. Fuzzy Image - You will need a camera or camera phone. Zoom in on an object until it becomes fuzzy or you can only see a small part of the total image. Print it out or project it onto a screen. Have students guess the mystery image as a lesson introduction.

5. Google Earth - This app is not limited to history or geography or environmental science; You can use it to show students where the pythagorean theorem was developed, or the actual location in China where 'Kung Fu Panda' learned his skills. Google Earth is a fun and really quick way to infuse some real-time, hi-tech into any lesson.

6. Interview A Scientist or Historical figure - Create a dialogue with a great leader in their field, such as Einstein, Gandhi, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson. This animated interview is very easy to set up using Powtoon. Simply upload an image and add a few speech bubbles. It's pretty fun watching your teacher hang out with an 'educational celebrity'. You ask questions and the answer is pre-made on each slide. Animated Interviews are also great for students with presentation anxiety because the slideshow guides them through each point.

7. Mini Me Introductions!- Turn yourself or your students into cartoon versions of yourselves! Students will get a kick out of seeing themselves on screen with a giant head and a cartoon body. " Mini-Me " is especially useful for the beginning of the school year. Your class can make animated videos or slideshows introducing themselves with key pointers, such as name, hobby and a cool fact they just learned!

7. Collaborative Class Blog - Set up a blog (WordPress, Blogger, Kidblog) for your class! Come up with a fun title with your students and create different categories based on your syllabus. For example, if you're an English Teacher you can vote on a fun title like, "Class 7B's Book Reading Blogorama!" Create a tab for each book you read like 'Brother's Grimm, The Giver, Macbeth, etc...' Ask your students a question in class and have them write a short post either during the lesson or as a homework assignment. Have them publish it the blog and tag it into the appropriate category.

8. Make a Meme - Meme Generator! There are memes about everything from cats to chemistry, to cats teaching chemistry. Have your students pick an image or provide your own image and let them fill in the rest. Print them out and hang 'em up!

9. Build My Website Project - Have your students build their own website based on course topics. For instance, if you teach History and you are learning about the Revolution - You can ask each student in the class to create a website covering 18th Century themes. i.e '18th Century Soldier' (resource guides, food reviews, military fashion, Horses in Battle, etc...) or 'Constitution Corner' (covering political candidates, issues and formation of the US government) Or '18th Century Science'.

10. Slide for Each Day Project - This is on one of my favorites. Every day after your lesson have one student summarize the main takeaway from the class in one sentence. Take a picture (either of another student, a drawing in a textbook, or upload a relevant image) and add it to a Powtoon slide. Voila! At the end of the month, you have a student-made, collaborative slideshow of class accomplishments!

11. Tell an inside Joke - Create a 20-second animated video with a personalized joke: "What is Mrs. Johnson's favorite drink?" Hot Chalk - olate! Yes, it's cheesy, but jokes are a quick and fun way to get kids situated with the idea of animations and short videos. Have them each write a funny joke, funny phrase or inspiring quotation. Check out this list of nerdy educational jokes and apply one to your class!

12.Lyric Video/Music Video - All students can relate to music. Have each student choose a short verse or chorus of a song they like, then have them change the lyrics to the topic of their choice. Here's an example of " All about that Space" by science entertainer Coma Niddy. Students can use animated characters and on-screen lyrics if they don't want to make live video. Here's an example of Uptown Funk animated Lyric video.

13. Video Clips - This is a no brainer - Use BrainPOP, YouTube or TED to break up the monotony of class by showing a video that enriches your lesson or even a short video clip that will let out a giggle. If you are giving a presentation via slideshow, you can even insert a video into your presentation without any tech skills.

There you have it! With minimal effort and a bit of creativity, you can easily integrate technology into any lesson plan.

Have you used any of these techniques for flipping the classroom? Would love to hear about your awesome ideas in the comments below!

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13 Simple Ways to Integrate Technology into any Lesson Plan

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The pressure is on, and educators are feeling it more and more. Principals and school boards everywhere are requiring teachers to integrate technology into the classroom. Sometimes, the change is as simple as adding a computer class to the curriculum, other times it requires teachers to literally flip their entire lesson plan into a hi-tech beast!

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Anchor - The easiest way to make a podcast

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Our world is changing faster than ever. What skills will today's kindergarteners need to be life-ready by the time they graduate as the class of 2030? How can technology support their educational journey?

To answer these critical questions, we launched a key piece of research: " The class of 2030 and life-ready learning: The technology imperative." Today, I am super excited to share that the full report is now available.

To conduct our research, we listened to 70 thought leaders around the world, reviewed 150 pieces of existing research, and surveyed 2,000 teachers and 2,000 students across Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Most importantly, we focused on the needs and aspirations of our subjects: the young people who make up the class of 2030 and those closest to understanding their world.

Within that context, we found 2 core themes: social emotional skills and personalized learning. Whilst not new in education, these are newly important for more people. Employers are placing a premium on social skills and emotional literacy with up to 40% of future jobs requiring explicit social emotional skills. Academics are noting their impact on deep learning and the students themselves recognize these skills are critical for success. The research highlighted personalized learning as an approach which supports skill development - both cognitive and social and emotional by guiding students towards greater autonomy and control.

The students were clear: they want to develop these skills to navigate their own learning - to explore and make choices that unlock their curiosity and potential and they want teachers who know and understand them as individuals.

Three technologies were highlighted in the research as showing great promise to support social and emotional skill development and personalized learning approaches; collaborative platforms, mixed reality and analytics powered by AI.

Students across the four surveyed countries prioritized a range of social-emotional and higher-order skills; notably, students valued digital skills, creativity and problem solving higher than teachers.

While not new in education, these skills are newly important to more people and are taking center stage alongside deeper cognitive skills and content knowledge in the classroom and in the workforce. By 2030, it is predicted that between 30 to 40 percent of jobs will require explicit social-emotional skills.

While the need for social-emotional skills is clear, our research highlighted differences between the specific skills that students and teachers prioritize and how well-equipped teachers feel to teach these skills. This variation was mirrored in how both groups described their experiences of social-emotional skills as part of the learning program.

Students already place a strong emphasis on social-emotional skills based on the results of our survey, which you can explore below.

Personalized learning, which is a student centered approach, emerged as one of the most promising ways to develop social-emotional and deeper cognitive skills.

The students we surveyed said they want to have greater control over their learning and not just automation of content delivery. The students wanted personalization involving control over pacing, content and assessment. 70 percent of the students felt their mastery of content would be better with greater control. Quality feedback is critical for personalized learning. Only 40 percent of students we surveyed felt they receive feedback that was personalized; yet 60 percent of teachers felt they were providing personalized feedback.

Teachers have long endorsed personalized learning but have cited a lack of time and resources as obstacles. In our survey, nearly 70 percent of teachers cited time constraints as their biggest hurdle to providing more personalized content to their students. Our research revealed technology can help clear away those obstacles by freeing up as much as 30 percent of teachers' time, so they can spend more time responding to individual and group needs.

Our research identified other important differences in perspectives between students and teachers about the extent of personalization in their current education. Explore the data, below.

Three types of technology show especially strong promise for advancing socially embedded and personalized learning, and more immersive learning experiences: collaboration platforms, artificial intelligence, and mixed reality. You can find out more about the current and emerging opportunities in the full report and in the papers and case studies being published across 2018.

The class of 2030 and future generations will face social and global problems beyond what we can imagine. They will learn and engage with each other, with technology and with information in entirely new ways. And they will enter a workforce where job functions and roles will be dramatically different from today.

We hope our research will advance all of our efforts to help the class of 2030 be ready to succeed in work and life.

I encourage you to request our full report and share it widely with anyone interested in shaping the education system of the future.

I look forward to continuing to engage with you about these crucial topics in the weeks and months ahead.

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Our world is changing faster than ever. What skills will today's kindergarteners need to be life-ready by the time they graduate as the class of 2030? How can technology support their educational journey? To answer these critical questions, we launched a key piece of research: " The class of 2030 and life-ready learning: The technology imperative."

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Introduction to Digital Media Integration

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Introduction to Digital Media Integration

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An Introduction to Technology Integration