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Using Technology For Emotional Check Up- Cooper Durand

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Using Technology For Emotional Check Up- Cooper Durand

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This teacher decided to integrate technologies into the emotional side of the classroom by making his students the simple question of how they are feeling on their chrome books. This use of tech helped make the students more willing to share their feelings as they didn't have to to vocalize them which is a barrier for a lot of students when it come to asking for help.

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Shea Smith starts the middle-school digital media class he teaches with a ritual: He asks his students to open up their Chromebooks and answer a simple question, "How are you feeling today?"

The students answer on a Google form by clicking on one of three emojis-a happy face, a straight face (indicating "Meh") or a frowny face. A second fill-in-the-blank question invites students to add if there is anything else they'd like to tell the teacher, though that's optional.

In seconds, Smith gets the results that he can scan to get what he calls a "temperature check" on the emotional state of his students, which he can use to inform how he'll tackle teaching the lesson of the day.

"It's quite interesting how much students are willing to share through a Google form that they wouldn't raise in class," he says. Some have shared personal struggles that lead him to refer them to the school counselor, or to give a fellow teacher a heads-up that a student might be particularly stressed-out. And in some cases, students share wins in their personal lives, like one who noted he won a soccer tournament the day before, which Smith made sure to congratulate him on in a spare moment during class.

Smith says that many of his colleagues at the school have started similar social-emotional check-ins since returning to in-person teaching after pandemic lock-downs. And the school is not alone: National experts say they're seeing such practices on the rise in recent months, with some schools adopting specialized software to create prompts and quickly deliver results to teachers.

Even though a question like 'how are you doing?' may seem like it has little to do with academic work, a growing body of research shows that being more attuned to student emotions and the challenges they're facing outside of the classroom helps teachers better connect with students and build relationships that can be key to keeping students engaged in the learning process.

"Building that sense of connection accelerates learning," says Karen Van Ausdal, senior director of practice at the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). "There's been a false dichotomy of, 'You can pay attention to academics or you can pay attention to social-emotional learning.' Now people realize that you can't separate these two. You can't pay attention to learning without these relationships, and vice versa."

Building Connections

When school returned fully in person at Thompson Independent School outside of Houston after months of online-only instruction due to COVID-19, principal Tanis Griffin decided to focus on building relationships between students and teachers.

That meant changing the schoolwide schedule to build time into the school day for teachers to mentor students. And it meant asking teachers to try a new ritual in homeroom on Tuesdays, where teachers send a self-reflection prompt to students that they can respond to with either a short written answer or a short video or audio clip.

The prompts, chosen from a menu by each teacher, include ice-breaker type questions, like tell me about a favorite memory or what is your favorite ice cream flavor. Students have several days to send their reply, and teachers respond when appropriate.

"You don't have to do it in front of other students," says Griffin, who notes that only the teacher sees the reflections. "A lot of kids, they want to talk, but they don't want to in front of classmates." Some of the quietest kids in classes have done the most sharing with their teachers during their weekly reflections, she adds.

The school adopted a software tool called Along to run the reflection process, which is one of several similar tools that have cropped up in recent years.

Griffin says having the bank of questions and the set time in the day where everyone in the school is doing such reflections has been especially helpful to teachers who may not have been as comfortable forging relationships with their students in the past. "That's not something you learn when you're going to school to be a teacher," she says. "You don't take a class to learn how to build relationships with kids."

Still, some teachers took some convincing. "Some teachers worried, 'What if student shares something that is concerning?'" says Griffin. Her reply to them was that it's best to find out what students are going through, and that teachers can always refer them to other resources or bring in authorities when necessary. "That's what we do-we take care of children. Some of it is sad and heavy, yes, but that's why we're here. We're here to help kids," she adds.

It's turned out that, yes, students are dealing with a lot of hardship these days.

"We knew it was going to be tough coming back, but we didn't realize how tough it would be," says Griffin. "So many people have lost loved ones," she adds, and so many families have faced other personal and financial challenges in the last two years as well.

While tech tools are often part of this trend of checking in with how students are feeling, plenty of schools are adding low-tech approaches to make sure they understand the ups and downs students are going through outside of school, says Van Ausdal, of CASEL.

Some schools have paired every student with an adult "navigator," with each adult assigned to a cohort of 8 to 10 students to mentor. Other schools just make sure to have more staff around to greet students as they enter the building in the morning.

"It's amazing how much you can tell in a 10-second interaction with a young person whether they slept well, whether there's something wrong," says Van Ausdal.

Many schools were doing things like this before the pandemic, but Van Ausdal and others say the practices have grown and evolved in recent months.

"My hope and my prediction is that it is here to stay," she says. "Once people engage in this, they see that it works."

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'How Are You Feeling Today?' More Teachers Use Tech to Check Emotional Pulse of Students - EdSurge News

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Shea Smith starts the middle-school digital media class he teaches with a ritual: He asks his students to open up their Chromebooks and answer a simple question, "How are you feeling today?" The students answer on a Google form by clicking on one of three emojis-a happy face, a straight face (indicating "Meh") or a frowny face.

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This video explains how valuable simulation can be in the classroom. Students were able to apply information they had learned from textbooks, caste studies, and lectures to real world scenarios and make game time business decisions through a food truck business simulation. The technology is very interactive and promotes problem solving, collaboration and helps students explore the logic and emotion behind every business decision.

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The power of using simulations in the classroom

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Angela Bachtel: Inventors Create Gloves That Translates Sign Language Into Speech

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Angela Bachtel: Inventors Create Gloves That Translates Sign Language Into Speech

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This example stood out the most to me. I think it is amazing that a couple of MIT students came up with and invented a pair of gloves that can translate American Sign Language (ASL) into text and speech. These two students wanted to develop something that would help the deaf and mute better communicate with the rest of the world. Mission accomplished! The gloves work by using sensors on the hands and wrists to measure the position and movement of the hand. The data is then sent to the computer via Bluetooth for processing and to match it to the corresponding words or phrase in text and speech. This technology is very transformative and will help a lot of people with communication.

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Replacement parts for glasses- 3D Printer

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Replacement parts for glasses- 3D Printer

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I believe this is a very impressive use of technology. The teacher was able to design replacement parts for a pair of glasses with a 3D printer. I think is astonishing mainly because I am unfamiliar with this kind of printer. The production of this printer is extensive and can achieve complex tasks. They are additionally used for amputees and prosthetics. In this specific example, the student was struggling with his broken glasses. The creativity of using this technology overcame the challenge. Learning barriers of all sorts can be supported this way.

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While looking at the examples provided, I was most drawn to this one. A couple of students from MIT invented a pair of gloves that would allow people who may be deaf/ mute communicate with others who are not familiar with ASL. These gloves are able to translate ASL into speech through the use of sensors within the gloves that then get sent via bluetooth to a computer which is then able to create that speech. Such technology is monumental as it would lessen the gap of communication between those who have a hearing disability and the rest of the population.

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Inventors Create Gloves That Translates Sign Language Into Speech

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I thought using a 3D printer to make a prosthetic pinky was a really cool use of technology in the classroom! For the MAT Elementary Ed people, we talked a lot in Dr. Lanahan's class about classrooms as a reflection of students' social realities, and I kept thinking of those discussions when looking at all these examples. For this one in particular, it seemed transformative to me in the sense that it showed that technology isn't just something that can help students learn at school; it has broader real world applications, and has the power to solve problems students may see in their own lives!

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In this school in Goose Creek, a teacher used a 3D printer to create replacement parts for a student's eyeglasses frame that was broken. This is a transformative technological experience because it is not something most people have access to at home. However, I think it is valuable because it fixed his glasses in a fun way, as well as showing how innovative technology can be used for everyday situations. Perhaps exposing more and more learners to 3D printing, it will eventually become widely accessible and be used to repair even more things at home at a lower cost. -Sasha Tricarico

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PenPal Schools - Learning is better together!

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PenPal Schools - Learning is better together!

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PenPal Schools is an online community where students from all over the world come to learn together. This technology allows children from numerous countries to come together to share and learn about each other's histories, cultures, and lives. I really enjoyed learning about this program because it allows students to explore the world and learn new things that they might not learn with a traditional curriculum. According to PenPal Schools' website, students connect with other PenPal students across the global to read, write, and create original projects. PenPal Schools also promotes the development of essential skills such as reading, writing, digital citizenship, and social-emotional skills. Flavia Nunez-an English language teacher from Uruguay-said that she was searching for a way to improve her students' reading and writing skills when she found PenPal Schools. She said she couldn't believe how perfect the program was and saw amazing results from her students' participation.

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Interactive Learning Through a Choice Board-Kayleigh Cohen

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Interactive Learning Through a Choice Board-Kayleigh Cohen

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This example of technology usage in the classroom is one that stood out to me the most and was very interesting. This teacher created an interactive board for their students to pick a path to follow. This not only allows the students to choose what they liked the most, if gives them the feeling of having control over what they do will some might find appealing as well. While this could have been done without technology as well, this teacher used technology by making the lessons online for each path, including videos and links on them. This gives a bigger range of what can be learned and taught because a teacher cannot teach three different topics at once, but instead by making it online they were able to achieve this while still keeping everyone in the topic of Black History Month. Now while there could be even broader types of decisions that could branch off from this idea, for a fifth grade classroom this is a very good one for them and something I would have loved having the option to do if it was available. Teaching does not always have to be the same for everyone when there are chances to add diversity in, and allowing students to pick what interests them the most will also make them more excited to want to do it as well.

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Students at Bowens Corner Elementary school in 3-5 grade learn to write, produce and publish their own podcast to make their learning public. Parents are invited to subscribe to the podcast to see what the students are learning. Learning this skill is great for students to take pride in their work, knowing that they will be sharing it with their parents and anyone else who subscribes. The podcast can be listened to on apple, spotify, google and anchor. Without technology, sharing their coursework through a podcast would not be possible. This technology makes it possible to inform parents what their children are doing in school. I specifically like this activity because it is a great technology that is not directly in front of a screen.

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Logan uses the voice remote aspect which is what I consider Assistive Technology. I have learned a lot about AT during my undergraduate studies which focused on inclusive classrooms. Logan was able to talk to the remote to get it to play what he wanted, he used little einsteins for his example. This allows people with a variety of abilities to do something as simple as search on their television. I know for me, sometimes it still takes me several minutes to type all the letters in for a show or movie that I want to watch. This allows users to press a button and speak into the remote whatever they want to play on their TVs.

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Logan's Story: Technology, Autism and Surprising Outcomes

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The fifth grade teachers at Westview Elementary School's idea of an interactive choice board is very exciting to me. This one especially is very interesting. While having a choice of what project to do is not a new idea, this choice board specifically almost reminds me of a choose your own adventure game because there are multiple choices to make. This board also encourages the use of technology by having the option to choose between an interactive road trip or watching a video to begin their research. The teachers also provided links for the students to begin research on their topic. By giving students this opportunity, they are encouraging the use of technology in ways that can help them grow necessary research skills. By allowing students to have an option of what their project is while keeping it tied in with technology, students can learn to be creative with technology and realize how multipurpose technology can be.

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"Journey to Personalized Learning".                Project Jump On Education (JOE) At Greer Elementary School

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Through access to chrome books and diverse learning softwares, Greer Elementary School encourages individualized learning with a blended learning setting. Not only does this expand knowledge through the use of technology, but it also allows students to choose what and how they would like to learn. Additionally, Greer Elementary students are able to learn at their own pace, giving them autonomy over the best ways they are able to achieve. Having agency over one's own learning prepares the student for their lives outside of the classroom. Without this technology, teachers would not be able to efficiently assess personalized strengths and weaknesses, and students would not be able to provide understanding of content in their preferred way.

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Penpal is an online community where students from all over the world can learn together in all different subjects. One teacher on the website says that students can safely access relevant projects with other students around the world. Another teacher, Ms. Glenn says she has noticed an improvement in her students' reading and writing skills from PenPal. This unique and exciting technology is something that students can actually enjoy, while expanding their interests and skills. They can also feel like they are a part of something bigger than just the classroom. PenPal is transformative because it is an easily accessible way for students to connect and grow in a different way!

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This video provides a detailed demo of PenPal Schools, including screencasts from both the student and teacher web apps.

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Berkley Elementary is using Seesaw to make videos about what the students are learning. This tool can be used to share progress with parents as well as give parents a tool to use if their student needs help homework. The parents are able to watch their student grow as well as have a tutorial available to watch if they need to help their student. This would not be available without this technology. This allows much more content to be saved from classwork and also allows the student to watch themselves back.

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Seesaw isn't just for kids!  Check... - BCSD Innovation Squad | By BCSD Innovation Squad | Seesaw isn't just for kids!  Check out how this teacher at Berkeley Elementary School Fawns teaches her parents how to correctly complete a running...

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770 views, 16 likes, 12 loves, 1 comments, 5 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from BCSD Innovation Squad: Seesaw isn't just for kids!  Check out how this teacher at Berkeley Elementary School Fawns...

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In an article I was reading it had a section with a video that talked about smart tables and they seem to becoming used more within schools than the smart boards. Schools are using them so that students are able to be more social and learn how to communicate and interact with other students.

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SMART Table®442i collaborative learning center

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Phillip Simmons Elementary is inspiring students to research and dig deeper into local problems using technology. Classrooms are using google sites and google slides to demonstrate the problem of waste in our oceans. Students create powerpoints to transform the way they learn and share knowledge with their class. This is transformative because now with Google Sites students can create informational content and share it with their classmates. Allowing students to learn using technology and digging into their passions raises the bar for what is possible in a classroom. The possibilites of learning using google technology is endless!

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Genius Hour, an idea that is beginning to make inroads in the world of education, is an example of a learner-centered strategy that empowers students and takes them on a systematic journey to deeper levels of learning.

Students put finishing touches on the PSE Blessing Box before it is install.

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PSE STEAM Instructional Program - Passion Project

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Passion Projects create a culture among students and teachers that allows for free exploration of passions, failure, and experimentation. Students are encouraged to take risks within a safe, nurturing environment. During this time, students explore ideas, solve problems, generate products, peer

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This is a great article on incorporating Augmentative/Alternative Communication (AAC) Devices in the classroom. It includes a description of the role of the IEP Team and examples of possible questions and responses for various times of the school day. These devices play a critical role for students who are nonverbal or have language disabilities. With these devices students can personalize and communicate with teachers, other staff members, and students. These devices can help students express their needs, wants, and communicate using their unique and individual personalities.

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Creating more accessibility to education - Bradley G. 

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Creating more accessibility to education - Bradley G. 

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A team at Georgia Tech has created a smartphone app called BrailleTouch, making so you can conjure text messages without glancing at one's phone. As a open source and free app, BrailleTouch has made strong leaps forward for the visually impaired individuals. There is no need for sight when it comes to using BrailleTouch, only touch is required. This has had major leaps in education for the visually impaired, making it more accessible to obtain an education no matter the difficulties

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Smartphones are eyesight-intensive devices. As evidence, you merely have to glimpse around any crowded public place and you'll often see dozens of people with their heads down, eyes locked onto their phones, oblivious to the world around them. For the visually-impaired, however, the smartphone experience is very different.

A blind person can't see an on-screen smartphone keyboard. And typing with a teensy physical keyboard is tough enough for people with 20/20 vision, much less those who struggle to see a full-sized computer keyboard. That's why sending e-mails and texts is a major challenge for anyone who has hampered vision.

But with a new smartphone app called BrailleTouch, you can conjure text messages without even so much as glancing at your phone. BrailleTouch is the brainchild of a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, who set out to make eyes-free text entry easier and faster than ever before.

Open source and free, BrailleTouch is a step forward in digital Braille composition. There are other dedicated Braille devices available. The Braille Sense PLUS, for example, let you type, read e-mails and texts, and even surf the Web. The drawback? It weighs 2 pounds and costs as much as a small car. The BrailleTouch app, on the other hand, installs into a much more affordable gadget, one that many people already own.

Before you even think it, no, this app isn't an easier way to text and drive -- don't even think about it. But more on that perilous subject later. As you'll discover in the following pages, BrailleTouch's ease-of-use and simple functionality results in a smartphone that's more powerful and user-friendly for just about anyone who needs fast text entry.

Unlike a typical smartphone keyboard, you don't need sight in order to use BrailleTouch. All you need is touch.

To understand how the app works, it helps to have a basic understanding of Braille. You can catch up by reading How Braille Works. In short, Braille is a basic system made up of a 3 by 2 matrix, or grid. On printed paper, you use your fingers to read Braille by feeling raised dots placed on the grid. Each combination of dots in that grid coincides with a letter in the alphabet or punctuation.

Translating the Braille system to a smartphone screen meant tweaking things a bit. The BrailleTouch keyboard has the bare essentials, featuring just six on-screen buttons placed three to each side of the phone's screen.

In order to compose a message, you press various combinations of these buttons. Each combination is called a chord, which correlates to one of 63 different characters, including the entire alphabet as well as special characters such as commas and exclamation points. With the correct swiping gesture, you'll insert a space or delete an incorrect entry. You'll know when you make a mistake because BrailleTouch offers voice, click or vibration feedback.

To use the system, you actually face the phone away from your body. You grasp the phone by placing your middle three fingers on each side of the app's keyboard. Touch the button or buttons that correspond to the letter you want, and the software inputs the character into your text or e-mail. Unlike a traditional QWERTY keyboard, your fingers remain in the same position during typing so you're never left hunting in vain for correct finger placement.

The app's developers are quick to point out that typing Braille takes very little time to learn, and their initial studies show that it doesn't take long for users to master the system. Reading Braille, however, is much more difficult and isn't possible on a smartphone.

After a bit of practice, studies have shown that BrailleTouch users can easily average around 23 words per minute with accuracy greater than 90 percent. In short, it's a fairly speedy, reliable way to compose text-based messages no matter where you might be, so long as you have your smartphone handy. On the next page, find out exactly how the app makes texting faster and easier for just about everyone.

BrailleTouch works differently depending on whether you install it to an Android device or an Apple device featuring iOS (Apple's mobile operating system). On the former, the app can stand in as an input keyboard across all apps that you've installed to your device. On the latter, though, it works only as a standalone app because iOS doesn't allow users to choose an alternate input keyboard.

No matter which phone you have, BrailleTouch is always ready to go to work. Most modern smartphones change the orientation of their screens so the display is right-side up, whether the phone is vertical or horizontal. Similarly, BrailleTouch autorotates to the correct position so that you can input commands no matter how you're holding the device.

Language barriers, though, could continue to be an issue for some time yet. Braille is available in all widespread languages, but the most recent release of BrailleTouch works only in English. That may change, however, as the developers continue to update the software.

Language restrictions aside, even during its development phase, the app garnered attention from major media outlets. It also won the MobileHCI (Mobile Human-Computer Interaction) 2011 Design Competition in Stockholm. The accolades and interest show that even in today's tech-saturated world, Braille may continue to help visually-impaired people communicate.

That's in spite of the increasing accuracy and speed of text-to-speech applications and the fact that less than 20 percent of the United States' visually-impaired community can read Braille fluently. What's more, the audio-feedback feature of BrailleTouch may help popularize the app with sighted users who want a different way to compose their messages.

That's not to say that BrailleTouch is great for every situation. The app's developers emphasize that their creation is not safe for use when you're behind the wheel, even if your eyes are still on the road. Writing e-mails during your morning commute is just downright dangerous, as these activities demand too many of your brain's cognitive abilities.

For stationary, automobile-less texting, BrailleTouch is an innovative, speedy app.

Flipping the Conventions

Unlike a lot of apps, BrailleTouch isn't the result of an all-night programming cram session or the fruit of a tech start-up. Instead, it was invented by researchers at Georgia Tech including Brian Frey, Mario Romero and Caleb Southern.

It was Frey (now at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County) who conceived the product's real breakthrough, which is that you must use BrailleTouch with the smartphone facing away from your body. The revelation occurred as Frey pondered two principle problems of smartphones -- first, the smooth, featureless screens don't provide tactile feedback for proper finger positioning. And second, it's really hard to place six fingers on the phone's screen in a comfortable, usable way.

Other software developers have released Braille apps, but they've all struggled with the same problems. Their apps typically demand that you type with just one hand, with the screen pointed toward your face. By flipping the phone, though, Frey turned a smartphone's limited real estate into an advantage. That's because, on average, a phone's screen is roughly three fingers wide. Divide that space into the six keys of a Braille typewriter, and your fingers naturally find the correct spots. There's no need for visual confirmation via the phone's screen.

Because the app uses the standard six-key system, there's virtually no learning curve. Southern says that blind users with Braille experience only need around 20 minutes to master the app and then type faster than most sighted users can enter text using a standard soft keyboard.

Southern adds that the team would love to continue improving BrailleTouch, which will hit the market in 2012, and that forthcoming smartphone hardware might play a role. If phones adopt rear touchpads (much like those on the Sony PlayStation Vita), you could feasibly use the app with the phone's screen facing you. That advantage, he said, might actually benefit sighted users more than the visually impaired.

No matter how the future of smartphone-based Braille plays out, one thing's for sure: The inventiveness and clever programming of apps like BrailleTouch help close a digital divide between sighted and blind users, letting more and more people engage and communicate no matter their disability.

Smartphones are some of the most prolific and powerful devices in the history of pocket-sized gadgets. Apps like BrailleTouch are a primary reason that smartphones are so appealing -- the software is cheap (in this case, free), the phones are relatively inexpensive, and best of all, these miniature computers empower all of us to do things that just a few years ago required the horsepower of a desktop computer.

But in the end, it's not even the elegance of the software or the efficiency of the phone's CPU that's so impressive. It's that developers keep finding new ways to help all of us, including those with significant physical limitations, share and communicate our ideas and feelings through the tools of the digital revolution.

Related Articles

Sources

Braille Authority.org. "Computer Braille Code." 2000. (June 1, 2012) http://www.brailleauthority.org/cbc/cbc2000.pdf

Darma, Stanley. "BrailleTouch: Touchscreen Typing App for the Visually Impaired." Medgadget.com. Feb. 22, 2012. (June 1, 2012) http://medgadget.com/2012/02/brailletouch-touchscreen-typing-app-for-the-visually-impaired.html

EveryWare Technologies. "TypeInBraille." (June 1, 2012) http://www.everywaretechnologies.com/apps/typeinbraille

Frey, Brian, et al. "BrailleTouch: Mobile Texting for the Visually Impaired." Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing. 2011. (June 1, 2012) http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~mromero/frey_southern_romero_2011.pdf

Georgia Institute of Technology. "Georgia Tech Develops Braille-Like Texting App." Feb. 17, 2012. (June 1, 2012)http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=110051

Georgia Institute of Technology GVU Center. "BrailleTouch Wins MobileHCI 2011 Design Competition." Sep. 14, 2011. (June 1, 2012)http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/node/5320

Howard, Marcus E. "Silence, Darkness Can't Stop Man from Doing What He Loves." The Marietta Daily Journal. May, 2012. (June 1, 2012)http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/18663474/article-Silence--darkness-can%E2%80%99t-stop--man-from-doing-what-he-loves?instance=special%20_coverage_right_column

Moore, Elizabeth Armstrong. "Braille Texting App Could Have Broader Appeal." CNET.com. Feb. 18, 2012. (June 1, 2012) http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-57380668-247/braille-texting-app-could-have-broader-appeal/

Netburn, Deborah. "Could BrailleTouch App Revolutionize Texting?" The Los Angeles Times. Feb. 20, 2012. (June 1, 2012) http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/20/business/la-fi-tn-braille-touch-blind-texting-20120220

Paul, Ryan. "BrailleTouch Keyboard Allows Typing on a Phone Without Looking." Arstechnica.com. Feb. 17, 2012. (June 1, 2012) http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/02/brailletouch-keyboard-allows-typing-on-a-phone-without-looking/

Romero, Mario Ph.D. "BrailleTouch." Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing. (June 1, 2012) http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~mromero/brailletouch/

Southern, Caleb, PhD Student at Georgia Tech University. Personal interview. May 30, 2011.

Wiley, Melissa. "In a Digital Age, Braille is Still Important." Wired.com. May 22, 2012. (June 1, 2012) http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/05/braille-is-important/

Wunsch, Silke. "Improving Internet Access for the Blind." Deutsche Welle. May 29, 2012. (June 1, 2012) http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15982103,00.html

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Smartphones are eyesight-intensive devices. As evidence, you merely have to glimpse around any crowded public place and you'll often see dozens of people with their heads down, eyes locked onto their phones, oblivious to the world around them. For the visually-impaired, however, the smartphone experience is very different.

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Caden Albert - AR, VR, and Virtual Group Work

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Caden Albert - AR, VR, and Virtual Group Work

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https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/education/our-insights/how-technology-is-shaping-learning-in-higher-education

I found this really interesting article discussing the use of AR and VR technology for students that are remote to have a "enable connectivity and community building," (Brasca, Krishnan, et. al, 2022). They used social media and other community building tech to keep students engaged with one another. The article was mainly about a study conducted by the team of authors, but was directed to show the benefits of the eight dimensions of learning. I think this is an amazing step, but it is hard to believe that public schools are anywhere near this level of funding, as well as support. For kids still at home, using connective tech is the best way to keep them engaged and is the first step to a truly incredible learning experience.

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You don't have permission to access "http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/education/our-insights/how-technology-is-shaping-learning-in-higher-education" on this server.
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How technology is shaping learning in higher education

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Students and faculty want to continue using new classroom learning technologies adopted during COVID-19, but institutions could do more to support the shift.

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Abbie L- Making Coding Happen in Preschool!

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Abbie L- Making Coding Happen in Preschool!

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In a preschool classroom in Idaho, these students are learning to code with a robot! As coding is usually done using a computer or laptop, it is not developmentally appropriate for preschool students. Therefore, this team of teachers implemented this research-based, platform robot called a Kibo that allows students to create code by using blocks and a scanner initiate code. By using these hands-on blocks, these preschool students are able to create their own code and use the engineering design process to make the Kibo do what they wanted it to do. In the video, one of the teachers explained how they used the Kibo to bring to life a lesson on the Chinese New Year. The students used the EDP to plan how they could turn the Kibo into a Chinese Dragon and make it move around. Personally, I found this transformative for a few reasons with the biggest being that this specific robot was able to make coding happen for preschoolers. By using blocks, a familiar object to preschoolers, they were able to engage in the EDP while simultaneously sparking their creativity and extended dramatic play. Now, these students will be a step ahead when computer coding is introduced to them in future grade levels!

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Integrating Technology into a Preschool Classroom

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https://education.minecraft.net/en-us/homepage
Minecraft is now the best-selling game of all time. It quickly gained traction as all types of gamers and non-games were able to flex creative muscles, enjoy something beautiful and non-complicated, or analytical people to complicate it themselves. It's likely also the most modded game out there, meaning that people have picked it apart and built upon it with their own vision--a rather meta way of what the game is designed to do in the first place. However, a few years ago, the developers built upon this concept by creating a version specifically for the classroom that intends to teach students all about communication, engineering, science, math, problem solving, creativity, design, and so much more. The video I linked shows how one school in Ireland is implementing these features into the classroom. Younger audience who are immersed into technology will need things like Minecraft Education, in order to stay involved and have fun while learning.

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Teaching STEM across the Northern Ireland Curriculum with Minecraft

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I was really interested by this example of a teacher designing replacement parts for her student whose glasses had broken. While this isn't an example of technology being used in the curriculum, it is still transformative as it demonstrates the potential for technology to be used a creative problem solving tool. The more that students are exposed to the creative possibilities of technology, the more they will use it actively in their lives instead of passively consuming with it.

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(sorry for the screenshot, attaching the link wasn't working)

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In Ms. Walker's classroom at Nexton Elementary, a group of students used technology to recreate part of a finger. The technology used was a 3D printer. This use of technology allowed the students to make a partial finger to make up for the portion that was lost, and allowed for Uncle George to regain use of his finger. I thought this was particularly interesting because are now able to recreate parts of the body that may have been missing or lost. Which, to me, is absolutely mind blowing.

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Senora Buenos Class at Goose Creek High School!

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Senora Buenos Class at Goose Creek High School!

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This Facebook article really stuck out to me from personal experience! Being part Korean, I have been listening to K-pop my whole life, and have gotten my wife and my wife's family into it as well. Just from constantly listening to Korean music, they have been able to pick up on many Korean words and sayings. This has also led them to watch Korean dramas, where they have learned even more words. Utilizing technology, like YouTube, Google music, Apple Music, and Podcasts, we are able to educate kids in foreign languages like never before. We can even have songs in other languages translated through captioning on YouTube as we watch.

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Lisa Wang created the non-profit "Almost Fun" in order to transform SAT prep from a model designed for privileged individuals to one that can be applied to kids from all socioeconomic classes. Wang developed her program in the form of an app that delivers test prep information through movie scripts, short videos, and other aspects of modern culture that hold teens' interests. The app is optimized for kids that may have other responsibilities outside of school. This app is transformative because it allows children to integrate studying with their personal interests, moves learning beyond the classroom, and personalizes studying to each student that uses the app.

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There are times when inspiration hits so strongly, you can't help but take action. That's exactly what happened to Lisa Wang, who quit her job as a Google Product Manager to build a tech nonprofit, Almost Fun. Her mission? To level the playing field for low-income students by making studying for tests like the SAT fun...almost. Lisa believes that the old ways of test-prep aren't working for everyone; they're designed for those who can afford it, not the under-served. Now Lisa's stepping into the world of social entrepreneurship to build an unconventional alternative to a broken system. Today, Lisa launched her app Almost Fun.

Shannon Farley: Take us back to the beginning. You've spoken about the parts of your family history that lit a flame within you to fix inequities in our education systems. Can you share a bit more?

Lisa Wang: My dad grew up in very rural China. And despite the odds, he made it to college. While he doesn't talk about it much, he was the first one from his village to go to college. He could hardly speak English when he came to the U.S., but managed to raise a family while working two jobs and attending graduate school. Sometimes though, if I catch him in a mood, he'll drop a devastating fact or two. Like when he was younger, he figured out he was talented at math. He didn't realize this because a teacher told him, or because he got good grades, but because he knew when his textbooks were wrong, even when his teacher didn't.

So for me, moments like getting into Harvard, getting a job at Google, and starting Almost Fun have been tinged with frustration that my Dad, the smartest guy I know, couldn't have had this, too. And this inequity still exists today.

Farley: You were a volunteer SAT prep instructor for a few years before you committed in a big way by quitting your job as a Product Manager at Google to work on your tech nonprofit full time. Tell us more about your time as an SAT instructor.

Wang: The students I worked with were beyond amazing. Despite the fact that they could be doing... literally anything else... they'd walk into class with high energy, ready to learn. One particular class, we were working on calculating the volumes of 3D shapes. I asked a question about calculating the volume of a drill bit, and with each passing second, I could feel the energy getting sucked out of the room. Then one of my students said, "Why do we have to learn geometry, we're never going to use it." I almost melted into the floor. Of course geometry is useful! But the way it was being presented clearly didn't convey that. I knew I had to create something better for them.

Farley: And so Almost Fun was born. The SAT is not a test that is often associated with fun. For me, it brings to mind repetitive question drills, late night studying, and lots of angst. How are you making studying for the SAT an almost fun process?

Wang: Almost Fun is delivering test-prep in a new package. It looks and feels way more like Duolingo than the typical 1,000 page SAT-prep books. We use movie scripts, pop culture events, young adult novels, and other materials that high schoolers actually enjoy to teach the same test-prep skills they could get from expensive tutoring companies.

Possibly my hottest take is that the SAT does test useful skills. I know, I know - not everyone agrees. But teaching the SAT and working at the same time showed me that many of the skills I was teaching were skills I was using as well. And I wasn't alone! Other young professionals, like my friend Angie, who'd just started a wedding photography business, were using these skills too. A lot of the challenges Angie faced were related to SAT skills; client emails, budgeting, editing photos.

If you look hard enough, you can see applications of SAT skills in almost every job and in the content and media around us. I believe the key to effective test prep is to change the goal from doing well on a test to making progress towards future employment.

Farley: ...And then you quit your job to do this full time?

Wang: I did. I was going to bed every night thinking about how to build something for these students, and spending my weekends creating better content for them. At a certain point, it just didn't make sense for me to be doing this on the side anymore.

There were a few moments I felt almost ready to go do this full time, but I always imposed conditions on myself... "I'll leave if I can find a co-founder" or "I'll leave if I can find a part-time gig." As much as I wanted to believe I was just being practical, creating these conditions came from fear that I wasn't on the right track. I had to get over my fear. The more I worked with my students, the more I felt like the opportunity to help students in a big way outweighed the risk of leaving my stable, full-time job at Google. That's when I decided that I was ready.

Farley: What makes the content you're creating different from traditional test-prep companies?

Wang: It's built for the students, not for the test! The content I'm creating is, first and foremost, focused on engagement. The thing about test-prep today is that it's optimized for students who can pay for it. But for students who don't have either the testing skills or the support structure to force them to practice repetition, this test-prep is not effective. In addition to the test content, we also host short video content featuring young, diverse professionals talking about how they use each test skill in their day-to-day. The videos are interlaced with SAT style questions that showcase real problems those professionals encounter.

Second, it's mobile focused with offline-support, optimized for students who may only have moments to study between things like commuting and helping out family. And third, it's personalized, and feels like a coach. Everything about the app is meant to make you feel like there's someone on your side working with you. For example, instead of the usual explanation block of text you would get, explanations are interactive. With each step, students engage to confirm understanding before moving to the next step.

Farley: What made you decide to be a tech nonprofit?

Wang: As a nonprofit, I have the freedom to focus on under-served students exclusively. Almost Fun's only stakeholders are its users. If you're mission focused and your mission doesn't align with high profitability, a tech nonprofit is the way to go. There's a reason that a lot of the tech out there is not built for social good.

Farley: What will the world look like when Almost Fun is successful?

Wang: When we're successful, every student will have access to the resources they need to succeed. Success can mean a lot of things - a good test score, a good college, a good job. As someone who had all those things and still felt like something was missing, I'm defining success as having the knowledge and resources to pursue a career that excites you. That means knowing that you can be a photographer or an investigator or a chef or a videogame designer or a waterslide tester or a tech nonprofit founder or whatever floats your boat, and having the ability to pursue that dream.

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This Former Googler is Reinventing SAT Prep With The Help of Marvel, ESPN & AOC

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There are times when inspiration hits so strongly, you can't help but take action. That's exactly what happened to Lisa Wang, who quit her job as a Google Product Manager to build a tech nonprofit, Almost Fun. Her mission? To level the playing field for low-income students by making studying for tests like the SAT fun...almost.

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Amy Bultena incorporated the Piskel app (free from Google) to help her students learn about science topics. The Piskel app uses 8-bit animation (very easy and user friendly). Kids can create animated videos using the software and here they used it to demonstrate the water cycle and the life cycle of plants. This is such a great example of using technology to combine different subjects and really get the students to engage in the learning process.

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I love PiskelApp y’all. I love it so much. In fact, I think they need to hire an educator to help develop school projects using the program and I think that educator should be me. The art-connection is obvious, but the cross-curricula opportunities are endless.

PiskelApp, in case you don’t know, is a free, web-based application powered by Google. It enables users to create frame-by-frame animations with ease. The default size is 32 pixels x 32 pixels (about the size of an emoji on your phone). This standard small size means that students can utilize 8-bit design. If your students want a larger (and therby more sophisticated) design, all they have to do is resize the image and change the pixel dimensions.

I promise. It is easier than it sounds. The program is very intuitive.

You can find my previous post about PiskelApp right here.

This week, my Third Grade students used PiskelApp to create frame-by-frame animations of the water cycle. They reviewed the water cycle (which they’ve been learning about in Science class) and then we examined how to make a cycle using PiskelApp. This whole project took 45 minutes.

Here’s the overview:

-Go to PiskelApp
-Click on “login”
-choose your Google login (we use Google for Education on my campus)
-click on “create piskel”
-draw the first frame of your cycle (remember, you can start anywhere in the cycle

-hover over your first frame and click on the “duplicate frame” icon
-a copy of frame 1 will appear
-use the onion to see a “ghost” of frame 1
-edit frame 2 to show the next step in your animation (use the preview window to check your work

-continue duplicating and changing frames until your cycle is completed

-click on “export”

-change the dimensions to 800 x 800

-click on “Get Public Url”

-Wait

-Click on the yellow link that appears

-a new window will open

-right click on your animation

-Choose “Save as” and save to your lunch number file (that’s where my kiddos save their work)

Post navigation

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As a social studies teacher, I am looking forward to taking my class on virtual field trips. Students will be able to experience events in history where they happened using sites like YouTube or other sites that offer professional virtual field trip experiences. Even more exciting and engaging will be content that I am going to make on my travels that will show students in their teachers own words, giving them a more personal angle relating directly to classroom learning. I even have a drone to add a unique experience! Attached is an Instagram story I did that shows what is possible with different types of media. With so much history right here in our area there are so many experiences I can bring into the classroom with virtual field trips!

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A post shared by Rich English (@port.power.connection)

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This video featured four girls from a middle school in Los Fresnos, Texas named Resaca Middle School. They created an app that allowed one of the students, who is visually impaired, to navigate the school and other buildings. They used an app software and a tablet, to make this innovational app possible. This is transformative because with this app, this student is able to have a more typical high school experience and a sense of independency, that he may not have been able to have prior. While in school, he is no longer required to rely on someone else to lead him where his next class may be or where the bathroom is, he can do it by himself. They saw an issue, and developed an app to help one of their peers. They used technology to not benefit themselves, but other people, which is an admirable thing to do. Furthermore, this app can be applied to many other students in many other school districts across the nation and around the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlfnaGW9mOY

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This way of using technology was so heartwarming and beautiful. Middle school students created an app for a peer of theirs, Andre who is blind. This app helped Andre navigate his way around the school. Through a school project, they were able to take an issue they observed, and real world problems, to make life more accessible for those who are impaired, not just for Andre but anyone who can access the app. Such a sweet, touching use of technology.