Doctopus and Goobric

Okay so it has been a while and that has discouraged me from posting.  I have had a lot going on in my personal life (I'm pregnant with Baby #3) and have been so tired, but I know this is important.  So here I am!

A lot has happened in the last three months in my classroom, but I am just going to share with you the two items that I feel have most shapped the basics of my teaching.  I LOVE Doctopus and Goobric.  Now, I am telling you right now Doctopus and Goobric are not for the faint of heart.  There is a huge learning curve, but once implemented and understood, they build accountability, collaboration, and amazing teacher-student feedback!

So, what is Doctopus

A Google Forms add-on that

• Pushes documents out to students (make a copy for each student that now becomes their own).
• Will put students in groups and distribute one document to each group and automatically share it with you and each person in the group
• Creates a Class-View folder where you can place documents, slides, pdfs, etc and all students can access to view it (not edit it)
• Gives a spreadsheet with all student names and links to each of their documents for quick access

That in and of itself is amazing but when you add Goobric in, it gets even better!

Goobric is a Chrome Extension that

• Attaches a rubric to a Google Doc that you have distributed to students
• Gives teachers an easy and quick way to assess students
• Sends instant feedback to the student, including rubric score and comments
• Places the completed rubric on the doc itself and sends an email with the rubric to inform students
• Allows teachers to record their feedback and send that back to students
• Easily puts rubric scores into a spreadsheet that allows for quick grading

Now, I understand when discussing SAMR, that these two resources don't move you too far up the SAMR scale, but what I have realized is that they have built into my classroom a sense of accountability, understanding, communication, and collaboration.  From this foundation, I have found that I can easily build in the creativity and truly modify my curriculum.

Actively Learn

My students read and interact with text on a daily basis.  It is so important and valuable for them to collaborate, think critically, and communicate through and about the text that they read.  I have currently been using a web-based application called Actively Learn and I LOVE it!

Teacher:

• creates assignments that can include short answer or multiple choice questions to check for understanding
• add images, links, or videos to the assignment
• can upload articles or stories from PDFs, Google Docs, or a website link
• can use the many assignments that are already in Actively Learn
• easily grade and comment on responses 

Students:

• read in chunks
• define words within the program itself
• highlight and annotate 
• respond to other student's annotations

I have used it in class along with groups discussion.

I have assigned it for HW and have been amazed with their thoughts and discussions with each other.

I have place student writing (not named) in as an assignment and asked students to analyze the writing and improve it looking at different writing techniques.

If you haven't used it, I believe it would be worth your time to explore.  It is very user friendly and one more tool to help students interact with text and others!

InstaWiki

I totally stole this idea from @Catlin_Tucker and it worked beautifully.  In groups they were relased out into the wild of the outdoors to take a picture and then create a caption using sensory details and figurative language.  Then they had to assign a hashtag.  They loved it!  I loved to see their creativity break through.   Here is one groups:

This is what I love about technology.  This activity took 15 minutes and students produced something creative and full of depth!

4 New Tech Tools

I was absent from my classroom yesterday in order to attend a fabulous training by Discovery Education.  Being absent from the classroom is always challenging because my students sometimes do not receive the information that they need.  But this time, it was like I never left the classroom.  I did a screen cast of my lesson for my students usiing Screencast O Matic.  They loved it, the substitute loved it and I loved it.  They were able to learn the content like I was still actually in the classroom and to be honest it only took me about 10 minutes to create.  

Screencast O Matic is:

• user friendly
• allows you to go back a few seconds to fix mistakes
• easy to publish to your youtube channel

Now at the actual training I learned a ton!  The resources provided by Discovery Education are amazing!  I can't wait for my students to be able to build a board using content from Discovery Education.

During the training, I was introduced to Answer Garden.  Wow!  Answer Garden is a smash of Padlet and Wordle.  It asks for short responses to questions that it compiles into a Wordle.  Words that are repeated become bigger showing more emphasis.

The last tool that I learned about is Symbaloo.  This site serves as a sort of bookmarking system for websites, apps, etc.  I love how simple it is, how you can change the color of the images and how you can add titles.  Here is my Symbaloo for resources that I have used and love or want to learn more about:

http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/toolsoftheweb

Substitute -- Time Saver

Okay this will be a quick one!  Thanks to a fellow Digital Learning Coach,  I have discovered and now use Baker Bingo.

It is really simple.  You type in your "answers" in the bingo card.  You generate the card and copy the link provided on the right hand side and then paste it on your webpage, Haiku site, shared google doc or email it to the students.  They click on the link and every kid gets a different card and they can press it on their ipad and the squares turn colors.

One aspect of technology that I LOVE is how much it saves time.  I was able to do two bingo reviews in less than 10 minutes.  It is so quick, direct, and engaging.

Who's on First? Abbott and Costello

Something New...

So this week I did something new to introduce my next topic.  So the main standard I am teaching is RL 8.3 (analyze dialogue and how propels actions) and RL 8.6 (analyze how different points of view create humor).

I love both of these standards and was super excited to introduce this unit.  In order to introduce this unit, I used a classic:  "Who's on First".  This was a perfect and fun introduction because it clearly shows students how different POVs (Abbott, Costello, and the audience) create humor and how dialogue propels actions and causes characters to act.

The activity was so successful.  I began by focusing our time with focused questions (you know how I love questions):

• How do the different points of view create humor?
• How does dialogue propel the action?
• How does dialogue cause a character to act?

Then we listened to the skit, the students created a tree map that showed the different points of view and then I had them frame it up with the questions above using a Google Form.  I LOVE google forms!

This was a great activity and reminded me of my Grandpa.  This was his favorite skit!  He is the one who introduced it to me and I remember laughing with him and discussing it with him.  A very sweet memory and I love bringing that to my class.

ELD Class

I LOVE my ELD Class!  They have all the characteristics of a perfect class!  They are:

• determined
• intrinsically motivated
• teachable
• involved in their own learning
• not afraid to try 
• super fun

I know ELD can be a tough class, but this year our school tried something new and I have implemented a new format to teach this class and I have found it to be super successful.  There are many factors that make it successful.

1. Administration has set up the schedule so that I have my ELD students (23 of them) in Language Arts and Social Science for 1st and 2nd period with other students.  There are 42 in all!  My ELD students stay with me 3rd period for ELD instruction.  Successes:  My 1st and 2nd period are heterogeneous which is SO beneficial for my ELD students.  My ELD students are getting access to CORE content and being supported in my 3rd period class.
2. I am able to connect the curriculum.  I introduce concepts 1st in my ELD class, so that when they are introduced in my Core class, my ELD students are now the "experts".  
3. We read, write and present SO much!  Everyday they are practicing the language through genuine conversations and organized writing and presenting.  

Here they are presenting!