Get Google Voice!! The Power is Voodoo

Google Voice is free with GAFE. Basically, it gives you a phone number (you have choices) that you connect to your cell phone (or not). The tool can be used many ways and below I will share the way I most recently utilized this instructional tool.

Google Voice:

1. Allows you to have a voicemail through google that compiles messages from the cell number you have assigned. 
2. The voicemails are sent as emails to your email and are transcribed. Each voicemail allows you to reply to that number with feedback or another question. 
3. This is a tech tool that reduces your take home 'stuff' to your phone or chromebook or iPad. 

Lets start with an example learning experience:

I wanted a different way to collect formative assessment to a learning activity completed in class. We learned about GMOs in the food system and critically investigated both sides based on peer reviewed science. 

I projected my google number on the screen and told students that the homework was to leave me a voicemail with their response to this question:

"Should GMOs be removed from the food system? Warrant your claim."

One student example:

 

TWO WAY COMMUNICATION!!!

After the student leaves a voicemail I can listen to it, read it and RESPOND! My response goes directly to their phone as a text... and they can text back!?! Below is a screenshot of my quick response to a student and her response back... 

Enjoy this tool and if you are ready to be EMPOWERED with it... I will be Hall Hawking!

Sheets, Forms, Slides!!

Google Drive is like Alice in Wonderland... you can travel further and further and further and get more and more overwhelmed at the power at your fingertips. My advice is master the basics and believe that the rest are pretty much built up from that foundation.

The basics are Google Docs (Word stripped of all the stuff you rarely use), Google Sheets (Excel stripped of all the stuff you don't understand) and Google Slides (PowerPoint stripped....). Google forms compliments Sheets by empowering you to make a form (easy BYOT implementation) to collect data that the form automatically organizes into a sheet (spreadsheet) for you to analyze or manipulate.

Lesson Example
The learning goal is to get students to understand why processed food has more ingredients than whole food items yet tends to cost less. This requires compiling data from a variety of sources (SCIENCE) that we can later analyze to draw warrants based on the evidence.

Google empowers the lesson by making it easy for students to choose a grocery store of their choice and use their Smartphone to input data they collect while visiting the store. They need no paper, pencil, backpack... All they need is access to the form and the critical thinking required to determine what observations to put in the cells.

Step ONE: Communicate the learning experience (Google Doc: example)
The screen shot from the example document has QR codes that students can scan with phones to open up the form OR the shortened URLs that the students can type into their browser to access the form.

Step TWO: Collect data and INPUT into the form (Google Form: set up example | final link view)
Students complete the form while on site and engaging in data collection. The compiling of data is done by google!!! So instruction and learning get to focus on WHAT the data says!

 This screen shot shows what the FORM looks like to the teacher as it is created in google forms.

*Notice you can "view live link"
*Notice you can "see number of responses"

______________________________________


The screen shot below shows what the FORM looks like to the student on their smartphone.

*Notice questions are clean and simple
*Responses can be scales, check-boxes, pull down menus, etc...

Step THREE: Check out the data!
The form inputs all data collected by each individual student into one spreadsheet (digital collaboration). Within the "responses" sheet you can view each cell and sort through the data.

Google will also "summarize responses" and this is a pretty useful tool based on the type of data you required students to collect.

Below is a screen shot of the compiled sheet example:

A summary of responses from one of my questions to illustrate a possible quick chart produced in seconds and ready to discuss or consider.

Step FOUR: Communicate the experience (google slides)
Students will use google slides to formally communicate their experience and base their message on the data of the class. This slide presentation will be submitted through google classroom for me to easily review and assess from my iPad from home.

#GettinGoogle

Socialization of School?!

A curious teacher contacted me with a desire to enhance a learning experience designed and used from the past. The lesson was based on discussion of perceptions of socialization in society. The foundation was school violence and the target to understand was what influenced the "student" to commit an act of school violence.

The teacher and I collaborated and created the following lesson. If you would like more access to materials please contact me and we will be sure to get those to you ASAP. 

I observed (and engaged with students) as the teacher facilitated the learning experience beautifully. Students were put into small teams of 4-5 and were provided laminated cutouts of the images RIGHT that represented the various areas to align along the spectrum of blame: community, school, home, media, and peers. The teacher used a google presentation to formally present to the class the content necessary to empower them to be content literate as they discussed their perspectives.

Each group was provided a CLAIM SHEET to organize their warrants for each claim that states their perspective of each area along the "SPECTRUM OF BLAME."

Students engaged in this by discussing and arguing for their personal views as well as listening to their peers' viewpoints until the team reached consensus. 

TECHNOLOGY TIME! Stoodle was the tool! The teacher provided the students a link that welcomed the entire class to collaboratively create an artifact that individually communicated their teams perspectives for each area along the blame spectrum (the live feed was being projected for the entire class to see in real time). 

Below is a screenshot of what was the end result.

This image was the ROCK that promoted discussion between teams and guided by the teacher. Some of the high level and critical thinking questions I observed:

• Why is the perspective of parental blame so various in range compared to community?
• Describe a home that would produce the least likely student to commit this crime?
• Why is media considered by most to be most blame-worthy?
• How should media respond to these events
• How could school be more safe? What power does the school have?

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

The teacher wanted to collect student perspective data about the class after the learning experience. Plickers was the student feedback system of choice and it has many benefits that appealed to me. The teacher must download the app (any smartphone) and print the answer cards (preferably card stock and matte laminated). The students clear desks of everything but the response card and when prompted they rotate their card to their answer. The teacher scans the room with her camera and all responses are compiled and the teacher has the option to display immediately or wait until the end. The responses are graphically represented to engage further discussion.

Just think how powerful it is to provide a learning experience challenging students to understand how five different areas influence school violence and then making it relevant by getting DATA from those students immediately and discussing the concept even more deeply as it relates to NVHS. 

BOOM!!

Another great day the Wildcat Way!

HallHawkin' | Lesson Idea

Today, I walked into several rooms and observed how teachers were using the laptop carts. My goal is simple "identify how the laptop technology is being used to enhance learning." The beauty of this goal is that it is win-win.

If the teacher is using the laptops effectively, and the lesson is engaging student learning... WIN.

If the laptops are not being used, an opportunity exists for me to offer up an idea of how to consider using the technology in the future.... WIN.

HALL HAWKIN' is what I am calling this experience because I plan on doing it often. I will cruise the halls seeking out learning experiences to enhance with technology. My disclaimer is that much of what I come up with may not be what the teacher wants but my hope is that they are stimulated into considering some version of it and taking the calculated risk to implement.

This role empowers me to exist as a CO-TEACHER/LEARNER. If the teacher is nervous about implementing technology, I will teach that lesson with them to help problem solve because "it takes a village."

One of the classrooms that I observed was learning about Modern Russia. The teacher was not using the laptops but the lesson was everything a great lesson is:

• Actively engaged students
• Students working collaboratively with a variety of "things" (textbook, notes, visuals, etc..)
• Caring teacher facilitating and relating to the students

The document linked HERE is a brief reflection and application of my observations of the Russian lesson. I shared it with the teacher so that s/he can decide if this idea has any potential in their classroom. 

Tech AND Text?!

I have heard this numerous times in a variety of ways, "If I go TECH do I lose my TEXT?" Seems logical that if you use digital documents and articles then you would not have the physical paper copies. The wonderful thing about instructional technology is that you the teacher are EMPOWERED to choose and diversify the HOW you teach what you teach and even more fun is CREATING learning experiences that the students will engage in and connect actively in a relevant manner.

Today, I tried to model this in my Earth Science classroom. This classroom is 1st period and has 34 students trying to figure out the basics of pastoral agriculture via Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma.

Serving students reading literacy is also important so thank you TEXT. Collaboration between peers in small teams combined with competition to respond to a shared document comprehensively is a recipe for a good learning experience so thank you TECH.

In the picture you can see three students in a team. All of them have text in hand (or near hand for the current student typing). In the front of the room I projected several questions to understand. The student is working on inputting the team's thoughts about each question. This team is 1 of 8 teams linked into the same GOOGLE DOC. Below is a video of that doc in real time. Notice the action!! Hear the discussion?!

This document is color coded because each group earns credit by contributing to the document. Groups CANNOT repeat information so this encourages them to read the previous responses and THINK more CRITICALLY. Fun lesson to facilitate. Diversified for various learning modes. Quick set up for any teacher that can create a google doc and share it. 

Giddy Up!

Today I was welcomed into this position by dozens of people from a variety of places within the walls of Neuqua Valley and beyond. Thank you for inspiring me! The requests for a supporting coach (me) from a head coach (you) ranged from:

• Social Workers Office : support data collection for students in need
• Special Education Office : create a way for TEAM teachers and students to easily access course information in real time. 
• Social Studies Teacher : support creating a course website to extend the classroom experience to the digital world. 
• Other teachers simply volunteered their rooms to be "victims" of learning throughout this process... I RESPECT IT, I NEED IT, I LOVE IT!

I also realized how many of us are less than excited about personally evaluating our own level of teaching to the digital society, the digital native student and this globally connected world. In my experience, most of us are already doing VERY WELL based on the criteria provided by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) for teachers. In the simple graphic below I plan to add links that will prove and support the HOW we can do WHAT we do for our students and each other as colleagues.

Keep it up! (for the record I trimmed this down to what I believed to be the most relevant for teachers in the classroom... like us).