Resources for the Classroom: CreativityCreativity can come in many forms and can be defined in many ways. Sir Ken Robinson writes a lot about creativity in his book Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. In the book, Robinson says, "Creativity is putting your imagination to work." "To be a creative leader you need to understand that everyone has creative potential. "Allow your students to take risks and to develop and discover their own intelligence." There are so many ways to test your student's intelligence while allowing them to be creative instead of the ways we've traditionally tested their intelligence, through formative and summative assessments. This post is meant to show you resources you can use to nurture and inspire creativity in your students. If you've taught students traditionally through formative and summative assessments how about changing it up? Allow students to be creative and demonstrate their learning through Learning Menus (Choice Boards). Learning Menus have traditionally been developed as a 3x3 board but Learning Menus can come in many different forms and sizes. Alfie Kohn says that Learning Menus can give students a greater feeling of academic confidence, they can build autonomy and responsibility in students, they provide opportunities to participate in decision making, and they provide a better glimpse into a student's role as a 21st century learner. Sir Ken Robinson says, "Creativity isn't about a lack of constraints but more about working within them and overcoming them." "We need to encourage people to believe in their creative potential and nurture the confidence to try." Learning Menus can be a great way for students to express that creativity and a great jumping off point for transformational teaching. Click on the image above to find out more and discover various resources about Learning Menus from EdTech leaders like @TommySpall, @ShakeUpLearning, @NadineGilikson, @JenniferFindlayBlog, @JGTechieTeacher, Chelsey Brown, and @Thinglink_EDU. If you are looking to move in a direction that encorporates all aspects of a learning cycles and provides students more freedom and flexibility you can try using HyperDocs. HyperDocs are a digital document where all components of a learning cycle have been pulled together in one location. A HyperDoc allows you to create and package a lesson plan tailored to fit the needs of your students. These lessons create quality inquiry based learning experiences so students can explore content, adjust their understanding through explorations, and apply knowledge in a meaningful way. The HyperDoc Gals say, "The HyperDoc serves as a content-packed, go-between for the teacher and student." A HyperDoc is more than a collection of links and the platform in which it is delivered. A true HyperDoc is meant for teachers to choose specific web tools/apps that allow students to participate in the 4 Cs (Communicate, Collaborate, Be Creative, and Critically Think), the 4 Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend Learning), and Apply, Share, and Reflect on their learning to maximize its impact." HyperDocs give all students a voice, allow them to develop their problem-solving skills, and create an authentic learning outcome to show their knowledge and connect that with a wider audience. Elliot Eisner said, "Not everything important is measurable and not everything measurable is important." HyperDocs are a great way to bridge the gap between what a traditional classroom was and what a 21st century classroom should be." To learn more about HyperDocs click on the image above to find resources from great EdTech leaders like The HyperDoc Gals, Jennifer Gonzalez creator of Cult of Pedagogy, and Matt Miller creator of Ditch that Textbook. Finally, there is a lot of discussion in education about student voice and choice. The Glossary of Education Reforms defines voice and choice as, "values, opinions, beliefs, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds of individual students and groups of students in a school, and to instructional approaches and techniques that are based on student choices, interests, passions, and ambitions.” I've written about two ways this can be accomplished, Learning Menus and HyperDocs. George Couros writes in his book, The Innovator's Mindset, "Creativity is where we start to think differently and innovation is where creativity comes to life." "Create content with the intention of sharing it." In education we need to start to create a space where students can showcase their voice. One specific way we can do that is through Digital Portfolios. We used to have folders teachers we would add our assignments to as part of a portfolio that got passed along from year to year and from teacher to teacher. With the power of technology, students can post that information on the internet and it can easily be shared with their parents, college recruiters, and potential employers to demonstrate their growth, voice, and potential. Simon Sinek says, "Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion." If students know they are creating something with the purpose of showcasing it to the world instead of an audience of one students might show more purpose. John Spencer writes in his book Empower, "When you hide your voice you rob the world of your creativity." We don't want to hide student voices and a digital portfolio can be that “purposeful” collection of student performance demonstrating growth, acquisition of skills or knowledge, and creativity over time published in a digital format for the world." Digital portfolios can often be a resource for reflection and an opportunity for students to show pride in their hard work while demonstrating their understanding and learning experiences. I'm not advocating that every assignment goes into a Digital Portfolio because there are certainly different types of assignments and a time and place for each. To learn more about Digital Portfolios and how to incorporate them click the image above to find resources from EdTech leaders like George Couros of the Innovator's Mindset and others. I've provided a lot of information to let students flex their creative muscle. In my next post I'll look at specific apps and their capabilities you can use to have students demonstrate their creativity and knowledge.
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Resources for the Classroom: CommunicationCOMMUNICATION: Apps & ResourcesCommunication can take many forms in the classroom. There is communication between administration and teacher, teacher to teacher, teacher to student, student to student, teacher to parent, and student to parent. All of these ways of communication rely on some form to deliver a message. Sometimes the message can be delivered by talking, sometimes it is more discreet and a note is passed on paper (old school), other times its delivered electronically (new school). However a message is delivered there needs to be some way to communicate that message. Many of the ways we communicate in classrooms today is to provide students with directions, assignments, or to have a discussion. Very rarely do we ask students to reflect on their learning or receive feedback to make something better. Below I will provide an example of a technology teachers can incorporate into their classroom to address some of these areas. When a teacher tells students about their homework they can use email, Google Classroom, Edmodo, Schoology, Apple Schoolwork, a classroom website, blog etc. to let students know what is due and when. All of these resources require a little bit of work on the back end but once the LMS (Learning Management System) or other resource is set up it will be there for each subsequent year. Once you have the communication in place parents will come to expect and appreciate the communication, while students and parents will come to rely on a dedicated place they can find information about classwork. Shifting gears away from basic classroom communication, if a teacher wants to have a classroom discussion, many times there are the same students who participate in the discussion. If you want to try and reach all students in class you can use tools that incorporate backchanneling like Nearpod, Padlet, GoSoapBox, or SMART Learning Suite to hear from all students equally. Eric Sheninger, a Senior Fellow and Thought Leader on Digital Leadership & Learning, gives a good description of what backchanneling is on his blog. He says, "A backchannel is a conversation that takes place alongside an activity or event. In an educational context, a backchannel can provide quiet students with a place to ask questions, teachers can share supporting resources or ask questions and watch the response of students to determine if they understand the concepts, and students can search the backchannel for notes and resources." If you are going to use some of the tools mentioned above there are a few things you should know first about the resources before getting started. With resources like Nearpod and SMART Learning you might need to create something first before you broadcast to the class. Nearpod and SMART Learning require that you create a slide or two even if there is nothing on the slide for backchanneling. In Nearpod, you can create a one slide activity and add an open ended question, a collaborative space, or poll the students. With the SMART Learning Suite you can have the students work together on a slide or build a slide and add a Shout It Out or Response 2 activity to open communication. With Padlet and GoSoapBox you can create discussion boards on the fly with little to no preparation, you would just need to make sure students joined your class in GoSoapBox before you created a discussion. Nearpod, Padlet, and GoSoapbox are free with some limitations. Nearpod and GoSoapBox only let you connect 30 students at time in each class, which means that if you want multiple classes connected to the same lesson you will have to pay for an upgrade or copy the lesson to use with multiple classes. Padlet is free and you can have as many students as you like connect to the digital bulletin board but you can only make a restricted amount of digital bulletin boards before you need to delete to make room for more or pay to upgrade to more boards. SMART Learning Suite requires that you have a subscription to the learning software. When a teacher wants his/her students to get feedback or have a continuing discussion there are many places teachers can go. Many of our young people today use social networks to receive feedback everywhere from their peers to strangers, it's all about the likes! Which is why, it's ok for teachers to use social media in class. There are great discussions happening on Twitter every second and teachers can be a part of that with their students and create an environment where students can review old discussions threads and learn about digital citizenship. The way a teacher would do that is through #hashtags. A teacher creates a hashtag for their classroom and when they push out their question the students all respond with the same hashtag at the end of their response. Everything is grouped under the same hashtag and it's easy to find. Teachers are even getting into using Snapchat in their classrooms to facilitate #BookSnaps. #BookSnaps are digital, visual representations used to annotate and share reflections from a book or text. Dave Burgess has a great blog post on #BookSnaps. Two other wonderful resources to deepen understanding and discussion are Flipgrid and Explain Everything. Flipgrid is the leading video discussion platform that lets students record short, authentic videos and reply to each other’s videos. Educators are 100% in control with video moderation, access controls, and much more. Some of the ideas educators can use are back-to-school intros, booktalks, reflections, expert Q&As, showcasing STEAM ideas...the possibilities are endless for students to verbalize their learning! Since Flipgrid was recently purchased by Microsoft is 100% free. Explain Everything on the other hand is not totally free. With Explain Everything, teachers can use video, notation, and audio recording to bring your instruction to life and strengthen leadership and collaboration skills by giving students the tools to create and share their own tutorials, animated stories, and presentations. Under the free version of Explain Everything users can have up to three projects and view those projects on any device. Users can also collaborate with other users on their projects and use web video link sharing. If you want an unlimited number of projects, slides, recording, and storage that will cost about $9 a month. Apps that are similar to Explain Everything and free are Educreations and ShowMe. Social media can also just be a great resource to communicate with students and parents in general. You can send out a calendar of events, information about homework, classroom pictures, or important announcements. Students and parents on Twitter or Instagram can follow you or your #hashtag and get updated information in their feed as you push it out. If social media isn't your thing, there are plenty of other resources to use when it comes to classroom communication. Remind allows you to send quick, simple messages to any device and it shows up like a text message but you don't have to give out your phone number. You communicate through the app but those to whom your sending receive the information like a text message and respond the same way. Bloomz has everything a teacher needs to connect with parents. From instant messaging to media sharing, calendars, and daily reports. Bloomz makes all parental communication quick, simple and easy. FreshGrade allows teachers and students to quickly capture learning in digital portfolios. While parents are given ongoing communication about learning, students are given the opportunity to self-reflect on their growth. The FreshGrade parent app provides secure access for ongoing communication about their child’s learning, allowing them to better support the learning plan. Parents are able to view and comment on their child’s portfolio. With ClassDojo on the other hand, teachers can encourage students for any skill or value — whether it's working hard, being kind, helping others or something else using a system that helps with classroom management and behavior issues. Class Dojo can also give students a voice because students can showcase and share their learning by adding photos and videos to their own portfolios, and teachers can get parents engaged by sharing photos and videos of wonderful classroom moments. SeeSaw is a platform for student engagement that inspires students of all ages to do their best, and saves teachers time. Students use creative tools to take pictures, draw, record videos and more to capture learning in a portfolio. Teachers find or create activities to share with students. Families only see their child's work and leave comments and encouragement. Some teachers use Seesaw primarily as a place for students to share their work, and specifically encourage individual reflection and peer feedback. Some teachers choose to use Seesaw in a more private way, where they can do student assessment, collect work, and give direct private feedback to students. For other teachers, Seesaw is primarily used a way to communicate with families and keep them in the loop on the learning their child is doing at school. Remind, Bloomz, and FreshGrade, ClassDojo, and SeeSaw are all free for teachers and parents.
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