District Academy Awards 2012

On Monday June 11, 2012 we hosted our second annual academy awards ceremony. This was the first time that it has been a district-wide event. Previously it was limited to only the Middle School.   I developed this event with our middle school gifted and talented teacher, Dr. Nancy Harris.  The purpose is to recognize and celebrate the fabulous multimedia projects that our students have created throughout the year in grades K-12. 

Digital storytelling, podcasting, stop motion animation and digital authoring  are all integrated into all of our instructional areas. In each content area students and teachers are creating and accessing such content to  instruct and assess.

Multimedia creation develops information literacy skills such as research, evaluation and organization of digital content.  The process develops visual literacy, critical thinking, and collaboration.  Students who take part in these projects are provided an authentic task and an audience for their writing beyond the classroom teacher. In many cases students discover the power of their own voice and an overall excitement about learning.

The categories that we recognized included:  Non-Fiction, Personal Narrative, Historical, Stop Motion Animation, Podcast/Radio Show, Environment, Character Counts, Public Service Announcement, Current Events, Foreign Film, Tutorial and Digital Book.

We had 21 productions in which 53 awards were given. For this event we setup a red carpet for students to enter. Each winner received a mini oscar award. This year we had 250 parents, family and students in the audience. Our students did an fantastic job on their productions. We are proud of the work they created and the teachers who supported them.

We look forward to this event next year. To begin planning class/student projects for this event please visit the resources below:

Mr. Walker's Digital Writing Wiki: 

Digital Storytelling 

Storyjumper

SAM Animation

 

Enaged Students - Authentic Tasks - Disguised Learning

I had the opportunity this week to work with a middle school French class. The current curriculum was addressing occupations. The students were being introduced to the vocabulary associated with this topic. Students in the class were assigned the task of researching and presenting a final project that documents what they learned about their occupation. Of course, the entire projected needed to be written and presented in French.

I worked with the teacher, Mrs. Neuschatz,  to develop a project that the students would relate to. We wanted to move away from a traditional research based presentation where students develop PowerPoint slides of texts and images. These types of projects typically do not involve a high level of motivation nor do they result in significant learning or knowledge exchange in a classroom. We can be honest and refer to them as "death by PowerPoint". I think everyone can relate to this.

What we decided to assign is a "Fakebook" profile. Our district is a member of Google Apps for Education. A quick search of the templates in Google Docs returned a number of "Facebook Profile Templates". I selected one that utilizes Google Presentation. It is a four page presentation template that mirrors a typical Facebook profile.
We assigned the students the task of developing a Facebook Profile for a person who practices the occupation that they select. They must include daily events (postings to the wall), who would this person be friendly with (friends), education and other information (info), events that this person might take part in (videos). Although we assigned a rubric, the students have some flexibility as to the content they could provide.

We expect to have some finished projects in a couple of weeks. However, my initial observations in the classroom were very interesting. The students were motivated and excited about the project. They applied creativity and a level of higher order thinking to make connections between the research they uncovered and the sections of the profile that they must complete. It was not sufficient to mere list responsibilities of "A Doctor". They instead had to apply that knowledge by listing activities and events that a doctor might experience and post them on "the wall".  Rather than supply a listing of facts in a typical slide, they are applying what they learned to a task. Students were not only making connections and applying knowledge, but they were learning French through an authentic and engaging task!

The template for our PowerPoint "Fakebook Project" can be found here.

I will share some of our final products when they are ready.

Are we teachers?

Today during our professional development sessions we introduced a new project that our Supervisor of Special Education, Director of Curriculum & Instruction and I have been working on called "The Pyramid of Intervention" The pyramid is an interactive resource for all teachers K-12. It provides faculty with resources, instructional strategies and interventions that can be used to assist students in your classroom. It is designed to be the first steps before the I&RS process.

The pyramid is divided into 3 tiers. Tier one contains strategies and resources that can be used for all students in your classroom. As you move up the tiers you are narrowing your focus to those students who are "outliers" in your classroom. These are the students who are not responding to your varied modes of instruction. They require more targeted resources. Our tier 2 provides a large inventory of targeted strategies for these students. Each tier of the pyramid has a corresponding form.  The form is used to track your progress with each student that you move through the pyramid. It is a great tool for documenting what steps you have taken to assist those students.  The last step of the  pyramid is a referral for I&RS.

It is our hope that by requiring the implementation of the pyramid before the I&RS process we will be able reduce the number of I&RS referrals. We strive to be able to provide teachers with a very intuitive resource to go to in order to find the strategies and interventions that are necessary for their students. By documenting these steps in the forms, our faculty will be able to go to an I&RS meeting with documentation of what was tried, what worked and what has not worked.

I am very excited to provide this powerful resource to our faculty. Now that the presentations are over I have had time to reflect on what we have done.  I am reflecting on my own classroom experiences as a middle school and elementary school teacher. I only wish I had access to such a resource then. Working on the pyramid of intervention has focused my thoughts on instruction and differentiation. How important is it to treat every student and an individualized learner? How can we address the various levels, interests, and learning styles in our classrooms?

I ask the question, "Are we teachers?"  I say no. Teachers are individuals who Teach. The traditional definition is someone who teaches or instructs.  The model of, " I teach and you as a student choose to learn or not", does not properly represent what we are charged to do at the K-12 level. It more fully defines a college educator.  In a college students pay tuition. Professors teach content and it is up the the college student to decide if they will learn and apply what they have learned. It is not the responsibility of the  professor to ensure that all students are learning.  It is an entirely different story in K-12 education. I think a good name for us is "Student Learning Consultant". As I see it, our job is not to teach. Our job is to ensure that students learn. If a student is not learning it is our responsibility to identify the reason why and provide the interventions necessary to change the behavior.

Our pyramid of intervention, Universal Design for Learning tools, online pd courses and blogs that were introduced today are tools to  assist us in our challenge to ensure student learning. I look forward to helping you vet these resources.

Enjoy!

Create Portfolios In Glogster

Glogster EDU has just released a new feature for its premium subscribers. Our current high school and Middle School have a premium license.  Here is the press release from Glogster Edu:

"With two new functionalities, Presentations and Portfolios, you will be able to group any Glogs on Glogster EDU and present your Digital Book made with many Glogs as “pages” with a chosen school topic or a subject or your students` work throughout the school year. This is a unique step from one Glog to real digital literacy that can be shared and used on Class, School, District and international education level. The digital education has never made more sense!"



Look for the Presentation and Portfolio Tab on your dashboard. You can group and save student Glogs together. The Glogs will remain available to you even after you delete a student account. This is a great way to save samples for future years or to build a portfolio of student work. You may also want to develop a presentation to show parents.

Digital Posters Develop Higher Order Thinking

Have you taken a look at a Glog yet? The website http://edu.glogster.com is a free Web 2.0 site for educators. The site allows for teachers to create an account and then within that account create up to 100 managed student accounts. The entire setup takes about 3 minutes to complete. On my wiki page I have provided instructions for accessing and setting up an account on Glogster. http://edunology.wikispaces.com/glogster.

A Glog is a digital poster that may contain text, images, clip art, videos, audio files, backgrounds and hyperlinks. All of these items can be arranged  in a very creative and artistic way. There is not a template that is forced on the user. Glogs are designed to be presented to an audience upon completion.  This is where a Glog separates itself from other presentation tools such as PowerPoint.

We have all sat through a number of PowerPoint presentations delivered by students and our peers. How many of these presentations have been dreadful? How painful is it to sit through a presentation in which the presenter has slide after slide of text that he or she continues to read word for word? In many cases students are copying and pasting text from the web and then reading it out loud to the class. This is not an exercise in higher order thinking. Students are not synthesizing the information they have uncovered. They are just reading information that they found on the web.



Glogster can change the way you and your students deliver presentations. A Glog is a one page digital poster. All of the content for your presentation must be contained in one page. It is designed to be populated by primarily images and short text labels. By limiting the space allocated for content the presenter must provide meaning and depth to his or her presentation by offering explanations and descriptions for the content they have added to their Glog. The presenter must have a clear understanding of the topic and be able to offer explanations in his or her own words to explain their content selections.

Example: The Glog that I have linked to below is a digital poster assignment in which the presenter is stating a case for a President that she believes a monument should be built for. It was designed by Mrs. King in our Middle School as an example for a class project. Each image has a full explanation that provides justification for her argument. Mrs. King must provide this explanation to her class. This explanation is verbal. Ther are not large text boxes of content that is being read. Mrs. King provides a verbal justification to her class and uses the images to support and add meaning to her content delivery.

http://kingcrown.edu.glogster.com/john-f-kennedy-monument/



By providing our students with a presentation tool that steers them towards reflective analysis, verbal explanations, public speaking and creativity we are not only preparing them for the 21st century, but we are providing them with an avenue for synthesis of ideas and information. This type of assessment will have a positive impact on student learning that exceeds what we are currently experiencing with MS PowerPoint.

>Interactive Websites and PowerPoint Presentations

>The following website was introduced to me by Sherry Brzostowski, White Rock School. The main site has a number of interactive websites that are categorized by subject. These are great sites to use on an interactive whiteboard, center activities, or as part of a larger project.

The content that I found even more interesting on this site after exploring further is the huge collection of PowerPoint presentations compiled for Language Arts k-12. There are PowerPoint presentations that can be downloaded for many of the topics covered in the language arts curriculum. The largest collection is for grades 3-5. In many cases you could use these presentations or modify them to fit your plans.

The presentations are free to use. If you do use them I would recommend citing the source and maybe sending them a note letting them know you found their resource helpful. I am sure they would like to hear that.

http://jc-schools.net/PPTs-la.html#Grades6-12

Enjoy!