Going Online for Learning

       Going online learning is nothing new to me but for a lot of people this is a new venture.  Especially if you are on the teaching side.  My colleague put it this way, "It is like putting on the wings of a plane while in flight."  I believe a lot of teachers have only been on the receiving end of an online class and have not set one up.  Once everyone is on board with online learning, snows will not be the same; school could still function.  A couple of problems have come up that makes this method of learning unachievable.  Some families do not have devices or the internet.  A lot of schools have foot the bill for devices and hotspots for them.  Many families do not have a device for each child.  The internet at my house has been lagging and very slow.  And some students do not use electronics to learn or they have support to do so.  

Students with many devices.

       The school system I work in uses Google Classroom as a way to communicate and teach their students.  The function I like most about Google Classroom is you can tier your activities.  Teachers often need the flexibility to differentiate assignments for students based on ability, learning styles, reading level, etc. In this case, the teacher chooses the assignment for each student/group of students. YAY!
       If you use google and know where to retrieve google apps, you have accomplished half your battle.  It is following the prompts from there.  I played with it for a while.  I added people to the the classroom and will add this blog to the assignment.  I have read that you can add activities (listed below) to classroom with no problem.

• Kahoot
• Quizizz
• Quizlet
• Quizlet Diagrams
• Formative
• Edulastic
• and many more!

 

Assessment Tools Rules part 2

I chose Powtoon to create 2 review assessments on planets.  I have the students pick a/all planet(s), research and write 3 important facts along with a hand drawn picture of the planet.

Powtoon is a platform that changes your slides to videos.  It seems like it is very engaging for the students.  I am on the free trial and it is a hefty bill if you choose to purchase the pro version.  It was easy navigate.  I chose a template already made for assignments.  I was able to swap out characters, fonts, objects, backgrounds and added some slides as well as added a picture of me.  It looks like you can record your voice too for the pro version.  It reminded me of the Adobe Sparks platform.  It is easy for the students to choose a template for reports, assignments, class goals, presentations, class syllabuses, and timelines. 

Common Sense gave it 4 stars and Teachers gave it 5 stars. 
I would give it 4 stars- not free

To embed the video, I had to make a Vimeo account.  If you had the paid version, you could have it uploaded to a MP4.  With the free version your choices are PDF or Powerpoint. I tried the Powerpoint version and it stopped the music after each slide= Not a video.

One of my favorite online teaching and assessment resource

Brain Pop

I gave it 4 stars because it is not free.

I use BrainPop as a resource to assess my students in the beginning of a lesson. I gave it 4 stars because it is not free. It is geared towards grades k-12 and covers information in Science, Math, English, Health, Arts, Music, Trends, Social Studies, and Engineering and Technology.  The program provides an animated movies to engage students in content aligned to state education standards.  The students love the main characters Tim and Moby (robot).  They always mimic Moby by saying, “MEEP MEEP.” BrainPop has follow up quizzes, worksheets, games, lesson plan, vocabulary and a lot of other related materials/readings.  

What I like about the assessment quizzes are you can use the graded or review option.  Using the graded, the student will not see the right answer until the end and can either email or print the results. You can even make your own quiz. Using the review option,  you can pick until you get the right answer. I use the review option when I work with a group of students.  

It is a paid subscription but it does provide free access to the movie of the day and a couple of movies and quizzes from each subject.  BrainPop can be viewed on smartphones, tablets and computers.

The company also offers BrainPop Jr. for younger children (grades K-3), BrainPop Español, BrainPop Français, BrainPop ELL(English language learners) for non-native speakers learning English, BrainPop Educators.

Example of BrainPop on Coronavirus. This movie is free.

Working with Google Forms

Google forms are not just for questionnaires or surveys, they are a great way to see where students stand using it as a paperless quick check.  Students watched a video on the Oregon Trail and had a class discussion before taking the quiz.  I love that it grades the quiz for you and it can even tally the results to see if the content needs reteaching.  

I used a template Google provided and branched from there.  My form has a variety of questions for my students to answer: multiple choice, true/false, multiple options, and short answer. I choose to use pictures and the state's name for the first question because I know geography is a deficit the students are still working on.  

I plan to use this form again by duplicating it and expanding with another section.  It will be part of the student's Virginia Alternative Assessment Program (VAAP) for 8th grade history. 

The only issues I faced were dead Chromebooks and I had to make sure the students had their accommodations.