Surveying your students...

I have used two survey websites in my high school Biology class for various reasons.

My school has spent the past two years moving towards the Global Learning Initiative model classrooms. In this model, the focus is shifting from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered classroom. The model also heavily focuses on authentic problem-based learning tasks, student responsibility and ownership, and the infusion of technology. While this model is new for my students, it is also new for me as the teacher.

Getting feedback from my students about what pieces of the model they are struggling with/do not like/do not benefit from versus what pieces of the model they enjoy/benefit from. Recently, I used these a survey website to collect feedback from my students: Survey Monkey. Registering and signing up for a basic plan is free, fast and easy. Questions can be answered anonymously if you would like, or student names can be recorded.

Screenshot from a recent survey I administered:

There are a variety of question types: multiple choice, T/F, matrix, open-ended, etc.

Another great website for the same purpose: KwikSurveys

Who has time to grade??

This week I wanted to blog about a freeware I use about every two weeks with my students; this website is a quiz-taking site for teachers to administer assessments: Classmarker.com. It has been a life-saver. I administer all my quizzes on this website. Don't have a room full of computers? No problem! Assign the quizzes for homework. I purposely make the questions somewhat challenging because I know they are open-notebook (and open-internet I'm sure). I'm OK with that because as students review their notes, they are reviewing the content.

The website has several options for questions: multiple choice, true/false, etc. You can even add diagrams and pictures.

Initially setting up all your rosters and classes is time-consuming, but once it is done... it is so worth it. Best of all, the website saves all results and old assessments (so you can reuse them every year with inputting them again and again).

You can also alter the time limits, randomization of answers, when/if students see their score and the correct answers and many other options.

Did I mention its totally FREE?

Here are some screen shots from my account:

Skype

So I was sitting here thinking about what I could blog about next... and I got a Skype request from my friend from college in Virginia....Duh!


Skype has got to be one of the coolest, easy-to-use, (not to mention free) communication services. I personally have never used Skype for educational purposes. However, I started to brainstorm and research on this thought. Would it be cool if some of our online discussions for NJCU courses could be Skype sessions instead of discussion posts on a board? The downside of this is the time constraint - everyone would have to be available all at once... and this i part of the reason why many people take online courses, because with crazy schedules, they know this is not an option for them.

I asked a few of my colleagues if they have ever use Skype for teaching... it was uncommon among responses, but a Spanish teacher responded with enthusiasm. "Of course, this tool makes for great online review sessions before a test!" She told me the review sessions were optional, but part of their tests were to complete an oral portion. Something that can't be practiced without the ear of the expert teacher! :)

What about having kids having "pen pals" in another country for a language class - but instead of writing - Skyping!


The Library Media Specialist also reminded me that she sets up "Skype with an Expert" sessions after school - I completely forgot. She contacts various professionals from all different lines of work. The students can sign up to stay after school in the LMC conference room, where she sets up the SMARTBoard with Skype and projects the session. The kids can ask questions to real adults who are in field they might be interested in. What a great experience for our students.

Skype is also available on most smart phones, too - free of charge. You don't even have to be at your computer. I'm sure there are countless possibilities for education purposes for this tool.

Picture reference

iTouch & iPad in the Classroom

I would like to start off by saying that I am bias to these two pieces of technology - I have 100% mac blood running through me - so all Apple technology is elite in my eyes :). For those of you that do not own an iTouch (or iPad, I prefer the compact nature of the touch, however), you should really consider getting one. This little device does it all - except make phone calls (in which case, you COULD get something that does it all with the iPhone). I use my iTouch to play games, as a calculator/organizer, to jot notes, listen to music at the gym or watch movies on a car ride. Not to mention there are countless apps available for download, many of which are free. There is a growing trend (in schools where money is available) of iTouch and iPad use in the classroom. I must admit, when I first heard that our school was getting a set of 30 iTouches available in the Media Center for signout, I was confused. I have students who use their iTouch to record homework, shoot an email, or do a quick internet search with them in class.... but beyond that, where is the educational value?


While standing the Media Center on duty, I bumped into a gym teacher at my school who was there to sign out the iTouches. I thought, what on earth could he be doing with them? I had to ask. He showed me an app he had found on the iTouch called iFitness. The app allowed the user to calculate their BRR (Basal Metabolic Rate) to figure out their needed daily caloric intake. The app also allowed users to log foods they ate (it even had brand name foods and specific dishes at chain restaurants!). After inputting the food and the quantity, it logged the calories in the student daily logs. The students were also able to input exercises (including intensity and duration) and these calories would be deducted from the daily total... It was a really cool way to teach the students fitness and nutrition.



I started thinking where else we could integrate these technologies and I found this website. If you scroll down, you can click the specific subject area you are looking for, and it will provide a list of potential applications for use in that subject. Anyways, though it was cool - let me know if you find something good that might work for you.

Wordle

Next on my blog list of classroom technologies is Wordle. Wordle is not, by any means, the most useful or educational among my other blog entries, but it certainly is pretty cool. Wordle is something that, especially as an english teacher, could be a neat "ending" to an essay assignment or story-writing assignment. It is a web-based tool that generates word "clouds" based on text you enter. Wordle picks frequently-used words from your text (which can easily be cut-and-pasted into a box on the website), and arranges them randomly in a user-chosen theme of colors and fonts. Bigger fonts represent more-frequently-used words. Examples:

This is probably never something I would use in my high school biology classroom, but it is certainly worth thinking about for language arts. I think a neat assignment might be for students to write an autobiography, Wordle it when it is complete, and have the teacher print and display the Wordles around the room. Maybe student could leave their name out of the their essay/Wordle and students could guess which Wordle belongs to which classmate (come to think of it, this would be a cool ice-breaker idea for the first day of school)... My mind is buzzzzzzing tonight :)

Just for the heck of it, I make a Wordle of my blog:

And isn't it funny that the most common word used in my blog is "students". That IS the reason we are all teachers, isn't it? :)

SMARTResponse

At the risk of sounding like I work for SMART Technology (which no, I do not), I would like to take the time to talk about one of the greatest (and coolest) technologies I have been using in my classroom for about a year now: the SMART Response System.

The SMART Response System is made by the same company as SMART Board. However, you do not need a SMART Board to have a SMART Response System (SRS). The SRS is made up of an easy-to-use software set (called Teacher Tools) and anywhere from 5-40 SRS Clickers. They look like remote controls! The clickers, (shown left) are used to directly interacting with your students - before, during, or after a lesson. No more waiting until the test to see what they know... no more depending on oral discussion and the handful of students who respond to you.

The clickers work with a plug-n-play (easy-to-use) hub that connect via USB to the teacher computer. The clickers work by radio waves up to 100 feet.

The students get to sign in with personal login codes (which allows the software to record their numerical scores on quizzes). After the assessment is complete the teacher can spend time reviewing questions that students did poorly on, due to an instant pie chart of results that is generated (not to mention, skip reviewing the questions they did well on). There are so many potential uses for this in the classroom - I love my set so much, in fact, that I teach professional development workshops in the ETTC in my school for How-To get started with a SMART Response system.

I just thought it would be nice to throw this out here because it is almost time for all of us to build our classroom budgets for next year - could this be the next thing on your wish list? :)

Online Labs

As a science teacher, I have to incorporate interactive/hands-on lessons to not only engage my students - but to show, instead of tell, them how life works.

One of the ways science teacher accomplish this is by incorporating labs into the class, something most of us are very familiar with. However, sometimes I come across topics in which restrictions keep me from doing relevant lab activities with my student (too expensive, too dangerous, do not have proper equipment, uncontrolled environment creates too many errors, etc.). This is something I ran into my first year teaching - I do not thin I will ever forget how much time and effort I put into a Photosynthesis Lab: creating the document, driving all over creation in the dead of winter to find the right aquatic plant, etc. Needless to say, it was a cool lab - the kids really enjoyed reading it and setting it up. However, when I got to school the next day, result-collecting-day, i was heart broken to see the reaction had not worked as it was supposed to. The results,(the few I had, anyway) would not have been meaningful to the students. This is when I discovered an online lab website called explorelearning.com.

This website is loaded with "gizmos" - their cute whip for an interactive lab simulation. The first lab I found here was one I needed - on photosynthesis. It not only let student manipulate the one variable I was aking them to (carbon dioxide concentration), but temperature, sunlight, etc. It had built in features to allow students to graph their results and screen captures tools and everything! I fell in love. Here is a screenshot from that gizmo:


















Each "gizmo" also has a downloadable teacher guide, student handout and mini-quiz to check for understanding. Once you register, and your class is setup, your students scores even record on line. The gizmos are for both math and science. Of course, real labs are fantastic and nothing can replace a true experience, but sometimes we can't also give them the real thing.

I have also found this useful for assigning over breaks, and for students who were absent for a lab activity and cannot make it up.

Anyways, if you are a math or science teacher, this is definitely a site wroth checking out :).