Practice What We Preach

Okay people, several of us have end of the year trainings coming up, and if you don't, you probably have several days coming in August during back to school. I am going to share something which has been weighing heavily on my conscience because I am probably the world's worst! I am going to broach the subject of teachers as students. We are awful ya'll!! We enter professional development with stacks of papers to grade, a fully charged phone, or the newest novel. If our students did that, we would take up the homework and gloat to the other teacher we did it. We would take up the phone and gloat to the student we did it. Or we would take up the book after having a stimulating conversation about the overarching theme (shoutout to my ELA friends!) so, I propose a new approach to professional development...practice what we preach! Here are a few tips to try before entering your next PD session:

 1) Remember the key to a healthy teacher/student relationship is respect. The presenter is the teacher in this situation. Show them the respect you expect of your students. Pay attention, take notes, and only use technology when appropriate. We don't believe it when our students say, "I'm reading notes on my phone." Why should the presenter think we are when she can see the FaceBook logo reflected in our glasses?? Can you guys tell I'm speaking from first hand experience?

 2) Mentally prepare. We know the purpose of the sessions ahead of time. Try to think of one thing you would like to leave the session knowing. Write it down. Ask the presenter if necessary. No matter what, leave the session knowing that one thing. I don't care if you leave a four hour long differentiation training session only knowing how to scaffold vocabulary, you know more than the guy beside you on his phone checking his fantasy team does, and you aren't making our profession look bad. (FYI, this is self directed at a past me as well. The post is seriously pot meet kettle.)

3) Be open to change. We are living in the 21st century you guys...and that makes us lucky (in my tech loving opinion!) But that also means we have to make an effort to keep up. We constantly ask to be treated like professionals and then revolt against what other professional do. I can promise you there are doctors who have had medical licenses for twenty plus years who are using technology that has been developed in the last five. Why shouldn't that same principle apply to our profession?

It's hard! We have fifteen million things going on and are required to attend meetings which take away our time to get those things done. But we have to try to rise above and make each opportunity, mandated or not, be to the benefit of our students.

Resources Page in Google Classroom

A few days ago, I wrote about the importance of practicing and learning. Well, guess what I learned today...about Google Classroom, something I thought I knew all there was to know about? It is possible, and easy, to create a resources page in a Google Classroom. I am 99% sure this is something  most people who use Classroom regularly probably know, but since I didn't know, I thought I would share.

In Google Classroom, click the "About" tab, and there it is at the bottom of the page.

It really is so simple. And, an added bonus is when you add resources, you can add multiple resources to a category. For example, I added several vocabulary lists under the "Vocabulary" category.

For the past year and a half, I have been creating announcements with necessary handouts, but then my students have to scroll on the stream to find them. They are going to be so excited when I show them this!

In case you would like more detail, here is the link to the article that enlightened me!!

Keeping It Simple

I wish I had a dollar for every time a teacher told me, "I really want to use technology and be creative, but it is so overwhelming." Seriously you guys, I wouldn't be teaching or blogging; I would be living on my private island! And honestly, technology can be daunting, especially for those of us who were born before the internet. So here are a few tips for those of you who want to move toward being a 21st century educator:

1) Try one new thing. I don't care if you attempt your hand at a Google form or just create a Twitter. Try one new thing!! And then practice and play with it. You will be amazed at how user friendly most technologies are. You will also be surprised at how many people will help and support you. I saw a Tweet the other day that made my heart happy. An older lady tweeted, "I have this Twitter now...how in the world do I #hashtag???" The responses from the younger Twitter generation made my heart happy!

2) Don't be afraid to ask for help...especially from your students. I am not kidding you when I say my students teach me something new daily if not hourly. The other day a student taught me how to copy and paste text without formatting being copied and formatted also...seriously you guys...mind blown!

3) Practice, practice, practice! Let's say you finally figure out how to create and use a Google form. Every time you begin to create a quiz or worksheet for a lesson in your room, ask yourself, "Could I do this on a Google form?" If the answer is yes, go for it! The grading time it saves you is invaluable and you become much more comfortable in your skills.

4) Be willing to give up "knowledge control." As teachers, we are proud of our knowledge and what we have to share with our students. We worked hard to learn what we know. We consider ourselves experts, and we are. However, there is no one individual in the world who knows as much about Shakespeare as the reliable internet contributors as a whole. So honestly, what is better to share with our students? Our knowledge of Shakespeare or the ability to discern reliable from nonreliable internet sources?? We are still sharing our vast knowledge with our students; we are just making them thinkers instead of memorizers.

5) Do not forget what makes you a good teacher in the first place! If the one thing you know you do exceptionally well is build solid relationships with your students, do not let your learning something new get in the way. We all entered this profession for a reason, and I promise you it wasn't our typing abilities. As my friend Cullen would say, "No matter what happens, you do you!"

Paper Airplanes

I just had the most insightful discussion with my senior English dual-enrollment class.

 This morning for a few seconds, I stepped next door to help another teacher with a projector issue. (I wasn't able to help by the way! I am much better with software than with hardware.) When I returned to my classroom, the door was shut which always makes me suspicious. I have a student in this class who has jumped out from behind the door and scared me no fewer than five times. I looked through the window, and didn't see him hiding, which made me even more suspicious. When I opened the door, my suspicions were confirmed...every student in the room threw a paper airplane at me. I know...we have a strange relationship. They are seniors...senioritis is kicking in and they are reverting to childhood thrills. It is my favorite part of teaching seniors.

 At this point in my story, you are probably wondering why I am sharing this story and why it is relevant for my blog. I am getting there. For about five minutes, they flew their planes and we had a good time. After a few moments, I realized one student in the room was looking at his airplane with a perplexed expression. After questioning and coaxing, I found out his airplane wasn't done because he was trying to watch a YouTube video and he couldn't keep up with the guy on the video. Of course this led to the question, "You don't know how to make a paper airplane?" You guys...I was shocked. And then, even more surprising, the rest of the class admitted that one boy in the room made all theirs for them. Only one kid in my senior English class knew how to make a paper airplane. I literally said, "HOLD UP!" I also announced that as soon as we finish this final paper for your college class, we will be watching YouTube videos and learning how to make a paper airplane. I told them, "Sometime, in what I hope is the very far off future, most of you will be parents. And I feel, one characteristic of a good parent is being able to make a paper airplane for your little boy or girl."

 Here comes the insightful part...these were my student's responses...

 "My child can learn from YouTube if he wants a paper airplane."
"He can use his phone to figure it out."
"He will probably have a phone that will make it for him."

 You guys...we are teaching students who fully expect there to be a phone one day that will make a paper airplane for them. Just one more reminder of the importance of 21st century learning; we really are preparing students to lead a world full of innovations and technologies that haven't even been envisioned yet...but the students are envisioning them!

VideoNot.es

I love, love, love VideoNot.es, and I know you will too! I use it to grade prerecorded student presentations and provide, useful meaningful feedback with time stamped links straight to the videos. It can also be used to have students in a flipped classroom take and share notes over the assigned videos. Sounds too good to be true, right? NO! It's awesome! It is completely compatible with Drive and has the same share options as other Google apps and extensions. The only (and very minor) complaint I have is the progress is not saved in real time like other Google apps, but there is a large disk icon to remind you to save directly above where you are typing your notes.

Here is a useful video for getting started!

Seriously, check it out you guys! You won't be disappointed!!