Innovation Exchange 2017

Here are my presentation slides for todays conference. I'm going to be talking about technology in the classroom, Showbie, Google Forms, using social media to communicate with parents, and creating a classroom blog.

Almost Famous

I'm all home and settled in from my two days of traveling back and forth to IpadpaloozaIN, and the kids are asleep. Kids asleep in my house means time on my devices (My husband and I try to limit our device time when the kids are awake). I get on Twitter and one of the presenters from IpadpaloozaIN tweeted about their time there. They posted a collage of photos and guess who is front and center in one of them working hard on an activity? If you guessed me, you are totally right! So not only did I finally get to hear and see some of Kristin Ziemkes insights, but she tweeted out a photo with me in it. 👍🏻😊

Here's the link to her tweet:

https://twitter.com/kristinziemke/status/742841389579374597

The picture I'm shown (green shirt) in, we are working on an authentic assessment. She had pre-recorded a video with the assignment that explained in detail the task. The purpose of making the video was to help demonstrate how to make multiples of you (the teacher), as well as to give us an opportunity to try an authentic assessment using technology.

The first reason for the video was for creating multiples of you. This is a tool to use for the next day after a lesson when students ask, "Mrs. Moyer I can't remember how to do this, can you show me again?" As the teacher you will have recorded a short 2-3 minute video the day before of the lesson you taught. Then when a student asks to be taught again (or they were absent), you can direct them to that video. This enables you to be in multiple places at once.

As to where the video is located depends on your classroom. Did you email it to your students to save to their camera roll? Did you send it to them to save on their one drive? Do you have a folder in Showbie for videos? On OneNote do you have a video section under each subject? Are they posted somewhere students can access from any where or on any device?  Once you have established a place and a routine for posting the mini lesson videos, you can create the habit daily to take 5-10 minutes to create and upload these videos.

Then the second reason for the video was to try for ourselves an authentic assessment that uses technology where students create with not consume the technology. We were told there were various supplies around the room, and we were to take them and create something. Once we created it, we needed to take a picture of our creation. When we were done with that she had us create a meme of our picture, but we needed to use 8-10 words to describe it. Here's my meme for you.

What I loved about this activity was how this took the skills we taught them in previous lessons that they in turn had to use in a real life application versus the standard paper/pencil assessment. This activity gives the students the ability to work at their creativity level, while still using the skills we had taught them. Then we are able to pull in other subjects by using the technology to show and tell their work. She displayed a short video followed by simple directions with a QR code for students to quickly find the video again to watch on their own if they needed to see it again.

Directions for students after watching video with a QR code to watch it again if needed. 

I can't wait to try this activity this year with my students at the end of our electricity unit. Then in showbie I plan on posting my mini lessons for them in school. For outside of school access and for their parents I'll post on our classroom blog/facebook page. 

Groups in Showbie!!

You can now create groups in Showbie for collaboration spaces with coworkers, classrooms, or students. This app continues to amaze me. I can't wait to roll out groups next year with my students. I can use it just like social media with my students. In a bigger scheme, you can collab with other classrooms in your grade on topics. It can be used with small groups for them to collab together and share their work. Check out the official Group information from Showbie:

https://www.showbie.com/how-to-use-showbie-groups/

At the bottom of the page they ask you to give them your ideas for using groups in your classroom. What are your ideas? Here are mine.

More benefits of Showbie

Late summer I posted about using Showbie in the classroom. I've been using it in my classroom for almost a year now. A new feature I use now is an assignment called Notes to Mrs. Moyer.

I opened the assignment from the first day of school and I have it scheduled to be collected the last day of school. I can use the assignment to send my students notes or they use it to send me notes. 

When I've been absent, and while at home I'll get alerts on my iPad notifying me changes have been made. I'll look and students will be sending me messages. They tell me what classmates are acting out for the sub and what they are doing. Other ways they have used it is to tell me something they are afraid others will hear, like someone bullying them or bothering them.

Now that I've been on maternity leave for 6 weeks, they have been using it to communicate with me when they are missing me. I get cute little selfies of them with their friends, notes of how they miss me, they want to check up on me and the baby, or they want to share news going on in their life. It has been a great way for me to not completely abandon my students.

Be sure in the settings to turn on email notifications. The emails can be annoying, but they proved very helpful to me. They help with knowing students sent a message if I missed the notification on my iPad or if a student deletes a comment you can still see it in the email. :) For example, a student called me a curse word in Showbie and sent me the message to then delete it. I may not have received the notification on my iPad or seen the message on their iPad....BUT I received an email letting me know they posted a note and exactly what they posted. So this proves those emails are helpful in monitoring your students fully on Showbie. 

Showbie

My goal is to go as paperless as I can this school year by utilizing the iPad. One of the ways I plan to do this is by using the program Showbie. This is a wonderful app available in the app store, and it has a free version that works for almost all your needs. Your students don't even need an email to register to use it! 

Basically this app allows you to upload documents to your class that you created, and your students assignment right there in the app. The app is limited on what file format you can upload and write on using their tools. It accepts PDF's and pictures as a format you can write on in the app. Word Documents, PowerPoint, Excel, etc can be uploaded from you to Showbie, but they will have to be opened in a compatible app or program for the document to work for your student's to write on. They can then be re-uploaded by the student into Showbie.

The easiest thing to do is convert your document to a PDF, and then upload onto Showbie for the students to work on. To convert a document from Word, Excel, or PowerPoint to a PDF you click on File in the top left of your screen and click on Save As. A new window will appear, and this is where you title and select the file format for your document. For the first box, file name, title it what you want, then in the box directly below, click on the drop down arrow and select PDF. Now your document is a PDF! Now, the original document that you converted, make sure you save it as you normally would so you may edit it later if you need to.

Now that the logistics are out of the way you are ready to start with Showbie. Download the app and set up your free account! Watch the following video to learn how to create a class, register students, and set up/load assignments.

It will take time for you and your students to learn all about this app and to become more familiar with it. I love to have my students complete their morning work, and any multiple choice test on here. I do this because it is super easy to grade a mass amount at once. All you have to do after the mass grading is go through and tally their scores! Watch this video, and I will show you how!

I use Dropbox to store all my files due to the ease of access to it on my iPad, and for the fact that many apps can access your Dropbox account. If you do not use it and are wondering how to upload from your computer I have a solution for you!

This program is not limited to only what you upload. I have created new assignments where I just upload the assignment guidelines and grading rubric, but they complete their work in another app to upload to Showbie. The assignment could be to write a paper, create a PowerPoint presentation, book report, etc, but they can send it from that program on their iPad to Showbie for you to make comments on or grade! Here is a video showing you exactly what I mean.

Now, you should be a master at Showbie! Go out and use it, and make your classroom digital!