Remnants of past conferences- Exit Cards

 

I am sitting here going through a pile of flyers, business cards, conference programs, etc., that I picked up from some of the different conferences I attended recently. It was one of those things I said to myself "I'll go through this at home when I have more time". HA! I'm actually looking right now at a program from 2010. Seriously?

Well in the midst of all the junk (and the throw away pile is much larger than the keep pile) I am finding a few things worth keeping and repeating. I thought I would share them with anyone who happens to find my ramblings here.

A find worth mentioning was from a talk on Assessment. I remember this one. I felt it was important to hear what they said but I do remember it was not a very stimulating talk. Good information: Bad delivery. However- what I found in my pile here was about EXIT CARDS. Many of you probably have used exit cards before and I have heard different questions, etc, that teachers use. Maybe you will like this one. They suggested a 321 CARD:

• 3 things I learned
• 2 questions I still have
• 1 way I see _______ used in the world around me.

It was the last part of that that I really like. I think that is one of the most important things teachers need to remember the relevance of what we teach to the students' life. We really need to consider that if they do not see how it benefits them, unfortunately they probably don't care.

Tech tools to use for your 321 CARD? How about Socrative? I talked about that in the last post. Another you could use is Padlet (formerly known as WallWisher). I like Padlet, which is like a bulletin board with sticky notes, because you can make it private and you can moderate the posts. And it's close relative Primary Wall that is very similar but geared toward the lower elementary crowd.

Missing November and Differentiantor, Respondo! and Byrdseed

Oops- looks like I missed November all together. Well my new job has been slightly demanding. I had a performance with third and fourth graders on November 16th, which went quite well I might add, and I have another coming up for Christmas on the 11th of December. Needless to say I have been extra busy and it seems to be consuming a lot of my time. I know, excuses, excuses. What can I say? I'm really not a slacker ☺

So I had created a Google site to help my new staff find some easy ways to integrate technology and to learn some tech tips. They haven't had much at this school although there are some teachers who are all over it and want more and more. I was looking for sites for integrating technology in the literature classroom and came across an interesting site called the Differentiator. The initial site I got this link from was Web English Teacher, a site I will need to return to on my quest for literature and technology links. Moving on-

Differentiator comes from a site call Byrdseed. Differntiator helps you re-evaluate and re-design assessments. It is a great tool and you really need to see it and try it to fully understand how it works. When you first go to the site you will see an example that once you click on it you will be given option to edit with the categories of Thinking Skill, Content, Resources and Product. Playing around I came up with this one:
Students will define the rules of composition using a website and create a chart in groups of two.
Not really the best example but I just wanted to see what I could do.

And since we are on a site linked from Byrdseed, we ought to look at Respondo! while we are at it.
With a similar looking front page, users click to edit and give your students a creative literature response question. Again, I think it is a nice tool that will get you thinking about some fresh ways of looking at things.

Byrdseed, by the way, is a "place dedicated to differentiating instruction for high level learners". Many of the ideas are not necessarily technology integrated but hands-on activities. There are some wonderful ideas that are worth your time exploring if you are looking for new ways to engage your students.

Vocabulary Tests online

VocabTest.com is a wonderful resource for assessing or practicing SAT vocabulary. A colleague of mine and expert Literature teacher, Jennifer Borth, uses this site for her students. She uses the Vocabulary Workshop Book Levels. Students are able to take a variety of tests using the vocabulary words from the book they are using. When finished, they can email the results to their teacher or they can print out the results. The tests are date and time stamped and show which words were correct and those marked wrong thus helping both the student and teacher know where help is needed.

VOCABUZZ! is a new vocabulary game students can play against one another. They score more points if they are the first to get the answer correct. But they don't know if they beat their opponent until the clock runs out.





This site is truly teacher and student tested and they love it. It has made what could be a dull study to engaging and fun. Gold star for this site!✩


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Postscript to Puffin, iPads and eBooks at my school. Sad to say that the eBooks did not work, even with Puffin. I ended up downloading a section from the eBook, putting it in my Dropbox and then opening it up on the iPad. Flash components do not work but you can at least read it and no heavy text book to carry around. Our students should be able to do the same by using their eBackpack in lieu of Dropbox.