New Year Assessing

The new school year has started and I am in new territory. Which leads me to considering how I can assess what my students know since they are ALL new to me. I started using a few tools that are probably familiar to most computer teachers but they are new to me.

First I wanted to assess their keyboarding skills. Mostly looking at accuracy rates. Not so much wpm and I am not hovering over them to see if our hands are in the correct location although I did walk around and remind students to use the home row, thumbs on the space bar only, etc. For this I decided to set up accounts for my students on Typing.com. Teachers are able to create classes and easily import students. There are a series of exercises from Beginner to Advanced. The site keeps real time records of when they sign on and what they do. For the free side, which means ads on the page, it is pretty nice. I used this site for my 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. I will introduce it to 5th and 4th grade (maybe) within the coming weeks.

For 3rd grade I wanted them to just have fun typing and Typing.com does have games on it's site but you have to wait through a video ad and it just wasn't loading very well in our lab. So one class suffered and another class go to go to BBC Bitesize Dance Mat Typing. Really cute! The second class had a lot more fun with their typing! Since we just went and started from the very beginning it starts them on the home row. Slow for some but fun for all.

I also wanted to assess what my middle school students knew about Microsoft Word. Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment turned out to be pretty cool. No account needed and no cost to take the online assessments. Just pick a module at the bottom of the page and begin. I had my students do #5 on Microsoft Word. There is audio that goes along with the assessment reading the questions. When the students get to the end, their scores are available showing them what they passed and what they had trouble with answering. The site has a higher passing score than 70 and I had my students take it until they had a passing score. Quick and easy grade for me. The site was originally designed for adults to assess basic computer skills for work. But this worked great for my purposes.

New Beginnings and a Search!

Happy Birthday to me (today is my birthday in case you didn't know) so a perfect day to pick up the proverbial pen and get back in the swing of things. School starts soon, tomorrow actually, and I am embarking on a new adventure. Getting to work with technology full time will be such fun. And so now comes my search. 

I have an interest in geocaching and really would like to do something with it this school year. An elective perhaps? I have found some great resources out there for lesson plans and such but what I am in search of is an app. Now what do I want this app to do? Not entirely sure....not very helpful is it? I was looking at scavenger type apps but didn't like what I found so far. I want it to be free, easy to use, kid friendly (very important), I'd like to be able to input my own "finds" for students, needs to be private, hmmm......wonder how I can make this work? Really need to put my brain to work. 

Edmodo Training

So I have been working on the Edmodo Certified Trainer course. Wow- lots of work. I've been using Edmodo since 2008/09 or sometime very close to when it first came out. So I feel pretty comfortable in using it, talking about it and teaching others. But as with anything, you have to present things how those that developed it would like it presented. Sometimes that can be tricky because "that little thingy picture" is probably not in their terminology describing the cute little icons on the page! Just kidding- it was all good and I think I am done. Or at least I hope I am. I tried to really keep track of the assignments so I really hope I didn't miss any. Our final project was to create a case for using Edmodo for something and I chose using it to extend your class time with your students. I can honestly vouch that Edmodo is the answer to succeeding at this task. Because of all this hard work I now have created a ScreenCastOMatic channel and you can view my final project there.
Enjoy Extend Your Once a Week Class with Edmodo at the TailWagger Tech Training Channel on ScreenCastOMatic!

QR Codes and Organization

I was having a discussion with a colleague about students who seem to be struggling in a class because they fail to turn in assignments. Our teachers are expected to post homework assignments on our online grading system on a weekly basis. Unfortunately I think this has resulted in many teachers not writing it on the board as they might have done in the past. Consequently, if a student has any issues with logging into the system they will likely not remember the assignment and therefore not turn it in on time. The teacher and I talked about how some students need to physically write down the information. Just seeing it posted online doesn't make the connections for them. A 7th grade student also commented that she felt too rushed at the end of class to write the assignment down and always felt like she was in a hurry to get to the next class. We also have students who, no matter how many times they do it or are reminded how to do it, having trouble logging into websites to get the information they need.

So what to do? One of the solutions we discussed is one that I have often recommended to teachers to use for their students. Yes, this does require some technology but I do think it would help many students. A dynamic QR code could easily solve the problem of "what is the assignment?". So what is a dynamic QR code? This is a code that does not change but the information attached to it does. Another option: You could also have a QR code linked to any type of editable webpage where you might list the daily assignments. As a teacher, you would go back to the site on a regular basis and change/add the information on the page. The student would only need one QR code glued to the inside of their notebook, assignment book, calendar or whatever tool they use. It could even be printed off and hung up on their refrigerator at home! The point is, this QR code would stay the same all year long but every time they scan it they would see new information.

So try this out. Here is a code:

i-nigma

Come back in a day or so and scan the code again and you will see the page has changed. The QR image is the same but the information on the page has changed. For students who have trouble logging into sites (remembering passwords, etc) this would be a very easy solution for them. The only thing needed is a QR reader for a smartphone or tablet. There are many available but I recommend i-nigma. It has been a favorite of mine. Fast and reliable.

Want to see a nice list of QR code generators and what you can do with them? Check out my colleague and co-presenter's website Hold the Mayo.