Periscope- where's the heart emoji??

Every year my students perform scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream for their Embedded Assessment. I record them and save them. I'm not really sure why I've saved all  these performances for the past few years. There had to be more purpose in this-both for me and the students.

Periscope is my newest tech tool in the classroom and I must say I love it. Today we tried it out with our AMND performances. My student teacher and myself have been tweeting about today for the last couple of days trying to get the word out about the performances and to reach a wide audience.

My students performed live or showed their video taped their scenes. We live broadcasted them via Periscope which also posted a live feed or taped to my Twitter account (@MrsBushLA) This allowed my students to have a live audience! It also gave a purpose for performing. It wasn't just for me and their classmates. It was also for the wider audience we reached. Viewers were able to tweet and comment on their performances. Okay- we didn't have tons of viewers (it was our first time, after all) but I think there's hope for us!

The Day the Planets Aligned AKA Microsoft OneNote Available for ALL Educators!

This morning has been the best morning ever- in a nerdy tech way. Microsoft is allowing ALL educators to have OneNote Class Notebooks! Eek!!! I saw this as a tweet on Twitter and had to check it out. (Read the blog post to learn more) And yesterday I learned that my district has given all of us (students included) Microsoft 365 accounts (score!).

I've been using Microsoft OneNote all year with my students and half of last year. The problem I had was that we didn't have the classroom component so I couldn't "see" their notebooks easily. As an English teacher, that frustrated me. I love reading their writing and their thoughts. Really, I need to read their writing and thoughts. That's important and necessary. Hello, feedback!

Problem now solved (I think). This weekend, I'm creating new notebooks, adding students, and playing around with the Class Notebook some more. OneNote has been a huge game changer in taking my classroom paperless.

Microsoft, thank you! To my school district, thank you! To my students- get ready! We go on Monday!