#iTeachDigital

This week I had the opportunity to attend a technology conference from eTechCampus called #iTeachDigital. I love the moments I get to spend exploring technology to incorporate in my classroom. The #iTeachDigital seminar is part of eTechCampus and provides Learning Management Systems (LMS) for courses, professional learning, and consulting. Our trainer for the day was Bridget McKnight and absolutely fabulous!

What I really liked the most about this seminar was that Bridget addressed both the needs of computer users as well as iPad users. All the apps we looked at were web based and had an app. In a district like ours, where the students have Dell tablets and the teachers have laptops AND iPads, I found this very helpful. A few of my favorite apps we looked at and were able to play with were Zaption, Tackk, and Quizizz. These were probably my favorites of the day and ones that I can see using in my classroom.

I have been wanting to find a do-able way to flip my classroom. Where do I start? What video do the kids watch? I don't teach math so how can I flip a lesson without me direct teaching in my video? What if I want them to actually stop and reflect or answer questions on the video? Zaption to my rescue!

Zaption has a gallery of videos that you can search for topics that you would like to use in your classroom. My Language Arts class is currently studying persuasion and argument. What do I find on Zaption? A video of commercials (already compiled) that addresses rhetoric and persuasive techniques. One of the greatest things about the Zaption lessons is that you decide where you want the video to stop and ask the student a question! Yes. That's right- now there's a purpose for this video and the students aren't just blankly staring at the screen.

But what if you wanted to use it in class? Well it wouldn't serve much purpose or be engaging if every kid had their device on with earbuds zoning out and robotically punching the answer. This is why Zaption has the broadcast function where students can join the lesson from their device and receive feedback about their choices. Now we've engaged the learners in your classroom.

I'm really excited to try this out. Next week, I plan to use this lesson to review persuasive techniques with my Language Arts classes. After a week of Benchmark, they may need a refresher.

Tackk reminds me of Smore. It is a little bit different but the idea is the same. Smore is more for newsletters and I definitely don't see Tackk just for that. In fact, they have a board of 20 ways to use Tackk in the classroom. I plan to use it for collaborative projects right now but we'll see!

You can sign up with Google, Edmodo, Office 365, and many other ways.  Select a template to create a board. Students use #tags to organize their Tackks and they can even give one another feedback.

Another idea for teachers is to search for boards and see what other educators are doing for lessons and copy that board for your own use. I love Tackk! Great app!

I might switch over to Tackk after using it instead of Smore. Sorry, Smore but Tackk is free! I can only have so many Smores before paying and the number of things I can do with a Tackk board make it almost limitless.

There is one down side and that is that the web based version is jam packed with options while the iPad doesn't have everything. If that isn't a problem for you, then start today and make an account!





At first glance, Quizizz may look like another Q&A platform similar to Kahoot. Look a little closer and you will see that it's more. Quizizz has the user create an account and begin making a quiz or choosing from their collection of pre-made quizzes. Just like with Kahoot, the quizzes are multi-player, or can be assigned for homework (this is a new function!!!), and then you receive data.

One of the great things about creating a quiz using Quizizz is that you can search other quizzes while making yours and add questions from other quizzes! That means less time spent making the quiz and more time on other more important things that we as teachers need to do. You also don't have to add ALL the questions from those quizzes. You can pick and choose which questions you're interested in.

I'll be using Quizizz in the next couple of weeks for my students' vocabulary assignments. It's always painful and I'm hoping this will dull the pain we all feel.


I hope this has been beneficial. Please give some of these apps a try. There are so many others that we played around with but these were my favorite for my classroom application. Some other apps you may be interested in trying are: Padlet, Thinglink, Haiku Deck, Formative (pretty cool if you're transitioning from paper!), and Nearpod.

Next week, I'll be trying out Periscope for the first time in my classroom and broadcasting my PreAP students' A Midsummer Night's Dream scene interpretations. Follow me on Twitter and download the Periscope app to be part of the broadcast: @MrsBushLA

Blog Topic Ideas For the Classroom

Spring Break is pretty much over and now that it's coming to an end I've had some time to reflect on some things in my classroom. A few weeks ago, I received a comment from a visitor asking what I have my students blog about. I thought that I would create a post about just that. Now that I've been in school for 3/4 of the year and my students have been blogging for that length of time, I feel that I can truly discuss blogging in the classroom.

One thing that I think is very important when your students are blogging is that they still have the freedom to choose what they write about. This is still writing but just in a digital way! I tell my students that this is their virtual Reader's/Writer's Notebook. With that, I do require certain things from them on the blog because I do know that:

1. Some students are not yet ready to produce their own topics
2. Writing assignments for my class are required from time to time

The writers in my class treasure their blog and have truly taken ownership of it by personalizing and freely sharing, posting, and commenting on one another's blogs hoping to develop the writing connection with one another. Other students need a little more help from me in what I want to see as far as writing goes. 

Exit Tickets- A great way to give your students an idea for a blog post is have them write a post in response to what happened during class. Just like a written exit ticket it can be about anything!

Quick Writes- This is a great way to start class when students first arrive. They complete a quick write over the topic that you want them to write on for a few minutes. This can be posted on their blog and then allow each other in the class to comment on these. Commentary is such a great tool for each student to see that their words are powerful!

Create a weekly blogging schedule- I have a weekly blogging schedule for my students to use if they wish. Every day of the week has a different theme like "Text Talk Tuesday." The way this works is if a student is blogging on a Tuesday and they need something as a topic they can use Text Talk Tuesday. Text Talk Tuesday (for my Language Arts class) just means that their blog post focuses on a piece of text where they thought it was meaningful/insightful/powerful, etc. and they quote it and then respond to it. This is a way for me to bring in reader's responses without calling it a reader's response. 

Book Reviews- If you teach a Language Arts class this is a great way to get the conversation about books going! Students love to talk about the books they've read (good or bad!). Just make sure you've gone over book reviews first. You may even keep a template for how to write a book review as a resource for them to follow on the blog.

Embed Web Tools- Sometimes I use web tools like Padlet to start discussions in my class and then my students are able to interact with it. I've also had my students use Smore recently and embed the Smore directly into their blog. Students learn how to embed basic HTML code this way. It really opens up what they're able to do and share. 

Keep in mind- if you can write it on paper, you can probably find a way to share it on your blog.

For more ideas check out my class blog here! Have a great week everyone!!