#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

Twitter Chat Part 1 and Storify app

Last night was the first Twitter chat as part of a series for Aimee Buckner's Notebook Know-How. This was a new format of book study for my entire department. Their participation and enthusiasm for the discussion was so great! I have watched Twitter chats before but never participated in one. Wow! They are fast paced. As a Language Arts teacher, brevity is not my forte! We were all forced out of our comfort zones and pressed to be concise in what we wanted to say.

Below, is our Twitter chat in a published form. It's not always pretty, but I found this to be a great way to quickly share our thoughts in a short period of time. We can always come back to this and add to one another's conversations. I hope to see this grow and use it in the classroom.

I used the app, Storify here to make this transcript. You can quickly and easily create a transcript of something like a Twitter chat. This would be such a great tool to use in the classroom.



If you are interested in participating in tonight's Twitter chat it's over Ch. 3 & 4 and will again take place from 8-9CST. We hope to see you there!

Beginning of the Year Prep

I've gone to school one time. I've gone to training multiple times. Now is the time that I really have to buckle down and start thinking about what I'm doing this coming school year. I've decided to incorporate more ways to connect with my students and parents. With all the technology available to my students and their parents I feel as though I should really utilize it.

Our students will each have a Dell tablet. I'm going to have them blog for their Reader's/Writer's notebook again. It was pretty successful last year and I've learned a lot. I have a much better idea of what to expect from them and what I need to do this time to start them off. I loved seeing the progress they made. It was such a great journey we had together. My favorite moment was when one of my students who was dead against blogging at the beginning decided to start a story. She had submitted multiple chapters and I had been getting behind in approving posts. So she came to me and asked me to hurry up and at least approve hers because she had people who were asking when the next chapter would be out! I loved that! From not wanting to blog to having fellow classmates waiting for the next chapters? That to me was awesome!

I still haven't decided which blogging platform to use. We used kidblog last year. It worked. It was easy to use both for students and myself. This year, I've been seriously thinking about Edublogs. It gives my students a little more options with widgets and personalization that they didn't necessarily get with kidblog. If anyone has thoughts on that, please comment below! I would love to hear about your experience. If you have never blogged with your kids and want a place to start, I would recommend using kidblog. It really is super easy!

I've made an additional Twitter account where I'll be posting upcoming assignments and reminders for parents and students to follow. From last year, I learned my students are using Twitter more than Facebook and I really do like being able to shoot a quick tweet about what we're doing. This would help communicate with parents and hopefully allow my 8th graders a way to take some ownership over what they're responsible for.

I also added an additional Instagram account. This is going to be more of a headache for me going back and forth between my personal Instagram and school one. I think I'll manage though. I want to use this to show parents the work their kiddos are creating as well as a place for my students (and parents) to reference anchor charts over what we're learning. My kids rely on the anchor charts and I have them create them as well. The anchor charts at school aren't helpful when they're working on something at home and don't have that visual reminder.

Due to all these places to connect, I plan on making these magnetic business cards for parents to pick up at Open House. It gives them access to all of it conveniently placed on a magnet! I'll have this information on my school website for parents that can't make it.