Student Voice and Choice with Choiceboards

Last spring I started to use Choice boards in a few classes with teachers when working on projects. I blogged about it last spring, see post here there is also lots of information on choiceboards on twitter.

Last spring I used flipgrid to capture student project using Flipgrid.  This year when planning with Ms. Junkin we decided to create a choice board for storytelling options along with some engagement suggestions during and after the presentation.

Here is a link to the example of our choiceboard http://bit.ly/choiceboardsSS Along with some background from planning with the teacher and a link to the project and rubric.

World History Quarter 3 Project Most Influential Person of the 18th Century

Preface: The 18/19th Century was a time of creativity and discovery for those living in
Europe and beyond. Whether it was something that benefited mankind short term or
something still used today, had it not been for those scientists/inventors/philosophers,
the world today may not be as advanced as it is.
Project: Each person or duo will choose (first come, first served) an
inventor/philosopher/scientist from the 18th Century (from Chapter 21/23 of your textbook
or potentially elsewhere; see list on Pg. 2), produce a 5 minute video;

Note: ALL scripts are due on Tuesday, April 2rd, 2019), and a verbal presentation
(including the showing of your video) of no more than 5-10 minutes.

Link http://bit.ly/worldhistoryprojectlinks

Edcampbos

Yesterday I attended #EdcampBOS  - Edcamps are informal sessions by and for teachers, where anyone can present, and the focus is on collaboration and connections, group expertise, tech tools, and instructional design.  When teaching a #gafefsu is the weekends align I attempt to bring the class to experience the edcamp model for part of the day and then focus on the class materials in the afternoon.  Of course, it's always great to model the "building of the wall/schedule and typically if the days align our students present their projects to an authentic audience.  Where this was our first full day session, we modeled topics we would teach in our class.

We start out by sharing the Edcamp video and we sign folks up for the event.  The EdcampBos folks are awesome to support us on this initiative.  In the past, we have brought students to #EdcampGrafton.
What is EdCamp?

To kick the day off we met at Burlington, Microsoft lobby, what a beautiful building!  We discuss the setup for the day and then we modeled two sessions, require students to attend one and pick two choice topics.

Here is a link to the Edcamp wall with links to notes

Session One we offered reflecting with podcasting using Anchor.  This is the tool we used earlier in the month while attending SXSWEDU in Austin.  We modeled how we used to reflect multiple times during the day.  We also challenged the group to reflect on their learning at EdCampBos.

Here is our podcast reflection using anchor with Craig here 

Session Two we wanted to show all the different things you could do with Google Slides.  We initially started out with "designing and assessing with Google slides".  Too boring so we went with "pimp your slides" We showed a variety of topics, Slides Carnival saving direction to Google, using the insert camera function to take a picture/evidence of work and add to a slide.  We got a lot of wows on this one!  We then showed inserting a YouTube video with stop and start times and presenting QA in slides. Another big hit the new CC in slides. We then moved onto PearDeck.

I think teachers were pleased to see how easy it was to approach new features in slides and I would have to say a big success!

After lunch we regrouped with our class and this is the magic of an edcamp.  They experienced it with a larger group of teachers and loved it!

Nashoba hosts a day of learning

Nashoba hosted a full day of PD #nashobaempowerslearning and #nashobalearns on Friday, March 8th with our keynote George Couros @gcouros author of the InnovatorsMindset. 

I led a PD Book club with my colleague Gregg Newton over the course of the year on four dates discussing the book and modeling the use of technology. 


I have been fortunate to see George present on  a few occasions, last year at Medfield day of Learning.  It was a great vibe entering the auditorium and kicking off the day.  George was a combination of inspiring, thoughtful and engaging.  I don't recall ever seeing our staff so engaged in a day of learning. We had different exhibits showcased in the gym around drones, programming, showcasing portfolios, green screen, goosechase and I presented on the new Google Jamboard.

George talked about students leaving high school should have the following (A professional social network, Digital Portfolio
and About Me page). He also encouraged teachers to get on board with Twitter using #nashobalearns in order to learn from each other!  I had lots of conversations with  teachers that were left feeling very inspired.  I hope our PD continues down the road of innovation and creativity!

The afternoon sessions by teachers in our district and from other districts along with consultants and vendors filled the afternoon session.  I was delighted to see our district pull together and host such a great day!

We now need to keep the momentum going and help inspire teachers to step outside their comforts zones and take new risks in the classroom and in their own professional development!

Stay tuned for more!

SXSWEDU Austin

I’m attending the SXSWEDU Conference in Austin’s this week with my colleague
Craig Sheil. This conference has been on my bucklet list for severals years but I was reluctant to sign up.  When Craig told me he was booking and we started to discuss on the sessions around education, that were not all tech options, it made perfect sense to attend.  Not, to mention the airfare was under $200.00 roundtrip!

As part of our learning experience we decided we would use Anchor https://anchor.fm a mobile podcasting tool to reflect on our learning.  Below are some of the recordings:

• Day 1 - 3/4 podcast link
• Day 2 3/5 podcast Link

We have been using the program scheduler and wakelet to curate our learning.
About the conference https://youtu.be/ayGV_WAIcWQ

Craig presented as part of the Google Panel and we then got to visit the Google stations as students.  Here is a tweet/video about the Google Showcase  Google announced the App hub and showcased many tools along with the Jamboard, Google Expeditions and more!

This conference has me thinking about the Google Innovators program #GoogleEI that focuses on a Design Thinking Challenge, modelling the "Solve Problems of Practice Through the Gripe Jam"
A Google For Education Certified Innovator see blog post.
(link: https://go.shr.lc/2TgPJEc)
We were fortunate to attend film, Unlikely  see more here https://www.unlikelyfilm.com


It was very powerful to see how easily students can be lost in the system and how we are educating the wealthy.  It's time to rethink higher education and other options!

Building Community: Weaving Americas Social Fabric: Weave: The Social Fabric Project, an initiative of the Aspen Institute, operates with the premise that social fragmentation is the central problem of our time—isolation, alienation and division. Fortunately, all across the country people are rebuilding communities and creating social capital. Weave seeks to work with these groups to spur a movement to repair the national fabric—to identify and celebrate these groups, synthesize the values that move them, and help forge a common identity.

We attended a very powerful session with
David Hogg and Dan Rather
David Hogg, co-founder of March For Our Lives, in conversation with Dan Rather discuss what our country and politics can look like when we let young people lead and dedicate ourselves to fostering that power in youth voice, advocacy, and leadership at SXSW EDU link here 


It was much different from many of the other edtech conference that I have attended and I appreciate the larger perspective it provided.

There were lots of other hands-on session on topics of interest.  I was able to reconnect with Ela Ben-Ur https://twitter.com/ElaBenUr  from Olin College where she showcased Design Thinking the "Innovators Compass Model"  http://innovatorscompass.org/

We made the most of every day, arriving early, attending as many sessions as possible and most importantly we reflected each day on the sessions and our thoughts!  I would highly recommend the conference to other teachers and hope to return again!