Announcements
Walkabout
This week I began a walkabout in electives classes. I visited a few Spanish classes so far and was impressed by what I saw. From what I've seen so far, I noticed some opportunities to implement the Thin Slides eduprotocol to get students more opportunities to practice speaking and listening in Spanish while giving the teacher a chance to formatively assess. As this walkabout continues, I look forward to seeing some art classes and speech and debate.
Sketchnotes
On the sketchnoting front, sketchnotes done by students here in Cutler-Orosi continue to inspire across the world. Last week, students and teachers in Singapore were inspired by our sketchnotes. This week, teachers and students in Beijing, China learned to sketchnote from sketchnoting expert Sylvia Duckworth. Sylvia used Mr. Ely's students' sketchnotes on King Lear as examples. Congratulations to Mr. Ely and his students.
CUE
In a few weeks, I will be attending and presenting at the 2020 CUE National Conference. I'll be presenting sessions on using Google Sites and EdTech Coaching for Hesitant Teachers. For three days at CUE, I'll be surrounded by experts and vendors. If there is an app, strategy or product you are interested in learning more about, please let me know so I can attend a session or meet the vendors to bring back information for you.
Teacher Workflow Tips
Custom Sticky Notes
Feedback is such an important part of what we do as educators. Feedback helps develop rapport and relationships with students. When we make the feedback personal, it becomes more meaningful. Feedback can be as simple as writing on a sticky note. Now you can write on a generic, plain sticky note, but what if you jazzed it up a bit? What if you could create a custom sticky note with your Bitmoji? Create your own custom sticky note to add a personal touch to your feedback. Something this simple goes a long way showing kids you really care.
Click here to access a Google Slides template to create your own custom sticky notes. Once created, screenshot the image and send to Vistaprint. For around $15, you can get a half dozen sticky note pads with 50 notes per pad. Click here to start designing on Vistaprint.
The Cardinal Innovation Center Sketchnotes Gallery is evolving weekly. Thank you to all who send me sketchnotes to scan and curate. One way you can use the Sketchnotes Gallery is to review concepts in a fact check activity.
Give students a rubric or list of criteria. Send them to the accompanying topic page in the Sketchnotes Gallery. Have them evaluate some sketchnotes and judge them to see if they are conveying all of the main ideas or concepts listed in the rubric or list of criteria. This is great for spiral review or assessment prep. Integrate some edtech by having them use the Screencastify Chrome Extension to record their critique of the sketchnotes. If interested in trying this activity, contact me and we can set up a demonstration.
Support English Learners with EdTech
Change Language on Chromebook
On Chromebooks, it is very easy to change the operating system language to that of a student's home language. This will better help students access content. Use the steps below to change the language on a Chromebook.
- Bottom right corner, click on the "time" to open the menu
- Click the Settings button
- In Settings, go to Advanced
- Where it says Languages and Input, find Spanish and click the three dots on the right
- Check the box that says Display Chrome OS in this language
- Have the student logout and login again. This should switch the language.
Collaborative Sketchnotes and Screencasted Academic Conversation
Collaborative sketchnotes are a great way to foster collaboration and visual representation of concepts for English learners. Get started by assigning some text and have students look for main concepts and key points. In a pair, the students will take turns sketching a "rough draft" on a whiteboard while their partner guides them on what and how to sketch. When they think they're done, have them elicit feedback and approval from the teacher before moving on to the next concept. Once teacher approval is given and feedback has been acted upon, the pair writes down their whiteboard draft onto their paper and the roles switch for next concept.
Sketchnotes that get curated on the Cardinal Innovation Center Sketchnotes Gallery can be used to facilitate some beginning level academic conversations. This idea came from former Orosi High School science teacher Dana Jobe. Have the student pairs access the Gallery and choose a sketchnote. Each partner must choose a different sketchnote. In a partner A, partner B setting, A will use Screencastify to record themself explaining the chosen sketchnote for 2 minutes. Partner B will listen intently and ask clarifying questions to ensure partner A explains for at least 2 minutes. When the 2 minutes is up, the recording ends and you have a record of the conversation to turn in. At this point, the roles reverse.
This is helpful for English learners because it takes place in a small setting, they get to hear the recording of themselves speaking in English and they can re-record if they think they an improve it. This is a simple way to get them iterating and building resiliency as they develop with English.
For more information on anything in this blog post, please contact me via email or Google Hangouts at ajuarez@cojusd.org. Text or call me at 559-355-4593. Learn more tips from me and my extensive Professional Learning Network (PLN) by following #cvtechtalk on Twitter and or joining the CVTechTalk Facebook group.
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