I had the privilege to attend Connect 2017 this past weekend in beautiful Niagara Falls Canada. It was an awesome conference from top to bottom. Here's some of the highlights and useful tools or ideas I gathered:
1) Whiteboard tables: I thought this was a cool idea mentioned in Reggie Vasquez's talk. At most dollar stores or craft stores you can cheaply purchase a simple whiteboard table top and turn your classroom into a more interactive, interesting and comfortable learning environment.
2) Questions Roadmap: Great talk from @TiffanyPoirier. This should be a display in all classrooms, right along with Growth Mindset concepts. The Questions Roadmap takes learners through the 5 step process of turning questions into comprehension and action. The 5 steps are:
- Feeling: what questions do you have about the world?
- Problematizing: What do I need to learn to answer my questions. What is stopping me from learning?
- Dreaming: What could I do?
- Developing: What approaches and strategies could I use?
- Actualizing: Getting it done, turning questions into answers and action.
Perhaps these pictures will help.
3) Media Creation: Ok, there's no one answer or tool here, it's a pedagogical approach that I think is really important: We should not be focused on marking content as much as marking skills. There's so many great media tools out there, we should give students the opportunity and options to show what they've learned. In so many language arts classes, my own included, we mark reading comprehension based on how well a student can respond to what they've read through their writing. While the writing process is, of course, a vital component of education, it's a very limited approach to assessing reading comprehension. Here's a short list of some great tools I'm excited to try out in my class.
- Piktochart - Info graphic maker.
- Mindomo - Mind Mapping & Graphic Organizer
- Wevideo - Video Editing software
- Panzoid - Media & Video Editor
- Viewedit or Screencastify - Screencasting Extensions
In addition to this these great tools, let's get our rubrics away from content and focused on assessing skills.
4) Storyboard That: This could have gone under #3 as another media creation tool, but I was so impressed I wanted to give it its own section. I've done some storyboarding assignments before and students seem to like it and get a lot out of it. This is by far the best storyboarding software I've seen. It does cost money, but this could be applicable to so many things, and looks like so much fun, I am very excited to try and get my school to purchase a membership.
5) Coding: Specifically, Scratch - seemed to be the coding software most other teachers had used or heard of in their classrooms. Admittedly, I've strayed away from trying to implement coding into my classroom. Not that I'm against it, I just know nothing about it, and simply don't feel like I have the time to build it into my curriculum. All that changed after listening to Brian Aspinall's amazing presentation. Aside from the many awesome examples he discussed and demonstrated, what floored me was when he showed how students created animations of Particle Theory. I'm in the middle of my grade 7 Substances Unit on Particle Theory - seeing his example immediately made me realize "damn, I really need to make this coding thing an option in my class." As I mentioned in #3, we should be marking skills more than content.
6) Edpuzzle: Ok, I haven't jumped on the flipped classroom bandwagon yet because, well, quite frankly, I like teaching in front of the class. However, there's definitely some value to it, even if only for a lesson or two. That's where Edpuzzle comes in. It allows you to take video from just about any platform and crop, add notes, audio notes, and quizzes. I'm excited at the prospect of being able to assign a video to watch and guide my students focus, highlight specific things to think about, and quiz them on their understanding.
7) Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants: Join explorers, scientists, and guest speakers live as they bring the awesomeness of the planet to your classroom via google hangouts. Sign up and apply for a coveted spot to be one of the classrooms that can interact with the featured guest. As for everyone else, you can watch via live stream. I'm very excited at the prospect of making this happen in my classroom.
8) Virtual Reality in the classroom: I've played a little bit with 360 degree environments with my niece's Samsung VR headset and my phone last Christmas. Pretty amazing stuff, and my teacher sense's start tingling when I think about the future of this technology and its applications for classrooms. But, until this weekend, I struggled to see how I could make it useful in a grade 7 classroom in the near future. The idea of trying to get a room full of 12-year-olds to calibrate a cardboard headset and listen to me while looking around a 3D video sounds like a recipe for a headache. However, after attending Audrey Allard and Joannie Girard's presentation, I got some great ideas on how VR can be used, today, in just about any subject area.
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| Me exploring a WWII Battle |
First off, you don't need every student to have one. Just a couple in the room is enough to create some exciting lessons. Plus it'll save the headache of trying to get an entire class using VR at the same time. I'll link to Audrey's presentation, as it gives all the details you'll need. Here are a couple of my favorite ideas that I'll be looking to implement in the near future.
- Describing Landscapes - work on vocabulary and adding descriptive details to creative writing.
- Creating Animals that could live in these exotic landscapes. This would be great for my Choose Your Own Adventure Story Assignment
- Have students describe the sensory details they would experience being immersed in something like an underwater environment. Again, this could really help my students with their creative writing
- Exploring ecosystems of every kind. Especially underwater ones - this would have added a really engaging element to my Ecosystem Unit.
Final Thoughts...
These were just some of the highlights. In just two days I am invigorated and motivated by all the new ideas and tools I can bring to the class. Connect2017 was more than worth the trip. It reminded me of how important our job is, and how imperative it is to stay on top of technology in education.
