6.+ISTE+Conference+2011

Hi everyone!

I'm writing to share some new ideas I picked up through videos of the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) 2011 National Educating Computing Conference. I attempted to view sessions that speak to goals that we as a division and a school have set for ourselves and our students.

The first session I've written about suggests ideas for using technology tools to deliver formative assessment opportunities for students. Incorporating formative assessment has been on the Goals, Projects and Initiatives for the district for years now and is often the subject of trainings and staff developments. Using technology to collect the data from these assessments can decrease turnaround time for feedback making the use of the assessment formatively more effective and timely. It also can provide more opportunities for students to self assess with easier access for teachers to compile and review student data.

The second session is pertinent to our work addressing student abilities for Conflicting Viewpoints on the ACT exam. Argumentation and justification are two standards that are part of the tentative Science Framework, or Core Standards, to be released soon. The incorporation of these new standards into our curriculum, in addition to the assessment of analysis of conflicting viewpoints that students face on the high stakes ACT exam, provide an impetus for us to find ways to explicitly teach these skills.

The final session is an overview of Web 2.0 tools and I have added some ideas for their use based on what I know about different parts of our science curriculum. With the possible advent of one-to-one technology on our horizon, the more we learn and know about our options for incorporating that technology into our lessons, the more effective we will be as educators for our students. Web 2.0 tools offer ways to adapt our practices to use technology or even to transform student learning through technology. For this presentation, I compiled a list where I've tried to give an overview of the websites and tools that were presented that I thought would be the most appropriate to what we do or could do in our classes. I would be very excited to work with any of you to integrate one of these tools into your lessons!

Thanks for taking the time to check out some of these new options! If you try out anything described below, please let me know because I would love to share a description of the example or the example itself linked from this website.

Sara

**Formative Assessment: Technology-Enhanced Approaches to Increase Student Achievement**

One of the tools used throughout the presentation on Formative Assessment Technology was a Backchannel discussion through Todaysmeet.com. Backchannels are a group chat that can be used to augment lectures and discussions by allowing everyone to contribute during a discussion. Students could post questions they have during the lecture and have them answered by the teacher or by other classmates through the backchannel or in oral discussion. They can post their understandings of the material as they develop in a way that can be shared with and commented on by classmates as well as documented for review at a later time for everyone in the class. If you're a wiki user in your class, you could use the discussion section in the wiki for students to post questions or understandings during discussion as well. Using a discussion board as a backchannel might also allow for some organization by topic.

The presenters began their presentation with an example of a way to activate prior knowledge through the use of a Google Form. If students have access to a one-to-one technology tool that gives them access to the internet, teachers could create a Google Form that surveys their knowledge of the topic to be discussed. A Google Form can be used to allow you to quickly determine all students misconceptions through true/false statements, to have students self-assess their abilities on skills or prior knowledge using a Likert scale and to have students brainstorm for a KWL chart about a new topic to name just a few ideas. Using and sharing the information provided helps students determine their misconceptions coming into the lecture and helps you as the teacher determine the appropriate amount of time to spend on concepts based on student responses and interest.

The second tool the presenters suggest for student self-assessment for formative feedback and reflection is a rubric to be used during the course of a project or learning in addition to using it at the end of the learning as a summative assessment. Many of us have seen through our colleagues and through Power Rangers presentations the use of online rubric construction tools like Rubistar. These rubrics can be exported to a spreadsheet and then loaded into a Google Form where students can then assess themselves online and the results can be seen by you and shared with them. An extension of this could also be that feedback can be offered from peers and you through the same rubric so that students can compare their assessment of their learning with the perspectives of others.

As opposed to a paper exit slip at the end of class, you could create an in class learning assessment by using a tool like Google Forms or other online quiz or survey tools such as SurveyMonkey, Quizlet, Quia or Zoomerang. These sites can be used to create ways to check for understanding as students are in the process of learning either by the teacher or by the students. A pre-planned survey to be used during class can provide a quick inventory of student levels of understanding to determine whether the class should move forward or spend more time on a topic. Another use could be involving students in the process of creating formative assessment pieces to be taken outside of class. This can both illustrate and enhance the student level of learning especially if they are able to develop higher order thinking questions about the topic for their peers,

These survey tools require forethought to plan effective formative assessments to check for student understanding. In some instances, we may just want to get a quick picture of where students are at on the fly or have students reflect on where they are in their learning and then let us know what they need to revisit. Polling tools are a great resource for this type of data collection opportunity. Those of us familiar and accustomed to our student response systems like Turning Point or Mimio Vote have that capability to quickly put up a poll and use those SRS clickers to get the results. These results can also be obtained through some free online polling tools like Poll Everywhere, micropoll, or flisti where polls can be created quickly without having to create an account and students can respond using their phones, if that is something you are comfortable with, or through the laptops, iPads or iPod Touches if you have those in the room that day.

**Teaching Scientific Argumentation Using Free Online Resource**

Intel has made an online tool that students can use to support or refute a claim through a chain of reasoning and evidence. The website of all the tools that Intel has created is intel.com/teachers. The tool I'm talking about is "Showing Evidence". You can look at a tutorial by selecting the "Try the Tool" link and following the "Secondary Demo" link. The example they have set up is a case where someone is getting sick in their home. There are two example claims provided that could answer the question as to why the person is getting sick. Then you as the teacher and the students can populate evidence that can support or refute the claims. Evidence can be rated based on quality (reputable source, evaluation of a study (peer reviewed, etc.), relevance to claim, etc. Students can also rank the level of support that evidence provides. A piece of evidence might be of great quality but does very little to support or refute the claim. So not only are students evaluating the source and validity of the evidence, they are also evaluating how effective that evidence is in supporting their claim. The ability to put in evidence that refutes their claim makes students look at all sides of an argument. An additional ability is that there is the opportunity to provide comments on evidence provided which offers an opportunity for feedback from peers and teachers about how a student is viewing their evidence.

**60 in 60: 60 Web 2.0 Tools in 60 Minutes**
 * Animoto allows you to make videos with pictures, music and text. You could make a quick video to introduce or review a concept from class and post it online or show it in class. Students could also make videos to show their understanding of a concept as well.
 * Prezi is a webbased presentation program that is free to use and creates a presentation that is not the typical slide after slide format.
 * Pearltrees is a site that allows you to bookmark and share websites in a more appealing visual format than a text based list of website links.
 * Only 2 clicks is a bookmarking site that gives you a live visual of each of the bookmarked sites.
 * Dropbox is just what it sounds like in the same terms that we already use it at school. 2 Gb are free for storage. You can have students dropbox you projects from home or you can use it as an online backup system for your files.
 * DropitTOme is the way to to create a unique url so that students can send you files. It is password protected so that only your students can place things in your dropbox. This is an advantage over the dropbox provided by the school since students need to be at school to use it. The files go to a separate folder in your dropbox. One thing to note is to make sure there is a naming convention that the students follow that you don't have anyone overwriting files from other students.
 * **Ge.tt** **is a website that let's you share files through a url so that everyone can download a file quickly at the same time.**
 * Zamzar will convert files formats (pdf to word, etc.) or it can provide you a link so that you can download videos from the internet so you don't need to rely on a streaming connection during class.
 * Video Download Helper is an add-on for Firefox that will let you download video and music from a website right to your computer.
 * symbalooEDU is a bookmarking site that the presenter highlighted with an example of a student using it as a student portal that kept track of all the teacher websites that the student needed for all of their classes (different wikis, Infinite Campus, etc.).
 * shmoop is a learning guide website for multiple topics (cliff notes esque).
 * Freerice is a game website that upon completion of the game donates grains of rice. For science there is available for __** chemistry quizzes** **for chemical symbols.**__
 * **Aviary** **is a free version of an editing tool for photos and audio. Teachers can create an account and then create student accounts so that you can see the student projects.**
 * Cover it Live is a backchannel/chat tool that is easy to use and can be embedded on websites. Students don't have to register to use it and the comments can be moderated by the creator. Students could post a comment reflecting on their homework and then students can comment on their peers reflections. Every student is engaged in a silent discussion.
 * Posterous is a blogging site that is easy to post to because of all of the various options to post blogs from the website, from emails or from mobile devices. Blog is a quick and easy way to post homework and other news in a fast method than keeping up with a wiki.
 * Glogster.edu is a visual online posterboard creator that can have text, pictures, audio and movies. If you have had students do poster presentations in the past, this is a great adaptation of those projects to an online format.
 * **//Triptico//** **//has some free tools that we might all be missing since losing Making the Grade. There is a student selector option and a group selector option. The program requires a download.//**
 * OhLife is a journal site that sends an email requesting your journal entry.
 * Scrible allows you to annotate a website. You can highlight, write notes, etc. and then save the website with the annotations and share it with others. A great tool for illustrating to students how to take the important pieces of information from an online reading.
 * Qwiki produces a video with audio as a result of a search for most major topics. Students who are troubled readers can get information through visuals and audio. Check it out for some of your major topics as an introduction prior to reading in the text.
 * Storybird is a digital storytelling site. College Prep Physics has an assignment asking students to write an explanation of the Doppler Effect for 6th graders as well as another project that offers the option of creating a children's books that explains concepts in the light and color unit appropriately for an elementary school level. An extension of this is to then create a Screencast where the students are reading their stories putting audio with their creation. One drawback is that the imagery you can use with the stories is limited to what is provided by the artists that draw for the website.
 * Cueprompter is like a teleprompter that might help students giving a presentation.
 * Free Play music is a site where you can get free music that can be included in presentations that are going to be put online.
 * WolframAlpha provides tons of data that can be used for analysis or information.
 * edmodo is like Facebook for education. Students can communicate and collaborate in a protected environment.
 * KhanAcademy produces videos on all sorts of concepts and content topics. This could be used as an extension resource for students that are struggling with a topic as they can go back over the instruction again and again.
 * **LiveBinders** **is a way to organize videos and documents and provide text next to it. This could also be used for students to create an online portfolio of their work either online or scanned in. This might be a great place for students in Bio or Nat Sci to organize their research in a portfolio format for their projects.**
 * Evernote is a notetaking program that can synch to multiple devices. You can also take pictures of notes/ handwriting and the program will sync the text so that it is searchable.
 * Primarypad allows multiple users to work on a document at the same time. People who join the document put in their name and they are assigned a color so that everyone can see who added what to a document.
 * Plurk is a social networking site is a way to connect with other teachers worldwide.
 * Wikispaces is a Web 2.0 tool that is well established and widely used. Most of the Web 2.0 tools discussed above can be embedded right into a wikispace which makes it a nice place to gather all of your and your students work all in one place.
 * Jing is a website that allows you to create free five minute screencasts (videos that show what is on your computer screen with the audio that you provide). One drawback the presenter shared is that the free version only allows you to create .swf files which are not compatible with something like iMovie if you wanted to create clips that could be put together into a larger presentation. The paid version is only $15 and allows you to create mp4 files which are more compatible with other video tools.
 * **//SideVibe//** **//- is a web tool that creates a side box that has a container where you can post information to guide learning or questions you want students to answer and then a container where students can post their answers. Teachers make an account and then students accounts are created under that teacher account. This could be great for videos that are web based. Students could bring headphones and watch individually and respond to guided questions that go along with the video online if you brought in an iPad cart.//**
 * Tagxedo can make a shape of a word cloud. You can put in a body of text and it will create a visual format of the text making the most frequent words larger and bolder highlighting the most important ideas.
 * **JeopardyLabs** **creates Jeopardy games. It costs money to create an account. If you don't create an account, just remember to keep the url so that you can go back to the game later!**
 * SchoolTube is an alternative to YouTube where schools can register and create their own channel so that it's not out to the general public like YouTube. You could use it to post the Screencasts described in some of the Web 2.0 tools above.