Using MMTS (multimedia text sets) is a simple, but not necessarily easy, strategy to engage students in topics, explore perceptions and get kids excited to learn!

What is an MMTS?

A multimedia text set – MMTS for short – is a gameboard of sorts that allows students to engage and explore a topic BEFORE having to do any heavy lifting.

In my 7th grade English class, we’re studying “Perception and Reality”, so I created this MMTS to help my students get a jump start on the topic.

You can make your own copy of the Perception and Reality MMTS here.

How to build an MMTS

It’s pretty simple to build an MMTS – start with this template, or use any of my (or other people who share for FREE) already existing multimedia text sets.

Another great part of building and curating multimedia text sets is that you can use, reuse and remix them as much as you want to!

Once you have your template, the next step is to search for engaging videos, photo albums, articles, podcasts, music – anything that ties in with your essential question and will engage your students to think about the topic of study that’s coming up.

I love to use my textbook for this – yes, I do use a textbooks series in my classroom, but not in the traditional way. Textbook publishers are putting more and more digital resources in their series, but I find that the textbook websites aren’t very student-friendly. I like to see what the ‘experts’ suggest and riff off their ideas.

Ther are also excellent free sites like CommonLit, Newsela, and Actively Learn that offer free texts set on a variety of topics.

For video, I love curating YouTube playlists, subscribing to The Kids Should See This and TED-Ed to save ideas for using with my MMTS.

Don’t forget this key component of any MMTS

MMTS are not just docs to click around on – teachers need to build in reflection also. I use Google Forms that I embed in the center box to allow students to reflect on their learning, create their own ‘Wonder’ questions, and start making connections between the topic and their own lives. This critical thinking and communication component elevates the MMTS from simple to complex and primes the students for deeper analysis to come.

I asked these questions:

• What was the most interesting exploration, and why?
• Give an example of something in life that is not always how we perceive them to be. Tell me your thoughts about it.
• What did the explorations make you think about?
• What did you notice that the explorations had in common?
• Create one ‘wonder’ question about perception and reality that you’d like to explore in this unit.
• Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about this MMTS and/or perception and reality?

I got these answers:

• They made me think that everyone is different, and when they look at a certain thing, every one may see it differently. It also made me think a little about hypnotize. And how that can sometimes be similar.
• The way I perceive people, the ladder my mind goes through. The explorations made me realize that everyone perceives the world differently, and when we work together we can create cool new ideas.
• It made me think about different things we could do to improve our world, like the robot thing I mentioned earlier and the augmented reality app on your phone.
• I wonder how often our reality gets clouded with perception.
• Even though there might be a lot of people in the world that have done bad stuff and that are unique races that you could assume are bad people don’t assume don’t judge and ask your self the question of what the reality is?
• One wonder question that I have about perception and reality is what else can make me think about what I am reading, watching, and listening to?
• Can people make you think differently by what they make you see?

MMTS and your students

When I am ready to roll out a new unit or project, I start with an MMTS.

I often ask students to complete a certain number of ‘explorations’ just to make sure they don’t rush through it. Another tip is to keep the form locked until you’ve given them adequate time to explore. I usually use an MMTS for about 60 minutes of exploration, depending on the depth of the topic and the length of the links I’ve added. The idea is to get them excited, not saturated! Plus, they can always go back to the links at any time in the unit for further investigations.

I love the time in class when students are exploring. They love sharing their ‘aha’ moments or encouraging a classmate to check out what they are viewing/reading/listening to.

Ready to try one?

There’s a huge community of educators creating not only multimedia text sets but also HyperDocs and other digital lessons – and we share them for FREE!

If you’re looking for inspiration or something to remix for your students, visit http://hyperdocs.co. Also, follow @TsgiveTs on Twitter, join the HyperDocs group on Facebook, or comment below what you’re looking for and I’d be happy to help you out!

And if you create an MMTS, it would be awesome if you could share it with me so I can continue to spread the FREE digital lesson love – share it with mamawolfeto2@gmail.com!

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Finding harmony, or a ‘work-life balance’, is not always so easy. Teachers work in environments where we are on display, constantly being asked to flex one way or another, to group and individualize, to plan, execute, reflect and regroup.

Most of the time it’s doable – we find a rhythm to our classes and our workflow and especially after November harmony just happens.

Until it doesn’t. Usually because of an interruption. Or a disruption.

Or a life event that reminds us that being ‘on’ all day without anywhere to hide, without a place to retreat, leaves us very vulnerable.

As an educator, I feel like this sometimes:

In my part of the world, this is the treat in our fall and winter skies – murmurations of starlings, dancing in and out of formation. Their harmony is mesmerizing, only broken by the intrusion of a predator or a decision to rest.

When my dad died last month, this is what came to mind. A disruption of harmony. An intrusion. A storm of emotions and decisions and realities that threatened my equilibrium and pushed me out of teaching. It’s just impossible to face forward at times like this, looking into 120 sets of eyes that hunger for recognition and caring.

This time, I didn’t have a choice.

I just stopped. I focused on what I could do to make me happy, knowing that if I could recenter and regain a little bit of life harmony, the work harmony would fall into place.

A few days in, I heard a knock at my door ten minutes before class started. I hesitated to answer, afraid of how I would react to any sort of request. Surprisingly, when I pushed open the door a tiny little girl on crutches, blond braids slightly askew, chimed, “Mrs. Wolfe, can I show you something? I wrote my hook last night and I think it’s really good!

How could I say no to that? And as she read aloud the few sentences she’d crafted the night before, I smiled. What we’d been learning in my first period English class stayed with her overnight, urging her to write and create and share…a teacher’s dream.

I set an intention at that moment, seconds before the bell rang, to look for more.

“After a storm comes a calm”

Harmony appeared nearly every day after that. Rather than getting caught up in the needs of everyone else, I looked for tiny glimpses of hope that what we were creating in room A-1 meant something. I stepped back from worrying about being behind, and pushing to finish, and settled into the process. Watching the joy in students’ eyes when they ran over to me during reading time, novel in hand and exclaiming they noticed an example of dialogue written just the way we’d been learning about…or pointing to a character’s thinking and wondering why it was or wasn’t italicized.

I helped them push past perfectionism in their publishing and find a platform that best enhanced their narratives, challenging their creativity and showing them that they, too, are published authors.

As my flexibility increased in the classroom, the joy showered down on me and I feel the harmony easing back in. Teaching is hard if you do it right – just like parenting. It’s much simpler to look the other way; easier to take the path of least resistance. This month is teaching me to honor the ebb and flow of my life and of my classroom. I’m consciously practicing creating harmony in my personal life as well as my profession, and the navigation isn’t always smooth. Life cycles don’t always follow a predictable pattern. Stress builds, minds close, and boundaries grip us tightly.

Like the starlings, I’m learning how to rebalance. Practicing mindfulness so when harmony is disrupted, when an ‘intruder’ shakes up my center and pushes me out of bounds teaches me I can handle it. I can harness my power, listen to my rhythms, and swoop low when I need to.

I know I’ll rise up again.

If you’d like a copy of the narrative writing HyperDoc with lessons we’ve been doing, click here.

If you’ve got some ideas for bringing more harmony into our lives, please reach out – I’m confident there are many of us who could use a bit of help.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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We are still fighting the battle with AIDS. It was the wake-up call to my generation, those in the 1980s and 1990s who first started dying – quickly, painfully, tragically – from AIDS.

Today our children know about this evil disease and have overcome so much of the stigma attached to living with – and dying from – AIDS. But still, far too many are suffering in 2019.

Today, according to the World Health Organization, “Of the 37.9 million people living with HIV at the end of 2018, 79% received testing, 62% received treatment, and 53% had achieved suppression of the HIV virus with reduced risk of infecting others.”

That is HUGE progress. But there’s still SO much to do. In our classrooms, we can start by talking and reading about stereotypes. Gender issues. Sexuality. We can bring a human face to AIDS – sharing biographies of people, both famous and just like us, who are living or have lived and died with AIDS.

Some free ideas

Use this link for downloadable materials to help educate our children.

Why AIDS research is important to me

In 1991, I was student teaching and looking for a permanent job. I wanted to teach middle school, and met Steve – and I had no idea that this man, who recruited me to start a ‘technology grant’ school, had AIDS.  It was the early 1990s, and AIDS wasn’t mainstream.  It was a secret.  In education, no one was ‘out’, and certainly no one would reveal they were HIV infected.

Steve didn’t look sick or act like he was dying.   In fact, he never told us.   He just disappeared from work for one year.   We didn’t know what was wrong.  I wondered why he was not on campus; it was unusual for a man with his drive to teach to just not show up.

  And one day when he came back to visit, we figured it out.   It took one look to see the lesions, the weight loss, the look of death.

And then he died.  

Thank you, Steve, for taking a risk with me.  I was young, eager, and enthusiastic.  You gave me a chance.   I think you’d be proud of the teacher I’ve become.   I’ve never forgotten you, or your infectious laugh, or your love of the strange-but-contagiously-addictive middle school human.  I wish you were here.

Key facts about AIDS – according to WHO

• HIV continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 32 million lives so far. However, with increasing access to effective HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, including for opportunistic infections, HIV infection has become a manageable chronic health condition, enabling people living with HIV to lead long and healthy lives.
• There were approximately 37.9 million people living with HIV at the end of 2018.
• As a result of concerted international efforts to respond to HIV, coverage of services has been steadily increasing. In 2018, 62% of adults and 54% of children living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries were receiving lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART).
• A great majority (82%) of pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV also received ART, which not only protects their health but also ensures the prevention of HIV transmission to their newborns.

More AIDS data:

• However, not everyone is able to access HIV testing, treatment, and care.
• Due to gaps in HIV services, 770 000 people died from HIV-related causes in 2018 and 1.7 million people were newly infected.
• In 2018, for the first time, individuals from key population groups and their sexual partners accounted for over half of all new HIV infections globally (an estimated 54%) in 2018. For eastern European, central Asian, Middle Eastern and North African regions, these groups accounted for around 95% of new HIV infections.
• Key populations include men who have sex with men; people who inject drugs; people in prisons and other closed settings; sex workers and their clients; and transgender people.
• In addition, given their life circumstances, a range of other populations may be particularly vulnerable, and an increased risk of HIV infection, such as adolescent girls and young women in southern and eastern Africa and indigenous peoples in some communities.
• Increased HIV vulnerability is often associated with legal and social factors, increased exposure to risky situations and creates barriers to accessing effective, quality and affordable HIV prevention, testing and treatment services.
• Over two-thirds of all people living with HIV live in the WHO African Region (25.7 million). While HIV is prevalent among the general population in this region, an increasing number of new infections occur among key population groups.

AIDS diagnosis/treatment:

• HIV can be diagnosed through rapid diagnostic tests that can provide same-day results. This greatly facilitates diagnosis and linkage with treatment and care.
• There is no cure for HIV infection. However, effective antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) can control the virus and help prevent onward transmission to other people.
• At the end of 2018, an estimated 79% of people living with HIV knew their status. 62% were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) and 53% had achieved suppression of the HIV virus with no risk of infecting others.
• In June 2019, 24.5 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy.
• Between 2000 and 2018, new HIV infections fell by 37% and HIV-related deaths fell by 45%, with 13.6 million lives saved due to ART. This achievement was the result of great efforts by national HIV programs supported by civil society and international development partners.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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I’ve watched one of my 7th grade boys fake reading for six weeks. Now, he won’t admit he’s fake reading. Not even close.

He will admit, however, that he hates reading. Hates books. Always has. And nothing I can do will change that.

Aah, 7th grade is so much fun sometimes.

Every day we start class with ten minutes of relax and read. Aside from the first day of school, we’ve read every single day for the first six weeks of school.

I don’t tell the kids what to read, how to read, where to read…I just ask them to read.

I have over 1,300 books in my classroom. I display intriguing titles, have books grouped by genre, and we talk about books – a lot.

I challenge them to read 25 books before June. It’s definitely a big goal, but I believe they can reach it – and most kids have already finished at LEAST one book.

I don’t care if they read graphic novels, informational books, teen fiction, series…I just ask them to read.

And this little guy isn’t doing it.

He’s the classic fake reader – opening to the middle of a book and hoping I don’t see that he’s not turning pages. Reading the dictionary. Oh – and he finished ‘reading’ the entire textbook in two sittings.

But what I’m most frustrated by is that I can’t figure out WHY.

I know that the ‘fake reading’ is an avoidance behavior. I won’t get into a power struggle, I won’t get agitated. I just calmly ask, every day, what he’s reading and urge him to find one book he can stick with.

He’s still in the excuses stage. And I’m ready to shoot down every one, calmly, kindly.

So today I started digging. I looked at his IEP – worthless. Nothing about reading, just talked about math and graphic organizers. I looked at his grades – failing. I talked to his case manager, the counselor, and still…nothing.

I could feel the frustration, the agitation, the disappointment rising.

We are going to lose this kid if we don’t do something to figure him out.

And then I got a “by the way, we’re adding kid #37 to your English class today” comment, and that was it.

This is how public education fails kids, and how teachers get frustrated and burned out.

It’s not the kid. He’s 12. He’s likely scared, worried, and well aware that he needs to practice reading, even though today he told me he didn’t think he did.

Ashleigh Warner, Psychologist, is reading my mind when she says, “Beneath every behavior is a feeling. And beneath every feeling is a need. And when we meet that need rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause not the symptom.”

His mom doesn’t return my emails. I feel like I can do something to help him, to help deal with the cause…but having 37 12-year-olds to give face time and true attention in a 50 minute period is darn near impossible.

We are going to lose this kid if we don’t do something to figure him out…fast.

This post doesn’t have a happy ending – yet. It’s not about finding the right book, or giving him a beanbag to be comfortable. I know in my gut it’s something bigger –

And I need help to figure him out…fast.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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“Mamawolfe, can I talk to you today?” he questioned as he walked through the doorway of our classroom. There’s a reason I make a herculean effort to greet kids when they come into class. I get a chance to SEE them. I look them in the eye, say their name, and do a quick ‘mom’ check – eyes, face, body language…I can tell a ton in a quick ten-second glance. 

“Sure, bud – let’s make some time to talk in class today. And if something happens – I’ll make sure we connect during 6th period. I don’t teach then, and I’ll call you out of class, ok?”

He seemed temporarily satisfied, but I could tell after the first five minutes of beginning the class something was definitely NOT Ok. His eyes downcast, head tilted to the floor, and no jovial banter with the seatmates – this was not the kid I knew.

“Mrs. Wolfe, can I please go in the hall to text my mom?” he asked during binder check. 

“Sure, but why don’t you go sit at my desk instead? Make yourself comfy,” I suggested, and he agreed.

More to come

A few minutes later I asked him if this was a good time, and to come back to my ‘office’ – a fancy word for a corner space by my desk with a beat-up black bean bag, some lavender oil and coloring books, and kleenex. Several boxes. Most of all, it’s a place where I can listen without interruption, kids can cry and feel safe telling me what’s on their mind. Mostly my AVID classes use this space, but my 7th graders have been known to figure out that I will listen to them there, too.

Today the tears started almost immediately, validating my hunch that all was not right in this 13-year-old’s world. I know this kid pretty well – he’s had more than his share of trauma already in his life. So I listened. He told me about home, his mom, and how he’s frustrated and anxious and worried about his performance in school…and I listened. I reminded him that he will get through this and that when kids have anxiety at school it’s often connected to stuff they’re feeling outside of school – and I knew his outside of school was not great. Not even good. Downright crappy, in fact.

Handing him a tissue, I asked, ‘What’s one thing I can do today to make it just a little bit better?” He shook his head.

“Do you want me to write a note to your history teacher asking for permission to turn in late work?”

“No – my mom will do that. That’s why I texted her. But I know she’s just going to yell at me when I get home. And dump all her problems on me.”

Do parents listen?

I temper my rage when I hear these kinds of things coming from kids’ mouths – and yes, I’ve heard them before. But as a teacher – particularly an AVID teacher – I’m concerned about my student. I’m their advocate. I’m there for them. I can help parents get resources, I can give advice, but when I’ve got a sad and anxious kiddo in front of me, I want to make it better. I just can’t help it. They’re just KIDS! I want to scream. BABIES! They shouldn’t be dealing with all these real-life adult things yet.

“You know, I can just go to your teacher and let him know you need time. That’s part of my job as your AVID teacher. No questions asked. He trusts me…”

“Let me check if she texted me back – nope of course not,” he interrupted, glancing quickly at his phone. 

“Ok,” I replied, looking into his eyes. “You know, you are amazing. You have so much more to deal with than an 8th grader should. Your mom is lucky to have an amazing kid like you, you know? You’re amazing because you are YOU. You don’t have to do anything or prove anything – you’re just awesome,” I sputtered.

What I wanted to say was, “Your mom is lucky you’re not taking all this out on yourself like some kids do – cutting, drinking, vaping, cutting school…all you’re asking is for her to listen to you. To see how amazing you really are. And to treat you like a kid – not her therapist.” But of course, I swallowed those thoughts and we made a plan.

“You know, I just feel better telling you,” he replied softly. And I thanked him again. As I was getting up, he looked at me and asked,  “Can I have a hug?”

‘Of course, you can, Bud, of course,” and he smiled back as he reached for me.

Some days teaching is harder than others – for lots of different reasons. Some days are frustrating, some are long, some are painful. But when I have days like today, the days when I know I’ve been able to be that person a kid can trust to listen, to help them breathe through their anxiety, and to help them remember how amazing they are, it’s worth it. Every single time.

Because they’re KIDS. They have feelings and thoughts and insecurities and very little life experience to draw on to know what’s ‘normal’ and what to do and how to handle life…especially when the adults in their life don’t know how to handle their own.

These are the days I feel like a teacher. These are the days when I didn’t teach the curriculum – I taught students.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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