Tag: Educational technology

distance teaching

Distance Teaching & Learning: The 4c’s for Making It Successful

Posted on August 2, 2020 by

Distance teaching and learning is different from face to face teaching and learning. It’s the truth.

I’ve spent the entire summer facilitating courses for educators on Digital Teaching and Learning. I’m seeing many educators start to panic about not knowing how to start thinking and planning about beginning a new school year online.

The COVID chasm I wrote about a few weeks ago is real, and it’s terrifying. Teachers everywhere are trying to rethink, remake, redo all that they’ve ever known about teaching. We know this may go on for a semester at more.

What are the 4 C’s of distance teaching?

In California, most districts are starting the year virtually. This requires us to reimagine our back to school routines. I believe there are 4c’s to define the best practices of distance teaching and learning: community, connection, collaboration, and competency.

Taking a look at each of these will help teachers breathe more easily. It will help parents trust the school system and ensure students have the best possible start to the 2020-21 school year.

Distance Teaching = COMMUNITY

So many teachers are frightened about never having met our students face to face and trying to create a classroom community. But think about it – how many virtual spaces are there where we connect with people we don’t see every day? Do you participate in social media groups? Have you taken online classes or done Zoom yoga groups? Did you ever use a VCR to do a workout, or maybe you’ve even done online dating?

Today’s kids see virtual communities differently. Fanfiction groups thrive and survive on the social connections and dedication of members. Classrooms can be the same! Social-emotional learning is important at the start of the year. It’s also crucial to embed into EVERY SINGLE lesson and student contact.

What does SEL mean?

Check out the CASEL competencies for detailed info, but in summary, pay attention. Ask questions. Listen to your students. Comment and give feedback. Show your personality. Crowdsource feedback and ideas from your students. I’m a huge fan of HyperDocs. I make sure that as I design every learning cycle I’m embedding deliberate entry points for student choice, voice, and feedback.

In synchronous meetings, use icebreakers, polls, discussion questions, photo sharing, read alouds, videos and games EVERY TIME.

It’s a ‘pay it forward’ way of thinking – that first five minutes you spend intentionally connecting with students as they enter your virtual class, while they’re ‘getting ready’ and as you end the session will PAY OFF BIG TIME! The conferencing space IS your classroom space – do what you’d do face to face.

Distance Teaching = CONNECTION

Connection goes hand in hand with SEL, and also should be extended to TEACHER connection and PARENT connection.

Teachers need to feel supported. They need to learn self-care strategies, how to set work/home boundaries, how to develop routines, and where to share their glows and grows. One way to create teacher connection is to curate spaces – my favorites are Google Classroom and Wakelet. Using Google Classroom to set up a safe space for virtual PD allows teachers to enter on their own or during virtual meetups. Housing articles, videos, tech tips, and discussion threads help teachers focus on pertinent topics while having access to resources and reflection time.

What’s Wakelet?

Wakelet helps curate collections of resources and can be shared, and/or curated as a community. I love sharing my collections on Assessment ideas, Google Classroom Tips, HyperDocs, and Diverse Reading Lists.

An added bonus of using Google Classroom and Wakelet is allowing teachers to explore new systems that can then be transferred to student use or creation.

Parents need connection, too – Wakelet would be a powerful tool to share tech training how-to videos, Google Calendar appointment sign ups, websites – really anything that you want parents to use to ‘see’ inside your classroom!

Distance Teaching = COLLABORATION

Distance learning shifts the way we collaborate. Students NEED to connect with others – collaboration on projects allows for shared critical thinking, communication, and a deeper connection with school – as long as WHAT they’re collaborating on is engaging, relevant, and rigorous. consider tech tools to foster collaboration like Padlet and Flipgrid. Check out this fabulous collaboration resource created by Steve Wick!

For teachers, collaboration through Professional Learning Communities, not just in your school but worldwide, offers opportunities to share academic, pedagogical, and personal ideas. Many social media networks like Facebook and Instagram are turning to groups and hashtags to connect educators; my favorite collaboration site is Twitter.

Educators find ideas via hashtags searches, groups, direct messages, and Twitter chats – in fact, I hosted a WeVideo Twitter chat on ‘Podcasting and Student Creativity” in hopes of sharing and collecting new ideas for student podcasting projects!

If you’re interested in podcasting you can see the archive of ideas here.

What else can teachers do?

Taking an online class, webinar, or book study helps teachers connect and collaborate over topics of interest. Also, it puts teachers in the point of view of students – what better way to ‘feel’ what it’s like for our own students to be in a virtual classroom! Consider getting Google Certified (Kasey Bell has great resources here) or taking tech tool certifications. Perhaps join your local CUE affiliate, or attend virtual conferences or edchats – all ways to not feel so all alone in distance teaching while making new friends at the same time (see, I told you community is built online!).

For students, authentic collaboration needs to happen in synchronous and asynchronous time. In web conferences, consider using breakout rooms, if possible. Many face to face strategies, like give one, get one, can be done in with the chat feature. Utilizing UDL lesson design with HyperDocs allows the teacher to build in collaboration within a lesson or unit using a variety of digital tools. Sarah Landis created a compilation of UDL resources in this slide deck!

Distance Teaching = COMPETENCY

Competency means taking a look at how we not only train teachers, administrators, counselors, and support staff in best practices for digital teaching and learning, but also onboarding our students and parents with digital basics. We need to intentionally TEACH structures, tools, and systems to ensure student success. Also, creating a standardized design for students to access assignments in your LMS, writing, and recording directions for each assignment helps create strong organizational systems. Creating a teacher website to share access points also helps students achieve systematic competency.

Then, ensuring consistent lesson design that features frequent, familiar strategies like those found in EduProtocols can help students move from feeling overwhelmed with new strategies and content every time. Students know when a teacher says “Iron Chef” how to approach content. One of my favorite sites is using Google’s Applied Digital Skills. I can either use or modify their lessons, embedding digital tools into the curriculum, and building up my student’s digital toolbox.

How many tools do teachers need?

Teachers don’t need to have a new tool for every lesson. Just like cooking meals for the family, you don’t have to try a new recipe 365 days a year. Take the one you like, use content in a new way, and continue to modify. And always have a solid fall back – I call that lesson the ‘macaroni and cheese’ for when I need something solid and tasty to fall back on, that doesn’t require a lot of creativity on my end.

I hope sometime we can stop calling this experience ‘distance teaching and learning’ and just remember it’s TEACHING and LEARNING. Yes, our methodology may look different, but we need to remember that we have good strategies we already know – the trick is to switch them into a digital space. Trust your instincts. You can do this. You WILL build community in your virtual space. Your students are looking for you to show up and SEE them…whether it’s through a camera, on a screen, or face to face.

We’re teachers – it’s our super power!

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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Using MMTS To Engage Students!

Posted on January 18, 2020 by

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.

Perception and Reality MMTS Grade 7

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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multimedia text set engagement

Student Engagement With MultiMedia Text Sets

Posted on April 6, 2019 by

Have you heard of multimedia text sets?

Student engagement is definitely an education buzz word right now! All over the country, teachers and administrators search for tools, activities, and lessons to increase student engagement and create classroom opportunities for kids to respond actively, not passively, to instruction. For the last 18 years, we’ve been talking about 21st-century education. It’s time for educators to hop on board and create lessons that start with student engagement and center around the 4 Cs of learning: creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.

Since they launched in 2006, I’ve used Google Suite (formerly known as Google Apps for Education). These tools have TRANSFORMED my teaching and allowed my students to learn more richly than ever before (and I’ve been teaching for 28 years!).

A huge shift in my teaching came in 2016 when I met Lisa Highfill, Sarah Landis and Kelly Hilton, the creators of HyperDocs. They managed to wrap strong educational pedagogy with the 4 Cs of learning into super high-engagement lesson packages that revved me up to begin sharing, creating and learning about new ways to use technology as a tool in my classroom.

I started with multimedia text sets – a ‘gateway’ to HyperDocs, but not a true HyperDoc. Multimedia text sets are ways for teachers to start the learning process with engagement. They help kids explore and engage with provocations related to the topic of study. I connect this step with Trevor McKenzie’s work on inquiry-based learning – it’s the provocation (hook) that ignites imagination, interest, and incites students to dig deeply into their studies.

Here’s an example of a multimedia text set I made for textbook unit on ‘Risk and Exploration’:

multimedia text set engagement
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12LkQncVVVGt8UcoZzj3ha71nrBG8_h4oJQh0OUYZJ9o/edit?usp=sharing

I share this on Google Classroom and give the students a class period or two to explore the different stories, articles, videos, photo galleries, and podcasts. They LOVE it! It’s amazing how focused they become, and how they begin to engage in conversations about what they’re learning. It’s hard to get them to stop! In fact, they ASK if they can do it at HOME!

A key element of multimedia text sets is the share and reflect portion. Just by adding a link to a Google form to let students share their learning, create ‘wonder’ questions and let me know what they enjoyed most! This helps me to direct the next steps of the lesson, as well as ‘hook’ the kids into a direction for their learning.

Thanks to Lisa Highfill and Genevieve Pacada, this template is super easy to use and modify for each unit of study we do. It takes a bit of time to put the explorations together, but it allows me to not only get my class excited for our study, but also to be right alongside them as they discover new ideas!

Sometimes I use multimedia text sets as a smaller exploration.

Here’s one I created for my AVID classes prior to a career research study:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RGx_nSZqOFEPr3kguuTHQaCUc6iefO6VK6sH15ezbEM/edit?usp=sharing

This multimedia text set was super fun and easy to create – I even took the personality and career tests with my class so they could see if I really was matched correctly to my job – of course, I was!

I’ve got lots of more examples I’d love to share with you. If you’re interested, leave a comment or email me at mamawolfeto2@gmail.com and I’ll help you out. Another great resource for multimedia text sets is the Hyperdocs.co website, as well as @TsgiveTs on Twitter. I believe we’re #bettertogether! Feel free to make a copy of these two multimedia text sets and try them out!

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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can parents go back to school

Can Parents Go Back To School?

Posted on February 12, 2018 by

I write frequently about education and college – mostly from the point of view of teenagers. But can parents go back to school successfully as well? Going back to school for adults certainly has unique challenges,  and yet plenty of people do it and manage to juggle studying, their family and sometimes even working too. If you’re thinking about doing it, don’t rush into it. There are a few things you might want to think about first to help make it a success!

can parents go back to school

Can Parents Go Back To School Challenge #1: Find a Flexible Way to Study

One way you could choose to do postgraduate studies when you have a family is to find a flexible way to do it. This could include finding an online course, which often allows you work at your own pace or at least makes your learning and study times more flexible.

Can Parents Go Back To School Challenge #2: Take on the Challenge as a Family

If you’re going to go back to school, you need to get the whole family on board. They don’t all have to love the idea, but it can require everyone to pitch in. Maybe the kids are going to have to take a bit more responsibility for themselves or your partner is going to have to be there to support you.

Can Parents Go Back To School Challenge #3: Find Out How Your College Can Help

A lot of colleges can offer support and resources that help to make things easier. See if your local college has a family resource center or something similar that could help you out. Many colleges offer blended distance learning and occasional face to face contact that are perfect for parents.

Can Parents Go Back To School Challenge #4: Focus on Your Future

If you’re ever unsure or ready to give up, think about what your studies will be doing for your future. The right choice of degree could have a huge impact on your life. At this point in my career, going back to school may not be monetarily sensible, but I’ve been able to channel my love of learning in different ways!

I love this little infographic – hope it inspires you parents to go back to school!


Infographic On SBU Online’s Graduate Degrees

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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How To Maximize Online Learning As An Adult

Posted on February 4, 2018 by

Have you taken an online class yet? The first time I did (in 2011) it was a struggle. Many of my traditional study methods didn’t transfer easily to learning and reading online, and I had to really step out of my comfort zone. It was good, though – it gave me a huge insight into how I teach my teenage students and also adult learners, and once some of the basic studying structures are re-examined, online learning is a powerful method for furthering your education.

Online learning has become one of the most popular options for studying at home, but it’s also surprisingly difficult if you’re not used to studying on your own and it’s not as effective as most people think especially if it’s the first time they’ve tried it. If you’ve never tried to learn on your own and you jump right into an online university degree, then you might be disappointed at your lack of results. To help you get the most from your online courses, we’ve put together some handy tips that will change the way you approach online learning.

online learning

Creating a distraction-free workspace is key for online learning!

Coping with realities vs expectations

Contrary to what many people believe, studying online is no easier or more difficult than studying the course at a college or university. For instance, getting a Masters in engineering management online is virtually the same as trying to get it from a prestigious college. Sure, the resources you have available to you are different, but you’ll still be able to speak with lecturers and other students and the course itself isn’t any easier because you’re studying the same things.

The reality is that if you’re not committed to your online course, then you’re not going to get anywhere. Just because you study over the internet, it doesn’t mean you can forgo a schedule. Make sure you wake up on time so that you have plenty of time to get ready for your online lessons (much like you would if you’re going to university) or at least set some time aside in the day so that you can sit down and study in peace. If you’re not invested, then you’re not going to get anything out of it and you’ll be wasting your money.

Having a dedicated place to study

When studying at home, it’s important to put together a study area where you can relax and focus. For example, you might want to use your home office as a study area, or you might want to take over your bedroom as a dedicated home classroom where you can put all of your equipment, stationery, and books.

Another good reason to use a dedicated study place is so that other members of your family or your roommates understand that, when you’re in said room or location, you’re in learning mode and others should respect that so they don’t disturb you too much. People that work from home have the same issue that they’re easily distracted by their family members or roommates, which is why setting up a dedicated learning space is ideal.

As long as you stay positive and take your online studying seriously, it’s actually fairly simple to get the most out of your course so that it’s a successful endeavor and not a waste of money that you’ll regret later in the future. Just keep your expectations in check and remember that online studying is just as difficult as studying in a university. It’s just a little more convenient, but it does mean you’ll need to invest more time and effort into making it work for you.

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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