So what is Wakelet?

Wakelet is a relatively new technology tool that, while not originally designed for education, has become the HOT ticket in curation, collaboration, awesome sharing of ideas, projects and big dreams, and most recently, a cool tool for student work submission! Think mash-up: Pinterest, Padlet, Google folders…it’s ‘a way to save, curate and share the things you love’.

And I love sharing student work. Thank you, Wakelet, for making it so easy!

Here’s the link to my Wakelet profile. I’ve created wakes about all sorts of teaching topics.

One of the key pedagogical components of HyperDocs is the importance of sharing student work with an authentic audience. Kids work harder when they know someone is going to see their work. They think more deeply when they know another person can comment on their ideas. To me, using Wakelet to share student projects makes total sense.

How I use Wakelet

In my AVID 9 classes, we’ve been working on a commercial project to answer the question, “What makes AVID great?” This project was more than just off-the-cuff filming; we actually dove into the art of commercial storytelling and what makes a commercial compelling and persuasive to the viewer. I modified a super cool HyperDoc originally created by Sarah Landis and came up with this:

We all had fun learning about how to build a strong commercial – we analyzed the elements, looked at digital shorts, and then students loosely scripted their own commercial stories. Next came filming, editing, and then after a few weeks, the big reveal!

Using Wakelet to share student creations is SO simple! First, I created the ‘wake’ and set it to allow contributors via a sharable link, and set it to ‘Public’ so we could all view the finished projects. Then, I copied the link to the wake and embedded it onto my HyperDoc. Done!

If you go to my account, you can view and copy lots of teaching resources: https://wakelet.com/@jenniferwolfe3929

Wakelet makes it super easy to share links via Google Classroom, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else you can add a link. If you’d like to make a copy of my Create-A-Commercial HyperDoc, here’s the link. I’d love to share with you!

But wait…..I love this tool so much, I want to share more!

• Here’s how to collaborate with it!
• And you need this FREE ebook
• Another example of collaboration by Lisa Highfill
• Matt Miller’s blog post with a dozen cool Wakelet ideas
• Check out how teacher Robin Thomson uses Wakelet for curating resources for a HyperDoc on the Middle East and North Africa
• A cool Wake created after a #ditchbook Twitter Chat – it’s all about Google Drawings

I’ll definitely be sharing more about how I’m using Wakelet in my classroom – and in my writing life, too!

Have you tried Wakelet? I’d love to follow you – please leave your profile link in the comments!

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.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

If you read my earlier post, you know I’ve been kind of dreading Easter this year. I mean, what is it all about if there aren’t little kids (or any kids) around to search for eggs, dive into Easter candy and make a fancy meal together?

In order to not be seen as completely pathetic, I PROMISE I will at least keep one tradition despite this empty nest – for Easter breakfast, I WILL make Grandma’s Dutch Baby Pancake.

As my kids grew from toddlers to tweens to teens, getting up early for anything was increasingly difficult.  One sure fire method I’ve found for rousing them out of bed, however, is to prepare a warm, aromatic breakfast.

Having been raised in a family of spectacular cooks, it’s always been fun to prepare traditional recipes of my childhood.  For a quick, simple and healthy Easter breakfast sure to please your family and friends, why not try my grandmother’s Dutch baby pancake?

Grandma’s Dutch Baby Pancake Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 T. butter

½ c. milk

½ c. flour

¼ c. sugar

2 eggs

1 T. butter softened

pinch of nutmeg

lemon wedges

powdered sugar or maple syrup (optional)

First, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Next, melt 2 T. butter in a 10-inch ovenproof skillet (I use Grandma’s cast iron) over medium heat. Make sure the butter covers the entire bottom and sides of the pan.  Then, use a blender to puree together milk, flour, sugar, eggs, softened butter and nutmeg in a bowl.  Pour into skillet.  Cook 1 minute.  Finally, place the pan in the oven and bake 12-15 minutes, until puffed and golden.  Be prepared to serve immediately-it will deflate after you remove it.  Slice into wedges, and serve with fresh lemon, powdered sugar or syrup.  Serves 4.

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.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

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’:

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:

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.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

What is your relationship to clutter?

Clutter isn’t just about what’s stuffed into corners of your bookshelves, or trampled on the floor of your closed. It’s not only about organizing drawers or giving the garage a super-good clean out. Really, that kind of physical clutter is pretty simple to deal with. You either get rid of it, or you shove it away.

It’s the ‘clutter-be-gone’ mindset that I’ve always found much more challenging. The ‘clutter-be-gone’ mindset is haunting me now that there’s just two of us living in this house created for four.

I have plenty of ‘belongings’, to be sure. Just ask my kids about all the sizes of diapers I kept (unused, of course) or the various locks of hair, baby socks, art projects, cute notes, Lego sculptures…you get the idea. I read Julie Morgenstern’s book Organizing From The Inside Out a long time ago (it was published in 1998!). At the time, I was struggling with the idea of keeping a home organized now that two babies had moved in. When I read, “Being organized has less to do with the way an environment looks than how effectively it functions. If a person can find what he or she needs when he or she needs it, feels unencumbered in achieving his or her goals, and is happy in his or her space, then that person is well organized.”

That was so liberating for me!

My sentimental nature would obviously lead me to keep more than the average mom, but according to Julie, that’s OK!

So I cruised along, trying to keep up with photo albums (the analog kind), journals, school report cards, samples of my kids’ writing, birthday cards…. high school graduation cards…college acceptance letters…college graduation announcements…until suddenly, the nest is empty but the rooms are still full and then, gradually at first but then with an urgency building up like a thundercloud, the ‘clutter-be-gone’ mindset is a reality.

There’s no more reason to keep all those Christmas and Valentine’s and Easter decorations, is there? No one’s around to see them. It’s easier if they just stay packed away, along with the memories of when little hands and sticky faces used to reach with trepidation, hoping to grasp the essence of what those days meant to them…

So for my husband’s 52nd birthday, I got him a storage space.

Despite this going against all my de-cluttering tendencies, Julie’s words rang in my ears. You can get it organized, I heard her say. Put the furniture you’ve been saving for the kids in there, clear up space in the garage and create some flow, I imagined her commenting. So I did it, and now the flow should run freely – right?

I’m finding it’s not so easy, that de-cluttering comes in fits and bursts, at just the right time to fill up sacks of worn out linens and kitchen gadgets long since forgotten. It comes, sometimes, with a burst of tears and finishes with collapsing on the bed with a box of cassette tapes from the 1980s, memories banging cacophonously against reality.

There are some days (many days) when I just can’t handle the thought of those moments flooding into today; just the downpour of what was, what I can’t control, what’s not yet happened and maybe never will is more than I can handle on even endless servings of my favorite Sumatra blend.

“Being organized has less to do with the way an environment looks than how effectively it functions,”

I hear her whispering to me. How does it actually function for me these days? How do the memories (aka clutter) fill my mind? Do they keep me from moving forward, or do they PUSH me towards everything I’ve been preparing for the last 53 years?

I think to me, putting yourself in the ‘clutter-be-gone’ mindset means putting on your oxygen mask first. Practicing deep self-care. Spending time in nature, gazing out the window into an oncoming thunderstorm (literal or figurative) or snuggling up with your old dog and gently stroking his ears while he wiggles with pleasure. It means tucking away the memories (literal and figurative) into places in my heart and home where they can lift me up, comfort me, motivate me, and be there to draw on for inspiration moving forward.

In the end, I think I’m OK with my clutter right now. Maybe my kids will be OK with it, too.

Photo by Gabby Orcutt on Unsplash Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash

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.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

~  Easter eggs already? This is the first Easter since I became a mom that I will have no children at home. No egg hunt. No Easter baskets – except for the treats I mailed to Boston and Park City. Nada. Not sure I’ll even get any decorations out… I’ve been dreading Easter thinking of Easter for months…of course, this year would have to be the year that it falls at the END of April. I’ve fallen into a writing rut, spending much more time and energy on teaching than I should. It keeps me from the quiet of the empty nest, I guess.

Just to torture myself, I’m reading through old posts, and instead of writing about Easter without kids, I thought I’d spiff up this oldie-but-goodie. For all of you empty-nesters out there, can you send me some thoughts about how to distract myself from the Easter egg blues? 

Love, 

Jennifer

My daughter has always had a competitive streak. I’m not sure if it’s nature or nurture…being blessed as the first born of two first-born parents, first born grandparents and yes, even first-born great-grandparents definitely explain a few of her personality traits. I guess that new parents just get excited about everything….new. My husband and I couldn’t wait to start up family traditions with her, and one of our favorites involved Easter.

Both my husband and I came from families where Easter egg hunts were a big deal. We had very similar childhood experiences – we were required to dress in our best clothes, would drive to grandma and grandpa’s house in the Bay Area, and would gather with our aunts, uncles, and cousins in the backyard. The anticipation was huge…we knew there would be carefully hidden eggs, enough for everyone to fill at least one basket. If we were lucky and looked really hard, we could find something special, too.

Creating memories

When our daughter was born, we knew we wanted to re-create our childhood memories. For the first few years, it wasn’t that exciting-babies and toddlers couldn’t really rejoice in the vinegar egg dying process, and usually scream at the sight of a giant, hairy Easter bunny. However, by the time our girl was three-and-a-half, we were ready.

Easter morning in California is usually quite pleasant, and this year didn’t disappoint. We dressed her in a beautiful homemade cotton print dress, put on her white eyelet socks and black patent leather shoes. She looked like she could march in the finest Easter parade in town. Instead, we went into the garden.

A few days earlier, we had routinely dyed hard-boiled eggs and left them out the night before for the Easter Bunny to hide. But unbeknownst to our daughter, we had also hidden plastic Easter eggs, just to increase the fun. And to make it even more exciting, we (I) stuffed the plastic eggs before putting them in the garden. Pennies, jellybeans, beads, stickers and small candies went inside most of them, but when I ran out of treats, I left those empty.

The Easter egg hunt

Our egg hunt began as it always did-mom, dad and grandma scurrying after her, video cameras in hand. We exclaimed in unison as she found each egg, and helped her fill her basket. Soon she realized that there were three kinds of eggs-those that were hard-boiled, those that were plastic and made noise when she shook them and those that were plastic and empty.

Even at three years old, her competitive streak was showing, and instead of placing each egg in her basket as she found it, squealing in delight, she began shaking each one violently. If the appropriate sound resulted, the egg went in the basket. If the egg was silent, it went over her shoulder back into the bushes.

While we dissolved into peals of laughter, she meticulously made her way around the garden searching for the egg-booty. When satisfied she had covered all the territory, she announced, “All done”, and ran off into the house.

Easter egg memories

But pennies aren’t so exciting anymore -thank goodness gift cards are too big!

As a result, we found many discarded plastic Easter eggs in the garden that summer. Our attempt at starting a family tradition, however, was quite successful. Even now, our teenagers still prefer plastic to the real thing.

This post originally appeared on the Yahoo Contributor Network.

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.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: