Large Group Instruction in Biology with Explain Everything

A little over one week ago, I coached our Biology teachers on the power of the Explain Everything App.

Today, was our large group instructional time.

• The App
• The Project
• The Rubric

As students entered the room, I had OK Go's Here It Goes Again video playing.  As students were settling down in their seats, I turned down the volume, but left the video playing.  I emphasized with students the background of the group and their creative videos.  So much collaboration, critical thinking and creativity is present in the video.  It was a perfect example for this project.

I liked this idea of music videos so much, I started a YouTube Playlist for videos that are filled with creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication.  There are not too many videos in this list as of yet!  More to join the list in the future!

You can see how students experienced this as they entered the room.

On Monday and Tuesday, students will be creating!

I truly believe this was an awesome experience for our classroom teachers who were able learn the details about the app an additional time.  Students also were able to get a field trip to our Large Group Instruction Area.  I was able to teach students which was the first reason I became a teacher.

Step 1 - Teaching Teachers

Step 2 - Teaching Students

Step 3 - Exporting the Project 

Step 4 - Lesson Reflection

Step 5 - Student Reflection

Stick Around App in High School Anatomy Class

Mr. Anderson integrated the Stick Around app into the "learning about the skull" activity for students.  The Stick Around app was a perfect tool for students to create interactive learning opportunities for students based on student textbook resources.

View The Students Working and The Workflow


Note: We were able to publish the Hour 2 projects as puzzles and export those puzzles to the Google Drive folders.

Students now have 18 interactive puzzles to master the bones of the skulls.

Creativity & Critical Thinking:  Students needed to establish the exact placement of the stickers and the answers so that no answer areas were conflicting.

Collaboration: The puzzles were created in groups of two or three.  Students were held accountable for their creations as all of the puzzles were shared with the teacher and placed in a Google Drive folder.  This allows all students to view the creations of students.

Stick Around iPad App in High School Psychology

In May of 2014, I introduced our staff to the Stick Around App. It is an incredible interactive app that is perfect for content area.  Today, Mr. Krause, High School Pshychology, utilized this app to solidify the parts and functions of the brain.  I introduced the basic features of the app for about five minutes using AirServer to broadcast functions of the iPad app onto our screen.  After that, we periodically would broadcast tips and tricks for about thirty seconds to the students as the situation arose in our classroom.

I was thankful that our Superintendent, Mr. Thompson, joined us today as he was able to witness a technology coach and a classroom teacher working efficiently together.

Truthfully, this learning opportunity couldn't have went any smoother!  It was awesome!

View how and what the students accomplished during this interactive lesson.



Collaboration: Students discovered links and information on one iPad and shared that information with another student on a different iPad utilizing Google Drive.
Creativity:  Students were able to decide the design and content of their puzzle.
Critical Thinking: Not only did students need to label parts of the brain, they also needed to provide additional resources for supporting the purpose of each brain part.

iPad Creation Apps Updated 2014

On March 27, 2012, I decided to write a blog post on "Creation Apps Used on the iPad".  Since then, many of these apps have been utilized to help students "Show What They Know" through collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking.

The top apps from this list could be considered for the next opportunity for students to "Show What They Know from a concept, unit, or chapter.

Creation Apps

Explain Everything
Complete white board and screen recording with video, pictures, websites, diagrams, text, annotations, animations, and more.  It truly does facilitate so many options for allowing students to discover new concepts or become assessed on something that they have learned.

• Incorporated In AP Stats
• Environmental Science
• Math Discussion
• Middle School Science
• Summarizing Informational Text
• Children's Books

Stick Around
Students move stickers to the correct spot on a background.   Not only can the puzzles be used to show mastery of concepts, but the puzzles can used to develop and teach the concepts by students who are creating them.

Haiku Deck

A presentation tool that places stunning images combined with words to present information that students are learning or have learned.

• Telling Stories
• Environmental Health
• Poetry Analysis

Comic Maker

Creating comics has always been a part of education.  Substitute paper and pencil with this app that can export the final product to many different locations

*Banner at the top of the post was created with CoolText.  (works on an iPad in a browser)

Workplace Writing Professional Portfolio

This year will mark the first year that our Workplace Writing students will transition from a binder of compilation of work to a digital presence.  We decided to use Google Sites for a few reasons:

• Page Level Admission
• Uploading of Documents onto a Page
• Seamless integration with Google Docs (*Viewable Permission Rights Must Provide Access)

The site was created and uploaded to our school's template gallery.  Students will access the template on a Chromebook.

View Template

*If you can't view the template in your school's domain, please request access.

Impact On Students:

Creativity:  While a template was created, students have the option of change the color, font, and overall appearance to personalize.

Critical Thinking: Placing the correct information in the presentation form is very important.  Students will be directed to think critically about the content and the way it appears to the viewer.

Citizenship:  This is the most important aspect.  This portfolio represents themselves on this page, but their other digital content (Twitter, Facebook) must also portray them in a positive light.

Time Sheet via Google Form For AP Psych PBL

Mr. Krause will be providing a Problem/Project Based Learning opportunity.  Students will create a "time sheet" via a Google form to record their total minutes focused on specific tasks.  Sure, we could just have them create a Google Sheet for recording of data, but we wanted something "flashy".  Google Forms provides a way for students to "enter" their time.

After the time sheets are recording in the Google sheet, students will use a formula to add of the total minutes.

View Presentation To Students On Making A Google Form

Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking:  Allotting the correct amount of time on the correct task is a valuable life lesson. Not only are we allowing students to design their own time sheet, we are also asking them to be responsible for their time on tasks.

Mystery Map - High School Human Geography

Map Race and Geoguessr are great tools for students to gain clues as to the place in the world that is being shown.  While this allows students and adults to get the experience, it doesn't allow for students to create their own place, clues, and game.

Enter our idea.

Mrs. Brylski and I have created a project in which students create five clues using Google Maps, Awesome Screencapture Chrome Extension, Google Presentations, Google Drive, and Customized Google Maps.

To begin I chose a place that I liked in the world.  I used the Google Street View version in Google maps.  I then used the Awesome Screencapture extension to gather five photos pertaining to the place of choice.  We are having the students create the pictures from easy to difficult.  In addition, students will be creating five additional clues to add to the pictures.  These include:

• HDI
• Population Pyramid
• Religion
• Ethnicity
• Folk Culture

If the links to these clues are provided without any revealing names of the places, the link can simply be added to the slide.  If the information has revealing information, the Screen Capture blurring option was used.  Once the images were clipped, the images were uploaded to Google Drive and made visible by the link.

Once the students create there slide show of clues, they will tell the teacher their place in the world.  The teacher will add a place mark on a customized Google map.  The students will create (probably their first) customized Google map for all of their answers from other student's presentations.

After the answers are revealed in the Master Mystery Map (only shown after the teacher receives the answers from students and their guesses of other students), students will use the Google maps tools to determine the proximity of their guess to the actual place.  The closer the guess, the greater the point total.

View The Example Mystery Map

View The Students Presenting and Guessing!



Impressive Creation By A Student!  She really worked to make it challenging!


Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking: Deciding easy to difficult clue choices will require some thought.
Creativity:  In creating my example, I wanted some help in the form of street signs and building signs that could give some clues.  Students will need to do this as well.  This will take some creativity to find and use certain pictures.

Master Concepts Through Creating With Stick Around

Stick Around app for the iPad is a relatively new app that allows students to create puzzles that match terms and their meanings.  Creating a puzzle sounds like it might be best suited for K-6 students, however, this app is so versatile that it could be a phenomenal app for K-College students.

Consider Stick Around For (My Ideas First - *Stick Around's Ideas Found on Website)

Social Studies/Psychology/Human Geography:

• Attaching countries with culture
• Attaching cultures with ethnics
• Attaching maps with languages
• Attaching brain parts with functions
• Attaching psychological conditions with discoverers
• Attaching economic concepts with overall impact
• Place locations on a map*
• Place items where they belong on a chart*
• Label people in a photo*
• Associate powers with the branches of government*
• Sequence of events on a timeline*

Mathematics:

• Combining steps of a problem with rational
• Combining steps of a problem with terms

English:

• Attaching labels to parts of speech in sentences
• Attaching correct punctuation and capitalization with sentences
• Attaching story elements with steps of a story
• Attaching character analysis with personal experience
• Attaching connections between story plots of various books
• Attaching steps of a media process with tools of the trade
• Complete a graphic organizer*
• Associate words and definitions*

Science:

• Combining labeling of topics with definitions and meanings
• Combining parts of microscopes with definitions and functions
• Combining causes and effects for any topic
• Combining elements with reactions
• Tag parts of the body*
• Annotate the water cycle (or any cycle)*
• Label the parts of a plant (or anything)*
• Match photos of animals to their habitats*

Foreign Language:

• Attaching English words with words of a foreign language
• Attaching  conversations with correct order
• Attaching culture with languages and customs
• Fill in a Venn Diagram*

Agri-Science

• Label animal parts with definitions pre or post labs*
• Attach processes with definitions

Family and Consumer Economics

• Combining finished food product with correct ingredients
• Combining finished clothing product with correct stitching or procedures
• Combine utensils with names and functions

While making puzzles could be a powerful option for presenting the information to students, a more engaging and empowering learning experience would be for the students to create the puzzle based on information you provide.  Have students share puzzles with peers after completion and students are provided with a student created mastery activity.

From the creator of Stick Around view the basics for using Stick Around!
 

If you considering this app for your classroom, it is relatively inexpensive if you want to purchase more than 20 copies.

See you Tuesday to experience a face to face learning session on one of the great, new creative apps.

Explaining Blood Flow In Heart Using Google Slides

Mr. Anderson, our high school anatomy teacher, used Chromebooks and Google Slides for students to teach and understand the flow of blood through the heart.  The simplistic, but elegant presentation tools allowed for students to use drawing tools, shapes, and text boxes found in Google Slides to annotate images of the heart.  As Mr. Anderson states, "The tool (Google Slides) made it more visual to see the steps that occurred."

View Product


View Product


Impact On Students:
Creativity: Understanding the scope and sequence of the flow of blood through the heart doesn't need to be boring.  Students were given freedom to show this sequence with whatever images or annotations they desired.
Critical Thinking: Students needed to have enough words, but not too many on each slide to establish the needed information.  Students were also required to think through the entire process so that the flow of blood through the heart could be understood by people outside of the classroom.

Explain Everything For Newton's Laws & Rube Goldberg

Our seventh grade teachers wanted a tool that would allow students to describe (explain) images and video associated with their Rube Goldberg machine.  Explain Everything was the tool of choice.

A huge advantage that Explain Everything has is that individual slides can be recorded.  This is especially important as mistakes are made.

See the tremendous detail and creation that went into a production from Mrs. Schwittay's students.

Updated video 2016


View Video


Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking: Obviously, thinking through a simple task to make it difficult takes critical thinking.  In addition, students needed to vocalize their thought process and rationalization.
Creativity: The creativity in the process was amazing.  The teacher couldn't state enough how much students put forth a fantastic effort to make a perfect Rube Goldberg machine.
Collaboration: Four students working together to make one machine and one explanation.

Explain Everything For Magnetic Poetry In High School English

Using Explain Everything to create an explanation of Magnetic Poetry.

View The Video


Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking: Having students discuss, analyze, and explain their creations is a skill that students can continue to improve upon.

VideoNot.es For Reviewing The Presidential Roles

Last April, a Lunch N' Learn session focused on VideoNot.es.  The incredible tool that allows questions and comments to be synced directly with specific times in a video.  Following the learning session, one of our high school English teachers utilized this tool for implementing an assessment on her SMARTboard.

What makes our teachers fantastic is there willingness to learn something new when it hits them, "There must be a better way!"

That's exactly what occurred when Mrs. McCumber wanted to have her students analyze the latest Presidential State of the Union address from the perspective related to content in her class.

VideoNot.es allowed her to focus on "Presidential Roles" that occurred during the speech.  While it did take some time to review the one hour speech, it took mere seconds to find the exact spot in the speech in which she wanted to focus on.  Simply click on the time that you would like to view in the note and the video corresponds!

From a technical stand point, VideoNot.es saves all the notes in Google Drive.  This allows for sharing and easy access.  A newer feature is the integration with Evernote!  An additional feature is the speed of the video and how that can be adjusted.  This could be used in analyzing science experiments or sporting clips.  It would be great if the VideoNot.es could be embedded into a site or blog.  As it is now, only a link can be obtained for sharing.

View the Speech and Mrs. McCumber's notes.

Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking:   Analyzing anything requires a thinking process.  While Mrs. McCumber did the critical thinking for this activity (breaking the down the speech), students could do the same thing in an upcoming learning experience.
Collaboration: Since VideoNot.es is synced with Google Drive, students can analyze a video as a group.  Simply share the VideoNot.es with group members giving them editing rights.

Evernote Researching Tool For High School English

Today, students in Mrs. Deprey's English 10, will begin using Evernote as a researching tool.  Students will use Chromebooks, Evernote, and the Evernote Web Clipper Chrome Extension to organize information on past and current leaders of the world.

As an introduction, students will learn:

• The overall concept of Evernote: Remember Everything
• Why Evernote, notebooks, and tags can simplify and centralize researching.
• How to sign up for Evernote.
• How to install the Evernote Web Clipper Extension from the Chromestore
• How to use the Evernote Web Clipper Extension
• How to log out!

View Presentation

Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking: Students will need to determine the notebook and tags that they will create to organize their information found during research.

Environmental Health Using Haiku Deck

Mr. Bock, one of our middle school health and physical education teachers, wanted to covert the presentation of an Environmental Health project from paper to digital.  Students needed to know about the constraints and requirements for the project.  I suggested Haiku Deck because obtaining stunning copyright free images is so easy.  In addition, the simplistic word presentation grabs the viewer's attention with simple words that allows the viewer to listen intently to the presenter's words.

The first three slides were at one station while the remaining slides were at another station.  Mr. Bock reflected on his experience working with Haiku Deck,

     "...really easy to work with....enjoyed working with it..."

Presentation Link


Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking:  With the images on the slides, students need to decide what tools they want to use to complete the project.  While many pictures were provided of possible solutions, the students were not instructed as to the ACTUAL tool they should use.

Splicing iMovie and Exporting To Explain Everything

Our seventh grade science teacher, Mrs. Schwittay, is asking students to "Show What They Know".  She is asking students to create a Rube Goldberg experiment.  Instead of having every group present them one at a time in front of the class, students will be using their iPads to record the creation and hopeful success of their invention.

Students will be using the iMovie to splice the entire experiment into portions so as to describe the different science applications.
Video Link


Once the iMovie has sliced the video, students will export the entire video and portions of it into Explain Everything.  EE will be used for explaining verbally the questions they asked and the information they learned.
Video Link


Eventually, students will export their Explain Everything to their Google Drive and share it with the teacher.
Video Link


Of course, we can't forget to have students log out of their Google Drive access in Explain Everything.
Video Link


Impact On Students:
Collaboration: Working on the Rube Goldberg process will take serious collaboration.  As far as technology use, the students will need to decide as a group what parts of the video and explanation that applies to the video needs to be recorded.
Critical Thinking:  Smashing two apps together takes critical thinking.  Remember the definition of critical thinking? Critical thinking is a process that leads to skills that can be learned, mastered and used. Determining the process of bringing the movie into iMovie, splicing, producing, and inserting takes a thorough thought process.
Creativity: Not only will students need to develop the Rube Goldberg path, but producing an Explain Everything creation could take on a form of humor, fun, light hearted, serious, or determined tone.

Lunch N' Learn: Two Google + Exam Study Tools

Google has two items that may interest you.

• Google + Email Setting

Video Link

Google Drive Activity Gif Below Source

Video Tutorial of Google Activity Button Link

Semester Exam Study Tools

Last year, I provided a long list of study exam tools that teachers could present to students to prepare for for semester exam.  This year during Lunch N' Learn, I am focusing on three tools that, in my opinion, are the best of the list.

View Presentation



Impact On Students: 
Semester exams are a debatable topic.  Whether your school or individual teachers administers them is not something I want to debate.  However, if the exams exist, lets help students study by offering them quality tools.
Collaboration:  All of the tools can provide collaboration opportunities.  Thinking, processing, questioning together can help remember concepts.
Critical Thinking: Once concepts are presented to students through one of these tools, students can critically determine the right area to obtain the answer and decipher the best answer to remember for the exam.

English 10 Show What You Know Instead of Semester Exam

Because of Tony Vincent's tremendous work with the Show What You Know infographic, our English 10 (E10) students are going to demonstrate learning through THEIR CHOICE of creation tools.  Students were given the opportunity to read an SSR (Silent Sustained Reading) book of their choice throughout the semester.  While describing the actions and events of the book, students are to think and contemplate how their personal book related to books that were read in class, i.e. "To Kill A Mockingbird".  They will demonstrate their knowledge through a "presentation" to the class.  However, the "presentation" is NOT a stand up and read event.  We want students to provide SOME visual, but not too much as they are to provide audio insight into their knowledge as well.

This morning, I presented nine different tools under four different headings:

• Collages
• Comics
• Posters
• Slide Presentations

With only a visual and a few tips, students can choose what they want to create.  They were also challenged to "Smash Them".  Can they create something in one tool and combine it with another tool?

We printed the document, so they were able to take the web address with them.

The presentation for the students is below.

Impact On Students:
Creativity:  Choosing the correct tool for the presentation is not the only task.  Designing a quality product that describes the reading and how it ties into books from the class takes creativity.  Limiting the words so as to not overwhelm the viewer also takes creativity.
Critical Thinking: By limiting the amount of specific directions about each creation tool, students will need to learn, master, and use the tools correctly that are provided within each creation tool.

*Thank you Tony Vincent for creating such an incredibly useful tool.  Without it, I would have not been able to create what I did within a short amount of time.

Movenote To Invite Teachers For E-Mentoring Program

MOVENOTE UPDATE: A Google Extension (app) is available.

Our middle school counselor, Nicole Gerth, wanted a tool that would provide information and a personal touch when inviting staff to become involved in our E-Mentoring program.  In the past an email was sent out with a presentation.  With the inclusion of a recorded video and the presentation, a personal touch was provided!

Consider using Movenote for your next Screen Cast.

View The Example

Movenote: Send video with Gmail

View It

Impact On Students:

Creativity:  Students can create written scripts which would force them to limit the words on the slide and increase the context of spoken word.  The creativity can also be encouraged through the video shot that would take place and the visualization of the presentation.

Citizenship: As Movenote would like to be interactive, replies are available.  Students need to focus on constructive replies that will be available on the world wide web forever.

Critical Thinking: Students and staff need to concentrate on the flow of the presenation and the words that correspond with the presentation.  Many times we hear people say, "I know what I am doing, but I just don't know how to explain it."  Critical thinking skills are need to explain the information.

Lunch N' Learn Promotion-Semester Exam Study Tools

Lunch N' Learn Topics:

• Google + Settings
• Semester Exam Digital Tools To Provide To Students

See You Tuesday!

Video Link

Impact On Students:
Collaboration: Many of the tools can be created by and used individually or with a study group.
Critical Thinking: Students must decide which tool is best for them.  Do they need text, pictures, or video?

Trading Card Final Sharing Activity in AP Human Geography

The Trading Card activity was taking to a level by Mrs. Brylski that actually had the students print the Trading Cards and trade!

Video Link



Impact On Students:
Creativity:  Students needed to decipher the information that should be placed for each question.
Collaboration:  The discussion that incurred during the trading of cards was pretty in depth.  Some great feedback was provided for each student by each student.