MyOn

I went 1:1 last year with Chromebooks. It didn’t take long for me to recognize that I needed a some resources to make my Chromebooks as effective as I wanted to. The younger grades in my school have a digital reader, but their subscription only goes through third grade. I needed a way for my students to access a library of both fiction and informational texts.

I had a few informational texts available in my classroom. I have an in-class leveled library that has one or two informational texts per guided reading level. So long as I only wanted my kids to read 2-3 informational texts during the course of the year on topics that may or may not have been directly related to my Science, Math, or Social Studies core, then I was set. I had to choose between differentiating instruction to match students’ abilities, or integrate the few good titles I had that tied to my core. Differentiating while integrating simply wasn’t an option.

Then I ran into MyOn. On the surface MyOn is just an outstanding library of digital books. Anyone who has used it for more than a few weeks knows that it is much more than that. As a digital library, MyOn is outstanding. There are thousands of books, both fiction and informational texts available to my students. Now I don’t just have to rely on the 2-3 texts about random topics, but I have a few dozen titles with a variety lexile level on each science standard. I can now differentiate while integrating Science, Math, and Social Studies curriculum without breaking a sweat.

Then I got into the data. Every two weeks my students are given a benchmark assessment that gives them their lexile level. Then the system guides them to books that are both on their interest level and their lexile level. Students spend less time looking for books and more time reading. Instead of Netflix browsing (you know what I’m talking about, flipping through Netflix, never choosing a movie, and then settling on The Office again), kids open books on their level and interest, and read.

But it isn’t just an independent reader either. I split my kids into groups according to their lexile levels (which are updated regularly), and give them assignments to read books (which tie directly to our science unit), and they collaborate as they finish the assignments (like I describe here).

MyOn has completely modified (read more about modification and the SAMR model) how my literacy instruction looks. It isn’t just a substitution of our paper books, and it isn’t just an augmented independent reader. It has modified my instruction by using meaningful, recent data to inform my instruction, give students the tools to collaborate, and engaged readers in ways they haven’t engaged before.

Now to redefine a task that was previously unimaginable… Having kids create their own non-fiction page?

I am no longer the Google in the room. Google is.

During my fourth year teaching I began to implement a 1:1 classroom with A set of Chromebooks. I loved the machines and was excited to use the technology to modify and redefine tasks with the use of this new technology. I went into the implementation with a pretty robust plan, and some experience with using devices in the classroom.  Most of all, I'm a pretty creative thinker when it comes to curriculum design, and integrating technology. One issue I did not foresee was some of the changes that occured in my regular classroom management.

Part of the Utah fourth grade science core focuses on identifying types of fossils. One day I was talking about casts and molds. To give students a background to the lesson objective, I told my students the story of Pompeii, and Vesuvius. When I got to the part that talked about the volcano erupting, I remember saying to my class, "and the volcano put down, like, 9 feet of ash!"

A hand went up. "Umm, Mr. Young?"

A student had their chromebook open and had a furrowed brow. "Yeah, go ahead," I replied.

"According to Wikipedia it was 13 to 20 feet."

What happened next was predictable, and will drive a large number of teachers nuts. Instead of kids crowding around the student that looked up Pompeii on Wikipedia, they all cracked open their Chromebook and found the article on Pompeii. Instead of listening to my exciting story, they were all talking to their neighbors about how to spell "Pompeii." They had turned my story into an organic mini research problem.

I had come to an impass. Should I reign in control? Should I insist that my lecture was the most important thing, or let students use their natural curiosity to set up the context for my lesson objective? Luckily, my instincts got this one right. I let the students run with their sudden curiosity, and instructed everyone to pull up the article. I wrote "Pompeii" on the board, and gave them a few minutes to "whoa!" and "check this out!"

My big takeaway from this experience is that I am no longer the omniscient source of knowledge  I'm no longer the Google in the room.  Google is.

I was reminded by that this week. For homework I had students watch the launch of the Discovr mission. My students had become obsessed with space travel, and so I was fielding questions about the space shuttle. I told my students, "when the shuttle stopped flying in, like, 2012..."

"2011."

Students pulling up Wikipedia articles and Google searches about the days topic is a regular occurrence. And it needs to be. The role of teacher is changing from all-knowing window into the outside world, to a tour guide that shows students how and where to safely discover that world on their own.

And that's exciting.

TenMarks and FrontRowEd: Personalized Learning

Personalized Learning

I thought a lot about personalized learning the last week before Christmas Break, I figured now would be the time to pilot a few things. I've tried out TenMarks, and am blown away at the program's capabilities. I think my first big "aha" came when none of my students were taking the hints, watching the tutorials, and were getting very low scores on the assignments. I thought it was interesting that these students had the resources available to them, yet didn't even bother to use them. Then it hit me, fourth graders don't know how to learn using a personalized instruction system any better than I know how to fully utilize it. Duh.

Once I realized that I needed to show them how to learn using a system like this, I focused on motivating students to click on the helps available. Now that they're using it as a learning opportunity, not an assessment, they've altered their patterns. Now they click on tutorials and take hints. Learning from a computer is different than things they've done before, and will take time to learn. They haven't mastered it in a week, and I don't expect them to. But with personalized learning, another one of my jobs is to teach kids how to learn.

TenMarks

TenMarks is a pretty robust and impressive system. The free version allows me to give students assignments according to a CCSS Standard. The assignments come in the form of multiple choice questions, short answer questions, and haptic responses where students click or drag manipulative to answer a question. The questions are decent enough, although they look similar to other math programs. Each question gives students a video tutorial and hints. Students started out treating the assignment like a test. They would just cruise through to get their score and move on. It took some training to convince the students to slow down and use the tutorials and hints. They did not naturally expect the computer to teach them. They expected the computer to just ask them questions and give them a color, red, green, or yellow.

I have not played with the paid version of TenMarks, but it looks like it provides Ender's Game style personalization. After students complete an assessment, the teacher may give a number of activities to the student in their playlist. The playlist is designed to give students support for the concepts they struggled with, and extend for students that cruised through.

FrontRowEd

Frontrow is a pretty neat system too. FrontRow gives students a diagnostic assessment for each CCSS domain. Each diagnostic takes students between 20-30 minutes. Once they've finished the diagnostic they are given a grade level, and given a recommendation. The data is clean, color coded and easy to read. The questions are tough, but not as difficult as TenMarks. Students can collect coins and redeem them in a store.

As a teacher I can look at each student and find out what holes they have in their learning up to this point. For example, even though the concept of "rounding" isn't focused on in the fourth grade core, FrontRow helped me identify that this was a major hole in these students' knowledge. So I spent a mini-lesson on rounding, and they mostly got it. They haven't mastered it yet, but I know to expect that hole.

Big Difference

There is a difference between these two systems. FrontRow seems to start at the beginning of math knowledge in Kindergarten, and lead the student through first, second and third grade until they reach fourth grade. In some domains, such as fractions, they start in third grade because NF doesn't show up in k-2 CCSS. The grade level the system gives students can be a little misleading because of this.

Tenmarks, on the other hand seems to work backwards to find where students holes are. The system knows the students should be in fourth grade, and so it starts the diagnostic 

there and works forwards or backwards depending on the students' needs.

Whether you're an old pro at personalized learning, or just stepping out into the void like me, these are two fancy and free programs you should give a look.