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.

Teacher: appreciated

A wise man once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." I've been thinking about that this week, and I thought it'd be good to give a shout out to the parents in my class that have made this week... nay, year great.


It is teacher appreciation week this week. Parents came in last Friday night and decorated my door.

The other day kids gave me lolly-pops, soda-pop, and popcorn. Then they gave me a "pop-quiz" with terrible puns and jokes. Pretty solid.

Pop Quiz

Other parents have sent in treats, lunch, and cards expressing their appreciation.

So I wanted to respond with my appreciation.

Thank you parents.  You sent me your kids. You trusted me to teach. You expected me to entertain and to educate. You hoped I could help. You dropped your kid off on the first day of school with the expectation that by the end of the year your child would be one year smarter.  One year more grown up. One year better. I don't take that expectation lightly. I hope I've lived up to it. I think I have.

I won an award this month. I had dinner at West Lake High and got a plaque and get my picture taken. The entire time I was there I was thinking, "why aren't my students here? They're the ones that did all the work. All I did was stear them in the right direction. I just came up with the idea... they made it awesome." And come to think of it... I didn't even come up with the idea. It was my wife that originally suggested to rename the stinkin' road.

I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago advising teachers to be more awesome. I guess that's easy to say when you have parents, students, a school, an administration, and other teachers that are awesome. I do awesome things with my students because they can handle it. I do awesome things with my students because parents support it. Thank you for that support.

You came to our stand-up comedy night. You came to our movie premier. You came to Parent Teacher Conferences, Book Fairs, Dads and Donuts, Stay and Play, and Ollie Otter Assemblies. You'll be at the 5K, Leaning Conference, and the Dance Festival. And you'll do it all again next year.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for your support. And thank you for letting your kid be in my class this year.

-Mr. Young

Chromecast: A need in EVERY Chromebook Classroom

After a conversation with someone in my district, and a bit of luck, I happened to procure a Chromecast for my classroom.

Dude. This thing is awesome.

The Chromecast is Google's version of an AppleTV, or Roku. Chromecast is built so you can stream content from your computer, phone, tablet, or other device to your HDTV. It doesn't have any apps or content on the device. It only can project the things you send to it from another device.

The Chromecast itself is not much bigger than a thumb drive, maybe about the size of your first thumb drive in 2004. It plugs directly into your HDMI, and gets power from either a USB on the back of your TV or projector, or it can also just be plugged into an electrical outlet.

Setup was pretty simple. You set the Chromecast up through your Chrome web browser on your computer, tablet, or phone. Chromecast allows you to cast any tab you have open in a browser to a TV or projector. It also allows you to project YouTube, Pandora, Netflix and other Chromecast enabled apps. I don't see much use for that in the classroom yet... but maybe I down the road. The projector in my classroom just happened to have an unused HDMI port, and a USB. Many projectors built after 2009 will have the same.

When I first contacted my district about using a Chromecast, they told me that the primary function of the device was for personal use, and they didn't see much of a classroom purpose. I kept hounding until I got one.
Why is it the best addition to a Chromebook Classroom that I've seen so far?

In the middle of a lesson, project, or discussion I can have a student cast the tab they have open onto the screen wirelessly from their seat. Once students install the Google Cast Extension, they can click a button and cast their screen. From the time I say "Billy, cast your screen," to the time that Billy's screen pops up on our projector is about 8-10 seconds. Is having Billy cast his screen from his seat somehow better than coming up and plugging in? I seem to think so.

Chromecast Extension

Here's the deal. When I first got Chromebooks, I went to Amazon and bought a $25 connector so that I could project the Chromebook to my projector. (My wired connections in the room are VGA, so I needed an adaptor. The HDMI isn't wired in my room, that's why the HDMI was available for the Chromecast) The $25 connector doesn't do a great job. The picture is jumpy, and grainy. With the Chromecast, the picture is HD, awesome, and oh yeah. The thing only costs $35 bucks. Totally worth it.

We have a TV in the entry way of our school. My principal is going to get one for there, and now we have a teaching space that any student Chromebook can access for a meaningful discussion. I find getting kids out of the room is helpful at times, but we don't always have a space to present our finding. We end up going back to the room for the "meat and potatoes" part of the lesson. Now we can do that wherever there is an HDMI input.

So in review:

• If you have Chromebooks
• If you have an available HDMI input
• If you have $35

Buy one, get it set up, and let me know if you think its as awesome as I do. 

Stop being boring. Be awesome instead.

Some weeks are boring.

Next week is going to be awesome.

During the 2014 Winter Olympics my students sent tweets to Olympians through my twitter account. Students would write something, I would tweet it out, and then from the other side of the world, an athlete, my students' new favorite sports hero, would favorite the tweet, or retweet, or in some cases, retweet us back. Can you imagine how powerful that would be? Have you had anyone retweet you? Now imagine how much cooler that'd be if it were a gold medalist. And you're only 10. Nobody could tell my kids that they weren't cool. They walked around with a chip on their shoulder for a week. Yahoo Sports wrote an article about it. Our local NBC affiliate, KSL picked it up too.

@mrlewisyoung that poster is awesome. Please tell them thank you for me. Maybe I can stop by and check it out in person when I get home.
— Christopher Fogt (@christopherfogt) February 21, 2014

Sometimes bronze medal winners tweet you back.

Last spring my students drafted letters to the Saratoga Springs city council, and then my students wrote letters this year as well, petitioning the city to change the name of the road in front of our school to "The Otter Way." Our mascot is the Otter, and the school song is titled "The Otter Way." Perhaps we  otter lay off the bad puns... but we don't.

So back to this week.

KSL heard about our twitter thing, and letter writing, and loved it. They wanted to meet us. On Tuesday my class has been invited to go up and visit the local NBC affiliate TV and radio station. We're going to tour their facilities and play with a green screen. This was made possible partially by a bit of bad luck with a snowstorm that cancelled a snowshoeing trip earlier this winter.

Sometimes people are impressed by your awesomeness

On Wednesday the City Council is visiting our school, along with the mayor for a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new road, The Otter Way. The City Council was impressed by the kids' letters, and even though they couldn't rename the road in front of the school, they purchased the signage and installed the sign posts to name the private roads on our campus.

So here is my plea. To teachers, to students, to parents, or anyone else reading this: Do something awesome. Too often we talk about the things students can't do, websites we shouldn't visit, and things we shouldn't do. Focus on the great things you should do. Let your kids find their house using google maps. Then show them how to find the actual path pioneers made as they brought their wagons and handcarts across the plains.

Sometimes messing around turns into an awesome lesson

Let them play with the camera on the iPad or Chromebook, even the effects... and then show them how to use that same tool to take a picture of a rock. Or a bug. Or that the mirror effect can teach a killer symmetry lesson.

When you look for awesome things you can do, it makes the tools we have in the classroom so much more engaging. If your kids keep texting in class, use kahoot.it, or m.socrative.com to engage their phone back into your lesson. Use instagram and hashtags to have kids document a science lab. (High five, big sister!)

Be like the teacher here in Utah that had the students send letters to get the state tree changed to the quaking aspen. Now that's awesome.

Troll through Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter to find ideas on how to be awesome in your classroom. Come up with ideas, or have the kids come up with them. Then come back and tell us how it went.

Stop being boring.

Be awesome instead.

Using Google Presentations as a way to debrief a fourth grade math lesson

One of the first things I have students do with the Chromebooks, is learn how to create a Presentation in Google. I've found it incredibly useful tool to organize thoughts, and demonstrate learning.

On Thursday I gave the students the task to calculate the cost of college for four years. I put tuition of nine local public and private Universities and a very low cost of living estimate ($1000 per semester... like that's gonna happen...) in a spreadsheet and asked them to calculate the cost of a four-year degree. As I was about to pass out poster paper for students to demonstrate their learning a student blurted out, "Are we going to create a Presentation to show how much it costs?"

Don't you love that? When students come up with better ways to do things? Sometimes it can almost be irritating, but today I ran with it. I played it cool... or as cool as I can play things. (I don't typically play ANYthing cool. Just ask my wife). "Well, of course!" I answered back. "That's what I was thinking," I lied. I threw together a quick Presentation Template, and created a new folder titled "College Costs" in our Math folder. The Math folder was already shared, so the new folder was automatically shared with the whole class. Kids knew how to make a copy of the template, and to put their copy back into the folder so I, and everyone else in the class could see their work. Within 2-3 minutes of my exchange with that student everyone had the Presentation, and began working.

On each slide of their Presentation, I had them perform a different task. On one they calculated the cost of their dream college. On another they figured out the most expensive college in the state (Utah, we're looking at you...) and on another they shared how they calculated which was the best buy (Congratulations, Snow College!). Then I had them figure out how much they needed to save every year between now and then if they wanted to have enough money to pay for college. Most needed to put away over $3,000. We had a number of awesome conversations from this task. If students finished while the rest of the class was working, they went into other Presentations and made comments, or suggestions.

When they were done I split the class in half. Half of the students presented "Poster Session" style, while the rest of the class walked around listening to the students and watching their presentations. Then we switched.

Student Sample: I made a vanilla template. They added the theme, pictures and detail.

Using Google Presentations may have added some time to this lesson. I had the time, so it worked out. It was also worth the time, because students were accountable to one another, and spent that extra bit of time creating a product they were proud of. They really had to examine their math in order to create something they were ready to show their peers.