Friday Matinee: Using Pear Deck for Engagement & Formative Assessment

It actually feels like fall outside and it looks like it is going to be a great weekend to do something outside.  If you have a little time either over the weekend or sometime next week, take a look at Pear Deck.  It works with Google Slides (or PowerPoint) to help you add active learning and formative assessment to your presentations with learners of all ages.  There's a free and paid version of Pear Deck and I suggest you start with the basic free version.  You can add interactive questions, polls, quizzes, and formative assessments right into your presentation.  You can control the pace of the class so that everyone (including those who are attending on Zoom) will be on the same slide at the same time.  Or you can enable your students to work through the presentation on their own.  Let's take a look by checking out these links:

Pear Deck Tutorial For Google Slides

Webinar: Using Pear Deck + Zoom to Make Learning Interactive in a Remote Learning or Online Class

20 Ways to Use Pear Deck to Engage Students

Ideas for Using Pear Deck in the Classroom

And there's lots of tutorials and blog posts on the Pear Deck website!

Friday Matinee: Collaboration Ideas for Remote Learning

Take a big sigh of relief!  The first week of classes is over.  As you start to think about next week, you might try adding an activity where your students can collaborate digitally.  On our website on Remote Learning Resources, we have added several ways to have your students collaborate during class time (or after) using several digital tools.

One of the easiest to try is Padlet.  You can join with your MSU (Google) account and sign up for a free account and quickly set up a discussion wall.  I love using Padlet with inservice teachers to get their ideas or feedback during professional development sessions.  

Another is Wakelet.  Divide your students into groups and let them create a Wakelet on what they've learned, adding resources from various sources on the topic to share with their classmates.  It will take them less than 30 minutes to put together a great Wakelet (or wake) on a given topic.

Collaboration Ideas for Remote Learning

Friday Matinee: Remote Teaching & Learning Resources

As the start of the new semester draws near, many of you are rethinking how you are going to be teaching your classes.  Having students online as well as in the classroom means that you may need to find new digital resources for collaboration, discussion, and to engage your students during your class time.

We have started to build a website of curated resources that may be beneficial to you.  This site is a work in progress and we will be adding to it during the upcoming weeks and beyond.  If any of you have resources or ideas that you would like us to add to the site, let us know.  Please email me with links, videos, and any details that I would need to add the information.

Remote Learning Resources

Remote learning requires us to rethink the way we engage our students and interact with content. Digital resources can assist in the facilitation of small or large group discussions, support collaboration activities, or make presentations more interactive. The purpose of this site is to bring together resources that could be useful in a remote learning setting. If you have any questions, feel free to contact any member of the KATE team.

Check out Torrey Trust's website that includes Online/Remote Teaching Resources.  Torrey is an associate professor of Learning Technology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  On her site is an infographic on Rethinking Teaching 2020.  Be sure to check out her "Instead of this, try THIS!" section.  There are so many great ideas on this site.

Another great resource is a blog post from Dr. Catlin Tucker entitled, "Enhance Student Engagement with Virtual Social Learning Spaces" where she shares that by providing virtual places for students to interact helps them learn from each other. Catlin shares ideas for creating these spaces in breakout rooms, by using the Google apps, for Jamboard and Padlet, as well as Flipgrid and Wakelet.  Most of the apps are mentioned here in this site and how-to videos are available.  Catlin's blog has great posts with practical learning strategies that work online, blended, or in person.

Remember that KATE is available to help.  Need to brainstorm an idea for a class?  We can help!

Friday Matinee: Ways to Make Online Learning More Engaging

The semester is over and you've taken a big sigh of relief!  Teaching online is over for now.  

It's a great time to start thinking about summer and fall classes and possibly teaching again online.  You've got the basics down and are delivering the content, but now is the time to start thinking about making your classes more engaging for your students.  

Check out ISTE's (International Society for Technology in Education) blog post showing 3 ways to make remote learning more engaging.

Friday Matinee: Some Advice for Newly Remote Instructors

Happy Friday!

I recently came across an article that is part of a guide entitled, "Sustaining Higher Education in the Coronavirus Crisis," and wanted to share it with all of you as you begin to get ready to teach online this summer or think about classes for this fall.  The article not only has advice for new remote instructors, but includes a link to a Google Sheet created by Daniel Stanford, the director of the faculty development and technology innovation at DePaul University.  This sheet includes a great number of resources curated from universities.

Coronavirus Has Led to a Rush of Online Teaching. Here's Some Advice for Newly Remote Instructors

Friday Matinee: Google Slides Discussion on Using Google Meet in the Classroom

As many of you know, I've been teaching our students how to use Google and one of the things I had them do this semester was to come up with a way to use Hangouts Meet in their future classroom.  The way I did this was to share a Google Slide deck with a directions slide and another slide that I called the student slide that was set up for them to add their name and their response.  We sometimes call this collaboration slides.  Here is the file that I shared and their responses:

Using Hangouts Meet in the Classroom

This activity can be used in any class and on pretty much any topic where you want students to discuss something and comment on each other's input.  It works very well as an online discussion board and can be easily changed as the topic changes. 

I'm adding a template that includes a basic set of directions and an additional student slide.  These are the only 2 slides available in the slide deck.

Discussion Slides

To use this, go to FILE then choose MAKE A COPY and copy the entire slide presentation.  This makes it yours to use.  I would keep this as your master and make a copy of it every time you use it for a discussion.

You can edit the slide with different backgrounds and text.  Here's a video on how to do that:

Using Collaborative Slides by Creating Master Slides

Friday Matinee: Resources for Teaching Online

This was shared by a professor that we follow on Twitter.  It is a podcast with a lot of resources for teaching online.  Some things may not apply, but there's a lot of great information that is provided.  Torrey Trust, who is interviewed on the podcast (there are several links and a great slide deck shared as well) is a professor and past president if the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Teacher Educator Network and an Associate Professor of Learning Technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

https://www.sfecich.com/torrey

Kasey Bell from Shake Up Learning, did an interview with a teacher who has been teaching online since leaving China where she taught at an international school and she shares tips, tools, and best practices for this special situation.  She mentions that closing for the Corona virus is different than closing for a few snow days especially with the added stress and emotions that everyone is experiencing.

https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/coronavirus-closures-online-learning-tips-for-teachers-and-schools-interview-with-an-american-teacher-in-china/

Keep in mind that a lot of companies are opening up their wonderful resources for free to schools, but we don't need to be throwing a lot of new tools at students during this time. Use one or two that they are familiar with and leave it at that.