Episode 8: Productive, Purposeful, and Practical Tech Tools
featuring Jared and Kari Wall

SHOW DATE: October 1, 2018

SUMMARY: Now that everyone is back in full swing with the school year, we wanted to take a moment to look at tech tools that are beneficial and easily used in the classroom. Tech tools must be convenient and easy to use by teachers and students or they will not get used.

SHOW NOTES:
News and Notes:
Why so long in between podcasts? It has been a packed few months:
Getting familiar with a new school year, students, procedures, and content

Technology Tools & Trends
We continue to use Canva
Memes
Posters
Pear Deck
Add-on for Google Slides (includes templates for bell ringer/exit ticket/critical thinking questions
Add any type of question to your pre-made slide.
Formative assessment
Multiple choice
Drawings
Drag and drop
Text (for students to write out a response)
More
Updates to Google Classroom
Class Work Page makes it easier to organize your activities
Easily reuse posts or assignments across classrooms.
Assign activities to groups within your classes.
Flaws:
need ability to hide and easier reorganization.
Need to be able to have one class with multiple sections
Bitmoji (Extension in Google Chrome)
Students created an account (if they didn’t already have one) and their own avatar
Students created a comic strip that was relevant to what we were doing in class and used their own personal bitmoji as their character in their comic strip
They were able to copy and paste their bitmoji using the extension in Google Chrome
It pastes as an image, so students could crop out words or parts of the image they did not want to use
Students love seeing themselves. This gives them the opportunity.
This is something that can be used across all content for a multitude of projects or to simply add a little something to an assignment

SUMMARY: This episode addresses the the differences between laptops and Chromebooks.

SHOW NOTES:
News and Notes:
60 days of Google tips for Educators is still going on...check those out on our website or YouTube.
Continue in your own personal growth by researching, playing around with tools, and listening to podcasts.
Have you been “really” thinking through your upcoming school year?

Technology Tools & Trends
PowToon
Extensis: Adding new fonts to Google docs
Once you click on one, they will automatically show up in the fonts on your toolbar. (only for this doc though)
Canva-used to create graphics of all kinds
Create account using Google
Saves everything in Canva (like cloud)
Easy to use--very user friendly--students could easily use this
Can be used with images and text
Canva has its own images or you can upload your own
Many fonts and styles to choose from
BYOD: cell phones
They’re everywhere
Use them to your advantage in the classroom
Countless apps for you to use, no matter the content


Let’s talk about Chromebooks and Laptops
Question: How do Chromebooks differ from laptops?
The look: Chromebooks and laptops look alike and most people cannot tell any difference between the appearance of a chromebook vs a laptop.
Everything on a chromebook is online, laptops allow users to install software (slows them down)
If you are used to using downloaded softwares (such as Microsoft), there is an app or extension for that
Because chromebooks only use online applications, they never slow down due to installed items; laptops slow down quickly
Start up speed is less than 10 seconds (from powered off to ready to go); some laptops take 10 minutes to be ready for use...or longer
Laptops sometimes require routinely being reimaged, chromebooks are always ready to go.



You have to be ready to change your mindset and look for Google tools and online applications to help you do what you do.

Endless possibilities!!

Episode 6: Interview with V. Tracy (Technology and the Foreign Language Classroom)
featuring Jared and Kari Wall with special guest Viviana Tracy

SHOW DATE: July 9, 2018

SUMMARY: Teaching using technology in the foreign language classroom.

SHOW NOTES:
News and Notes:
Wall Ed Tech has the 60 days of Google tips being posted. Be sure the check those out.
Summer is ½ over (for us anyway)….what changes are you going to make in your classes?
Instruction?
Classroom management strategies?
Daily procedures?

Technology Tools & Trends
Duolingo: online tool for learning foreign languages for free that uses gamification to motivate students to push forward in learning the language.
Wakelet: Curate your online resources like websites and articles to share with others and to read at a laters time.


Interview with Viviana Tracy on technology and the foreign language classroom
The interview starts at the 6:45 mark.
Follow Viviana on Twitter: @VTracy7
Senor Wooly is used in Mrs. Tracy’s class.

SUMMARY: Tips for teachers new to using technology in the classroom. How to create and manage student behavior and expectations around technology use in the classroom.

SHOW NOTES:
News and Notes:
New podcasting equipment is here at Wall Ed Tech
Mixer is Yamaha MG10
Mics are Samson Q2U USB/XLR podcasting pack
ISTE has ended. I hope you were able to follow the hashtags ISTE18 or notatiste18 and learn something or at least something that peeked your interest enough to follow up on do some investigating on your own.

Technology Tools & Trends
Google Classroom has made some updates!
Offers a secure browser for quizzes
Ability to create quizzes and use Google Forms directly in Google Classroom
Google Translate using phone camera
Canva for image creation.


Classroom Management in the Technology Infused Classroom
Question: How does classroom management change in a technology infused classroom?
It doesn’t! What works for managing a classroom work regardless of technology integration.
Set procedures and expectations on day 1.
Be consistent and enforce your procedures. Students will learn to function according to your expectations. Build relationships while you set expectations.
If you require devices in class daily and use them regularly, your students will always have theirs with them.
If you expect students to treat their device with respect and use it appropriately, they will. You must monitor this just like any other behavior. Students will see what you allow them to get away with. Inspect.
Some tools to aid in motivating and monitoring:
Class dojo
Google docs allows you to watch them work.
There are also web apps such as Lightspeed Relay and Dyno
LanSchool has to be installed on each computer and connected with the teacher’s account. This would be used in computer labs or classrooms where all students are working on desktops.

Episode 4: 21st Century Skills and their Relevance to Educators and Students
featuring Jared and Kari Wall

SHOW DATE: June 25, 2018

SUMMARY: This podcast addresses why 21st century skills are important and relevant to teachers and students and the need for both to be proficient in technology.

SHOW NOTES:
News and Notes:
ISTE is going on this week. Follow the hashtag #ISTE and #notatiste
Flipgrid is now FREE! We will talk more about this in just a moment.
60 Days of Tech Tips on the Wall Ed Tech Website
All Google tips on various google tools
Remember, Wall Ed Tech received a facelift.

Technology Tools & Trends
Flipgrid-Flipgrid is now FREE! Classroom accounts are all free and include all features (including the previously paid for features)
Unlimited grids
Unlimited topics
Resources found on Flipgrid.com
Endless uses
Feedback-What makes it meaningful? I read an article this week that was very insightful.
Getting Feedback Right: a Q&A With John Hattie from Education Week
John Hattie is director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, in Australia and author of Visible Learning
Book to release in August is Visible Learning: Feedback
"I used to think giving more feedback and better feedback was the answer [to improving education], and it's the exact opposite: How do teachers and students receive feedback? How do they interpret it?"
There's very little research on how students progress; there's a lot more research on how teachers think students should progress. We asked 1,000-plus teachers what they meant by feedback, and it was very much focused on [answering], 'How am I doing? Where am I going?' We asked many thousands of students what they meant and it was simple: 'Help me know what to do now.'
When teachers spend hours and hours writing comments, if there's no feedback providing concrete steps for the students to improve, students will argue themselves blue in the face that they never received anything. The key question is, does feedback help someone understand what they don't know, what they do know, and where they go? That's when and why feedback is so powerful, but a lot of feedback doesn't—and doesn't have any effect.

21st Century skills and their relevance to today’s students.
Question: If our students need to be proficient in technology, shouldn’t our teachers be proficient in using technology?
Marrying technology with best practices has to become second nature for educators.
Using the right tech tool for the right task
It’s not about the tool, its about achieving the outcome.
Using the tools to their full potential (think of Bloom’s Taxonomy levels)
PowerPoint will always be a level one because other than inserting a link, it isn’t interactive. Sure, a link can be added, but that’s about it.
Google slides can elevate that level much higher
Collaborative
Used to create
Links to research articles, create various things, videos
Blog post by Jared on Good Teaching AND Technology that addresses the same thing we are talking about today.
Nothing takes the place of good teaching. The technology should ENHANCE your teaching, not to use in place of your teaching.

Episode 3: Failure as a Means of Learning
featuring Jared and Kari Wall

SHOW DATE: June 18, 2018

SUMMARY: Why teachers need to embrace failing in their own classroom in order to show students that failing is a valuable teacher.

SUMMARY:
News and Notes: Jared and Kari are Level 2 Google Certified Educators. Look for upcoming series with back to school countdown with Google Tools and Tips each day. Tools and Trends: Analytics and Digital Citizenship. Show Topic: Why teachers should shift their thinking from network based storage drives to the collaborative cloud based solution of the Google Drive for PLC sharing and creation.
Flipgrid Feedback or tips from our listeners: https://flipgrid.com/fc470d
Email Feedback: [email protected] or [email protected]

Discussion of the importance of technology in the classroom for teaching students 21st century skills while also teaching content. While there is a lot of up front work, it will be minimized in the following years and simply need updating.