Tag: technology

Apps, Augmented Reality, Education, K-12, Teaching Tools

More News from TCEA 2018

Terri Eichholz

I don’t want to overwhelm you with all of my take-aways from TCEA 2018 so far, so I thought I would give you a few new tools I’ve learned about with brief summaries and links to the presentations.   I am really cherry-picking from the plethora of resources I took notes on, so definitely click on any of the presentation links if you want to learn more.

I have a few more things to share in the near future, but I don’t want to be a “dumper” as Jennifer Gonzalez would say.

If you are still at TCEA tomorrow (Friday), I would love for you to join me at my session at 9:15 am in Room 12B.  We will be talking about making global connections, and I could use a few extra audience members to drown out the heckling I will have to listen to from my colleague, Angelique Lackey.  Also, I will be using Pear Deck so you can see it in action!

storymaker
TextingStory Chat Story Maker App

 

Education, Teaching Tools, Websites

18 Lessons To Try in 2018

Terri Eichholz

Okay people.  If you don’t follow Laura Moore (@LearnMooreStuff), you are truly missing out on some incredible resources.  Just do a search for her on my site and you will see how much I’ve learned from her over the years.  Oh, wait.  You don’t have to.  Here is a link to the search.  The woman is a tech integration POWERHOUSE!  (Yes, I did it.  I used all caps.  Just like her favorite person.  But, unlike that person, Laura Moore is GREAT!)

Laura recently posted a ThingLink on her blog with 18 lesson suggestions for 2018.  Seriously, you have a plethora of great learning activities at your fingertips.  Click on any icon to uncover a treasure to try.  Laura’s site was recently recommended in the list of top 12 Fabulous EdTech Sites to Follow by Eric Curts.  And, as if that isn’t enough, check out her other site, Rock the Lab, which is awesome for so many reasons not the least of which is STAR WARS!

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5-8, 6-12, Art, Student Response, Writing

Send Me a Rainbow

Terri Eichholz

If you teach older students who have their own phones, this might be a fun idea for an impromptu writing prompt.  The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has decided to make more of its artwork available to the public by digitizing it and allowing us to text requests.  Only 5% of its entire collection can be viewed in the SFMOMA’s physical building, but thousands more pieces are accessible through this new feature.  You can text the number 57251, and type, “Send me” followed by a keyword or color.  There’s something suspenseful about the whole endeavor that makes it a bit addictive.

I tried it out by texting, “Send me kindness, ” and received the following, somewhat depressing, reply.

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Maybe kindness was too abstract?  So I tried, “Love.”

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Now remember, this is the Museum of Modern Art, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the answer to my next request.

Photo Jul 25, 5 36 56 PM

Not really sure what the museum bot was trying to tell me there…

Anyway,  I soon discovered that trying to use this activity as a “pick-me-up” was a bit too unpredictable, especially after I received a sad portrait of the war in Iraq after I asked for “home.”  However, my daughter and I did have fun using emojis and asking for pictures of bread and dogs.  (It does work with emojis, by the way.)

Not to be outdone by artifical intelligence, I decided to end our texting communication by asking for something that couldn’t possibly be mis-interpreted in a bleak way by a computer. “Send me a rainbow,” I asked.

And it did.

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3-12, Education, Websites

Weebly for Education

Terri Eichholz

Google Sites are blocked for our elementary students, so I show my 5th graders the Weebly for Education site if they are interested in designing their own websites. Sometimes students create them for Genius Hour projects.  This year, my students were so excited about the manifestos they created in Canva that I suggested they use the images as launching points for websites that reinforced their core beliefs.

Students seem to understand the Weebly tools very quickly.  In fact, as soon as they see all that they can do, they want to do it all – add images, video, quotes, links, etc… Many of them immediately went home the first day to add to their sites and are super proud to present them.

For this particular project, I asked the students to include their manifestos, along with a page that describes their “Dream Team” – famous people who lived lives that modeled the beliefs in their manifestos.  (They used Academy of Achievement’s “Role Model” tool to help them discover potential Dream Team members.) They could also include inspirational quotes and videos.

Weebly for Education is different from the main Weebly site because the education version allows teachers to have a dashboard of students for free. However, from what I have been able to see, there is no way to view a student’s website through the dashboard until he or she publishes it.  This is a little inconvenient as they are editing, but the benefit of all of the other free features far outweighs this issue.

You can see a screen shot from one of my student’s websites below, and click on the link to visit his site.

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screen shot from “Manifesto Mania” site by Cristian on Weebly for Education 
Education, Independent Study, K-12, Teaching Tools

Schoogle Your Content with Hyperdocs – #TCEA17

Terri Eichholz

“Schoogle Your Content with Hyperdocs” was a TCEA presentation given this year by my illustrious NEISD colleague, Laura Moore.  Laura, who is also the author of, “Rock the Lab” and “Learn Moore Stuff,” is a guru of technology integration.  She is also an excellent presenter, so I knew that attending her session at TCEA would reap many benefits. I was right.

Laura will be the first to tell you that she did not create the concept of Hyperdocs.  For that, we can thank the Hyperdoc Girls – Lisa Highfill (@lhighfill), Kelly Hilton (@kellyihilton), and Sarah Landis (@SarahLandis).  You can find out more about them here.

On Laura’s site, you will find a fantastic step-by-step introduction to Hyperdocs that leads teachers from the definition through pedagogical best practices, examples of Hyperdocs, templates, and steps for creating your own.  It’s a great way to scaffold a staff development on Hyperdocs.

Teachers looking for a simple definition of Hyperdocs might settle for, “Google Docs with links.”  But those teachers would be wrong.  There really is no one-line definition for Hyperdocs.  To learn what they are, and what they aren’t, you need to see this page.

Plenty of Hyperdocs have already been created by many talented people, so chances are that you can dive right into using them by looking at the examples provided here. There are even Hyperdocs to learn about Hyperdocs available.

I definitely can’t do Laura’s presentation justice in a quick blog post, so I hope that you will take a look at her presentation site to find out more about this interactive method for digital learning that will engage your students on many levels.

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Education

#TCEA16

Terri Eichholz

For the next few days I will be attending TCEA in Austin, one of my favorite annual conferences.  I may add some sporadic blog notes, but stay tuned next week for detailed highlights!