Kahoot!

In my 8th grade English classes we are working on Collection Two in the new English curriculum. The focus is on elements of suspense and the techniques that authors use to create suspense. One of the techniques that we focus on is foreshadowing. I have taught these concepts to my classes and we have discussed examples of them during the stories we have been reading. I thought it would be nice to have a formative assessment of these concepts to see if they remember some of the fundamental information related to these topics. The quiz asks the exact same information that we covered in the lesson. Hopefully, it will show that my students have retained some information.

The thing I found challenging was trying to make sure that all the questions and the answers were within the character limit. I had to turn some of the questions upside in order to make them work with the character limits in both the question and the answers.

At the end of the Collection, we will be writing a persuasive essay on whether or not horror is appropriate for this age group. I thought that using a discussion on Kahoot! would be a good way to get students to start thinking about the prompt. This way we could discuss it a bit as a class and students could start to share their ideas with each other. Hopefully, this will make starting out the essay a bit easier.

I like that the feedback is instantaneous. I will be able to tell immediately what students understand and what they don't. The excel spreadsheet is very user friendly and I don't have to go through and grade all the papers. I can see a breakdown of each question and answer right away. It also tells students which answer is correct and if they got it right or wrong as we are going through the test. This is great feedback for them as well.

This will be a great tool to use as a quick formative check in with students on their understanding of concepts throughout the year while providing real time feedback for them and me.

Kahoot:

IS THE HORROR GENRE APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR AGE GROUP TO READ?

Foreshadowing and Suspense

Kahoot!

In my 8th grade English classes we are working on Collection Two in the new English curriculum. The focus is on elements of suspense and the techniques that authors use to create suspense. One of the techniques that we focus on is foreshadowing. I have taught these concepts to my classes and we have discussed examples of them during the stories we have been reading. I thought it would be nice to have a formative assessment of these concepts to see if they remember some of the fundamental information related to these topics. The quiz asks the exact same information that we covered in the lesson. Hopefully, it will show that my students have retained some information.

The thing I found challenging was trying to make sure that all the questions and the answers were within the character limit. I had to turn some of the questions upside in order to make them work with the character limits in both the question and the answers.

At the end of the Collection, we will be writing a persuasive essay on whether or not horror is appropriate for this age group. I thought that using a discussion on Kahoot! would be a good way to get students to start thinking about the prompt. This way we could discuss it a bit as a class and students could start to share their ideas with each other. Hopefully, this will make starting out the essay a bit easier.

I like that the feedback is instantaneous. I will be able to tell immediately what students understand and what they don't. The excel spreadsheet is very user friendly and I don't have to go through and grade all the papers. I can see a breakdown of each question and answer right away. It also tells students which answer is correct and if they got it right or wrong as we are going through the test. This is great feedback for them as well.

This will be a great tool to use as a quick formative check in with students on their understanding of concepts throughout the year while providing real time feedback for them and me.

Kahoot:

IS THE HORROR GENRE APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR AGE GROUP TO READ?

Foreshadowing and Suspense

Digital Citizenship

I decided to complete my Digital Citizenship Lesson on smarter searching and determining what sites are actually helpful/useful/trustworthy and which are not. I have noticed that this is on of my biggest challenged with using the internet to do research. Students have a difficult time searching Google. They don't know how to pick out the important search terms in a question and often end up with results that have nothing to do with what they are actually trying to find. The websites that come up also tend to become less reliable since their searches are not really on target. This leads to students feeling frustrated with their results.

It was a bit challenging working through all the materials online. I very much appreciated all the links, articles, videos, and other resources that were posted on the blog to go through. They were very helpful and I felt very informed. After going through them all, the biggest challenge was deciding which of the issues were most related to what I was seeing in my classroom and which would be the most helpful to address.

After talking with the librarian at my school, we came up with a lesson based on her previous work on teaching students how to search Google. She was able to help provide a starting point to the lesson. Using the many online resources we were given via the instructional blog, as well as an article from Educational Leadership, I was able to build a follow up lesson where students would need to evaluate websites in order to determine if they were credible or not. Using a Google Form for this activity, I would like to be able to integrate this form into research projects as just another step of the process. This way, anytime students were doing research online, they would have to go through the process of evaluating the site. Hopefully, overtime, students would get so used to doing this that they would do it in their head all the time, without me having to assign the Google Form.

Lesson: https://docs.google.com/a/edmonds.wednet.edu/document/d/1RwhNLYmU7wEC3FIB83gn3zfxzyY5uZTqAq0yRD_qQtU/edit?usp=sharing

Google Game:
https://docs.google.com/a/edmonds.wednet.edu/document/d/13OJSNwUTX4W4YgCMgOdw-UkjnsGrEEglyZPNQQm1o6s/edit?usp=sharing

Search Tips: https://docs.google.com/a/edmonds.wednet.edu/document/d/1dYGufyScPgJoC3o7kirGLL8Sbc7TVqWvfmaLu9-LebA/edit?usp=sharing

Digital Citizenship

I decided to complete my Digital Citizenship Lesson on smarter searching and determining what sites are actually helpful/useful/trustworthy and which are not. I have noticed that this is on of my biggest challenged with using the internet to do research. Students have a difficult time searching Google. They don't know how to pick out the important search terms in a question and often end up with results that have nothing to do with what they are actually trying to find. The websites that come up also tend to become less reliable since their searches are not really on target. This leads to students feeling frustrated with their results.

It was a bit challenging working through all the materials online. I very much appreciated all the links, articles, videos, and other resources that were posted on the blog to go through. They were very helpful and I felt very informed. After going through them all, the biggest challenge was deciding which of the issues were most related to what I was seeing in my classroom and which would be the most helpful to address.

After talking with the librarian at my school, we came up with a lesson based on her previous work on teaching students how to search Google. She was able to help provide a starting point to the lesson. Using the many online resources we were given via the instructional blog, as well as an article from Educational Leadership, I was able to build a follow up lesson where students would need to evaluate websites in order to determine if they were credible or not. Using a Google Form for this activity, I would like to be able to integrate this form into research projects as just another step of the process. This way, anytime students were doing research online, they would have to go through the process of evaluating the site. Hopefully, overtime, students would get so used to doing this that they would do it in their head all the time, without me having to assign the Google Form.

Lesson: https://docs.google.com/a/edmonds.wednet.edu/document/d/1RwhNLYmU7wEC3FIB83gn3zfxzyY5uZTqAq0yRD_qQtU/edit?usp=sharing

Google Game:
https://docs.google.com/a/edmonds.wednet.edu/document/d/13OJSNwUTX4W4YgCMgOdw-UkjnsGrEEglyZPNQQm1o6s/edit?usp=sharing

Search Tips: https://docs.google.com/a/edmonds.wednet.edu/document/d/1dYGufyScPgJoC3o7kirGLL8Sbc7TVqWvfmaLu9-LebA/edit?usp=sharing

Challenge: Google Calendar

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=edmonds.wednet.edu_sgsjhsac4uci8rlgjrhg0or8dc%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Los_Angeles


I created the above Google Calendar

This was a relatively easy challenge to accomplish.  The calendar is intuitively easy to use and modify.  I learned how to set one up, how to keep it private or make it public.

One step confounded me as I could not find the correct "settings" to find the calendar address, having gone to the upper right hand corner that has a settings section as well.  However, I eventually found it.

Most likely, I will not use this tool on a regular basis as I already have a couple calendars I use with Outlook, I can see setting one of these up for public needs such as parent communication or for a specific purpose but for overall use I will keep the calendars I already use.

Challenge: Google Calendar

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=edmonds.wednet.edu_sgsjhsac4uci8rlgjrhg0or8dc%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Los_Angeles


I created the above Google Calendar

This was a relatively easy challenge to accomplish.  The calendar is intuitively easy to use and modify.  I learned how to set one up, how to keep it private or make it public.

One step confounded me as I could not find the correct "settings" to find the calendar address, having gone to the upper right hand corner that has a settings section as well.  However, I eventually found it.

Most likely, I will not use this tool on a regular basis as I already have a couple calendars I use with Outlook, I can see setting one of these up for public needs such as parent communication or for a specific purpose but for overall use I will keep the calendars I already use.

Digital Citizenship Challenge

• What did you create, and why? The task was to explore curriculum related to teaching safety and good citizenship to students. The final task was to create two lessons on digital citizenship that you could use with your students. I created lessons for second graders on respect and responsibilty online as well as a lesson on strangers and safety rules in dealing with strangers online. I incorporated some of the materials provided in the Challenge.
• 
  
• What went well for you? It was great to have access to so many great resources that were gathered together for me to explore on this subject.

• What was challenging?

I am new to using Blogger, Google Docs, and I don't usually write lesson plans as I am a counselor so the challenge took me about 4 hours, not the three estimated.

• What did you enjoy?

I'm enjoying learning to use some of the technology at our fingertips that I have not previously understood.

• What ideas do you have for using this tool with your students, grade level, staff or to communicate with families?

I most likely will use these two lessons this year.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SrRduFnHMX5P0XGUsrNQIPppVcifefHqblGo2TD5O9c/edit?usp=sharing

Digital Citizenship Challenge

• What did you create, and why? The task was to explore curriculum related to teaching safety and good citizenship to students. The final task was to create two lessons on digital citizenship that you could use with your students. I created lessons for second graders on respect and responsibilty online as well as a lesson on strangers and safety rules in dealing with strangers online. I incorporated some of the materials provided in the Challenge.
• 
  
• What went well for you? It was great to have access to so many great resources that were gathered together for me to explore on this subject.

• What was challenging?

I am new to using Blogger, Google Docs, and I don't usually write lesson plans as I am a counselor so the challenge took me about 4 hours, not the three estimated.

• What did you enjoy?

I'm enjoying learning to use some of the technology at our fingertips that I have not previously understood.

• What ideas do you have for using this tool with your students, grade level, staff or to communicate with families?

I most likely will use these two lessons this year.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SrRduFnHMX5P0XGUsrNQIPppVcifefHqblGo2TD5O9c/edit?usp=sharing