The assignment is called the Awesome Story (we work on this for two days) and has the students retell a story (book, movie, TV show, fairy tale, etc.) using the advanced Keynote features. They can also make up a story up or tell me about something that happened in their life. I love this assignment because I get to talk and relate to the students about different shows and movies we like (I watch quite a bit of TV!). Or I get a glimpse into things they are passionate about. Plus, anytime students moan and complain because class is over, that is a good day for the teacher!
For our third assignment, we are using Keynote (some students can't access it and are using Google Slides), although in a different way than most students have used it. We are using the shapes to create some of our own pictures, using images as backgrounds, and making the whole thing automatic. The goal is to really push the creativity by utilizing the advanced Keynote skills.
The assignment is called the Awesome Story (we work on this for two days) and has the students retell a story (book, movie, TV show, fairy tale, etc.) using the advanced Keynote features. They can also make up a story up or tell me about something that happened in their life. I love this assignment because I get to talk and relate to the students about different shows and movies we like (I watch quite a bit of TV!). Or I get a glimpse into things they are passionate about. Plus, anytime students moan and complain because class is over, that is a good day for the teacher!
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We tried another cloud-based presentation app called Canva. Most of us know Canva as an easy place to create graphics (I've used it for birthday invitations for almost a decade!) but they've been expanding. Now we can use the tools to create a very cool slideshow with little effort. The topic of the slideshow was about the student's perspective on three questions:
For each question, we talked with our tables and then shared out to help the students formulate their thoughts on the topics. Then, either independently or with a partner, they created a Canva slideshow. The requirements were the basic things (text, pictures, animations, etc.) and I saw some great insight and fantastic presentations. Today we started our new unit (Presentation Software) by using Google Slides. Google Slides is like a scaled-down version of PowerPoint/Keynote, which limits our options within the creation process. But it is still a useful tool for three reasons: 1) Your presentation is cloud-based. You can move from a PC desktop to a Mac laptop and still access and edit your presentation (or to a phone, tablet, etc.) 2) Collaboration. Two or more people can work on the same presentation at the same time. Collaboration is an essential skill for our students and Google Slides is another tool that makes this possible. 3) Easily shared. All you need to do is send someone a link or embed the presentation within your own site. The content of our presentation was four tips for staying safe online. I provided a list of tips they could choose from but the last tip needed to be one of their own. And then, the best part, the students had to use images, shapes, and animations to demonstrate the tip. I saw so many creative ways to show someone being blocked! Today we took both our unit assessments: the "Know it" and the "Do it". Since this unit was "self-paced", I will be looking at the scores very carefully and comparing them to last year's to decide if this approach was effective. After talking to the students, they liked the freedom, but we need the scores to be comparable to the traditional method to make it a permanent way to complete this unit. And so far (after one day), the scores are great! Almost every student scored a 4/4 on the "Do it" and many scored at leas 3/4 on the "Know it". s( ^ ‿ ^)-b We started our review by completing an analogy assignment, recognizing the relationship between many of the vocabulary terms in this unit. This was completed within their groups, and only took about 10 minutes, but helped (hopefully) to solidify some of the definitions. The other reviews worked like last time. There is a content page that lists all the skills that will be required for the "Do it" (skills) portion of the assessment. I was surprised how many students didn't take this part seriously in our last unit, so hopefully they will this time around. The students need to make sure they can do each item listed on the page, and if they can, they should have no problem scoring a "4". To review for the "Know it" portion, I provided a practice quiz that uses the same questions that will be on the assessment. The catch: it randomly grabs 5 out of 11 questions in the bank, so the students need to take it several times to make sure they've seen all the questions. Today is our last day working on our assignments for this unit (although next class is the review/catch-up day) and since most students are following the original plan, they will be working on tables. The students will create two tables in Google Docs: one about online threats and one about tools we can use to prevent them. The students will also need to format their tables to look nice, with border colors, background colors, creative fonts, etc. Since I didn't know which assignment the students would complete on any given day, I put all the due dates to today. So if you check Canvas tonight, any assignment with a zero is missing and your student should finish it and submit. This is our second day of the students working through our module at their own pace. Funnily, 75% of the students are completing the assignments in the order that we would have otherwise, so maybe the choice isn't as important? I saw a lot of great letters today along with some great tips for creating strong passwords, using 2FA to keep hackers away, and keeping your apps updated to patch the security holes. If your students are talking about how long it takes to crack a password, it's because we played with a fun site that estimates the times for us. Who knew "jiffy" was an actual term for measurement? For this unit, I'm trying something new. Instead of me leading the students through a demonstration and the whole class working on a single assignment, the students get to pick which assignment they want to work on and they use the Canvas assignment page as the resource for learning. The assignment page has detailed instructions, requirements, and a video demonstrating how to perform the skills. We'll do this for three classes - one assignment per day. So far, the biggest advantage to working the unit in this way is the flexibility I have to circulate and help students one-on-one. If someone is struggling, I can park in a chair for a few minutes to get them on track. And even though we're only on the first day, it also seems like the students enjoy the choice. Of course there's less choice each day... :) The topic of these documents is protecting our data online (including money). The flyer looks at ways to shop online safely - one of our favorite activities. The letter discusses tips for stronger passwords, using two-factor authentication, and updating software to patch security holes. Finally, the tables look at online threats and the tools we can use to prevent them. Overall, a lot of great information! Today we found out how much of the information was retained over the course of the unit. The first assessment was the "Know it", which consisted of multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and an open-ended question. The students were provided a word bank and most made the effort to answer the open-ended question - a good sign! The second assessment was the "Do it", and covered the learned skills. The scores for this assessment were very high, most earning a 4/4. This, hopefully, gets us off to a great semester as the students see the benefit of the practice (daily assignments) for their desired payoff with a great assessment score. At this point in the semester, these two assessments are 100% of your student's grade (students can request a retake in Advisory if they have all their assignments turned in). The "Know it" measured one standard and the "Do it" measured another one (so two standards for two assessments). For their class grade, I count up the ADV, PROF, DEV, and BEG.
We started our review by playing a game of Vocabulary Dice. Basically each number on a die is given a different task (draw a picture explaining the word, come up with an antonym for the word, use the word in a sentence, etc.) and we take turn rolling the die for each of the nine vocabulary words. This was the assignment the students submitted for the day. Then we talked about the upcoming assessment and started to prepare. There are two assessments next class ("Do it" and "Know it") and here is how it will work:
This probably seems very complicated but the students figure it out and will be able to achieve the score they want (or earn). And if it all falls apart, there are always retakes! |
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April 2024
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