Author Archives: Kyle Dunbar

Apr
29
2015

How to Amplify your classroom

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Thank you to Matt Henry, English teacher at T.C. Williams High School , for sharing his experiences using Amplify in the classroom. Amplify is a classroom management system for tablets in the classroom. It was great to have his perspective on what can be done with Amplify and how it has impacted teaching and learning for him. If you missed this session, you can still check out the recording here:

TLP-C Amplify Your Teaching Recording

Matt began by reminding us all that the first year of an implementation of any technology is going to have some ups and downs but that this presentation was going to focus on the best aspects of using Amplify in the classroom.

amplify1We then learned about playlists and teacher tools. Participants were able to see how a teacher can send out materials to students, freeze their screens and create discussions all via Amplify.

It was great to hear from an actual classroom teacher that is using the technology everyday. Matt was able to explain how the features work in the classroom and how he’s be able to use the features to really enhance the learning in his classroom.

amplify3Matt also highlighted an app called Sketchbook that he found very effective for non-traditional assignments in his classroom. Check out this great drawing he did! Matt shared that this is an excellent tool for visualization or teaching setting and character study.

If you didn’t get to join us, we hope you can watch the recording. We are also looking forward to our last TLP-C of the 2014-2015 school year on Thursday, June 4th. The last session is a Technology Round-Up where participants share a website, digital tool or resource they have been using. Each presenter shares for a few minutes and then we move onto the next technology. Please email the facilitators with your technology idea (Kyle Dunbar, kyle.dunbar@acps.k12.va.us, Jacqueline Mechanic jacqueline.mechanic@acps.k12.va.us, Melissa King melissa.king@acps.k12.va.us).

 

 

Apr
22
2015

Amplify Your Teaching

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Join us tomorrow, April 23rd from 4-5pm (Click here to find out when the event is in your time zone) to learn more about the Amplify system for tablets that is being used at T.C. Williams High School and in MacArthur Elementary School, Tucker Elementary School and Polk Elementary School. Matt Henry, English teacher at T.C. Williams High School will be sharing the fey features of the Amplify system that make using tablets in the classroom a powerful learning tool. Use the link below to access the presentation.

Link to TLP-C Amplify Your Teaching

amplify tabletThis link will be active beginning 30 minutes before the presentation. You can join any time during the presentation. If you can’t make it during the live presentation, watch this space for a link to the recording.

Whether you are just curious to learn more about Amplify or have been using the tablets with Amplify yourself, please join us and share in the conversation!

Apr
14
2015

Assistive Tech = Great Tech

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We were lucky enough to have Jennifer Holloway with us for our last session. Jennifer is the Lead Assistive Technology Specialist for Alexandria City Public Schools. She shared a whirlwind of amazing tools that can be used to assist students who need scaffolding, audio or visual support and other technology that allows them clearer and faster access to school content. If you missed our March session, please listen to our recording here:

TLP-C Assistive Technology for All Recording

Jennifer began with a brief overview of what assistive technology is. Jennifer’s definition is that assistive technology is anything that helps students access the curriculum. She also pointed out what a lot of us know which is that tools that help some students often help all students. Included in this is Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which is a flexible approach to ensure that all students can access content. The three principles of UDL are multiple means of engagement, multiple means of action and expression and multiple means of representation.

We had a helpful format where Jennifer walked us through some tools she loves and then we had some play time to check them out, bookmark them, comment on them before another round of great tools and play time. This was a great way for all of us to explore things more. If you ran out of time to see all the links during the presentation, here is a summary of what Jennifer shared:

  • GoAnimate – an animation site, sadly, no longer free, but a great resource!
  • Common Sense Media– a treasure trove of lessons on digital citizenship, also great for reviews of games, movies and TV shows for parents
  • Inspired Writing – organized by the writing process, links to dozens of resources to assist students with writing
  • ReadWorks – a series of lessons for specific language arts topics
  • ReadWriteThink – lesson plans, student interactives and print activties
  • WatchKnowLearn – videos on hundreds of educational topics
  • Shmoop – summaries of literature that can assist students with understanding challenging texts
  • GCFLearnFree – more excellent educational videos
  • YouTubeTimeMachine – watch videos from other decades! (In addition to finding good materials for background information, you might just have a really good time watching some of these)
  • Rewordify – allows you to insert text and have it adjusted to different reading levels, lots of options for definitions, word replacement and vocabulary activities
  • MathPickle – videos of students solving real-world problems (I’m excited to check out this one more!)
  • Graphite – brought to you by Common Sense Media, lesson flows that model how to incorporate technology
  • Epic! – hundreds of high-quality, high-interest, online texts. Students can select read to me or read on my own.
  • Pixton – retell stories or tell your own story in comic book format. Excellent site, probably worth it to purchase an account.
  • Class Tools – lots of resources including how to create a QR code scavenger hunt
  • UDL Tech Toolkit – Cool Tools for Schools – more links to more great sites and resources!!

We hope many of you find ways to incorporate these websites, resources and tools for your own learning as well as for implementation in the classroom. For more information, you can also follow Jennifer on Twitter or Pinterest.

Thank you again Jennifer! We are so lucky to have you in ACPS with us and we appreciate you sharing your wealth of knowledge.

Our next presentation will be on Thursday, April 26th from 4-5pm EST. Please check this space for a link as the date gets closer. The topic will be Amplify! Amplify is a table system that all 9-12 graders use as well as some elementary schools. Come learn more about what it is like to teach with Amplify.

Mar
26
2015

Weebly in the Classroom

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A huge thank you to Jacci Erney for a great presentation about how she uses Weebly in the classroom. Weebly is a website builder that allows you to create a great looking educational website quickly. If you missed our last session, you can watch the recording here:

Recording of TLP-C Weebly in the Classroom – February/March 2016

Jacci began by describing what Weebly is and how it works. Highlights include the many free templates and designs as well as the ease of adding images, columns and text. Also, by signing up for a free educator’s account, you get 40 student accounts. Students can then create their own website. Weebly also allows you to password protect student pages.

Jacci also shared how she has used Weebly for her own class website and for resources for her parents. Check out her class website: http://mrserney.weebly.com/ In addition, Jacci found she had a lot of parents asking about ADHD and strategies that she also created a website with ideas and resources for helping with ADHD. Here is her site for that http://helpforadd.weebly.com/

We then had a chance to learn more about how students are using Weebly in her class. The websites are password protected, so we won’t put links to them here, but we had a great time in the session checking out the work they did. Jacci shared that students loved the ability to create their own website and she found that their writing increased as a result.

For those of you in ACPS, please know that we don’t support Weebly but similar features are available in Edublogs, ask your TIS.

Thank you to Jacci for sharing your insights, ideas and knowledge with us!

 

Mar
24
2015

Assistive Technology for All

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Please join us this Thursday, March 26th from 4-5pm EST/-5 GMT (click here to find out when the event is in your time zone) for a presentation by Jennifer Holloway of the ACPS Assistive Technology Department. Jennifer will share a variety of resources that can make a difference for students with special needs. She will also show how these resources actually benefit all students. Hear her ideas about using innovative digital tools to get all students engaged and learning.

Use this link below to access our talk. (Link will be live 30 minutes prior to the start of the session on March 26th)

Link to TLP-C Assistive Technology for All

If you’d like to learn more about how technology can help diverse learners in your class, or if you’ve had good experiences using assistive technology, please join us!

Feb
18
2015

Dynamic Projects with Weebly

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Today’s session will be rescheduled. Check back here to find out new date and time!

Please join us next Thursday, February 26th from 4-5pm EST/-5 GMT (click here to find out when the event is in your time zone) for a presentation by weebly-solarenergyJacci Erney of Tucker Elementary School. Jacci is a 4th grade teacher who has lots of great ideas about how to use Weebly in the classroom. Use this link below to access our talk. (Link will be live 30 minutes prior to the start of the session on February 26th)

Link to TLP-C Weebly in the Classroom

weebly-hannahIn this session we will review what Weebly is, how it works and how to create student accounts. We will share some student project examples and discuss the pros and cons of using this website creation services for school projects. Whether you have never heard of Weebly before or use it every day, we hope you can join us to ask questions, share ideas and contribute your thoughts.

Feb
03
2015

Bloggers = Writers = Authors

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Thank you to Kristin Orwig for sharing her adventures of blogging with Kindergarteners. Kristin gave us a great overview of how and why she introduced blogging to her class. If you missed our live session, you can still watch the recording!myPic

Recording of TLP-C Blogging in Primary Grades – January 2015

This was a wonderful introduction to how blogging can be used to give students a chance to share their voices with the world. Kristin shared that she wanted to introduce her students to becoming digital citizens by making their writing public and by learning to comment with each other. She was also interested in having them consider authentic audiences when they wrote. She found that her students loved blogging and she was able to see their writing growth through the blog.

Kristin learned a lot as she began blogging with her kids. Below are some tips she would like to pass along to you:

  • Use students’ lunch PIN for a password!
  • Get parent and principal permission
  • Use #comments4kids to get teachers to comment on your students’ posts
  • Check out Matt Gomez’s blog for more ideas: http://mattbgomez.com/
  • Use blogging as a centercodekids

We also had a great discussion about how to expand blogging across more elementary classrooms and secondary classes as well. Some ideas were:

  • Connect a Kindergarten class with a 2nd grade class
  • Start with a Blackboard blog to get comfortable with the process first
  • Take pictures of students’ writing (and post to blog) to encourage a balance of handwriting and keyboarding

If you have more ideas about how to incorporate blogging in your classes, please share here!

Jan
15
2015

Blogging in Primary Grades

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Join us Thursday, January 22nd from 4-5pm EST (click here to find out when the event is in your time zone) to learn more about blogging in the primary grades. Kristin Orwig, kindergarten teacher at William Ramsay Elementary School will be sharing her adventures with getting our youngest learners writing online. Use this link below to access our talk. (Link will be live 30 minutes prior to the start of the session on January 22nd)0115150941

Link to TLP-C Blogging in Primary Grades

Don’t teach the little ones? Still join us, you will be amazed to learn what these kids can do and how blogging changed how they thought of themselves as writers. You’ll find inspiration in hearing their stories.

Already having your kids blogging? Please join us and share your own experiences and ideas. TLP-C is a group of teachers learning together and we are thrilled when our participants have stories to share.

Dec
19
2014

Augmented Reality Augments Interest in Reading

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This month we had a wonderful presentation on Augmented Reality from Laura Davis, 6th grade Language Arts teacher at George Washington Middle School. It was really exciting to hear about how her students used the app Aurasma in her Language Arts class. If you missed the live session, you can listen to the recording right here!

Recording of TLP-C Augmenting Interest with Augmented Reality – December 2014

Aurasma-logoIf you are not familiar with Aurasma, it is a very powerful app that allows you to take a device (iPad, tablet, smart phone, etc.) and hover over an image. Once Aurasma “finds” that image, that image acts as a “trigger,” and begins playing a video over the image. The result is much like the posters in Harry Potter where you are looking at a 2D image but viewing a 3D, moving image. If you don’t have a chance to watch the recording, you can still view how Aurasma works by clicking right here: How Aurasma Works.

Laura began her presentation with this quote: quietest-student

Many shared their thoughts about how technology gives some students a way to express themselves beyond class discussion. 0410141340aLaura then began explaining how she used Aurasma in her class. Basically, she had students write a 30 second commercial for a book. Laura had them write this out and rehearse it several times. Students then used iPads to record each other and used the cover of the book as the “trigger” image. Laura also shared several tips and tricks like make sure you use images that are clear and vibrant, spread your students out so their recordings don’t have too much background noise, and have written instructions for when the students get stuck.

Participants shared a lot of great ideas about how they could use Aurasma in their classes. Here are some neat ideas that came up:

  • Virtual Art Gallery – have students use their art as the trigger image and launch a video of them talking about their art (highlighting aspects of the art they worked on)
  • Manipulative Math Solutions – have a math problem as a trigger image that goes to a video of a student using manipulatives to solve the problems.
  • Chinese Character Drawings – the Chinese character could be the trigger image and the video is the character being drawn (showing the steps of drawing that character)
  • Library Orientation (TC Williams High School librarians are doing this!) – have stations where there is a designated trigger image and then the video explains what that part of the library is for (this has gotten rave reviews from the high school students)

Want to know more? Listen to the recording! Have you used Aurasma? We’d love to hear your ideas, tips, tricks or questions. Leave us a comment below.