Tech For Your Class

    My final reflection is below in the Google slides presentation.

This year I have worked with Book Creator in chrome as our students in grade 3-8 have chromebooks.  Once teachers have the class set up, students are easily able to login and create an ebook.  Students really like the comic book options and they are able to navigate and use the comic book features, for example... shapes, and pow!  At the bottom of this post is a Book of the Month for School 28. The book is read by the principal.  We used Book Creator for this as all teachers would experience the view side of the book to get a feel for an ebook created in Book Creator. I also tried out calibre with a purchased ebook and the Book Creator created ebook.  I wasn't able to change the format of the purchased book on Amazon to a PDF. I wanted mark up the text.  That ebook was locked and couldn't be converted.  I also tried to convert the ePub that I made with Book Creator to a MOBI file type so it could be read on the kindle.  This worked well. La...

I tried out DoInk app on the iPad to create greenscreen videos.  We used a cloth green sheet for the background and tacked it up on the wall in a classroom.  I have found that using tacks and taking the green screen to the wall is much easier that using tape or other methods.  The green screen was out of the way and we were able to leave it up for a few days to catch students who were initially absent.  I also use the iRig microphone which is really amazing for quiet students. It really projects their voice and sounds great. Students in an autism class worked on poems for their mother's for mother's day.  It was fun to work with the students.  Some felt comfortable and recording went quickly.  Others were camera shy and I we had to limit the camera time and try not to have them redo too many time.  After editing the video in photos. I just cropped the beginning and the end of the clip with the tool in edit mode.  I ...

A new resource that I tried out is TweetDeck.  TweetDeck has four columns that allowed me to follow at twitter chat and other hash tags without constantly having to reload. I liked using TweetDeck as I felt more organized to follow a chat, I could follow other related #hashtags and also was able to see my home feed.  I have been working to create a formative assessment tech tools PD and was able to find quite a few resources by following the #formativeassessment and #assessmentforlearning. I also participated in a few twitterchats.  I signed up for reminders on #formativechat and this really helped.   A few hours before the chat, a reminder was sent out.  The #formativechat moved really quickly but was helpful.   This chat moved had quite a few tweets,  I felt like there as time between questions but it was challenging to keep up with the feed. I found a few resources.  I did try to tweet at least a few times during the chat. ...

Formative assessment is a process and the articles that fit tools into categories or parts of this process were most helpful to me.  I looked at using Google Forms Quizzes, Socrative, and Kahoot all of which can be used to check for understanding. Google Forms is a great way to assess what your student learned in a lesson.  I use Google Forms quite often but haven't looked at the new self-grading quizzes.  After creating a new quiz, in the settings, you can turn on "Make this a quiz".  Teachers can choose the correct answer in the answer key and assign the points for the the question.  I also really like that you can add feedback for when the question is answered correct and incorrect.  This immediate feedback can help students when they are still interested and have their mind on the  topic.   Google Forms can be used at an exit ticket, mid-lesson check, or within a blended setting where students are working at their own pace...