Positivity on Twitter

By Mark Heintz

As part of the new year, I made a resolution to share my classroom on Twitter this year. I feel one of the roles of a teacher is to communicate with the community that they serve. Over the past two weeks, I have tried to tweet at least once every day about the nature of the lesson or progress towards a goal.

The first positive result of my efforts to tweet has been connecting with other teachers and getting new ideas.  A few weeks ago, our school Periscoped a few classrooms to share a live feed of daily classroom learning.  You can read about that here.   I received some feedback on the lesson and changed my plan the next day to incorporate their ideas about including argument towers to improve student writing.  I thanked them for the suggestion on Twitter. It was great to get new ideas and share the results!

Another positive result has been feedback from parents and guardians. I have a few parents/guardians who actively follow me on Twitter and one tweeted at me:

It was a positive affirmation of my efforts to share what was happening in the classroom.

Finally, the first few days of the new year, the pictures in my tweets largely came from my first period class. A student in my second hour said I was unfairly biased towards my first period. He was right, so I now engage with all of my classes throughout the day. The students are interested in what I share and how I share it. They are turning into historians!

It has been a great start, and I can't wait to see future outcomes!

Periscoping our Way into Collaborations Across D214 and Beyond!

By Linda Ashida

The Collab Lab is very excited about our recent professional learning adventures using Periscope and Google Hangout to connect us with colleagues in other D214 schools and beyond!

These virtual professional learning experiences offer a great opportunity learn from our peers--and see strategies live and in action--without having to leave our own buildings. The follow-up Google Hangout chats foster a rich exchange of ideas on teaching practices that impact student success in our classes.

Today Kim Miklusak hosted "Round 3" (Previous Collab Blog posts describe "Round 1" and "Round 2"). Kim invited colleagues to join her AP English Language class, live-streamed via Periscope, to see a student-led writing skills workshop. 

At the beginning of the broadcast, Kim shared this written overview of the class to give context for the lesson that the virtual visitors would see:

Hi! I'm trying something new in class today; a student-centered writing skills workshop.  

Students have selected (or been assigned) their weakest of the 3 AP Language essay types.  Two days ago they planned their writing based on an old AP Exam essay prompt and yesterday they wrote their essay.  Today and Friday they are doing a variation of  a writer's workshop to read peers' essays and offer feedback.

They will start in a group of people who wrote the same essay to check content.

They will then rotate however they choose in order to work on skills-based writing elements from the rubric and peer editing docs with guiding questions. Students will then make edits based on the feedback.

Friday they will read the AP anchor papers and highlight elements on their paper, writing a short reflection on what score they would get and why.  There are no grades on this.  It is just practice in their weakest essay type, timing, and skills.  As an added rule, they are only allowed to ask me 2 questions this whole week.  They have to rely on their peers and the samples to guide them.

We broadcast from Kim's class for about fifteen minutes to give a good idea of what the rotations looked like and how the students used the guiding questions to focus on peer assessment, self-assessment and revision. We were able to see the students directing their own learning and collaborating with their peers, while Kim served as the facilitator of the process.  She circulated around the stations and listened to their conversations. On a few occasions she stopped to offer feedback to the whole class; but the students did most of the talking in this lesson.
                              

After visiting Kim's class for ~15 minutes we invited D214 colleagues to join us for a 20-minute Google Hangout to debrief the lesson. We reflected on applications in our own classes of this kind of a student-centered writing process that uses clear criteria to guide both self-assessment and peer evaluation with multiple opportunities for non-graded formative feedback and revision.

We also discussed ideas to improve and expand our virtual collaborations, along with ideas to curate resources to share with other colleagues, even if they didn't participate in the class visit.

We'd like to thank Laura Monahan, Katie Alexander, and Dawn Bodden for joining us in the Google Hangout and sharing their insight and feedback.

We will be hosting "Round 4" of virtual professional learning collaborations next week in Rachel Barry's Math Class (Tuesday 1/10). Mark your calendars and stay tuned to the Collab Lab Twitter for more details on the schedule and the lesson. For now we can tell you that it will be an opportunity to see differentiation and formative assessment strategies using the app Class Kick.

Want to join us?  Do you have ideas for virtual professional learning collaborations like these?
Please let us know!

Virtual Class Visits & Professional Collaboration Across D214 Schools

By Linda Ashida

Live streaming isn't new, but the Collab Lab has recently been exploring innovative ways to use this technology to expand professional learning connections across schools.

In our first virtual professional learning adventure, we used Periscope and Google Hangout to connect with teachers at Riverside Brookfield High School to live stream from two classes at EG and then debrief with the teachers at both schools.  Even with a few tech glitches, that experience proved to be so valuable, energizing--and FUN!--that we couldn't stop thinking about the possibilities to use the same technologies to expand professional learning connections across our own District 214 schools.

That led to Round 2: Our first D214 Virtual Professional Learning adventure.

Seven teachers from three D214 schools connected with us at EGHS via Persicope to visit Mark Heintz' AP World History class.

Our colleagues connected to our Periscope broadcast, and, just like with Facebook Live, they were able to interact with each other, and me while I live streamed, to make comments and ask questions.

Mark's lesson offered examples to our virtual visitors of the varied ways he engages students in interpreting primary source documents to find evidence to support a claim, in order to later synthesize information from those complex texts. After working through the first document as a class, with Mark modeling how to interpret and note key evidence, the students worked in pairs to interpret a second document and respond to the prompt on the whiteboard tables.

As students collaborated with their peers, Mark circulated to offer support and feedback, and pause, when necessary to give clarification to the whole class.

After students responded to the prompt, with evidence from document 2, they rotated tables to read another group's response and offer feedback to their peers.

Students then returned to their tables to reflect on the peer feedback and make revisions.  They wrapped up the class by taking photos of their work to continue with new documents and synthesis writing the next day.

Mark's lesson included models of work, student-centered engagement in learning, ongoing feedback, peer assessment, self-assessment and revision. None of the work was graded. It was all part of the formative learning process to build students' reading and interpretation skills and lead to improved quality in their final summative writing assessment.

Following the live stream form Mark's classroom, we connected via Google Hangout with the visiting teachers from the other D214 schools to debrief the lesson, share feedback, and make connections in student learning across disciplines.
                                             

 

Once again we were energized by this kind of collaboration connecting us with colleagues across schools.  Not only did we share teaching strategies and learn from one another, but we also discussed possibilities for future collaboration across all of our schools.

In fact, we've already planned our next live stream from Kim Miklusak's AP English Language class, in which students will be engaging in a writer's workshop. Look for a new post on that soon!

And, based on feedback from the group that visited Mark's class, we have already modified the process. Participants suggested that more teachers would be inclined--and better able--to participate if the the class visit and debrief conversation were shortened and occurred during the same class period. Guided by this advice, we will live stream from Kim's 1st and 2nd hour classes for fifteen minutes and then debrief with our virtual visitors for 20 minutes in a Google Hangout. We will also look for ways to include more student voice in the process, whether it is asking questions directly to students during the class, or asking a few students to join us in the Google Hangout conversations.

We'd like to thank Matt Hamilton, Teri Buczinsky, Erik Hodges, Kate Glass, Jeff Vlk, Becky Kinnee and Carrie Mattingly for joining our Collab Lab tream in this first D214 Virtual Professional Learning experience and sharing their feedback and insight for future collaborations to support our students.

Do you have ideas or suggestions?  Would you like to join us?

We'd love to hear from you!

2 Schools Connect in Professional Learning w Google Hangout and Periscope

By Linda Ashida

Imagine collaborating with colleagues across schools, visiting their classrooms, and engaging in professional learning conversations before, during and after the class visits. It sounds great, right? Except when you consider the time and logistics necessary to make it happen.

Enter Google Hangout and Periscope!

The result?  Professional Learning conversations and class visits connecting two--or more--schools virtually.  That is just what we did this week in the Collab Lab!

The idea came about earlier in the year when Bridget Wilmot, the Instructional Technology Coordinator from Riverside Brookfield High School, visited EG.  She and I exchanged examples of the ways we facilitate professional learning in each of our schools. We discussed the culture of peer observation at EG, and that led to the idea to do a virtual peer observation connecting two small groups of teachers at each of our schools.

We decided to have our first virtual peer observation at EG, with two class visits during our second hour, followed by a post-observation conversation 3rd hour.  Prior to the observation, the two host teachers at EG completed a form they shared with the RBHS teachers to indicate the focus of their lessons, and to share a successful strategy and/or request for feedback

In order for all of us to meet each other and have a conversation prior to the classroom visits, we used Google Hangout.

 

From there we connected on Periscope to live stream from the classrooms.  Periscope, which functions much like Facebook Live, would allow our virtual visitors to comment and ask questions real-time. However, we ended up doing our live back-channel conversation via Google Hangout chat, since we were already connected, and that way, Rachel Barry could moderate the chat while I concentrated on the live streaming. Also, for this first visit we decided to create a private group, rather than stream publicly.

First, we went to Kim Miklusak's English class and, in a variation of a socratic seminar, we saw a student-led discussion on the novel Sula. Using guiding questions, students on the inside circle engaged in dialog, while students in the outside circle commented, offered feedback and asked questions via a Schoology discussion, which was projected on the large screen. In the photo below you can see me live streaming, and Rachel nearby monitoring and responding to the questions and comments from the RBHS teachers.

Below you can see an excerpt of the back-channel conversation with varied comments and questions from the RBHS teachers with Rachel's responses.

From Kim's class we went to Mark Heintz' World History class. Mark's students were engaged in a collaborative activity on Mercantilism, analyzing documents and finding evidence to support their claims. While the students discussed, Mark circulated from group to group to monitor the conversations, answer questions and offer feedback.

Check out this short video clip from Mark's class to give you a better of an idea of what the streaming, moderating and class discussion looked like.



Following the two class visits, about 10-15 minutes each, Kim and Mark enjoyed connecting again with the 4 teachers from RBHS, again via Google Hangout. They shared feedback and exchanged ideas that included lesson design and scaffolding, creating and curating digital curriculum materials, focusing on essential skills and giving formative feedback, integrating technology and non-tech methods to facilitate collaboration, and making connections across courses with literacy skills. Such a rich professional learning conversation! Furthermore, some of the participants, who used Periscope or Google Hangout for the first time, left with ideas for integrating th0se technologies in their own classrooms.

This was our first experience doing a virtual peer observation in this way, and for all of us it was a positive an energizing experience. We're looking forward to continued collaboration with RBHS and connecting again via Periscope to visit some of their classes.

We're also very excited about the possibilities to connect in a similar way with our colleagues across District 214.  We've already discussed some possibilities.  For example, imagine you are a teacher who teaches a singleton course and you don't have a PLC to collaborate with. You could connect with and observe the same class of a colleague in another school! Just as students benefit from seeing models and examples of work, so too can we benefit from seeing strategies in action, made even more possible via virtual class visits and conversations across schools.

Are you interested in connecting in this way?  Want to learn more or have an idea to share?  We'd love to hear from you!

Reflection on Periscope

By Kim Miklusak

Last week I helped Rita Sayre Periscope her Science of Cancer forum.  While I had played around with the app a little bit before the forum, I definitely learned a lot from doing the event itself. 

It's very simple to set up.  Once you connect it to your Twitter account, it can send an alert to your twitter feed to let your followers know that you are broadcasting an event.  From the main screen you can also choose to watch events on different topics or presentations in your area. 

When you're ready to broadcast, you type in the title of your event.  There are a number of settings to allow people to connect with you and comment as you broadcast.  It also allows you to limit who sees your event.  I didn't use either of these functions, however.  When you're done, the link is live for 24 hours.  You can also save the entire presentation to your camera roll.

From a broadcast perspective, I can definitely see some limitations.  In the theater where Rita presented, it was hard to control the lighting, and the camera doesn't let you light balance like you would on the camera app.  It does zoom in and out, but again--maybe due to the lighting--the camera had a hard time focusing when she changed slides.  This also caused a problem when panning to follow her as she moved across the front of the room.

Overall, however, I think the possibilities for using Periscope in an educational setting are endless.  Immediately I could see using it for forum presentations, professional development days, assemblies, theater and music productions, sporting events, etc.  I know some teachers use it to broadcast their classroom as well, so that would be an interesting experience.

Please share with us in the comments any ideas you have for using Periscope in your classrooms and school as well!

Pounce on Periscope: a Science of Cancer forum

By Rita Sayre

You poured yourself into creating an experiential lesson or forum, yet you had some students who missed it.  How can you re-create the experience for absent students?

Kim Miklusak, one of our DTCs, and I recently tried Periscope, an application that works with Twitter to create a live video feed of your lesson or presentation.  Anyone with the twitter link can join in and see your live video.  Even better, Periscope allows others to comment in real time on what is happening.  Students who are absent can participate in class in real time.

In D214, we love to create forums – common experiences for our students on a theme.  Presented in the theater, these experiences become an enrichment opportunity or a time to explore a topic in depth.  When students miss this, they often are unable to complete following activities or use the skills or knowledge as the course moves forward.  Periscope not only allows a student to participate in real time, but you can save the link for 24 hours and students can watch the lesson the following day.

Flipping your classroom might seem like a tall order in an otherwise busy school year, but Periscope is an effortless way to bring the world into your classroom or theater.

Here’s what you need to be a Periscope powerhouse:

• Have a Twitter account that you use for school purposes
• Download Periscope and link it to your Twitter
• Let your students and colleagues know – send out the link
• Video your presentation in Periscope
• Send out a reminder that the link is live for 24 hours

Kim's note: We will follow up with a blog post soon that explains the technical "How To" of using Periscope as well as some of our experiences from Periscoping Rita's event.  Stay tuned!