Instructional Technology Update & Highlights From Andover Innovation Lab Week Of February 24-February 28th, 2014

The state of teachers engaging in new projects with technology at Andover High School!

On Monday, the help desk received some older laptops to assist with projects for blogs, web development and using Google tools. Myself and the Lab Coordinator Zachary Griffin worked with Social Studies staff during their department meeting time to add links of resources, images and presentations which were organized according to different courses. The staff did a great job at learning how the technology worked and could immediately benefit from sharing between course and curriculums.

Teachers have been very open about making regular appointments with me to learn more about Google Drive, Forms and Google Groups. The teachers are fine tuning their knowledge with Wikispaces and using hardware such as scanners and their interactive boards. I have spent the past week working with 5 teachers beyond the Social Studies department with improving their skill base with Wikispaces to enhance in their classroom web space.

On Tuesday I met with Dr. Allen from the World Languages department and we circulated ideas surrounding the creation of a website for the World language department at the high school. The page would focus on sharing the focus of the program at the high school and also spotlighting its great faculty. Myself and the help desk will provide the layout and we will work to get them started.

Paula Westmacott a Special Education teacher at the high school dove into learning more about using her interactive board when she with me on Wednesday. I was able to walk her through step by step related to the Epsom Interactive hardware, software and pens. She will be mainly using a series of websites and documents with the interactive board. She is excited to integrate this knowledge into her SMART goals as an educator and use it in a variety of collaborative classroom activities.

Additionally, I was able to assist Physical Education teacher Carol Martini with the creation of a portion of her slide show for her “Warrior Way” program she will be presenting to students over the coming weeks. She made a great slideshow using her iPhoto tools and I worked with he in iMovie to add 2 different songs over the photos. She then embedded this video into her presentation.

Health teacher Holly Breen is using the sharing options within Google Drive to

enable students to share work more efficiently and return feedback to students

faster. She has also adopted the Chrome Browser for the use of Youtube resources in the classroom as well. 

On Thursday I was able to attend a training based in the development of an advisory program at Andover High School. We read a variety of interesting and intellectually stimulating articles surrounding the development of students emotional and intellectual well being. We were also able to thoughtfully consider what a program the High School would look like and who it may serve. I look forward to being part of this process moving forward.

Also on Thursday, a great article featuring the Andover Innovation Lab & Help Desk was published in the Andover Townsman. Dustin Luca included great photos from students projects at the help desk and highlighted some of the benefits we bring to the school.

Here is the link:

http://www.andovertownsman.com/education/x1196458307/From-support-squad-to-innovators

To close the week I finished the final draft for a potential grant from the AEA for some Google Chromebooks for the Innovation Lab/Help Desk. Here is a link describing more about what this web based laptop has to offer students. We hope to integrate tools like these at the help desk moving forward and provide a model of success related to technology integration.

Using A Great New Website IFTTT.COM (If This Then That)To Push Out Social Media Posts And Manage Your Internet Exerience

 A website that I discovered from a discussion with a student is IFTTT.com. This website has many full features for sharing your Twitter posts, LinkedIn posts or your Blogger or Wordpress account. The website allows you to share your content created across a variety of platforms by creating different social media recipes. For example, I recently created recipes which send my current favorite feeds to my email each day and also automate the tweets of my blog at different times of day. IFTTT(If This Then That) also sends the most popular New York Times technology articles directly to my email. The site really increases your engagement with the parts of the web that are the most relevant to you on a daily basis.

IFTTT does require sharing your information but it also provides tremendous value with the amount of sharing of content you have chosen to receive and also the high level of  integration between the variety of social media networks. Some of the most powerful recipes allow you to send automated updates to your Evernote account from starring emails in your Gmail or even Tweeting automatically by entering data into your Google Calendar.

Once you become familiar with the site you will see there of thousand of recipes that can be designed be creating a variety of triggers. This site has helped me organize the sharing of posts from my blog and also enabled me to be sent direct emails from Craigslist based on a search url. There are also phone based recipes which can call me in the morning as a wake up call. I highly suggest checking out all the available recipes and reap the benefit of the tools and sharing of web content.

Check out  http://www.ifttt.com and see how you can begin to orgainze the many tools you are currently using into a more organized approach with your social media.

Helping Teachers Place Their Materials Online: Phase 1-Instructional Strategies & Introduction To Tools

Most teachers when thinking about how to organize their existing content into a web based format play with a variety of tools and resources such Wiki's, Edmodo or other District Based Learning Management Systems. When stuck in between these resources and still looking to have a web based presence for the classroom that offers the look of a teacher website a great option is a blog which can present presentations, links, documents and even a variety of assessments. Many districts have their own policies for teacher websites and access so it is important to check with your district about their policies before beginning and committing to any projects.

This post will include some of the central considerations to consider from an instructional design perspective and also some of the central considerations when choosing to integrate the Google Blogger platform and the associated Google docs and tools. That said, a variety go blog platforms exist and some are extremely interactive (Wordpress, Weebly, Tumblr, Typepad).  I have chosen on this post to focus on Google Blogger due to my success with integrating the tools in the classroom and also the ease in which I can explain its immediate benefits.

Planning-Instructional Design Considerations

Before creating your blogger account and Gmail for the creation of a blogger blog it is important to collect all of the content you would like to have on each section of your blog. I often encourage teachers to organize their blogs as though it will be their website for their classroom in which each course they teach will have its own page and be the focus of that area of the blog. A site map should be developed which helps organize the thinking of the content. This site map can be done formally on paper or can be outlined and integrated immediately. In the example photos below the breakdown of an AP European History course is shown. 

This teacher(photo) has identified specific presentations (PowerPoint’s) and documents (Word) which she will link of this course homepage. I have worked with this teacher to turn these documents into Google Documents for the ease of backing them up on the Google Drive Cloud and linking and sharing opportunities with students. Teachers can also integrate existing PDF's teachers may have been printing in an online format or even turn documents into PDF's.

The process of aligning your course sequence of materials and preparing them to placed on a web based platform can be tedious but it can benefit teachers to back up their documents online and improve the fluency in which they deliver materials online. The process of creating links and sequencing material also enables teachers to reconsider the order in which they present materials and can also allow them to better introduce web-based assessments using tools like Google Form, Socrative or linking to Edmodo environments. Teachers can also begin to consider the integration of screencasts of video lectures for homework or students who have missed courses. The graphic on the left was created using http://www.gliffy.com. This site enables you to create sitemaps and organization graphics.

Discuss Teacher Strategies, Goals & Motivation

From an instructional technologists perspective it is important to have deep conversations with teachers about the intentions they have with their content online. Web platforms can quickly turn off teachers transitioning to creating more online resources. They often feel they do not deliver their materials in way their students or are used to.

Provide support as teachers delve into placing materials online. This support is critical to having teachers see the long-term benefits of web based resources and flipped classroom models. Integrating these tools consistently is a process and fluency with technology in the classroom only grows as it is being used regularly and fitting the environment intended. There will be setbacks in the process but assuring teachers that the time invested can save them time as the forward can help motivate and inspire them to create for the web.

Also assure teachers that providing web-based content does not mean they are replacing traditional instructional methods. In the beginning of this process the tools placed online should be tiered toward supporting instruction and can be used from once a week to daily depending on the comfort level with the tools and resources.

Key Tools & Tips To Consider In the Development of Blogger Blogs For Teachers

(I will be updating this page with new posts in the coming weeks with more specifics on each of these topics. I have included some sample links).

• Organize all content for each course in a folder and review the order of instruction and course assessments and goals.(Consider creating graphic like the one above. I used Gliffy.com)

• Set Up A Page For Each Course (This provides a separate space for each course and a way of differentiating for each class.)

• Create A Google Calendar To Share Course Information (The same calendar in your Google email can be embedded into your blog and used to post course updates)

• Use Of Google Drive for Storage (Using Drive can streamline linking of resources and also create an immediate backup)

• Use Google Groups For Collaboration (An easy method for communicating with specific groups based on email address)

• Use Google Hangouts For Offline meetings (live and recorded collaboration online with video, great for college students and adult professional development)

• Use YouTube for videos of lectures, videos and supplemental course videos and embed them into the areas of the blog pages with HTML (Screen casting is a powerful tool for sharing screen recordings with presentations or web based instruction).