Living the Middle School Life!

Getting students excited about what they are learning in school is important to keep them motivated. Educators have been struggling with trying to find a perfect match between meeting standards and giving students opportunities to explore their own passions. The idea of a Genius Hour, which typically takes 20% of your instructional time a week, may be able to help educators with their struggles. In Meghan Cortez’s article 3 Benefits of Establishing a Genius Hour, she states that “Letting students explore their own passions in the classroom can meet educational standards in innovative ways”. But is this really true? Do the pros of the Genius Hour outweigh the cons? Let’s dig a little deeper into the Genius Hour to compare the benefits (pros) and hurdles (cons) that this classroom strategy has for teachers and students alike.

Letting students explore their own interests is important for their overall growth. The Genius Hours allows students to take their own interests and use technology to dig deeper into their interests. Many educators feel that giving students these types of opportunities outweigh the hurdles that they also face. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that a Genius type Hour can have on students.

1. Critical Thinking Skills: Getting students to explore things that they are curious about will help to foster a love for learning. Students will learn how to think laterally, critically, and creatively about topics that interest them. They will not have to conform to what teachers think are the best answers to their questions but instead make their own decisions.
2. Student-Centered: The Genius Hour allows students to pick what they want to learn about. Getting students excited about issues outside of the classroom is a great way to promote long-term learning.
3. Connecting Standards: Using the Genius Hour can help you to meet standards in new innovative ways that students will enjoy. Standards across the board in a variety of subjects can be met by using the Genius Hour.
4. Differentiated Learning: The Genius Hour can be a great way to get students that struggle with traditional education to become engaged in learning. It can help GIEP students find pathways to stay connected with topics that interest them.

Hurdles! As teachers, we are always jumping hurdles for our students to figure out ways to make new strategies work. With the increasing demand from administration to meet standards to pass district and state assessments, it can be hard to implement new projects into our already tight time restrictions. Incorporating the Genius Hour into our classroom is no different. Here are several hurdles that may be in your way if you are thinking about trying the Genius Hour.

1. Time: Isn’t this always a hurdle that teachers have to face? Finding time to implement a Genius Hour will be tricky with an already packed curriculum. Teachers have to be willing to spend time upfront finding the best way to use the Genius Hour in their classrooms. If you aren’t willing to put the time and thought into finding ways to incorporate standards into the Genius Hour you are wasting your time.
2. Unmotivated Students: Who hasn’t started a project to find students wasting time doing nothing? Getting students motivated to do work is not an easy task. As educators, we need to spend more time building connections with these students to help them find their purpose.
3. Anxiety: Open-ended projects and assignments can cause students to have anxiety or feel uneasy. Many students are so used to being told what to do and how to do it that open-ended projects can make them feel uncomfortable. How will you handle this hurdle?
4. Grading: Finding new ways to grade projects that are open-ended is tricky. You will need to create new rubrics to help students and parents understand how these projects will be graded. The process of the Genius Hour is often more important than the final product. Do you have time to devote to these changes and selling parents, students, and administration on the benefits?

There are benefits and hurdles to any teaching strategy. As educators, we have to look at the whole picture and see if the pros outweigh the cons in any new methods we try in our classroom. The key is to start small and see if the process is one that works for you and your students! 

Who would have thought 2 years ago that Zoom, Google Meets, and MS Teams would become so familiar to educators and students alike? I think that I vaguely had some knowledge that there were programs that you could use to collaborate with others online, but I had never used one before the pandemic hit. I remember feeling quite intimated by the thought of having to schedule meetings and teach lessons entirely online. Learning how to mute and unmute, turn the camera off and on, respond to messages in the chat, create breakout rooms, admit students from the lobby, and respond to raised hands seemed like an impossible task. Then administrators added on the whole hybrid experience where you had to teach online and in-person at the same time. It was enough to almost push a teacher over the edge. And in some cases, it did just that! But in most cases, teachers rallied to the challenge and were able to create great learning experiences for both students online and in-person daily.

Meeting with teachers, parents, students, and family online through these online meeting programs has become so commonplace that when I was looking over the assignments to complete for this week, I jumped on this one right away. This was a familiar task that was easy to manage. I have gotten so familiar with meeting with people online that it doesn’t seem strange to see and talk with people you have never met. JA and I had a brief but casual conversation about the use of Zoom and Google Meets in the school. We concluded that there are many potential uses for Zoom and Google Meets in the classroom, and even though teaching through Zoom isn’t our favorite thing it has helped to keep teachers and students connected.

So, how have we used programs like Zoom and Google Meets in the classroom? Below is a list of possible ways to use these programs with students, colleagues, and parents.

1. Conduct live lectures/lessons
2. Incorporate Jamboard if using Google Meets
3. Team building activities both for adults and students
4. Virtual book clubs
5. Inviting parents or community members to see student presentations
6. Create breakout rooms so students can collaborate with others
7. Create virtual stations
8. Invite guest speakers from any where in the world to speak to your class
9. Hold parent/teacher conferences
10. Attend faculty or department meetings
11. Meet with other educators to plan lessons/activities
12. Hold virtual office hours
13. Hold homework help sessions for students
14. Host review sessions to help students prepare for assessments
15. Perform Readers’ Theatres
16. Host career spotlights with individual all over the world

There are so many ways that Zoom, Google Meets, and programs like them can help us stay connected with others during good and bad times. Whether you see these programs as your friend or your nemesis they have allowed educators to stay connected with each other, with parents, and especially with our students through a very challenging period in education!

Have you ever participated in a Twitter chat? Used Twitter to follow trending topics? The use of Twitter in education is growing by leaps and bounds by teachers to stay connected with other professionals in the field. Many teachers are using Twitter to follow other educators whose experience they can use to get ideas for lessons. Twitter can be used as a professional learning network for both novice and experienced teachers to share ideas, successes, and failures. There are Twitter chats available to join that are facilitated by other educators that are facing the same issues and can offer encouragement. But is this professional learning network worth your time? Let’s look at the pros and cons of using Twitter as a Professional Learning Network.

Pros of Using Twitter as a Professional Learning Network

1. Brainstorming: Twitter is a place to find ideas and inspiration to aid you in the classroom. You can learn and share stories about your success in the classroom.
2. Connection: Twitter allows you to connect with educators across the globe. You can set up a #MysterySkype chat with another school to collaborate with others.
3. Fast Connection: Networking is fast. Responses to questions can be answered quickly and efficiently.
4. Self-Directed: You can search for information that you want to know to stay informed about current trends.
5. Self-Reflection: Twitter can help in self-reflection and guide you to find ways to improve your teaching practice.

Cons of Using Twitter as a Professional Learning Network

1. Time-consuming: Social media is addicting and is very time consuming. You can waste a lot of time searching and managing your account.
2. Fake News: Tweets can be very opinioned and readers need to realize that not all posts are based on factual information.
3. Safety concern: User privacy and online safety is a concern when using social media. Users need to be aware that their privacy could be exposed by using Twitter.
4. Response Limit: Twitter has a limit to the amount of characters that you can type in a response. With the limited amount of characters, messages may not be properly conveyed.
5. Post Frequency-Posting infrequently can result in your audience not seeing your posts compared to other tweets. Posting frequently can jam up feeds making you lose followers.

So, is Twitter a good Professional Learning Network for educators? That’s a decision you will have to make on your own after examining the pros and cons of using Twitter. If you are thinking about using Twitter either for yourself or in your classroom you may want to read The Twitter Guide for Teachers by Christopher Pappas to see if this tool will work for you.

Flickr?! I thought I had heard of many online tech tools, but obviously, not all! So, I was pleasantly surprised when I investigated Flickr to find some cool photos that I could use with my course content. I rely heavily on photos and illustrations to show students what life was like in the the Ancient World, so I needed to find out more information about how this Flickr tool could help me.

I found a great article by Samuel J. Tan called Flickr for Education that listed 18 ways to use this photo sharing tool in the classroom. While all of Tan’s ideas weren’t suitable for a Social Studies class, there were some cool ideas that I could imagine using in the near future. Here are some of my favorites ideas from the article which have been slightly adapted to fit my needs.

1. Identify and Record-I can envision using this idea to have students examine various images and classify them according to the different cultures that we have studied. They could also create their own subtopics and justify their reasoning behind them.
2. Geography and History Matching– Use photos and images to create matching games as assignments.
3. Presentation/Research Projects– Create a set of photos or images for students to use for their presentations or projects. Students can also use Flickr to search for their own photos which can tie into a lesson on copyright restrictions and citing.
4. Story Boards-Students can use a group of photos as a story board that allows students to tell a story about ancient times or create your own mythology story.
5. Explore the World-Students can use Flickr Map to explore images from around the world comparing modern sites to ancient ones.
6. Collaborative and Group Working-Students can create groups to upload photos to and work collaboratively to cover certain topics. Students can also comment on each others’ collections to give suggestions, ask questions, or give feedback.

Tan, S. J. (2021). Flickr for Education-18 Ways to Use Flickr in Schools. ColourMyLearning. Retrieved November 25, 2021, from https://www.colourmylearning.com/2013/03/flickr-for-education-18-ways-to-use-flickr-in-schools/

Don’t we all love collaborative group work!? The joy of doing all the work for that free-rider. Waiting for others to catch up with you. The bossy partner seizing the group and not compromising with others. Oh wait, I was writing a blog about how sharing knowledge with others in a collaborative setting is beneficial, wasn’t I?!

Well, yes, I was, and still am! Collaborative group work has its ups and downs and everyone has had bad experiences working in groups like the ones mentioned above. However, the benefits of collaborative group work far outpass the disadvantages of group work when it comes to teaching students the necessary skills to meet success in the 21st century. The challenges mentioned above about working with others are exactly what students need to become better employees in the future. Students need to be able to work together and compromise when it comes to the direction of their group. They need to learn to work together with a variety of people to get the job done. Flexibility is the name of the game. By working in groups, students learn how to negotiate with others, which will help with their tasks. Collaborative work can also help quiet students open up and work with others. It can push students out of their comfort zone and let them experience content differently. It helps to teach kids responsibility by holding them accountable in their roles. The benefits of group work for students definitely outnumber the negatives!

But what about teachers? Teachers that use collaborative activities can benefit also. Teachers that work together can create more complex authentic tasks than working independently. These tasks take longer to create, but when teachers work together they can build tasks that help students tackle 21st-century skills. When teachers work together they learn from each other and make their school better places.

So, do we enjoy collaborative group work?! Yes, Yes, we do! Collaboration allows teachers and students to create and achieve great things!

With all the different web tools available it can be a bit confusing to figure out which one will work best for your specific needs. This third article entitled What is Google Sites and Why Use It by Daniel Nations explored this website-building platform to see if it has what it takes to use in the classroom.

Nations (2021) explained that Google Sites is part of Google Workspace which works very well with all of the other Google apps such as Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, and many more. One thing that really stood out to me is that Google Site allows you to create a website without having to know how to code it yourself. I have tried coding before with some success but having that part of a website already done is a big bonus. There is also a Google Sites Support Page that can walk you through the initial setup without much trouble. The support page gives you step-by-step directions on everything from adding and deleting pages to videos and images. It also went through ways to share and invite others to edit your site, organize pages, and add files. If you already had a classic Google Site there are directions to learn about the differences and similarities between the classic and new versions. Nations (2021) went on to talk about the adding of “gadgets” to your website to help make your site more functional. Since I use Google products in my classroom already, the ease of adding “gadgets” that are already created is a huge reason why I chose to pursue this web tool. According to Nations (2021), this website offers endless possibilities to make unique and customized products to use in the classroom. One additional feature of Google Sites that makes it a good website for students is that you get to choose who can and can’t access your site. The added safety measure when using the internet with students is a plus!

Nations, D. (2021, June 23). What is Google Sites and Why Use it? LiveWire. Retrieved November 13, 2021, from https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-google-sites-and-why-use-it-3486337

In my quest to find relevant sources to use for my course project, I found this great article by Med Kharbach entitled Teacher’s Guide on the Use of Google Sites in the Classroom. This article had just about everything you could want to know about Google Sites and the ways teachers can use it in their classroom. The article was broken into different sections that gave a good overall of the ins and outs of Google Sites. It also featured some actual websites that teachers had created using Google Sites which helped to show the potential of this web tool. The article listed many relevant reasons to use this web tool including its free, student-friendly, helps improve students’ digital literacy skills, and provides a collaborative learning environment (Kharbach, 2013).

The article gave ways for teachers and students to use Google Sites in the classroom. Teachers can use it to create a webpage for the class to include course materials, such as slides and videos along with posting homework or class events. Also mentioned was the use of a discussion board or a wiki to let students collaborate on work. Teachers can also embed a calendar on their site to help parents and students keep track of deadlines. Students can use it to create digital portfolios, create to-do lists, and collaborate on group projects to name just a few.

Links to video tutorials were also embedded into this article to help first-time users. It included a video on creating a classroom website, creating a class calendar, and how to use webinars. I spend a lot of time looking through the various links embedded in this article to great a better picture of how I can use Google Sites in my classroom. The examples of Google SItes linked in the article are worth a peek if you plan on using this web tool in your classroom.

Kharbach, M. (2013, January 16). Teacher’s Guide on the Use of Google Sites in the Classroom. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. Retrieved November 13, 2021, from https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/01/teachers-guide-on-use-of-google-sites.html

One thing that attracted me to Google Sites was the way that things were organized! My desktop and Google Drive are a mess! I mean like a total nightmare mess. It takes me forever to find one simple document because I create documents but don’t file them. They are just there floating around in my drive and if I don’t remember what I called it…well there goes 5-10 minutes spent searching for it. So, when I found an Edutopia article written by Steven Goldman called Using a Class Google Site to Improve Organization and Engagement I had to read it.

This article provided information on how to use Google Sites as a simple organizational tool to keep materials for both in-school and synchronized students in one spot.  Goldman explained his own experiences using Google Sites and the benefits of its use. Google Sites allowed a consistent way for students to access information that didn’t change whether students were learning synchronously or asynchronously. This made the last school year manageable because kids didn’t have to learn anything new if they changed learning environments (Goldman, 2021). Goldman created a weekly page that included a calendar of what was happening, the goals for the week, and an agenda page for each day. He also noted that using the same site for both students in class and those not there involved some repetition. He used a flipped-classroom approach when he wanted students to experience a lesson in the same way (Goldman, 2021). He recorded a video of himself teaching the lesson before teaching the class which provided him with think to really think through the lesson goals and objectives. Another benefit of using Google Sites was the increased student engagement. Goldman (2021) used a noticing wall on his weekly pages that came from an idea he got from an article by Michelle Woo. The noticing wall had interesting content that he wanted kids to view such as cartoons, news articles, videos, or probing questions. Students were not forced to click on the noticing wall content but he found that they did and that opened new avenues of discussion. This became a favorite place for students to visit and learn more about certain topics (Goldman, 2021).

This article didn’t focus on what I thought it would, but it gave me some great insight into how to use Google Sites to increase engagement in students. The organization of Goldman’s lessons played a big part in helping students stay on top of assignments during a difficult year.

Goldman, S. (2021, August 18). Using a Class Google Site to Improve Organization and Engagement. Edutopia. Retrieved November 13, 2021, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-class-google-site-improve-organization-and-engagement

Sumerian Invention Research Project 

Objectives:

1.  Students will research Sumerian inventions with a partner to learn how they impacted life then and now. 

2. Students will create a brochure to share their inventions with peers. 

3.  Students will use Symbaloo to organize and collect the information that will be needed to complete their project and collaborate with others. 

4.  Students will utilize bookmarks, capture, and highlights to organize information.

Materials: 

iPads 

Rubrics and other directions can be found in Schoology Sumerian invention brochure rubric.docx

Symbaloo accounts Sumerian Invention Class Resources 

Examples of brochure Mrs. Herr’s Sumerian Invention Brochure

Time Frame: 3-4 days 

Procedures:

1. Review rubric and explain directions for assignments 
2. Have students view the Symbaloo board on Sumerian invention and explain that they will add at least 1 resource to help their peers find relevant information on Sumerian inventions 
3. Students will also create their boards to add resources used in their project 
4. Students will pick 3 Sumerian inventions to research to find out how they impacted life back then and now.
5. All research must be completed on the Internet.  Use Symbaloo to compile your research and share it with peers to help with resources.  Start with the following address: Sumerian Invention Class Resources (This is a board to help you start your research.  You may add tiles from this board onto yours with the expectation that you will find at least one additional resource for each invention. Add at least 1 tile to the class board to collaborate resources with your peers. *Social Bookmarking modification
6. After students have found enough information about their 3 Sumerian inventions they will start creating their Sumerian brochure using the template provided
7. Students will share brochures with the class
8. Students will reflect on their social bookmarking experience 

I picked this lesson plan because we are currently working on this assignment in class and it seems a good fit for social bookmarking. Students will be able to share resources they are finding with others in the classroom by using Symbaloo. Students will create their boards and add at least one resource to the class board to help build a wide range of resources for the many Sumerian inventions. This will have students collaborate and assist students that are struggling with finding good resources. Symbaloo seemed to be a good first social bookmarking web tool to use because of its easy navigation.

The advantage of using social bookmarking is that it gives struggling students a starting point to begin their research. It also promotes collaboration between peers and provides a good resource for students to improve the quality of their projects. It can also allow teachers to direct students towards specific websites that would lead students to other sources. A negative of social bookmarking could be that students may rely on their peers to find resources and become lazy. Social bookmarking could also be distracting to students if it has a more visual component to it.