Technology in my Classroom

So, we have best practice at every department meeting, and at a recent one, a coworker shared an app he uses called Zipgrade.  Being the curious little science teacher I am, I decided to try and use it.  This brings up a neat topic that I feel is becoming increasing relevant in this day and age: technology in the classroom.  I actually did a project about it in graduate school, but I feel like it has become a more polarizing difference between teachers.  I find myself straddling the line between pro-technology and wary of technology, but when it comes down to it, I like when things can save me time and effort.  So, let me share with you a few tricks I've begun to compile while I experiment with apps, widgets and all that stuff.

Apps and Stuff
These are a combo of some apps for phone (both Android and iOS) and have some kind of computer interface to download and analyze data.  If you are pretty good with Excel or Google Sheets, the process of setting up classrooms in these apps is pretty straight forward.

Zipgrade:  I have a few apps I use for expediting the grading and analyzing of data.  One of the newer ones I mentioned was Zipgrade.  Through this program you can print out and grade, rather quickly honestly, scantron style multiple choice tests.  You scan with your device and can then upload a file of grades to your grading system.  Compared to how I grade a quiz of a comparable size, it takes about 1/3 of the time to grade and post grades to School Loop or whatever system you use.  The set up process takes some time, and it took me a while to figure out the weighting component, but I loved it.  That way, I never have to worry about using a scantron reader or entering grades by hand.  I'm into it.

Doctopus:  This is a mass copy system that works through Google docs.  Basically, it can make a specific copy of a Google file for each student to use so they don't edit the original document you share with them.  I use it mainly for rubrics for projects and lab reports so they can get feedback much faster.  There's a plugin where you can speak your feedback as a recording, which is great for accessibility.  There's a ton of stuff this one is capable of, I just haven't unlocked its full potential as of yet.

Socrative:  This is one of my favorites for quick quizzes.  Basically, you create an online quiz where students can answer either on their phone or on a computer.  You can use it to create a quiz game, exit tickets, team up the students or keep it individual.  The school I am currently at has a pretty strict no phones out policy, but in a classroom where you have Chromebooks or a less strict school phone policy, you could totally do a quiz game where they have rockets that shoot off into space as they get answers right.  There is an app for students and an app for teachers.  The teacher app can connect directly to your Google account and gives you a really comprehensive readout of what students have gotten correct and incorrect.  A lot of this app is similar to Zipgrade, but it is free and has a free response option.  However, in terms of assessment, it's good for formative, but for summative, I would lean towards Zipgrade due to the phone not being a part of the student interface.  Taking a test on a phone with the internet so close is too much for me to handle.

Plickers:  I'm trying this one soon with my freshmen.  This is a good check for understanding tool where each student gets a specific QR code to use during class.  You ask a question and scan for responses.  I am excited about the anonymity it brings to students, the accountability for understanding and the ease in grading with another spread sheet like Socrative and Zipgrade.  The thing I am not fully in love with, and this could be due to my inexperience with the app, is the organizational system.  Zipgrade and Socrative both have questions organized in a quiz format.  Plickers has the questions in a shared folder, so you have to choose the questions in your queue before each session as I see it now.  Hopefully, I can figure a better system.

Overall, these are the apps I have found that work the best in my space or I'm excited to try out.  If you have any experience with another system, please let me know.  If you can't tell, I'm excited to test out anything that will make my life easier and allow me to give better feedback.  I suck at giving work back in a timely manner.

And Now the Positive Side to the Second Year

That blog post went dark.  Pretty quickly.  I wasn't feeling the best about myself at that time, and I decided to just clear out my brain.  Which oddly helped.  But the other side of that is that we need to fill in the space made by clearing out the bad by filling it in with something good.  So, let's try and do this so those of you who may be younger teachers than I can feel like the world isn't all terrible.

You are a Better Teacher
This will not seem right at all.  But believe me, when it comes down to it, you are better.  Seriously.  It may seem like on some days that all you can do is make mistakes, but they are mistakes that are not just because you are new.  They are mistakes because this job is hard, and that's how you learn. Whenever I feel like poop, I listen to the Tarzan soundtrack from Disney and scream along with the "In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn" part.   It ends with "all these things will come to you in time."  Thank you, Phil Collins.

New Students
My first year, I had a group of students who pushed every button I had.  I had to think on my feet so fast to just get through a day and get anything done.  This year, thanks to those students, I feel like I knew what to kind of do if it came up again.  Yes, there were many new challenges (see last post) but it has been wonderful to get to know a group of students and still see some of your old ones.  New jokes, new lessons, new personalities.  It has been a great year with these scientists, and I'm super proud to see how my past scientists are doing.

Honing New Skills
I make a conscious decision to get better at a thing a year.  This year was being timely on updating the online grading, and I feel like I have generally become much stronger at that and I still have the skills I honed last year, like planning using Post-Its (shout out to all my teacher friends who showed me how to do this) and positive narration, but boy howdy did grading get to me.  I've learned how to get as much grading done as humanly possible as fast as possible.  I also learned the best thing for me, is to focus on that thing.  I tried to implement a bunch of new  tricks, and many of them no longer are being used.  I figure I still have them, and the same thing happened last year until I kind of cracked those tricks this year.  I figure when it comes down to it, I'll keep learning a new trick a year and that's pretty fantastic.

People Know Your Name
I saved the best and least obvious for last.  It is amazing your second year to have name recognition.  I had to introduce myself last year or, in one case, hear someone ask my friend "who is Ms. S?" in front of me.  Now, thanks to chaperoning a few field trips and word of mouth, I am kind of known at school.   There are still batches of kids who have no idea who I am besides that mean lady who sends them back to class, but I have a way better relationship with other teachers.  Which is to say, I have a relationship with the other teachers at all.  I actually have some pretty great friends as a support network, and that I think may actually be the best part of being a second year teacher.

Yeah.  This definitely helped.  Hope it helps you too!

Grades, Gradients, Graduated

Day 13-

So another hilarious conversation was had with my opinionated girl.  She'd be easy to do an interview with for one of my classes, I'll keep that in mind.  Unless I want a challenge, and then I have someone else in mind.  For sure.  This other girl seems to retain material.  What questions she answered on the vocab quiz were right.  I feel like if she's knows it, she KNOWS it, which is most impressive.  If only she could apply it and not snore in class.  Speaking of vocab quiz, they had a vocab quiz today.  It's definitely a bell curve.  But shifted towards passing.  Actually, that's what I'm assuming right now.  The grades haven't been entered yet.  I'm curious to see.  My responsibilities certainly are expanding.  Taking grading on full force.  I'm going to get an in and out box for my desk for SURE to keep things organized.  That's the AP kidlets anyway.

Onto the physics class.  Today, I feel, was a difficult concept.  Especially for those who are under-schooled and have never used a balance, it can be difficult.  Even for students who are native speakers, using a balance for the first time or being forced to make a prediction is tempestuous at best.  So apply that concept on today's class, add in multiple stations and yes I had to raise my voice. This class is certainly the trial period, and I feel like we figured out that they need to be given very explicit directions on where to go and when and how.  Let's just say MARBLES EVERYWHERE.  That was I want to say frustrating, but I've already used that word and I want a new one.  But I can't think of one.  All I can say is thank goodness jazz music exists.  It's like an instant release valve on my brain.  I'm a music lover all right.  Maybe I can use that somehow...