January 4

Saturday Mornings

This post was first published on my Substack.

“Saturday Mornings” a time for productivity. I used to wake up on Saturday mornings rather late, since I was usually up late on Friday nights. As that changed, I would get up early on Saturday and participate in an educational “#satchat” on Twitter, mostly lurking and answering only on occasion.

Then, I restarted my Saturday morning podcasts back up for my classroom. I switched to being a creator over being just a consumer. That counts, even if few people consume what I produce.

Now that I have added the title of Vice President of PAECT to my responsibilities, my Saturdays have become even more productive. The President of PAECT, Eric Verno has a weekly meeting where we collaborate on PAECT business. Saturday mornings work best for our schedules, so on top of my weekly podcast, I have added a weekly meeting, and from there I wrap up some tasks we discuss. My thought is that everything is fresh in my mind and I already have my computer open, so just keep going. That then frees up the rest of the day for relaxation and fun.

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August 5

The end of Flip…or Flipgrid

Flip, or as it started out Flipgrid is no more. Microsoft is ending that tool after purchasing it and incorporating it into their Teams. We are not a Microsoft School, so I do not know how cumbersome it could be to use Teams with my students; only time will tell.

In the meantime, I am pulling down my existing videos from the site to store them elsewhere. I am using iMovie to stitch them together by theme, then pushing them out to either TikTok or YouTube. Most of the videos were set up as Optional Enrichment Projects, so student participation varied. I unfortunately must admit there is not a lot of video content to transfer.

Moving forward, in my attempt to gamify my classes I am hoping for more student created content in the near future. I am using the PAECT Book Study on Explore Like a Pirate: Engage, Enrich, and Elevate Your Learners to bolster my attempt at this endeavor. That is a story for another blog post…

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June 15

Time Management: A skill that I need to improve upon

During the PAECT Book Study, I am currently participating in, Thrive Through Five by Dr. Jill  M. Siler, the concept of time management keeps coming up. Admittedly, time management is not one of my strong suites, I know this detail will astonish those who know me well…😂😂😂😂.

In my mind, I do my best work when under pressure from a looming deadline, I understand that is not the most efficient way to function and I preach to my daughter and my students all the time to not make the same such mistake.

Old habits are hard to break? I will get to it first thing in the morning? I’m just not feeling it at this minute? I deserve a break? Yes, these are just some of the rationalizations I have used, “?” placed since often I am not declaring the weak reasons, they are said in a questioning, apprehensive tone.

The Zoom session this past week focused on self-care and taking time for oneself. I brought up one of my self-care/self-improvement plans, better time management. I am a creature of habit/patterns. I like my routines. My plan is to build time management into my life pattern. I am trying to block out time or at least manage chunks of time each day for various tasks I need to complete.

Book study reading and notetaking, a chapter at a time, laundry or some sort of inside work, one or two tasks at a clip. Jump in to work on my presentation for ISTELive24 or the KTI Summit. Make time for family, throw in some yardwork before I hit the pool, and pleasure reading for a few minutes at a time. I try to complete a variety of tasks each day, is it hectic, yes, is it productive, seems to be, is it efficient, who knows? It, much like I, am a work in progress, we will see how this effort goes this summer.

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June 6

SketchNoting

I am participating in a PAECT Book Study, the book is Thrive Through the Five, by Dr. Jill M. Siler. At the end of each chapter, she includes a Sketchnote of ideas to summarize the chapter content. I attended a series of webinars through PAECT on Sketchnoting with Sylvia Duckworth, and have shown the concept to my classes. I need to revisit this skill over the summer and utilize it in my classes for my more visual learners. I am not adept enough of an artist to Sketchnote while taking notes, I would focus too much on the art and lose the content. I am better at revisiting the content after I take notes in a traditional format and converting them into images.

I will add this to my Summer To-Do List.

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March 15

Old Guy Moments…Argh!

So, AI is all the RAGE or FEAR depending on your view of the future…of education…of the world…of humanity. I believe it is here to stay, at least in some form, just like the Internet, Google, Wikipedia, Web 2.0, and other forms of technology. I have been playing/experimenting with it for a while now, I want to learn more so I can address it APPROPRIATELY with my students. There will be other posts on that later, or you can listen to our discussions on the PAECT Pod. I am off-topic from the start of this post…let’s redirect…

For my classes Civil Rights/Black History Month Projects we once again were creating video projects, this time using Canva.  I have some students who are a bit shy and do not like recording their voices for projects.  The idea was to find a TEXT TO SPEECH TOOL my students could use for their projects, like VOKI. I went through my lists of resources from my PLN and Google and played with other free AI tools.  Some worked, but some were not really free if you wanted to download and use the text-to-voice file elsewhere.  Students used several of the free tools, one that worked well, we broke when it read every student using it in our building as the same user.  It found us “SUS” and shut down our attempts.  I have to reach out to them and see if I can correct that issue.

Anyways, yesterday I had a student who had been absent finishing up their project, but could not record audio due to losing their voice from illness,  Instead of going to Wakelet to look over my curated resources, I had the student open up the apps tab in Canva…THERE IT WAS THE ENTIRE TIME!!!! A TEXT-TO-VOICE app right within the tool we were using!!!!  ARGH!!!!  In the immortal words of Mr. Dierks Bentley, “What was I thinking!” Murf.AI was right there.  We connected through Google, and the student copied and pasted their script from Google Docs into the Canva-connected app which automatically pushed the audio into their project.  No downloading MP3s uploading MP3s then dropping them in to the projects, which is easy enough, but this is integrated right in the same program.

Why I did not check on this first, I have not a clue, but alas and alack, I now know better. I learned from my error, which I attribute to my age…yes, it is a low-hanging fruit of an excuse, but it works today.

Below are screen shots of Canva and Murf.AI along with an embedded video made with that app.

Search for Murf.AI in apps.


Create or log into your account, we used our school Googler Signins.

You can choose which voice to use, some are PRO Account only.

Choose tone of voice and type in or copy and paste what you want the app to say.

You can test the voice and adjust as you feel is necessary. When you are satisfied, click “Add to design.” Once you add the audio, you may need to adjust the length of your clip to get the audio and image to match up.

Granted, there are limitations to what AI can accomplish at this time.

 

Category: Class Updates, Cool Stuff, Lessons and Teacher Things, PAECT Pod, Random Musings, Student Projects | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 10

Review Games: Bingo

So, today we went old school with review games in my class…we played Bingo!  We kept to the classic game on paper, I paid for the lifetime subscription to Bingobaker.com several years ago and it is definitely worth the $20 I spent.  I believe the subscription is now $24.95, but it opens up many more perks than the free version.  I discussed this super-cool-edu-tool on an episode of the PAECT Pod which you will soon be able to access HERE.  You can either print paper cards or play virtually on any Internet-connected device, however, computers work better than phones for this.

I have my Google Doc of key terms, which gets copied and pasted into Bingobaker and the website does the rest, creating and shuffling the terms into useable Bingo cards.  This unto itself is worth the nominal fee.

I was not able to get my hands on any Bingo chips for the game, so we used highlighters and dry-erase markers to mark the cards.  We played a bare-bones style, pulling the words out of a hat, though I must say the hat was rather stylish.  After the first player hit a Bingo, the class had the opportunity to keep playing on the existing paper cards or switch to virtual cards.  The decision was unanimous, keep the paper cards going.

The students were into the games, we played for prizes that I have acquired at various educational conferences, stickers, sticky notes, mini-journals, pens, and other such tchotchkes.  We started with a traditional straight-line bingo, then continued to play on the paper cards for the rest of the period.  I did cut prizes off at a limit of two per student, I need to keep my stockpile of prizes for a while yet.  The students enjoyed the old-school review, I grasped what we needed to brush up on before the upcoming quiz, and we all enjoyed the day.

Category: class work, Cool Stuff, Lessons and Teacher Things, PAECT Pod, Random Musings, Student Stuff | LEAVE A COMMENT
September 10

A Bit About Me

Students have completed this short project for my class over the last couple of years., This year they asked me to complete a copy.  Here it is:

I think it is important to build connections and let the students see “behind the curtain” if you will.  We as teachers are not perfect, we make mistakes, and we enjoy life outside of the classroom.  Students need to see those characteristics in us.

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August 20

This Year’s Focus…2023-2024 School Year

So, another school year is upon us, and Summer disappeared in the blink of an eye, or so it seems.  Every school year I try and add something new to my class in an attempt to keep up with current trends in education and prevent myself from becoming stale.  This year is no different, there will be several new websites and apps utilized throughout my courses, however, my main addition is not a website or an app; it will be INTENTIONALITY.

Intentionality is completing actions with a specific and/or deliberate focus.  This addition is not just meant for myself, I hope to instill the concept into my students.  I made this the focus of my upcoming school year after numerous discussions with my PLN, Professional Learning Network, within PAECT and KTIs, Keystone Technology Innovators.  The focus of a podcast I am honored to co-host, the PAECT Pod has been interviewing various members about our week-long KTI Summit at Shippensburg University in July, and the term Intentionality kept entering into the conversations.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I need to not just introduce my students to new learning opportunities, new concepts, new ideas, and new tools to utilize, but I also have to help instill a purpose for all of this new information.  The previous sentence seems like it is an overly obnoxious run-on, but so be it.  I need to instill the thought in students that their actions, no matter how trivial they may seem, reflect back upon them and therefore are worth their best effort.  Hopefully, this concept can then be carried forward after they move on through school and life.  This post s not meant to be some sort of melodramatic declaration, it is more of a correction based n self-reflection.

My PAECT Pod co-host Eric Verno and I have mentioned the need to keep current and sharp since educational technology changes so quickly, think AI in Education.  Eric has mentioned his efforts to keep from getting complacent.  That is when I realized that in a way, I continually work to keep current with new ideas in education, but I do not always communicate the why f new tools and concepts to my students.  I push out the information, but sometimes I lose focus as to why we are doing things or using various tools and websites.  This year, I will do my best to not only communicate the why to my students, but to instill the concept of INTENTIONALITY into their everyday actions.

 

 

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July 29

StickTogether

So, this spring I was introduced to StickTogether, a puzzle/digital puzzle tool.  The concept of digital puzzles and activities for my students intrigued me.  I wanted to try out the tool in my classroom, however, the year was just about over and the students were worn down.  The project trial did not get out of the gate.

This past week for two days I attended the PAECT, Keystone Technology Innovator Summit at Shippensburg University.  The Summit is five days in length, but I was there Thursday and Friday.  Once again I came across the StickTogether resource.

I decided by executive fiat that we will try one out over the Summer to see how it is received by the students.  I signed into my account that was created earlier in the Spring of 2023.  I perused the various premade digital puzzles and pushed one out as a virtual Stickerboard.

Since Schoology, our district’s LMS is not active over the Summer I am hosting my activity here on Edublogs.  You can access the activity HERE. 

I am hoping my students embrace the activity and I can build it into a component of the Choice Boards in my courses.  I will keep you updated on the project as time goes on.

 

Here are the Directions on the Website:

Welcome

Just click on a letter in the panel on the right to select a color. Then click on the corresponding letter in the grid to fill in that color.

To ZOOM click on the magnifier icon and then click again on a section of the image.

Let’s ALL StickTogether!

Category: Class Updates, Cool Stuff, Lessons and Teacher Things, Random Musings, Student Projects, Student Stuff | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 13

Rainy Saturday Post

So it is a dreary, rainy, Saturday afternoon.  The weather forecasters said the rain was to have cleared out by now, but they were wrong.  I have numerous activities and outdoor chores I wanted to work on today, but the weather is not cooperating.  Both stations on TV that carry westerns are playing The Big Valley, which is not one of my favorite western shows, no offense meant to anyone, I loved it as a kid, but my preferences have changed over time.

Since I could not get outside to complete what I needed to do, I posted my classroom podcast, read part of a library eBook, enjoyed some espresso with frothed Half and Half from United Dairy Farms, played with Charli, our puppy, did some prep work for my Honors US II Summer Reading Project, and decided I needed a break.

My daughter started working on her blog again and asked about mine.  I had to admit I do not write to this space much anymore with my podcast and the PAECT Pod taking up time, along with many life commitments.  Due to my regret, embarrassment, or shame of not using this site, I thought what better way to take a break than to ramble on here.

We all need down days such as today.  I have many activities and chores to complete outside, but sometimes we just need to take time to relax.  Writing is one of the ways I relax, however, I have not made enough time to do so for a number of years now.  I hope to get back into the practice soon.  This is the first step.  Now, time to turn off all electronics and spend some time with the family and hopefully see the end of the rain soon.

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