To Start The Year

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It is almost that time of year where kids and teachers look forward to the start of the year with nervous excitement. Sales have started on back to school supplies and supply lists are being formed and filled. For me it is a special time of year as a parent and a teacher. I get to revel in all the excitement

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of not only my kids but also my colleagues & students as they head back to school. As a parent I want to make sure that my kids are prepared and ready to go for the first day. However, I have been thinking that so much is put in to the first day if not the first week that sometimes there is a let down the 2nd or 3rd week as we settle in to routine. Also I have noticed that as we get into the routine we sometimes forget about all the things we said we were going to do and try out in this new year. I know for me that happens almost every year. If it isn't forgetting to do something new or engaging it is abandoning it early on because it appears to not be working out or isn't going as I had it planned in my head. This year I hope to be different and power through the beginning of the year slump and keep the momentum going. To help with that I want to tell you about some ideas I am going to try out this year as well as some apps/websites that you might find helpful. So lets get started!!!!

Getting to know you students 

As we come back to school a lot of us like to do get to know you projects like all about me speeches, slide decks, collages, etc. This is a great way to get to know your students and what their interests are. In this digital day and age it would be great to spice up the get to know me project by having kids do a Flipgrid. For those who don't' know what a flip grid is or have been wondering how to use it here are some great ideas. Flipgrid (recently purchased by Microsoft is a simple social video recording site that allows users to create a topic/gird and then have others post a simple video on that topic. All that is needed is a computer/laptop, phone, or device with a camera and Internet connection. There is some background setup to do on the teachers part (setting up grid, sharing access code, etc.) which is pretty self explanatory. One thing to be careful is that kids need to be 13+ to create an account or have parent permission. These are usually short videos that can be done in class or as homework. What I like about this project is that if you are like me and find some names difficult to pronounce, you have the kids saying their names as an introduction and you have a recording of them pronouncing it correctly. For those kids who are shy or don't want to be recorded (for various reasons) you can do a more traditional project. 

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More traditional projects are the all about meet speech, poster, slide deck, etc. One thing to be careful of in this digital day and age is not to abuse fair use. I have heard at various conferences and training that what we as educators enjoy as fair use is not what it used to be. In the past teachers and students could clip pictures, songs, etc. from the Internet and use them in presentations without citation and claim fair use. Those days are gone. You will notice when I use pictures in my blog I include the website where I found the pictures. I also use an advance setting in my search engine that lets me search for pictures that are labeled as "free to share and use". This is something we want to encourage students and colleagues to do as good digital citizens. To help with this is a website called Tineye. Tineye is a website that lets you upload a picture or URL then do a reverse look up to see where that image is or has be used online. It searches the actual picture and not the title or file name. This is a good way to see who might own the image so you can contact them to see if the image is available for use. When in doubt I tell me students to contact the website they found the image and ask for permission. This also something to keep in mind as we have kids do reports or presentations. We ask them to cite their sources. It is important that if they included digital images, videos, recording, etc. that they don't own themselves they need to get permission. 

Along with getting permission and citing sources something that teachers and students need to be aware of is their districts policy on digital work and who owns it. There are more and more cases of teachers writing curriculum, lessons, projects, books, etc.and finding out that they don't actually own the rights to the work. What they have found is that since they did the work during regular work hours and/or on district owned equipment (even outside of regular work hours and/or at home) that the district owns the rights to the work. One way around this is to keep work separate from personal endeavors. Do your writing or development on your own time and on your own computer. Although it is important to check your contract to see what your district policy is on work you create. 

Time Management

As teachers we have many skills we want/have to teach kids. I know that one thing I struggle with personally and see kids struggle with is Time Management. Students seem to think they have all the time in the world before an assignment is due and if they have a device connected to the Internet in from of them (cell phone, laptop, computer, etc.) the opportunity for distraction is even greater. There are a few apps I have learned about that help with this. Although before I get into this I want to talk about a tool I have kids use for project/time management, a Gantt Chart

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. A Gantt chart is a simple chart that one can create using an spreadsheet application although I use a preset up  excel template. In a nutshell kids type in the parts of the project that need to be done assign a duration (weeks or days) and then track how far along they are on the project (usually as a percent). they can also include a predicted start and end time. The chart gives them a graphical representation of how long the project will take and an actual representation of where they are at. I use this as part of the 20% time projects I have kids do and it helps them meet those due dates. 

Other tools to help them are some online apps/chrome extensions. One that helps with goal setting and tacking is called Win the Day. It is a chrome extension that allows you to set goals and then track how you are doing on those goals as well as online time to help you stay focused. Another extension is called Forest. This is a cute extension that helps with keeping kids and you off line on your phone or other device. If enabled this app it tracks your time off the Internet by planting and growing a "tree". The tree will die if you spend too much time online. The more time you focus the more trees you grow thus creating a forest. The cool thing is that the Forest app is connected with the organization Trees for the future  and works to plan real trees based on app use. 

One last extension that I will share is called onetab. This is an extension for the chrome browser that takes all the tabs you have open and puts them into one tab as hyperlinks. This is a helpful tool if you are like me and are guilty of having tons of tabs open throughout the day of sites and things you want to share kids. Where it's power really lies though is in sharing multiple sites with kids. You can create a onetab page with all the links kids might need for a project or assignment and then share just that one tab with them rather than trying to create a page with all the links.  

I would love you hear about your projects, apps, etc. you use at the beginning of the year and how you plan to keep the momentum of the summer going throughout the whole school year.

As always go forth and do great things.