TUIT: Janice Bullard, CCE

Ms. Bullard facilitates while students take turns posing questions to their "mystery class."

Janice Bullard of Clear Creek Elementary is, relatively speaking, a new teacher.  This has not hampered her ability to be a teacher who uses integrated technology in her classroom.  I was very impressed to see her class in a Google+ Hangout video chat with students in New York.   When I learned this wasn't even the first time she's had a video chat, I knew I had to interview her for Edtech Elixirs.

In a side note, Janice's son was a student of mine just a few years ago.  Small world!


Share your story!  Where did your learning of edtech begin?

This is my fourth year teaching, and I’ve been at Clear Creek for 3 of those years. I guess my learning of edtech began the summer before my KTIP year. I volunteered at a science and math camp for 4^th and 5^th grade students at U of L. We introduced kids to digital storytelling, which also meant I was introduced to it. I used some of those tools the following year, which was my first year teaching. I also used Voicethread for the first time that year; my students loved it and I found it added layers of learning to what was a fairly typical classroom activity. Students wrote a short piece titled “What I am most afraid of” and then recorded it on Voicethread. This required them to practice reading it many times, which they didn’t mind because they got to record their voice and share with the class. I realized how kids could be motivated by the technology. So that is what seals the deal for me - extra layers of learning plus motivation.

Tell us about using Skype and Google+ Hangouts in the classroom.  How did it begin?  How did you find teachers to telecommunicate? How have integrating these tools impacted the learning of your students?

I read a book by Pernille Ripp this summer- Passionate Learners- Giving our Classrooms Back to Students. Through her book and blog I learned about the Global Read Aloud project, in which students from around the world read the same books and connect with each other over them. My class is participating, and through the teachers and classrooms we have connected with I learned about using Skype and Google Hangouts. I first connected with the teachers over Edmodo; we have since set up class blogs so that our students can talk about the books. We did a "mystery Skype" which was great fun. We have also shared via Padlet.

Pictures taken by the Student Photographer, one of the roles in the project.

My kids have completely embraced every part of the project. They loved the Skype and Google Hangout. It was planned so that the kids took ownership as much as possible. They had roles as questioners, answerers, greeters, map experts, etc. They propose discussion questions and decide which ones are strong enough to put on Edmodo, and are working at writing thoughtful responses. Reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking - it’s all there!


What other edtech tools are some of your favorites?

Right now, Edmodo is one of my favorites. I also continue to use Voicethread. Animoto is great for producing short videos. Padlet is very cool for sharing thoughts about pretty much anything.

What tools have you heard about recently that you are looking forward to trying out?

My teacher friend in Canada shared https://100wc.net, where people respond to prompts and share creative writing. I’d like to introduce that to my kids.

Any advice for teachers wanting to integrate edtech?

Just jump in, pick something, and try it. Most of the time there is a fairly short learning curve; sometimes you can even let the kids just figure it out for you! I would also say be prepared to love it and learn as much as your kids!

Ms. Bullard, thanks for taking the time, and you certainly deserve your #ShelbyTUITshoutout.

For those interested in connecting with other Skype teachers, check out Skype in the Classroom.

Innovate, Integrate, Motivate

It is hard to believe Shelby Schools begin in five days!  Counting down...

The title of today's post is three key words for any edtech educator, and the theme of Thursday's inaugural Oldham County Schools Educational Technology Conference. (That is a mouthful!  I'll call it OCSET-Con for short.)  Besides presenting about Teacher Technology Tools, I also attended several sessions and participated in the Twitter backchannel at #ocedtech14, and it's not too late to use the hashtag to review many of the tweets and pictures from the conference.

There were some great presenters and interesting edtech finds.  Here are a few of my favorite moments:

• The keynote was done virtually.  (The speaker, Richard Byrne, is well known for his blog Free Technology for Teachers.)  I was worried if my attention would stray without an actual human presence walking around, but Byrne was clever, concise, and engaging.  Among his edtech shares was a MIT App Inventor site that students have used to emulate their own smartphone apps.  Talk about real world use of technology!
• Tobie Keown (ECE teacher in the Oldham district) presented on Google Drive -- in particular, Google Forms.  She blogs as Mae's Morsels, and her Google Slides presentation and accompanying video are located in this post.  One interesting idea she had: make a table in Google Sheets that can be edited by other users, share a link to the doc with students, and have them enter their thoughts (perhaps as an entrance/exit slip) into individual boxes.  If numbered or color coded, it can be easy to tell each student which box to use.
• Courtney Perkins from South Oldham High School discussed Socrative.  They've recently upgraded their service and this formative assessment / data collection tool has many new features, including automatically saving results in your teacher "dashboard" and allowing quizzes to continue running overnight or for days -- useful for a flipped classroom or homework.
• Christi Unker (@cunker), a librarian at Oldham County High School, shared her work with Animoto.  Creating student accounts that can be monitored by a teacher can be time-consuming, but the program is easy, intuitive, and create fantastic, professional looking videos by simply uploading your photos.  Lots of fun templates and royalty-free music are included on the site.
• Last but not least, I was flattered to present the same session twice due to enrollment interest in my first "slot" making it standing room only.  Besides the ten tools, I gave a "bonus" in the form of beginning the session with a Kahoot quiz, which is fast becoming one of my favorite new edtech tools and was a hit with the audiences.

After the conference, the day ended with a first for me: after trying and failing to make it week after week, I was finally able to participate in a regional Twitter chat.  #kyedchat happens every Thursday at 8:00 PM EST.  (On this particular night, it was moderated by James Allen [@TLJamesA], another librarian at OCHS and one of the leader/organizers of OCSET-Con.)  Educators, I'm telling you -- if you don't yet recognize the power of Twitter and how it can increase both your PLN and your knowledge, participate in one.  You will become a convert. 

Congrats to all who organized OCSET-Con, and thanks for all the new edtech knowledge to start my school year!