Nearpod, SAMR, and Transitional Pedagogy

Welcome back to school!  Due to a new K-8 school being built, Shelby County went to a contingency calendar and our first day back for students was today.  So most of you have at least a few weeks head start on us.

Since my last entry, Edtech Elixirs has hit a happy birthday milestone.  My first entry was August 1, 2014.  That makes the blog five years old, with an average of a thousand views per entry (as of today, 141 entries and over 141,000 views)!  Not coincidentally -- as the blog began partially as a resource for Shelby educators -- I also had my five year anniversary with the district as well. As always, I thank my blog readers for giving me the audience to share my edtech findings and think-alouds, and I thank Shelby County for allowing me to follow my edtech integration passion.

And now onto today's topic focus . . .

Back in June, I attended the third annual Deeper Learning Symposium hosted by Jefferson County Public Schools.  One of the presenters was Danna Pearsall, who shared her knowledge on Nearpod.  I learned about a few new features, including the ability for students to take (and then download) notes while participating in a Nearpod Presentation.  These notes -- complete with the slides themselves --- can even be added to their own Google Drive!  (It should be noted that the notes feature is only available if the presenter gets the paid version of Nearpod.   More on that in a bit.)

An example page from downloaded student notes.  This is a premium "Gold" (i.e. paid) feature of Nearpod and needs to be enabled by the teacher.

Before I go any further, I should mention that Nearpod itself feels like an old friend that I actually first tried out back in my classroom teaching days.   When I came to Shelby, it was one of the earliest edtech tools I recommended to staff, and I wrote about our teachers using it in the first year of Edtech Elixirs.  As much as I admired Nearpod in the past, I continue to be impressed as it grows, thrives and improves in 2019 and beyond.

What is Nearpod?  Put simply, it is a teacher-paced, guided presentation tool with interactive elements that can help you assess your students in real time, as well as give you data reports to analyze later.    Although you can create a presentation from scratch inside Nearpod, most will prefer importing a finished one into the platform, and that is where I want to make a tangent before discussing more about the tool itself.  The real power of a tool like Nearpod is that it is a schema scaffold for tech-hesitant teachers to expand their edtech integration ability into the classroom.

How do we reflect on the deepness and richness of edtech implementation? Consider SAMR as a way of analyzing the net effect (pun intended!) of when technology is integrated into a classroom lesson:

• Substitution is where new tech replaces old digital/analog tools, but the task is unchanged.
• Augmentation is the same task, but there is more functionality and improvement of effectiveness because of the technology.
• In Modification, you have redesigned parts of the task, and begin to see the transformative nature of the technology use.
• Redefinition is the ultimate transformative experience that usually reaches an audience or collaborators outside of the four walls of the classroom.  Here, we design and create tasks previously inconceivable thanks to the technology.

One of the things I love about SAMR as a reflective tool is that the focus is on the task, not the technology.  There are no points earned in SAMR for mere edtech usage; it is all about integration and intentionality.  As an example of this, consider Skype.  When it first became a mainstream tool, it seemed like something out of a sci-fi show.  (On a screen or flat panel, Skype still reminds me of the Star Trek viewscreen on the bridge of the Enterprise.) .However, if you got a person to Skype into your classroom and just ends up a talking head that is remotely piloting a PowerPoint, how transformative is that compared to a guest speaker coming in person and droning on for an hour?  You are, from a learning perspective, breaking even at best.  If it is a non-interactive lecture, one would be better off with the guest shooting a video, burning it on a DVD, and mailing you the disc.  (At least you could pause a DVD!) As you can see, it is not Skype itself, but the use of Skype that has to be analyzed via the SAMR lens.  So it is with any technology you bring into the classroom: you need to first consider your task at hand and the academic objectives you want to meet.

The act of going from S/A to M/R means going from tech enhancement to tech transformation of what a learning experience can be, as well as going from a teacher-centered to a student-centered environment.  Who is making the tech choices? Are students creating or consuming?  Put another way, if the electricity and Internet go out, a S/A lesson can theoretically be improvised and continue ("I'll guess I'll lecture without pictures," or "I'll hand out a multiple choice quiz on paper instead") whereas a M/R lesson would be dead in the water.

Understanding SAMR is all well and good, and most teachers can make a Substitution move fairly easily, such as going from an overhead projector to a PowerPoint.   The struggle is finding a pragmatic way to get to "AMR" edtech integrations.  Here it is a question both of appropriate tools that stretch without overwhelming the educator, as well as finding a judgment-free way for the educator to grow their pedagogy.   While Substitution often (but not always!) is typical of a traditional pedagogical environment (i.e. direct instruction, lecture-minded, teacher-centered), it is unrealistic to assume an experienced teacher can or even should jettison all of their former skills and tools to move into a transformative pedagogy.   Indeed, there are times that Substitution (or no tech at all!) might be best, or traditional lectures and direct instruction may be necessary to properly meet the specific and contextual academic objectives at hand.   The only concern is being stuck in an instructional rut of always doing Substitution/traditional approaches when other ways might be more effective or impactful on learning.

And that is why a tool like Nearpod can be a powerful tool, especially for teachers just learning to grow their edtech practice.   Nearpod's original genius was its assumption that many teachers already have a storehouse of instructional material -- PowerPoints.   Nearpod makes it easy to import these pre-existing PowerPoints into Nearpod Presentations.   All that's left is adding interactive elements such as polls, open ended questions, "draw it" features, and quizzes.  When a teacher is ready, he/she turns the Nearpod Presentation into a live session.  A nice bonus: since the session will be pushed to the students' screens, you don't need a main projector or display.  A student doesn't need to create an account; the teacher's live session generates a unique code only good for the current event, and a student easily joins the session with that code and signs in by providing their name.  (While there are apps for Nearpod that makes it somewhat easier to join a session from a mobile device, any device with a browser and Internet access will do.)  The pacing -- that is, when the slides advance -- is completely in control of the teacher.  When interactive elements occur, teachers can see the data in real time, and even share a student answer anonymously to all the screens for the sake of discussion or highlighting a good model example.  At the end of the live session, a final report is generated for the teacher where you can review the data/answers from all the interactive elements as a PDF.   Thus, Nearpod's potential for Augmentation and beyond can be plainly seen.   Students are interacting with the teacher, content and each other in new ways; a teacher can use the assessment data to impact and change instruction in real time as well as for future planning; a student can think and reflect more deeply via the interactive assessments than a Scantron bubble test could ever reveal.  And imagine if, instead of Slides and PowerPoints, students created Nearpods to lead interactive presentations, or to gather data from a user group as part of a Design Thinking invention process! In short, Nearpod allows for genuine blended learning.

Here is a video which demonstrates how Nearpod led an instructor from his former mode of PowerPoint presentations and pushed him forward to a transformative classroom (1:13):

It should be noted that while the features mentioned above can all be done with the free Nearpod version, paid versions exist (currently $120 and up annually for an individual license) that give additional tools.  The licensing is based on a teacher, or "creator" account -- a student participating in Nearpods never has to pay or even make an account.   Additional features for the paid version include some additional interactive/inserted material elements (such as inserting YouTube videos), increased online storage space for your Nearpod Presentations (from 100 MB to 1 GB and up**), enabling the student notes feature mentioned earlier, and perhaps most importantly, the ability for students to do a Nearpod Presentation "anytime, anywhere" (perhaps personalized to student needs!) instead of only when a teacher makes a live session.

If you are interested in pre-made Nearpod Presentations, there is an online store.  Thanks to a multitude of partnerships with companies such as Common Sense Media, Teaching Tolerance, CK-12, PhET, Newsela, and BBC Worldwide, the catalog is deep, with high quality lessons across a wide gamut of content and grade levels.  However, while some of these are free, many of them cost from a few dollars for a single lesson up to approximately $30 for a bundle.

Other features of Nearpod that have been added in the last few years include:

• Google Slides Add-On.  There already was a free Chrome Extension (Nearpodize) that could take your Google Slides and convert them into a Nearpod Presentation.  However, you can now easily insert interactive material while creating your Slides, then upload it all to Nearpod.  From the Slides menu, choose Add-Ons > Get add-ons and search for Nearpod.  Read here for more details.
• Nearpod 3D.  You have a gallery of over 100 three dimensional, manipulatable objects to insert into your presentation.  Students can rotate them and zoom in and out.  The gallery categories are Ancient Times, Amazing Places and Things, Environment, Human Body, and Microscopic.  Read here to find out more.
• Nearpod VR.   Imagine taking your students on a virtual field trip and seeing a place in a 360 degree environment.  Nearpod has an extensive amount of VR Presentations in their store -- some free, some not.  Two things are outstanding about Nearpod VR.  Firstly, there are incredible choices across multiple contents -- even ELA and math! (Recently, lessons were added that incorporate Historical Perspectives and Literacy, which fits nicely with new social studies standards.) Secondly, Nearpod VR works fine on any device, including Chromebooks.  While phones in goggle headsets may make VR more immersive, Nearpod VR requires no special equipment or setup.  For more details, read here.

The Nearpod Google Slides Add On allows you to insert activities while composing your Slides, which then can easily be uploaded / converted to a Nearpod Presentation.  Note that some of these activity options only work with the paid version.

If there was a downside to Nearpod, it is definitely the price point for the premium features.  While I appreciate what you get for free, and that the paid licenses have likely enabled Nearpod to endure and improve for all these years, I just wish there was a tier between free and $120+.  Perhaps a middle option of $20-30 a year to allow student to take notes and teachers to give students Nearpod Presentations that are personalized "anytime / anywhere" lessons/homework?

Nearpod starts with existing edtech schema and pedagogy (PowerPoints, direct instruction, lecture) and builds upon it to create a deeper learning experience.  I could mention other edtech examples that do the same, such as Google Docs, which takes what teachers and students already know about word processor programs and has the potential to improve the task of writing itself (i.e., Google Docs allows students to have real-time collaboration and use Comments for more effective peer feedback).  The point here is that tools like Nearpod and Google Docs stand on the threshold between traditional and transformational pedagogy.  These tools are part of a much needed bridge of a larger transitional pedagogical framework, necessary for improving not just edtech integration, but the nature of teaching and learning itself.

**Update: the storage size is updated, as of 8/14/20.   As with all edtech, other elements of Nearpod described in this entry may also change over time.

Summer 2017 Professional Development PD Adventures

Greetings from the last month of the 2016-2017 school year!  As we near the end of one cycle and prepare to begin again in July, I have had the pleasure and privilege of recently attending and presenting at two professional development opportunities with one more major regional PD coming in August!

For the third year in a row, I attended the free Innovations for Learning conference in Lexington on June 1.  (For the first time, their registration numbers resulted in a "sell out"!)  In the morning, I partnered with the KDE KyGoDigital team to work with CIO's and TRT's about how Google apps and other key edtech can impact instruction.  In the afternoon, I presented a few sessions on game-based learning / gamification, as well as innovative presentation tools for teachers and students.  This last session was livestreamed via KDE's YouTube channel:

Note: CheckThis, the last web tool in the presentation above, just discontinued its service.

IFL is an incredible and generous opportunity from Fayette County to learn, share and network.  I highly recommend attending it next summer if you can, and follow the conference hashtag at #IFLLEX.

On June 7-9, Jefferson County Public Schools had its first Deeper Learning Symposium.  (Follow their hashtag #JCPSDL.)  Nearly two thousand JCPS educators descended on the Kentucky Exposition Center to expand their conceptualization of what learning needs to be.  As a person who had their presentation proposal accepted (once again on the topic of game-based learning), I was a fortunate non-JCPS attendee.  While several sessions were intriguing, one of the more inspiring sessions was a keynote screening of the documentary Beyond Measure, which happens to feature the journey of Kentucky's Trigg County Public Schools from traditional methods into a new mode of teaching and learning.  I was excited to see educators, many for the first time, talk about using Twitter, competency-based education, the power of PBL, and so much more!

As we look ahead, don't forget that EdCampKY will be at Bardstown Middle School on August 26, 2017.  Be sure to get your free tickets here!

CheckThis

Note: as of 5/31/17 and after five years online, CheckThis has now gone dark. I will keep this entry online only for archiving purposes.  

As our district begins to explore deeper ways for students to apply their knowledge and demonstrate understanding (such as exhibitions and capstone projects), there is a greater need for presentation tools besides Google Slides and MS PowerPoints.  One of the newest ones I've discovered is CheckThis.  They use the term "social poster" to describe their published product, but it's really just a simple website creator.  It's free, extremely easy even for younger users, and students/teachers can log in with their Google account (Twitter and Facebook are also options) to quickly register on the site.

How does it work?   You can access CheckThis via a web tool or an iOS app.  Once you register your account and create your post, you can start by editing the title, subtitle and beginning text.   By hitting the green "plus" button, you can add more multimedia: text, images (uploaded from your computer or URLs from the web), video (YouTube and Vimeo URLs), website links (Google Maps, online sound files [SoundCloud, BandCamp], tweets, or any other site URL), and built-in CheckThis apps such as a poll.

When you are ready, you can publish your "social poster" and share the URL via Twitter and other social media.  One of the interesting functions of CheckThis is that not only can you see how many views the social poster receives, but you can also receive "likes" and comments.

I found this helpful video of a user making a social poster.  I like it because it effectively demonstrates how easy it is to click and add media:

It should be noted that CheckThis will allow you to publish a social poster without logging in, but there are many benefits to creating an account, not least of which is the problem of students putting work into publishing without an account and later not being able to find the URL to edit it further or share.


An example social poster I made about "Ideas for Nearpod" is linked here.

Note the embedded YouTube video at the top, the website linked at the bottom, and the commentary column on the right side.

How could you use it?   As I already mentioned, CheckThis could be a basic website page creation tool to go with digital presentations, especially for projects that wouldn't need the complexity of options that something like Google Sites or Weebly might offer.  It could also be a way of creating online multimedia personal notes, since you could easily switch from text to pertinent links, images and videos.  Lastly, the commenting feature might create an opportunity to have digital discourse, as students give each other feedback and perhaps have a running dialogue.

Downsides?  When I first tried CheckThis and created the social poster linked above, you had another option for creating an account by using an email and password.  Recently, however, they removed that option, which leaves my account in limbo because I can no longer log in via my email.  That's a personal problem, but I had to share, as I have tweeted CheckThis and not heard yet how to successfully merge my "email" account with another option.  Of course, if you are brand new to CheckThis, you won't have this issue.

It should be noted that comments cannot be turned off.  Since these social posters are completely public and cannot be moderated, monitoring of commentary (especially with younger students) may be a necessary burden for the teacher.

Do you already use CheckThis or see other ways it could be utilized?  Please share in the Comments below!

Welcome to the 2016-2017 School Year!

It's hard to believe, but today our Shelby County students and teachers begin a new school year!  And whether you are an educator just starting, already started, or start next week, I wish you the best and most productive and joyous 36 weeks ahead.

Did you have a good summer?  Did you travel and rejuvenate yourself?  On the personal side, my family and I visited friends in Ontario, Canada, not far from Toronto and Niagara Falls.  Among our stops was the Waterloo Region Museum.  Although the museum itself had interesting exhibits, it was its Doon Heritage Village that truly was a memorable experience.  Strolling through a replica of a 1914 Waterloo town, complete with curators in period costumes who share what life was like a century ago, made me realize the power of immersive educational experiences in real time and in real spaces.

That's not to be too dismissive of the virtual educational possibilities of Pokemon Go, Google Expeditions or the new VR Nearpod "field trips," but authentic role playing is hard to beat!

On the professional side, I was fortunate to once again be a part of the planning and organizing of EdCampKY in July.  We had three firsts:

• We held it at an elementary school.
• Shelby County was the host -- or more specifically, Southside Elementary.
• We had a theme: Star Wars!

The EdCampKY went wonderfully, as always because of the attendees.  Special thanks to the 501st Legion, who put in an appearance that helped raise money for charity and gave me the opportunity to take a picture with a stormtrooper!  (One item can now be crossed off my bucket list.)

Last but not least...it is very exciting to see how nearby districts are launching their own Chromebook and GAFE initiatives.  In the last few weeks, I was fortunate and flattered to be asked to facilitate some start of school PD with Scott and Trimble Counties.  We at Shelby consider it opportunities to become learning partners with other districts and grow together in the digital conversion of classrooms to come.

So wherever you are in your edtech journey, remember: take risks, fail forward with purpose, and dare to transform your teaching this year!

TUIT: Julia Lyles, James Morgan, Colby Wilmoth, and an entire high school

Happy April Fool's!  As the days count down to spring break and the end of my embedded tour at Heritage Elementary (Painted Stone, I'll see you Monday the 13th!), I wanted to squeeze out one more Edtech Elixirs entry.

Looking over my latest blog posts, I realized that I haven't given a #ShelbyTUITshoutout recently. Luckily, I have several reasons to do so today.

Julia Lyles is a new 3rd grade teacher here at Heritage. Last week, she asked me to help co-teach her class and we used Nearpod in a work station setting.  (You can read more about Nearpod in a previous entry.)  Ms. Lyles reminded me that even if you have only a few devices, Nearpod can be useful in a rotational station format.  I was glad to see her integrating Nearpod in a lesson with such young students, and happy to help teach in her classroom.

James Ray Morgan is Heritage's music teacher.  He already had an interest in edtech before I arrived, but after our consultation, he is now in the process of creating a YouTube channel of helpful videos for his students.  For example, Mr. Morgan wants to create tutorials for next year's classes to learn to play a recorder (or use the videos for extra practice, support, and enrichment).  In addition, he is creating a website as a launching platform for his class; you can view it here. He's well on his way to flipping and blending his instruction! (Note: if you want help recording directly on YouTube with your webcam, check out one of my how-to videos below.)

Today I observed Colby Wilmoth with her second graders.  What was impressive was not just the edtech tools themselves (a SMART board interactive clock activity, a document camera to demonstrate drawing a clock face, and so on), but how seamlessly she moved from one to another.  In addition, Ms. Wilmoth reminded me of the need for balancing your tools.  Her students drew large clock faces onto their desks with dry-erase markers, then practiced in pairs putting the correct hour and minute hand for a list of times.  Of course, there are digital equivalents you could do for this, but the tactile analog nature of drawing on a desk has its own benefits for engagement and learning.

Last but not least, I have a historic shoutout to give: to an entire school! At Martha Layne Collins High School,  Instructional Coaches Jennifer Cox and Tracy Huelsman (along with the enthusiastic encouragement of principal John Leeper) gave their staff a Twitter challenge this week. Using the hashtag #TitanStrong (created by Mr. Leeper), Ms. Cox and Huelsman have asked teachers to tweet every day, once a day, all week long.

Be sure to follow MLC @MLCTitanNation Ts tweeting with #TitanStrong this week.Goal is 1 tweet per classroom per day! pic.twitter.com/o5kF4iPXi0
— Adam Watson (@watsonedtech) March 30, 2015

The results have been fantastic and it has been very fun to follow the hashtag.   In some cases, teachers are tweeting for the very first time.  Good job, Collins!

A well deserved shoutout to MLC, Ms. Wilmoth, Mr. Morgan, and Ms. Lyles! Enjoy your spring break and the mild weather.

Formative

Here we are on the eve of KySTE 2015, and what better way to celebrate than to share a new tool?

It's strange how the world works.  Infuse Learning is an assessment tool I've plugged in several of my PDs in the past.  Unfortunately, they recently sent out a mass email and wrote a blog entry informing its users that the site will close down permanently on April 3.   Although there were some beta and buggy issues that sometimes compromised the tool, it had a lot going for it, and it was hard to complain about its cost (free!).

But as one door closes, another one opens.  Usually when a company follows me on Twitter, I give its website a glance for 30 seconds and move on.  However, a few weeks back, the folks at Formative got my attention.  I looked at their site....and looked at it some more.  That led to a slew of emails and a Skype chat with Kevin McFarland (one of its creators), and here I have to give praise. McFarland has gone above and beyond answering my questions and demoing this new website with me.  He's a former educator with a passion for his product, and it shows.  Now, McFarland admits that Formative is just out of beta with some powerful upgrades still around the corner, but I have to be honest: even from playing with it as is, I can tell this will quickly become one of my favorite formative assessment tools.  Plus, it is completely free.

How does it work?  Formative is a Web 2.0 tool that is device-agnostic -- if you can get to the Internet you can use it.  Basically, a teacher can create formative assessments (Formative calls them "assignments," as a reminder that the site can be more than just a quizmaker) and students can take them one of two ways: either in a "open" way that requires no account or registration, or they can log in to begin a data trail tied to their name.  In a novel touch, when teachers create assessments, they are given either a "Quick Code" or a direct URL they can share with students that would technically work in either registered or unregistered mode.  This dual nature of Formative is powerful.  The open mode makes it easy for teachers to try it out with their class, and allows students to take assessments in seconds (much like the open systems of Nearpod's "sessions" or joining a Socrative "room number").  On the other hand, registered accounts will eventually allow student data to be collected and analyzed over time, something that is beyond the current capabilities of Nearpod and Socrative.  While on the subject of those two popular tools, Formative has obviously studied them and others in an attempt to bring the best options together in one product.

There are two types of assignments that a teacher can create: "build your own from scratch," or "upload & transform a document."

Build your own from scratch:  After deciding on your assignment title, you can either "Add a Question" or "Add Content."  For questions, you can choose a typed response, multiple choice, true or false, or "show your work," which is basically a whiteboard tool for students.  (This drawing function reminds me of one of my favorite aspects of Nearpod.)  For content, you can easily embed a YouTube video, or draw and share something you created on a whiteboard.  There is also a Rich Text Format editor as a content option, but I had issues successfully embedding code or making hyperlinks active; at the very least, this could function as an informational text box inside your assignment.  The RTF editor aside, the tools were easy to manipulate and edit.  In an upcoming upgrade, McFarland says you will even be able to tag questions with specific Core Content standards.  The eventual implications of this is enormous; for example, perhaps you could see how one student is handling a specific standard, or run a report of all the standards with how your class is doing with them.

Upload & transform a document:  This to me is one of the more awesome aspects of Formative.  We often talk of making a paperless classroom, but for many teachers like myself, we have reams of great assessments that either exist as paper versions only (you could scan it and make a PDF, but then what?) or are carefully crafted in an electronic document that doesn't easily lend itself to be reconfigured as a quiz.  How do you make the bridge? Formative has the easiest solution I've seen so far.

If you choose upload, you are confronted with a myriad of choices, as the picture below shows.

In Formative's upload tool, you can transform a website, access your Google Drive for docs, access Facebook (!) or even take a picture (!!), among several other options.

Once uploaded and transformed, Formative allows you to edit the assignment in various ways.  The most obvious is you can add "answer boxes" wherever you like in whatever size you like.  Answer types not only include text and multiple choice, but drawing and taking a picture!  (You also have a whiteout tool to "cover" part of your upload if necessary.)   You can delete pages you don't need and resize, delete or move any boxes after the fact.

After an uploaded assignment is saved, you can choose it from your Dashboard, go to Live Results, and edit the answer key for automatic grading of right and wrong answers.  I like how you can list multiple answers as correct ("30," "Thirty" and "thirty," for example).  The Dashboard will give the assessment's Quick Code or direct URL, and allow a teacher to see students' answers in real time.   The default grade value of each question is 10 points, which you can change.  As students answer, you can manually change the right/wrong answer grades as well as assess the qualitative responses, like drawing or text.   Here again, Formative has a unique tool with a red to green "slider" which can make the points go from zero to the maximum amount.  (According to McFarland, giving additional written feedback in this same slider area is a near-future upgrade.)  From the Dashboard, you can click "Export" and download an Excel spreadsheet that gives a simplified, but useful, report on all the students who have taken your assignment.

Clearly this student has not watched Star Wars.

Like any brand new tool, there are some quirks that you either need to be aware of to avoid or will hopefully be improved in future versions.  I already mentioned the RTF editor issues when creating an assignment from scratch.  When working with an uploaded document, I hit a few walls.  For example, if you add answer boxes to multiple pages and then decide to delete some of those pages, you will notice under Live Results that the "deleted" answer boxes are still there.  (Perhaps delete the answer boxes BEFORE deleting the pages.)  Multiple choice answer boxes create how many letters and number of choices you want (A, B, C...) but you can't actually add answers to each letter (A: blue, B: red....), so if the multiple choice selections aren't already on the uploaded document, you are probably better off with a text response.  Another annoyance is that if you add an answer box after the fact in the middle of two existing answer boxes, the number assigned is not in sequence but what would actually be the next number as if it is at the end.  For example, if after making an assignment with 36 answer boxes, you decide to go back and put an answer box between #7 and #8, it will number it #37.  Issues like these actually led to me deleting my uploaded assignment and starting over, so for now, plan your uploaded assignment creations carefully.  But these are quibbles.  I cannot stress enough how awesome it is that Formative can magically transform your existing documents into digital assignments; it's a game changer and by itself makes the site worthy of a try-out.


How could you use it?  As mentioned previously, Formative's strength is that it could do the best of both worlds.  If you want students to interact with digital assessments without registering, you can easily do so via its Quick Codes or public links (much like Nearpod or Socrative requires no student account to interact with its tools).  If you plan on using it often and want longitudinal data, students can create accounts and you can eventually analyze their answers over time.  And don't forget your ability to digitally convert existing documents, or even transforming a webpage or a picture into an interactive assessment.  Last but not least, a flipped/blended or differentiated classroom experience can be as easy as handing out Quick Codes. Simply put, Formative is one of the most user-friendly and powerful formative tools I've found.

Downsides?   You may have to wait a few more months for some more useful upgrades like tagging questions with Common Core standards and giving written feedback, but patience will be rewarded with this tool.  Mr. McFarland really cares about input from teachers that can improve the product, so this is a site that can only get better.  He also promised that the core product will always be free for teachers, and that's music to my ears.

Go now and get Formative!  If you are already a user or after you try it out, leave a Comment below and share your successes and challenges with the tool.

TUIT: Brandon Gabbard and Ben Carter, WMS

As I near the end of my last full week at West Middle, I'm excited to see so many teachers trying out my edtech tool suggestions.  Interestingly here at WMS, several teachers have taken a partnership attitude toward first attempts.  This is actually a brilliant idea that I will suggest at future embedded visits: by finding a partner to take the leap with you (whether in your department or grade level or even across town), you can learn together and not feel alone.

On that note, I have a few WMS Warrior pairs to give a #ShelbyTUITshoutout.   Our first shoutout goes to social studies teachers Ben Carter and Brandon Gabbard, and their use of Nearpod!

For those unfamiliar with Nearpod, it's a great bridge between what you already have and taking your edtech integration to the next level.  If you have already made a fantastic PowerPoint for content delivery, you can import it into Nearpod and be 90% finished.

Nearpod is basically an interactive presentation, or as some call it, "PowerPoint on steroids."  You create slides of content inside the site, or import PowerPoints, PDFs, and JPEGs to make as slides.  (Quick tip: I recommend "writing" the bulk of your presentation in PowerPoint, then import into Nearpod; the editing, writing, and template choices  inside of NearPod is rudimentary and not as robust.   Also, you can't easily edit slides once imported, so be sure your PowerPoint is a final draft.)   Next, add any interactives. In the free version, your interactives include quizzes, polls, open response questions, and even a drawing function.   Save and publish your pod when finished.  When it has finished processing, you can run a Nearpod by making it a "Live Session." Students can either go to the Nearpod website with the  browser of any device (or download and use their free app) and join the session with the PIN number that you give the students; Nearpod generates a new PIN every time you fire up a session.   As you push out the interactives, you can see their answers in real time, and even share an individual response (without their name displayed!) to the whole class.  At the end of the session, you can run a report showing all the individual student submissions for each interactive.

One of the great things about Nearpod is that you don't even need a projector, since all the content is pushed to the screen of the student devices.  A teacher can start a live session from their mobile device (say, their iPad or laptop).  While walking the classroom floor, she can "steer" and push the interactives and slides at will, looking at her live dashboard as students answer and interact.

Note that for the free account, you can only run "live" sessions.  For the Gold level (approximately $120 a year), you can run a session as homework and use Nearpod as another way of flipping your classroom.  (Gold level also gets you more space for more Nearpods, as well as additional interactive options.)

Another thing about Nearpod is the ability to get already made Pods from their "store" (some free, some for a charge) or from other users.  The steps on how to share Pods with colleagues are unfortunately not as intuitive as it could be, so I'm providing the instructions below.
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To share presentations between users you must:

• Go to your Home Screen (“What would you like to do?”) and go to the Create tab.  (I know, this seems counterintuitive, but trust me.)
• Select the presentation you want to share.  There should be options at the top of the page.  Find “More” (with the three dots and the down arrow) on the far right, then choose “Share."

• An email dialogue will pop up with a default message.  Put the email address of the person you want to share the link with.  (It may help if you use the same email address that they use to log into Nearpod.)

• Once the user receives this message, they can click on the link (which will ask them to log into Nearpod) so they can import the Pod into their own library.  Once they have it, it is their copy to use and edit. You can send to multiple people at the same time.

Note:  if you are in “My Library” and choose a Nearpod, the “Share” button doesn’t work in the way detailed above; it only gives you an embed code. The embed code is for a website and not for a live session or homework. 

Purchased presentations cannot be shared.
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When Mr. Gabbard and Mr. Carter heard about Nearpod, they began collaborating on one the next day.  As social studies teachers, they of course already had PowerPoints of content, so it was just a matter of importing one into a Nearpod and adding interactives.   Were the kids engaged? See this example from Mr. Gabbard's class:

http://t.co/yRdldwhjBU captured the attention of all learners in Mr. Gabbard'a Geography class! @watsonedtech pic.twitter.com/S08Lgt0ZlK
— WMS-Warrior Nation (@ShelbyWMS) January 20, 2015

Congratulations to Mr. Carter and Mr. Gabbard for their #ShelbyTUITshoutout!

Do you use Nearpod in your content and grade level?  What do you think?  Reply in Comments below.

TUIT: Makenzi Hunter, SSE

When I asked several Southside staff members for a SSE teacher that comes to mind when you think edtech, the name Makenzi Hunter (@makenzihunter) came up repeatedly.  That perfectly corresponds to her peers recognizing her as the 2013-2014 Southside Teacher of the Year.  I interviewed Makenzi about her use of edtech.

Welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Please introduce yourself to our blog readers.  

My name is Makenzi Hunter and I teach visual art to K-5 students at Southside. I am beginning my 4th year of teaching. I first learned of integrating education and technology in graduate classes at UofL. I was introduced to Prezi as a graduate class assignment and continued my own exploration after that.

How have you used your document camera to create a blended learning environment in your classroom?

In my classroom, the document camera is essential in preparing for instruction. Most of our projects are divided into 3 or 4 class periods. I use the document camera to record myself creating the artwork required for each class period. I play the video while introducing the lesson and it remains on while students are working to serve as a continuous model.

I heard you have used Aurasma, which is an Augmented Reality (AR) iOS/Android app.  Tell us about it.

The SSE related arts team was looking for an engaging way to present one of the Seven Habits of Leader in Me to the staff. The music teacher, Erin Jump, read about the app Aurasma and brought it to the group. Each of us created an Aurasma profile, recorded a video discussing part of the habit and uploaded it. We asked the staff members to bring their device to the meeting and download the app. Staff members were then able to walk around the halls, point their device at the prepared document [which triggers the video to play], and learn about the habit at their own pace.

What other edtech tools are some of your favorites?

I use Socrative as an assessment tool, SafeShare.TV for showing videos from YouTube and Evernote as an organization tool.

How important is it for an art teacher to integrate technology?

I feel that being an art teacher requires the use of technology. My students will only learn so much from the limited knowledge and experiences I have to offer, so I feel that it is my obligation to expose them to far more than that. I want to offer students the opportunity to visit a museum online,  converse with an artist through Skype, leave feedback for one another on a digital platform and document their experience through the use of technology.

What tools have you heard about recently that you are wanting to try out for the first time?

I am interested in trying Flipgrid as a tool to gather student feedback and Nearpod as a way to have more interactive instruction.

Any advice you would like to share with other teachers wanting to integrate edtech?

My advice to teachers wanting to integrate technology would be to only try one thing at a time. Full integration lends itself to trial and error which can be frustrating. Choose one tool that blends well with your current style of teaching and give it a try.

I want to thank Ms. Hunter for graciously giving her time.  She definitely deserves a #ShelbyTUITshoutout!