KyEdRPG in Kentucky Teacher

 

Back in September 2022, I wrote a series of three blog entries for the launch of my new site, Kentucky Educators for Role Playing Games.  I also interviewed Justin Gadd (Shelby County Public Schools) about his afterschool D & D club, and shared how Patrick La Mar (Oldham County Public Schools) integrated an Oregon Trail-style roleplaying game into a social studies lesson. 

Last week, Kentucky Teacher published an article highlighting all of the above: "The power of role-playing games for deeper learning experiences."  It's a great title and one that I whole-heartedly agree; game-based learning in general, and RPGs in particular, certainly have a lot of potential for deepening learning!

Special thanks to Audrie Lamb for writing the article, Justin and Patrick for taking the time to get interviewed, and Kentucky Teacher for featuring the #KyEdRPG site.

KyEdRPG, Part Three: Westward Expansion, d20 Style

This is Part Three of a three part series to kick off a new website, KyEdRPG, and how role playing games can positively impact student learning.  In Part One, we celebrated the launch of the website itself. In Part Two, we shared the experience of a Kentucky middle school teacher who runs an extracurricular D & D club that has been both virtual and in person. In this final entry, we discuss how a Kentucky teacher created a more engaging and impactful way of teaching about U.S. westward expansion with an in-class role playing game.

Patrick La Mar is a social studies teacher currently at North Oldham High School in Oldham County Public Schools (KY-USA).  Back when he was teaching at Oldham County Middle School, a principal asked if there were ways to make his lessons on westward expansion more engaging for students. Patrick became inspired and synthesized two games into one:  Dungeons & Dragons, and The Oregon Trail.  (Coincidentally, both of these started within a few years of each other; the first The Oregon Trail [text-based] video game launched in 1971, and D & D was first published in 1974.)

For this in-class RPG, the students are put in groups.  They either choose or are assigned roles such as Banker, Doctor, Trapper and so on.  Each role gives a certain advantage in one of its character abilities.  Next, students embark on their journey via a Slides deck of twelve events, often rolling a d20 dice to see if they persevere through their challenge or fail.  (Yes, death by dysentery is a possibility.)

Coupled with an opportunity to individually reflect on the experience at the end of the lesson (what was the biggest takeaway? what would you do differently if you played the game again?), I imagine students have a much better appreciation for the hazards of westward expansion in the 1800's, and that knowledge can also spur some interesting conversations.  For example, how often did the Sioux actually attack the Oregon Trail pioneers?  How might we look today at the point of view of various First Nations tribes that such settlers were moving through territory that pioneers didn't own and without Native American permission?   We can see how the power of role playing games to both problem solve, as well as critically consider and think through alternative perspectives. 

For Patrick's game materials, check out the Google folder here.  And for more RPG teacher resources, check out this page of the KyEdRPG website!

I hope you enjoyed this three part series.  For those new to the idea of role playing games in education, may it inspire you to find some ways to incorporate them into your own school or classroom.  And for those that are educators and already ardent fans of RPGs, may you share your own resources, articles and ideas by interacting through the KyEdRPG social media as well as using the hashtag #KyEdRPG!

Verso

At the beginning of March, I had the fortunate opportunity to attend and present at the KySTE conference in Louisville -- the first time the conference was back in person since the pandemic started.  (I was literally at KySTE in 2020 when the world shut down, a story I shared here.)  As if fate wanted to re-affirm for me the value of KySTE, I learned of a new tool in the very first hour of the very first session of the conference that got me so excited, I knew I'd be doing a blog entry about it!  The presenter was Roslyn Manning -- more with her in a moment! --- and the tool was Verso.

Verso is a platform for virtually managing discourse in your classroom.   At its most basic, a teacher can create a question or pose an issue, and students can not only respond to the prompt, but to each other.  But Verso has an extensive set of tools that make it much more than just a place for an online conversation thread.

How does it work?

Firstly, you need to create a teacher or student account, either via email or through Google or Microsoft.  (I would recommend students use Google, to minimize remembering yet another username/password as well as to expedite Google integration.)

When a teacher first creates an account, Verso helps walk you through the creation of your first Class; you can create as many Classes as you like.  Each Class has a unique code that can be given to students, making it easy for them to join.  Once a Class is made, you have two basic kinds of discussions you can push to students: an Activity, or a Check-In With Students.

An Activity is the much more robust and customizable option.  You can attach files, links (to websites but also to videos), or something from your Google Drive to build schema before they address the prompt.  Next, you provide instructions in a Rich Text Format editor box.   You can give conversation starters, as well as suggest contextual and academic vocabulary to use.  There are several toggle settings where you can allow students to provide video or audio responses, upload files or images, or even limit them to 500 characters or less.  Lastly, you can indicate a specific start and end date for the Activity, turn on moderation if you want to approve responses before they appear, and determine whether students can comment on each other's responses.   After an Activity is launched, you have some other editing options, such as hiding student names from each other for anonymous responses and comments (although the teacher can still see who said what).

There are several features here worth mentioning that elevate these Activities.  Firstly, while you may not want or need to include every single aspect for every discussion, the formatting suggestions Verso provides is excellent scaffolding to ensure students engage in high quality discourse.    For example, your directions can provide sentence stems to model what a response or comment should sound like, and vocabulary suggestions are a reminder of both academic jargon that is appropriate to the content topic as well as discussion phrases that strengthen argumentation.   This leads us to a second useful feature: from the teacher's dashboard, you can even view responses that highlight when this vocabulary is used!

Check-In With Students is the other task option, which is much more template driven.  Its purpose is not so much open ended discourse as to have students reflect on their recent learning and/or how they are feeling.  While a Check-In may be limited in its customizations, the advantage here is that it can be quickly pushed out -- perhaps as an exit ticket at the close of a lesson, or a social-emotional learning (SEL) pulse check at the start of the day. 

Creating a Check-In can be done in just a few steps.  Note the potential categories in Step 2 which help shape the objective.

Once student responses come in from a Check-In, it's easy to see what category the students have self-assessed themselves so you can plan your next lesson accordingly.

How could you use it?

Verso clearly can make student online discussions more engaging and rigorous, as well as make SEL and learning reflections easy to push out and analyze.   Don't forget to utilize audio and/or video responses to increase equity for EL and ECE students; that way, the focus is on the quality of their responses' content as opposed to the medium of the reply.

Here's an excellent Activity tip from Roslyn: if you want students to comment on each other's responses, turn on moderation.  Once all students have responded, turn off moderation and "publish" all the responses, then remind students to now comment.   This will give all students the best chance to receive comments since all the responses are available at once.  (Without such management, the late responders will be the least likely to receive a comment.)  

Downsides?

With the free version, you are limited to only three active Activities (and can't edit them once created and saved) unless you pay for the premium version; as of the publication of this entry, this upgrade costs $59 a year.  It would be nice to see integrations such as Google Classroom which could pre-load a Class's roster.

As I explored Verso, I was definitely curious to hear more about how it's being used in the classroom, so reaching out to Mrs. Manning seemed a natural next step.  I've gotten to know Roslyn a bit through our Kentucky Digital Learning Coach state network, and I share her passion for student discourse.   So I was thankful she accepted my invitation to be interviewed for Edtech Elixirs!

Roslyn, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Share with us your educator story.  

​Thank you so much for having me! I come from a long line of educators--my grandmother was an elementary teacher in Alabama, and my mom was an ECS teacher in North Carolina where I grew up. She taught in a variety of different types of schools, but for most of her career she taught in the state juvenile prison system. Talk about an interesting childhood--I grew up roaming around the local prison! I knew that I would eventually become a teacher. I think it's a part of my DNA. I've always loved reading and writing, so I decided that I wanted to be an English teacher. I attended the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!) and graduated with a B.S. in Secondary Education Language Arts. I taught Advanced Junior English in Tuscaloosa right after graduating, and at the end of that school year, I moved to Kentucky to be closer to my now-husband. In 2013, I started teaching freshman and sophomore English at Oldham County High School while completing KTIP and getting my Master's in Teacher Leadership, focusing on Instructional Technology. In addition to growing in my technology use, I also worked to earn my National Board Certification. I often participated in school and district technology initiatives--Digital Leader Network, iTeam, etc., and in May 2020, I became our district's second Digital Learning Coach. 

Why do you feel that student discourse in general – especially peer to peer – is important?

​It's no secret these days that students struggle with communication. This is a skill that ALL people learn eventually, but I think the increase in technology has the general population complaining that "kids these days" only know how to communicate in text messages. As an educator, I think it's vital that we meet students where they are, and change our instruction to better prepare our students for the digital world that they communicate in. The variety of ways students can communicate just elevates the need to teach peer-to-peer communication more intentionally in MULTIPLE ways: verbally and digitally. 

What does digital discourse achieve differently, or perhaps even sometimes better, than face-to-face discussions?

​Digital discourse, in my experience, is a gateway to deeper face-to-face discussions. So many of our students need time to process their thoughts before sharing with an audience, whether that be a digital audience or an in-person audience. And, as I mentioned previously, students are communicating in writing much more frequently than they are verbally in person or over the phone, so why would we not intentionally give them learning opportunities to practice, make mistakes, and grow in this area? I wouldn't say digital discourse is inherently better than face-to-face discussions, but in the same way that we teach our children dinner table etiquette, we also have a shared responsibility to teach our students digital citizenship through netiquette. 

As an English teacher, I used to emphasize "code switching" with my students. I never wanted to shame them into thinking that their colloquial language  is "bad" or "wrong," but I did want them to learn the appropriate settings for the language that they choose to use. The same holds true for digital discourse, and there's a lot to be learned from digital communication. Students have to analyze tone and word choice to be effective communicators through writing. For most, verbal communication is much easier to deliver and decipher because of verbal and nonverbal cues, but written communication requires far more refined skills. It's important to provide a safe space for students to practice and refine these skills.   [Editor's Note: for more on the value of digital discourse, read this previous blog entry.]

I’m highlighting Verso in Edtech Elixirs, a tool I’m pretty excited to share!  Can you share any stories of how you or other Oldham teachers have used Verso effectively?

​A good friend of mine at Oldham County High School introduced me to Verso several years ago. She will tell anyone who asks that she's not "techy," but she discovered this tool when it was in Beta and started using it with her A.P. English Literature course. I quickly jumped on board and used it to set up a Socratic Seminar with my English II course. My students struggled with verbal discussion, especially if it was whole-class, so this was an easy way to get students talking to each other anonymously and to provide tons of support for them in the way of sentence stems and stimulus material for discussion. There are so many features available to teachers that we can use to help support our students' discussions, such as the ability to comment and "star" student feedback and even hide responses if they're inappropriate or irrelevant. 

Verso  is an excellent tool to give peer feedback on their work as well. I love the collaboration that comes from using Verso in so many different ways! 

Any other digital discourse tools that you’re a fan of?  

​There are so many ways for students to engage in digital discourse such as Padlet, Google Workspace tools, and more. However, I love using Parlay Ideas as well. Be aware that it is a freemium, so you don't get unlimited Roundtables. It's very similar to Verso in that you can have students communicate anonymously with their peers, but Parlay also has a "live Roundtable" option that helps you facilitate live discussions (similar to Socratic Seminars) where students can "tap in" to the conversation and teachers can "nudge" students to share their ideas with the class. 

Roslyn, thank you so much for agreeing to our interview today!  One final question: what’s your advice to teachers just starting to integrate technology into their classroom?

​Always be transparent with your students! As a young teacher, I thought I needed to "know it all" and felt embarrassed if I didn't know an answer or made a mistake. However, students appreciate hearing, "I've never used this before. If it totally flops, we'll figure it out." I experienced MUCH more success with technology when I was totally honest with my kids about the tools we were using. And most of the time, they were much more patient in the process if they knew we were all learning together!

What are your thoughts on Verso?  Have another favorite digital discourse tool?  Share in the Comments below!

Update 3/18/24:  With the free version of Verso, you now are limited to only three active Activities and cannot edit them once created and saved.  I'm not sure if you can delete one of these three Activities in order to "free" a slot, OR if the first three you create are free and you are then forced to upgrade the account (and deleting one wouldn't help).  I've updated the entry to reflect this change. 

The First Steps of 3D Printing

When I ran into Loretta Shake, the LMS of North Oldham Middle School, at EdcampKY a few weeks ago, I was happy to catch up with a former colleague.  But when she revealed that her library recently acquired a 3D printer, I was all ears.

Loretta is an educator with 27 years of experience.   She has been at NOMS for the last 16 years, 15 of those as their library media specialist.  Ms. Shake was kind enough to take a picture for this entry, shoot a video of the 3D printer in action, and last but not least participate in the interview below.  If you are considering getting one of these in the near future, her information and advice will be extremely helpful!

Hello!  Let's start with telling us the process of getting the 3D printer in the first place.

I had knowledge of the MakerBot 3D printer; however, while attending ISTE this summer I found out about Afinia. In talking with their reps I learned they sell refurbished models for $500 which I felt was a great price since I wasn’t sure how I was going to integrate it into instruction. I think most of the small models like I have generally start at $1,299.  I used technology funds that we had from fundraisers. I had to get approval from our DTC [District Technology Coordinator] prior to purchasing.

Once you get past the initial price, what is the maintenance of the printer like?  How much does the filament cost?

So far maintenance has been easy. The filament does come on a spool. Each spool averages about $40. I have been allowing students to sign up to have things printed. Afinia suggests the cost be figured by the weight of the object times .06 per gram.   However, I upped the price to .15 per gram. I have received great support from Afinia when I couldn’t figure out something.

How long does it take to print an object?  Is it loud while it prints?

Several factors determine the amount of time it takes to print. The size of the object and how you “fill” it. You can fill it solid, hollow, or loose. [A large solid object could take a few hours or longer.] It is not loud while printing until the end when it beeps to let you know the print job is complete.

Here is a video, taken by Loretta, of her printer in action:

How have students and teachers reacted to it? 

Most have been amazed. It has become a focal point for the library. Students will stand and watch it print, others ask how they can print something. Most think it’s cool our school has a 3D printer.  

 I imagine you are getting a lot of "whoa!"

It has been a “whoa” factor for the most part. I have had students print things for a project. I have asked 7^th grade and art teachers to collaborate with me when they do their geometry unit. There is a free program called TurtleArt that allows students to create geometric shapes. We would then print them 3D so they can take them to art class to press in clay and paint.

What websites or online resources for the 3D printer would you recommend?

We use www.thingiverse.com to search for most of our models. MakerBot offers some great tutorial type videos. www.tinkercad.com has a free online program to create your own 3D objects.

Any advice for other LMS's wanting to get a 3D printer for their own library?

I would suggest you spring for a refurbished model like I did to gain support and once you can find ways to integrate into instruction then you can invest in a larger model. I plan on creating a MakerSpace in my library and teaching students how to print all on their own.

The finished product.

Ms. Shake, I can't thank you enough for your time!

Questions about 3D printers?  Do you have expertise or experiences with 3D printing you want to share?  Comment below!

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!