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Play Robo Twister During National Robotics Week

by Peggy Reimers April 10, 2023

written by Peggy Reimers

“Right foot, blue. Left hand, red! Left foot, green. Right hand, yellow!” Are these words familiar to you? This game of physical skill was submitted for patent by Charles F. Foley and Neil Rabens in 1966 under the name, “Pretzel.” Who knew 57 years later, “Twister” could also become a great challenge for robotics! Is there a better way to celebrate National Robotics Week this week (April 8-16, 2023) than playing games with robots?

Occasionally, my former “partner-in-crime” and robotics colleague Kathy Holberg and I found our way on the back roads of Texas, traveling for robotics professional development. These trips allowed our creative juices to flow, and we would get into a wonderful zone of inspiration. We were returning from Lubbock in 2007 and working on our new unit, “Games Robots Play,” when we came up with Robo Twister.

It’s a great way to practice the fundamental movements of a robot: forward, reverse, and either a point or pivot turn! All you need for this challenge is:

The Twister mat
A set of Robo Twister rules and cards (Googe Slides or PDF)

Robot Twister Card Information

Image of five different Robo Twister Robotics challenge cards

Cards are divided into groups of A, B, C, and D.
All cards begin and end on the same colored dot.
A cards start and finish on the green dot.
B cards start and finish on the yellow dot.
C cards start and finish on the blue dot.
D cards start and finish on the red dot.
A cards have 3 or 4 turns.
B cards have 4 turns.
C cards have 4 or 5 turns.
D cards have 5 or 6 turns.
In case you need blank cards, two are provided.

How to Set Up Robo Twister

Step 1: Each team of two students draws a Robo Twister card.

Step 2: Teams plan their route using the dot grid on their card.

Step 3: Then, they use their Robo Twister card to color code the route.

Step 4: Teams select rotations, degrees, seconds, centimeters, or inches for movement.

Robo Twister Robotics Challenge Card - Two Completed Examples — Examples of Completed Robo Twister Cards

Rules for Robot Movements

Robots can travel forward, reverse, and make left or right turns.

Robots cannot travel diagonally.

Robo Twister Extensions for Bonus Points

If you’ve been in one of my trainings, you know this is called my “back pocket trick.” Check out these two extensions:

Extension 1: When the robot lands on each Twister dot, the robot must stop, make a sound, and wait for one second before proceeding to the next colored dot.

Extension 2: Run two robots consecutively on the mats. The robots must maneuver the course without crashing into each other.

Activity Modifications

Remember, these rules can be changed! One way to establish rules is for the whole group to set the guidelines together. I always tell the teachers: “Watch your kids. They will do phenomenal things.” And I’m sure there are plenty of ways students can make Robo Twister even better.

Placement of the Twister Mat

The optimal setting is to keep your mat off the floor. Stepping on the mat can cause tears and dirt from shoe prints can affect robot performance. Twister mats are pretty slick at first, but through the years, my mats have “seasoned” and are quite robot friendly.

A Twister mat bonus tip: Look for this game during Christmas as it usually is marked down.

Twist it Up with Bonus Programming

Multitasking – If your platform is a LEGO SPIKE Prime, the robot could light up the center button with the coordinating Twister circle color as it stops on a circle.

My Block – With the SPIKE Prime app, you could use a My Block. A My Block is an easy way to group together pieces of code and reuse a collection of blocks. A My Block could be used to make the sound and wait for one second upon landing on each colored Twister circle. You could also use a My Block to program your turns.

Have a Robo Twister Tournament!

Many thanks to Jennifer Flood, a robotics colleague of mine. She turned Robo Twister into a district challenge, where teams of students came to a Robot Twister tournament night. Two divisions were established: Intermediate and Advanced.

In the Intermediate division, teams came with a pre-built robot, and they had the full 90 minutes to program their robot to cover the route. The advanced-level teams built and programmed their robots on-site.

Each team ran their robot at the end of the evening, and judges gave points for route completed, partial or full dot landings, and the use of sound and/or light.

Enter the Twister Trivia Game

And, finally, enter the TCEA TWISTER TRIVIA Game. There are seven trivia questions. If you’re wondering if you can google the answers – the answer is: YES! The contest ends at 5:00 p.m. Central on April 20, 2023. If you are one of three lucky winners, I will mail you a set of the Robo Twister cards so you are ready for your own Robo Twister competition. Good luck!

National Robotics Week

If you’re looking for other ways to celebrate National Robotics Week, there are tons of resources available for early education all the way up through college. Also, select your state to see how others are celebrating and to find out if there’s an event happening in your area!

April 10, 2023 4 comments

Social-Emotional Learning

Eight Tips for Practicing Active Listening in the Classroom

by Diana Benner October 29, 2021

written by Diana Benner

Active listening skills are necessary for developing an empathetic classroom. As mentioned in the Six Strategies for Building Empathy in the Classroom, we must make our students feel heard and express an active interest in what they are saying and feeling. As teachers, we do a lot of talking, but we must also invest time in listening. It is imperative to the health of our classroom community that we have excellent active listening skills. So let’s take a look at some information on active listening and go over some tips for practicing it in the classroom.

What Is Active Listening?

Active listening means, as its name suggests, actively listening. When actively listening, you are fully concentrating on what is being said and not thinking about what you will say next. It means listening with a genuine desire to understand the speaker’s feelings and perspective without placing judgment. In addition, active listening involves listening with all your senses. Interest can be conveyed to the speaker by using both verbal and nonverbal cues, like nodding your head or agreeing by saying “yes” to encourage them to continue speaking. By providing these cues, the person speaking will usually feel more at ease and communicate more easily and openly.

What Are the Benefits of Active Listening?

There are many benefits of active listening, including:

Better teacher-student relationships
Reduced tension and hostility in the classroom
Improved communication and trust among students and teachers
Positive classroom atmosphere and safe environment

In this article by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, active listening is also described as a sign of respect for what students bring to the table. It can be a way of showing them what they are capable of and modeling the importance of listening to each other. Waterford.org presents the benefits of active listening in the areas of communication skills, social-emotional development, and student confidence. Students are better able to communicate ideas and feelings since they have heard others do so. Those who develop active listening skills are less likely to feel frustrated and more likely to feel prepared and confident in their abilities. And active listening promotes mindful thinking, which can reduce anxiety and depression.

Tips for Active Listening

If you can, find a quiet place where you can talk with a student without interruption or distraction. Ask the student to share what’s on their mind. As they do so, try to incorporate the tips below.

Paraphrase

Once the student has finished expressing a thought, paraphrase what they said to make sure you understand and to show that you are paying attention. Things you can say are “What I hear you saying is…,” “It sounds like…,” or “If I understand you right….”

Ask questions

When appropriate, ask questions to encourage the student to elaborate on their thoughts and feelings. Try to avoid jumping to conclusions about what is being said. Instead, ask questions such as, “When you say_____, do you mean_____?” to clarify their meaning.

Use body language

As the listener, show that you are engaged and interested by nodding, facing the other person, and maintaining an open and relaxed body posture. Try to avoid attending to distractions in your environment or checking your phone. In addition, be mindful of your facial expressions. Avoid expressions that might convey disapproval.

Show empathy

If the student voices negative feelings, try to validate them rather than question them. Try to consider why they feel this way and put yourself in their shoes. You could say, “I can understand how that situation could cause frustration.”

Avoid judgement

Your goal is to understand your student’s perspective. Try not to interrupt with your own opinions while the student is speaking. Getting emotionally involved, angry, or upset is something you don’t want to do. You are a role model, and students are looking up to you.

Avoid giving advice too quickly

Allow the student to finish speaking before attempting to give advice. You want to make sure that you fully understand them first. Moving too quickly into advice-giving can be counterproductive.

Evaluate

After you have fully interpreted what the student has said, take a moment to evaluate the conversation.

Know that just listening is sometimes enough

Sometimes our students just want someone to listen to them. As teachers, we tend to want to “fix” our students’ problems for them. But if our minds are busy coming up with solutions for them, we fail to truly listen.

Active listening takes thought, practice, and a desire to put your student’s feelings above your own. Using active listening skills can make a meaningful difference in a student’s life. To learn more ways to practice empathy, as well as get tips, tools, and ideas for integrating it into your classroom, join us for our upcoming Lunch and Learn on November 3, 2021. The webinar is free to all members and will be recorded if you can’t attend the live event. In addition, don’t forget about our self-paced Social-Emotional Learning online course. This $29 course offers more ways to build upon social and emotional practices in your classroom and comes with a free TCEA membership!

October 29, 2021 1 comment

Listening to the Voice of Texas Teachers

by Dr. Julie A. Evans May 5, 2021

written by Dr. Julie A. Evans

For almost two decades Project Tomorrow/Speak Up has annually surveyed K-12 students, parents, teachers, and administrators across the country. These online surveys have played a crucial role in capturing the authentic voice of education stakeholders and providing schools and districts with essential information about the needs and aspirations of their key stakeholders. Our yearly Speak Up reports, based on the survey data, regularly inform policies, programs and funding at the district, state, and national level.

We are grateful for the partnership we have this year with TCEA and for their past support. TCEA has made it possible for Project Tomorrow to reach out to all the dedicated and committed teachers, students, parents, and administrators in Texas and ensure that their voices are heard loud and clear.

This past year has been a challenging one for everyone. Closed schools led to remote and hybrid learning and then to reopening. Students, parents, and administrators all struggled to manage in this changed environment. And for our classroom teachers this has been a year like no other testing their skills and endurance. Thank you to all the Texas teachers who demonstrated their spirit and endurance, working tirelessly to meet the needs of their students.

Listening to the real-life experiences of our classroom teachers is more important than ever. Our teachers were eyewitnesses to the unprecedented events unfolding in their schools and classrooms. Gathering their feedback and insights is critical now and can pave the way for improving the educational experiences of all students.

During Teacher Appreciation Week we are expanding our efforts to reach teachers – and TCEA is playing an important part in this effort. We urge TCEA members to join us in this call to action for teachers to “Speak Up”.

Texas Teachers, You Matter

During Teacher Appreciation Week, teachers can directly share their views through a special Speak Up survey for teachers. Here are ways that Texas teachers can be part of Speak Up’s efforts during Teacher Appreciation Week.

SHARE: Share the email and link below with teachers in your district, state, and TCEA membership. Click here to view Sample Email.
PROMOTE: All teachers who complete the survey will be eligible to receive prizes and awards for their classrooms. Learn more now!
EARN: You can earn recognition through our District Recognition Badge Program.
BENEFIT: You will receive your survey information, essential information in making key decisions, particularly as it relates to the new stimulus funding.

The Project Tomorrow has additional information. The good news for all teachers taking the survey – you will be eligible to win prizes and classroom grants.

Listening to Texas Teachers Matters

Teachers are still taking the survey, but we could not resist peaking at some of the preliminary data. The early findings are proof of why every K-12 district administrator should be seeking input from their teachers right now.

To use technology more effectively Texas teachers told us they needed:

Classroom set of digital learning devices for every student (64%)
Planning time with colleagues (60%)
Professional learning about effective use of digital tools (56%)
Reliable, high-bandwidth Internet in the classroom (49%)
Confidence that students have out-of-school Internet access (54%)

These preliminary findings – and much more – are part of the recently released infographic. View all of our new infographics released during Teacher Appreciation Week here.

Every school district in Texas needs authentic data like this right now to make the best decisions for their community and for spending new federal dollars that are being disbursed.

Texas Data Matters

Over the years, state education leaders and district administrators have used Speak Up data to validate new initiatives and support new investments. On a national level, Speak Up data highlights digital learning trends in K-12 education and promotes new discussions about ways to support innovation in schools. More important than ever, this year’s national Speak Up report provides a glimpse into how the sudden shift to digital learning may lead to sustained educational transformation. Read more about what the Speak Up data is telling us here.

Call Out

Together we can listen – and act upon teacher voice – and make a difference in the learning experiences of all Texas students. The Speak Up survey is open until August 15 – urge all Texas teachers to take part in this important effort. Help us get the word out and make sure that the voices of all teachers in Texas are heard! Participate now!

Make Your Voice Known

You have a voice so use it. Take the survey now!

May 5, 2021 0 comment

Good Teaching

Make It Relevant: The Collaborator ISTE Standard

by Miguel Guhlin May 7, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

In classrooms today, the goal remains learning how to solve problems together. Authentic learning often involves learners in joint problem solving. We work together towards a goal, each of us knowing what part we play to resolve the issue(s). How do you do set educators up for success in this endeavor? In this blog entry, we’ll explore several approaches. Before we do that, let’s step back and ask ourselves, What is authentic learning?

ISTE Standards for Educators: Collaborator

To better understand what authentic learning is, let’s take a look at it through the lens of the ISTE Standards, a way to do three things:

Improve practice
Discover and share resources and ideas
Solve problems

When you look at the four indicators, you realize that the last action is quite important to the standard. Here are the four indicators:

4a: Dedicate planning time to collaborate with colleagues to create authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.

4b: Collaborate and co-learn with students to discover and use new digital resources and diagnose and troubleshoot technology issues.

4c: Use collaborative tools to expand students’ authentic, real-world learning experiences by engaging virtually with experts, teams and students, locally and globally.

4d: Demonstrate cultural competency when communicating with students, parents and colleagues and interact with them as co-collaborators in student learning.

As you can see, two of the indicators refer to “authentic learning experiences.” Each enjoys the benefit of real-world problem-solving. When you unpack the vocabulary, you see that each indicator expands on the other:

Authentic learning (4a): Activities based on student’s real world experiences or current issues. These use real data and seek to solve real-life problems.
Authentic, real-world learning experiences (4c). This involves solving local and global real world problems. It could involve design thinking as well.

This presents tremendous opportunities for situating student learning in real-world problem-solving scenarios. How do you do that? Let’s review the steps that lead to authentic learning experiences with technology.

Step #1: Engage with a Real-World Problem

“Fall in love with the problem, not the solution,” says Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, X. Many of us know that real-world problems, a la 5E Model’s Engage stage, help to focus learners. The problem engages students when it is relevant to them. Let’s review what a real-world problem should look like:

The PBL challenge is one that captures students’ attention. It stimulates their thinking, and assists them in accessing prior knowledge. (Source: 5E Model + Technology)

Note the importance of prior knowledge. (We’ll explore prior knowledge in Step #2 due to its importance.) In crafting a real-world problem, I would be quick to rely on relevant life issues and challenges.

A real-world problem must engage students in the inquiry process. You can present news or troubling information from a primary source. Students can derive a problem from that information. Or you as the teacher can craft a problem narrative/engagement scenario. You can show a video, or resource, that engages students. The next step is critical because it engages students in identifying what they don’t know. One way to do this is to rely on a concept map about the following areas:

What do I know?
What do I need to know?
What questions do I have about what I know or don’t know?

This assists students in seeing the bigger picture. It’s not enough to depend on this. You, as the teacher, as well as experts on the problem, must step in.

Step #2: Build Background Knowledge

A fascinating tidbit about problem-based learning (PBL): When you allow students to do all the work of knowledge gathering, it’s not very effective. In fact, Dr. John Hattie reports it has an effect size of 0.35. This is less than the 0.40 hinge point for a normal year’s growth in a classroom. This makes all the work for PBL, “Meh, not worth it.” But wait; before you give up, keep reading.

Note how Quadrant D learning is focused on real-world, unpredictable situations. That is where problem-solving teaching must take students. But they can only go AFTER they have learned content and skills needed to solve it.

You can use several strategies to speed up student growth in a particular area. That is, to build prior knowledge, you can use strategies proven to work. When you do this, and then introduce students, PBL’s effect size increases. I like to think of PBL introduced at surface learning stage as a beginning Pokemon. Use it too soon, students fail. Use it after evolving, you get powerful results.

Image Source: YA Web Design

If you spend some time building knowledge capacity in your students, PBL evolves. It evolves from PBL to a more effective, transfer learning strategy. The evolved PBL strategy is problem-solving teaching. This strategy enjoys a respectable 0.68 effect size.

This evolved PBL appears after you have introduced content (a.k.a. surface learning). It appears after deep learning, when students have gone beyond knowledge conceptualization. It’s only when students are ready to engage in transfer learning that PBL works.

The Visible Learning Meta X database defines it in this way:

Problem-solving involves learning to solve a problem that one does not already know how to solve. It can also involve teaching specific, subject-area focused strategies for attempting to solve such problems.

As you can see, this is like ISTE’s expectation in the Collaboration standard. The focus is on real-world problems, authentic learning, and skill-building.

Mapping Learning Growth via Reflection

You must give students the opportunity to build up background knowledge. How do you do that? Support your students in making their own concept map. They can begin with questions, then track their growing understanding. This means that their concept map will change over time. It’s not a “make one and then forget it” situation.

Image Source

You might ask students, “What would you add to or how would you change your map?” Ask them to revise their concept map as part of their reflection time. To build background knowledge, rely on one of the surface learning strategies. Need some ideas of how to get started? Check this list.

See the complete chart of surface, deep, and transfer strategies online.

Step #3: Present the Problem

The key concept behind the problem-solving teaching strategy is that of novelty, presenting students with a problem they have not encountered before. It is novel, requiring them to apply their newfound knowledge and skills. In a skill-building scenario, it could be to use design thinking process. Or encouraging students to apply their knowledge of an engineering design process. Students can begin to explore the problem from various stakeholder roles. One way to focus them on solution development is to ask, “What will success look like?” Have them put the criteria they use for success into a rubric.

Image Source

As you embark on a PBL unit, align it to the ISTE Standards for Educators’ Collaborator aspect. It will focus your work on authentic learning and real-world problem-solving. What’s more, make sure that you use surface learning strategies first. These will build students’ background knowledge. Then, they can apply their knowledge to a new problem. In this way, you can accelerate student growth.

May 7, 2020 1 comment

Content Areas

Listen and Learn with Listenwise

by Miguel Guhlin April 24, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

As a longtime audiobook listener, I am thrilled to share a new resource for K-12 learners. Like many of you, I’m an avid Audible audiobook listener and reader. Do you know of one challenging aspect of bringing audio content to children? As librarians and teachers, we can’t record our own using copyrighted materials.

listenwise

Existing audio is often adult-oriented and children’s book titles are unavailable. Solutions like Storynory get around that. In this blog entry, I’m delighted to share a new source of non-fiction, lesson-friendly audio content. What’s the new source, you may ask? Listenwise.

What Is Listenwise?

Listenwise is a web-based resource for three to six minute podcast lessons from non-fiction storytellers that include listening comprehension quizzes for your classroom. Once you join, you can get into their library of non-fiction podcasts which are organized in various ways. In the Teacher Dashboard, you can search the content. Current events are featured, including COVID-19 news and feature stories.

If you have students who have the ability to listen to National Public Radio (NPR) and process it, then they will be fine. Much of the free content available via Listenwise is about as understandable as NPR broadcasts. There’s a reason for that which we’ll explore in a bit.

listenwise

Their searchable database offers access to news stories and more. For example, consider the results for a search on “diversity:”

Image Source: BBC News

Black Representation in Literature:

For Black History Month, a major bookseller placed “Diverse Editions” on its shelves. These were classic books by white authors featuring black faces on the covers.

The bookstore says it hoped the covers would help to engage new audiences in classics. Classics included The Wizard of Oz, Frankenstein, and Romeo and Juliet.

This action sparked outrage among many. They said that the bookseller is cashing in on Black History Month. Of course, cashing in without honoring black authors.

Listen to a writer explain why this is “literary blackface.” And then find out what bookstores can do to support diversity. (Adapted for clarity).

Wow, wouldn’t “literary blackface” be a great lead-in to a problem-based learning lesson or a powerful way to support a 5E lesson’s “Engage” aspect?

Here’s another example focused on esports:

listenwise

As you can see, the interface is simple and you can slow the audio playback down. Sharing this audio to Google Classroom is easy, as you can see from the share window below:

listenwise

You can also share a link with others since the content is available via the web. Not all content is available for free.

listenwise

How Much Does It Cost?

Listenwise Premium makes age-appropriate, non-fiction podcasts in several subjects available. You can listen to ELA, social studies, and science podcasts at a cost. When you first sign up as a teacher, you get a thirty-day free trial of Listenwise Premium which gives you access to a full podcast library and interactive transcripts. You also get listening comprehension quizzes and more. How much more? You get access to upcoming (as of this blog entry) Lexile audio measures for content.

The Lexile Audio Measure provides a score of the audio passage complexity. It enables teachers to match appropriate audio to their listeners. Lexile measures rely on twelve key variables which include grammar, vocabulary, speech rate and tempo, and word clarity. These are all part of the Lexile audio measure. (Adapted for clarity)

Once you are in, you can listen to amazing content. Listenwise pays attention to research.

Research

Valuing research insights, Listenwise includes its own collection of research. You will find research, white papers, and case studies on listening in the classroom. For example, consider these quick summations:

Listening comprehension is a fundamental building block to reading comprehension development. Now there is new research evidence concerning a growing number of children who fail to develop adequate reading comprehension skills primarily due to poor listening comprehension.
Ever notice that good stories get better student engagement? This research highlights the power of a meaningful story to specifically impact listening behavior.
Why would we want to do this and how does listening affect learning? Our white paper highlights some of the key research in this area as we consider the value of listening skills for our children.
Many English learners are not acquiring the level of academic language needed for college and career readiness. Are we underestimating the impact that ongoing work with oral academic language can have?

Visit their research page to learn more.

Other Features

Listenwise makes it easy to find content, premium or not. You can search using the sidebar, shown below:

listenwise

You can also use a topic (e.g. immigration, animals, cells) or subject search:

listenwise

Did I mention the very best feature? Much of the content featured is FREE. Check it out!

April 24, 2020 0 comment

Leadership

Exercising Trust: ISTE Standards for Leaders

by Miguel Guhlin May 10, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

To stay heart healthy, I started swimming laps one summer. For a while, the first ten laps left me tired and weak. But the next twenty-five were easier. It taught me a valuable lesson: Being a leader may involve learning to push past initial pain.

The greater your capacity to overcome pain, the more you can achieve. Could the same be true of learning? In this blog, we’ll explore the ISTE Educator Standard for Leaders.

He who learns must suffer. And … against our will, comes wisdom.

— Aeschylus

Influence Is Not Leadership

Of the seven standards, the Leader standard expects more than just learning. It shifts your focus from what you want to achieve to what others can learn to do. Instead of empowering your own change, it forces you to ask, “What can I do to empower others with technology?”

As part of the goal of supporting student empowerment, the standard demands you improve. That improvement must be on behalf of teaching and learning. To achieve that, you must:

Shape, advance, and accelerate a shared vision for empowered learning. How do you achieve this? Through engagement with education stakeholders.
Advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content, and learning opportunities. Why do you advocate? To meet the diverse needs of all students.
Model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, curation, and adoption of new tools. This includes new digital resources.

Wondering how to start your journey? Here’s a road map.

Guidepost #1 – Create a Shared Vision

Creating a shared vision can be tough. Often, we perceive it as convincing others to adopt our vision. After all, we have a worthwhile aim, to transform learning with technology. But each person has a different perspective. Some people may not want anything to do with technology. For others, technology is an unwelcome distraction.

To create a shared vision, you need to set aside your pre-determined goals. I like to begin the journey with a three-step process. Some of this process I’ve adapted from the book Crucial Confrontations.

Step 1: Build Mutual Purpose

Mutual purpose means understanding others’ goals. Then you work together to find a purpose broad enough to encompass key goals for each person. During this stage, you also work to unearth hidden agendas and avoid blind accusations and defensive behavior. In short, you want to ensure that you can answer two questions:

Do others believe I care about their goals?
Do they trust my motives?

You must be sincere about caring for the goals of others and being transparent. People know when you are less than sincere.

iste standards leaders

Step 2: Build Mutual Respect

Miscommunications, misunderstandings, unvoiced fears, and anger can bar the way to mutual respect. Previous conflicts may haunt future relationships. To get past those, you have several options, including offering a sincere apology for causing, or not preventing, pain.

When apologizing is not possible or appropriate, use contrasting. Contrasting is a don’t/do statement that:

Addresses others’ concerns that you don’t respect them or have a malicious purpose
Confirms your respect or clarifies your real purpose

Here’s an example:

Let me put this in perspective. I don’t want you to think I’m not satisfied with the quality of your work. I do think you’re doing a good job. This punctuality issue is important to me, and I’d like you to work on that. If you will be more attentive to that, there are no other issues.

Don’t be afraid to admit that this is a tough issue. Even though it is a difficult issue, agree that everyone will stay in the conversation, that you will keep talking until you come up with something that works for all.

Step 3: Sort Priorities and Solutions

While you are working on developing mutual respect and purpose, you may need to dig deeper. One way to do this could involve bringing people together and asking questions.

As a leader, one of my favorite tools is two wishes and a star. This translates as “What are two things you think ought to be happening? What is one thing we’re doing right?” This easy-going set of questions engages stakeholders. Once you have responses from key stakeholders, you can combine them into a list of priorities and use them as a road map to craft solutions that work for all stakeholders.

Match priorities with action steps, problems with solutions. Not sure which is the best solution? With your mutual purpose in mind, get a small committee to review the options, then make a decision as a team.

One example might be deciding on what platform to go with. Should you choose iPads, Chromebooks, or Windows devices. Let’s apply some contrasting, here, with planning in mind:

This is tough. I don’t want you to think I want Chromebooks over Windows 10 tablets. The G Suite for Education ecosystem has so much to offer our children. Finding the right set of tools for our common goals is important to me. Why don’t we work together to figure out what our objectives for this goal are? With those in mind, we can decide what best reflects our common objectives.

Guidepost #2 – Advocate for Equitable Access

Connecting equitable access to mutual purpose is critical. For example, my own experience in Texas public schools shaped my understanding. Students from a ten-thousand-student district faced a lack of technology access. In that situation, affluent students could go home to work on connected devices. Poor, high-performing students could not. This meant that students who would merit access to technology had little to no hope of it at home. The school district leadership knew of the problem, but had no idea on addressing it.

Changes to Texas law in 2001 recognized that school districts had old technology. This technology worked fine in non-academic settings with a little re-fitting. With a goal of equitable access, I worked with school district leaders to re-purpose old technology.

The mission was to enable students to develop critical, high-tech skills. Other school districts, like Weslaco ISD, Arp ISD, Abilene ISD, and others had similar programs in place. My district’s Tech4Hornets Program involved collecting equipment deemed obsolete but still serviceable. This equipment would issued to students for home use. Learn more about the program online.

To make the program a reality, I worked with district leaders to obtain board approval of a new district policy and with the technical team to ensure the best technical solution. Ensuring equitable access can be challenging, but the results are well-worth it.

Leaders Trust the Water

As I got better at swimming laps, I learned that, to keep from exhausting myself, I had to give myself over to the science of floating and rely on the fact that the water would support me. The same is true for all of us. Leadership is more than knowing what moves to make. Leaders trust that buoyancy is a part of the experience. They are in touch with who and what they are, their relationships with that experience. Trusting the water means absolute surrender to the effort, no holding back.

In part two, I’ll explore a third guidepost for achieving the ISTE Education Standard of Leader.

U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jazmin Smith.

May 10, 2019 0 comment

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Lesson Planning: 5E Model + Tech with the ISTE Standards (Part Two)

by Miguel Guhlin July 10, 2018

written by Miguel Guhlin

In Part One of this 5E Model plus Technology with the ISTE Standards blog, we explored the Engage, Explore, and Explain aspects of a 5E Model lesson plan. For fun, we took a look at blending the 5E Model with technology from the perspective of the Dust Bowl. In this blog entry, we’ll continue our journey through the Dirty Thirties, focusing on the Elaborate and Evaluate aspects of the ISTE Standards.

Get a copy of the Google Slides version of this infographic

ELABORATE

How? Activities that capture the students’ attention, stimulate their thinking, and help them access prior knowledge.
Technology? Some example activities appear below.
_ Forum (Google Classroom)
_ Product creation
_ Virtual field trip
_ Ask an Expert video chat
What Success Looks like?
1. Students develop a solution to a real problem that incorporates their knowledge, communicating that in a variety of media formats. Students would rely on a combination of audio/video creation tools to articulate their perspectives and then express those online, soliciting feedback from the community and knowledgeable parties.
2. Students could rely on VOIP tools like Skype, Google Hangout Meet, or Appear.in to connect with other teams of students exploring the Dust Bowl in other classrooms around the district or globe as appropriate.
3. After self-selection of a design process such as the Engineering Design Process, use video documentary creation tools and/or virtual world (e.g. Minecraft: Education Edition) to create their representation of the problem faced. Then they would offer solutions from various stakeholder perspectives pertinent to their own group. These would be incorporated into their digital representations/creations.

Did You Know?

TCEA offers teams of educators, as well as individuals, certification in the ISTE National Education Technology Standards (NETS). ISTE Certification is a new competency-based, vendor-agnostic educator certification based on the ISTE Standards for Educators. This digital credential recognizes educators who understand how to use edtech for learning in meaningful and transformative ways. Find out more.

EVALUATE

How? Students, with their teachers, review and assess what they have learned and how they have learned it. Students can be given a summative assessment to demonstrate what they know and can do.
Technology? Some example activities aappear below.
- Video feedback on product
- OneNote notebook with feedback
What Success Looks like?
- Students create a OneNote notebook (or Google Slides/Sites) with embedded videos reflecting on content.
- Students’ creations are notated from a perspective of real life usability rather than teacher satisfaction with a transitional student product.

ISTE NETS Considerations

The primary ISTE Standards addressed include the following. How would you extend these?

Innovative Designer: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
Global Collaborator: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Digital Tools

Curious about some of the digital tools available that could be used to facilitate this lesson? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Intended Use: Empower students to create a digital memory box to better capture resources needed for digital stories expressed as video documentaries or Minecraft virtual creations:
Tools:
- OneNote + Office Lens: These two free apps, which work on a multitude of mobile devices, allow you to store text, audio, images, and embed videos and could easily be used to collect information. The Office Lens app lets you digitize content, snap a picture of paper items or photos, and save them to OneNote, a digital notebook. With OneNote’s built-in digital ink, students can easily fill in the chart and storyboard their digital story. The teacher can take those student creations, combine them with the final products, and publish them on Docs.com as a OneNote Notebook (which is free for everyone and works great on iPads, Chromebooks, Windows/Mac computers, and Android).
- Google Photos + Google Drive: With these two apps, you can save photos or videos taken with your device to Google Photos, saving content online.
- Assorted Image Apps: Collecting images can be straightforward with mobile apps like Camera Awesome (iOS and Android), Camera MX (Android), and Google Camera. Image annotation becomes easy with Annotate (iOS), Photo Editor by Aviary (Android and iOS), SnapSeed (iOS and Android), as well as EyeEm Camera and Photo Filter (iOS and Android). Don’t be afraid to take advantage of green screen apps (DoInk for iOS and Green Screen Pro for Android) to further enhance photos, making your own green screen with a $1.00 Dollar Tree store green plastic tablecover.
Intended use: Video Documentaries
- Tools:
  - Mobile Apps like Shadow Puppet EDU, Adobe Voice, and Storymaker 2, as well as MS Office Powerpoint (Windows/Mac) and iMovie
  - Screencasting tools such as Screencastify or PowerPoint Screen Recorder
  - Google Slides/PowerPoint plus Gifmaker.me to create animated GIFs that can be incorporated into video documentaries
  - Green screen tools
Intended use: Virtual World Construction and Digital Architecture
- Minecraft: Education Edition
- Office 365 accounts for students and teacher(s)

Final Thoughts

Students have a wide variety of technologies available to them at no cost, as well as others that tap into the Windows laptops, mobile iOS tablets (e.g. iPads), and/or Chromebooks that allow them to interact on both small and large screens. This interaction is collaborative given the nature of built-in collaboration options available to Google Suites for Education, Microsoft OneNote with Class Notebook and Microsoft Teams. Remember to start your engaging 5E Model + Technology lesson with a problem scenario and/or emotional hook. Then set up collaborative activities that facilitate solution development.

July 10, 2018 0 comment

Good Teaching Microsoft Tips and Tricks

Lesson Planning: 5E Model + Tech with the ISTE Standards (Part One)

by Miguel Guhlin July 6, 2018

written by Miguel Guhlin

“How do you blend technology into a 5E Lesson Plan?” The question motivated me to write the blog entry, Lesson Planning: 5E Model + Technology. In conversation with a colleague just this week, we reflected on the power of collaborative lesson planning. Co-planning lessons, including those that blend technology, enhance the actions and impact on students. In this blog entry, we’ll explore a portion of the 5E Model plus Technology in the context of the ISTE Standards, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and TPACK.

The Value of Co-Planning Lessons

“Lesson planning is too important, challenging, and time-consuming to try to do ALL of it on your own…It’s wonderful to utilize the experience of other teachers and time-tested instructional strategies so you don’t have to spend as long planning out your lessons,” says Angela Watson in her blog entry, 6 Ways to Make Co-Planning Lessons More Efficient.

My first experiences as a first year teacher included trying to figure out how to best introduce a lesson to students. For me, the emotional hook, like the lead of a blog entry, had to be compelling. I often failed my first year. What saved me was taking the time to create a lesson planning template. Today, 5E lessons can take the shape of hyperdocs. If you must plan alone, remember there are many websites that offer suggestions. Let’s check out 5E Model plus technology in the context of the Dust Bowl.

Did You Know?

TCEA offers teams of educators, as well as individuals, certification in the ISTE National Education Technology Standards (NETS). ISTE Certification is a new competency-based, vendor-agnostic educator certification based on the ISTE Standards for Educators. This digital credential recognizes educators who understand how to use edtech for learning in meaningful and transformative ways. Find out more.

About the Dust Bowl

Not familiar with the Dirty Thirties? This time came to be known as the Dust Bowl due to intensive plowing on the Great Plains that removed the deep-rooted grasses. These grasses trapped moisture in the soil during periods of drought and high winds. When drought plagued American prairies during the 1930’s for eight years, high winds kicked dirt and dust into the air. “The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres,” states a Wikipedia entry.

ISTE NETS

The infographicabove addresses three of the relevant NETS. Those include Innovative Designer, Creative Communicator, and Global Collaborator. The infographic shares activities that address each standard.

5E Lesson Plan

Let’s review some of the main points of the 5E Lesson Plan, as well as explore the technology connections possible. You can find the 5E + Technology Lesson chart in this companion blog entry. You will also find an infographic depicting some of the main ways the ISTE National Education Technology Standards (NETS) are represented in the lesson.

ENGAGE

How? Activities that capture the students’ attention, stimulate their thinking, and help them access prior knowledge.
Technology? PBL component, creation of video/audio explorations of a topic
What Success Looks like?

“Quick, Jennie-girl,” cried Grandma, “cover the beds!” The clouds appeared on the horizons with a thunderous roar. The turbulent dust clouds came in from the North and dumped a fine silt over the land. Mom, Dad, Grandma, and I stayed inside the house. Sheriff Marcus would always come by afterwards–“How you farmers doing?”–to check on us after a dust storm. Each of us wore a handkerchief over our nose and mouth. When Pa went outside, he wore googles over his eyes because the wind was so hard. My job was to plug up all the holes, ripping up cloth and sticking them into cracks in the walls, doors and windows. It didn’t make much of a difference, though. The silt, like Ma’s talcum powder, found its way into everything. During a storm, Ma waved wet gunny sack through the air and tied damp sheets over our beds so the dust wouldn’t settle into our sleeping sheets. Pa’s face was gray; the wheat crop was dead. “Oh,” I cried, “how can we stop this from happening?”

EXPLORE

How? Enable students to explore their ideas, singly and in groups, in the classroom or at a distance. Provide students time to think, plan, investigate, and organize collected information.
Technology? Students are guided through the PBL process, composed of the following steps:
1. IDENTIFYING HUNCHES: WHAT WE KNOW, WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW
  Ask the following questions and have students work to identify their responses to the following:
  What hunches, or guesses, can we make about the problems, the people in the problem?
  What do we know for certain about the problem? Be sure to explain to students that these are certainly in the text kinds of answers rather than extrapolations based on what they have read.
  What do we need to know in order to help Jennie?

ONLINE ACTIVITY – To get this activity going, use a wiki page (or Google Doc/OneNote/Word Online) for each area with the titles above. Group students and encourage them to fill in this information.

IDENTIFY AND EXPLORE STAKEHOLDER ROLES
Now that we know what we need to know, what stakeholders can we identify in the problem? Some sample stakeholder roles for this problem include the following:
Farmers
Local authorities, like police
Crop buyers
The government
Children/Spouses of farmers
Local business people
Note: As the lead learner, I would not provide this list to students. They should tease it out of the problem engagement.

TPACK, Anyone?

You can also make TPACK connections for PBL models:

Content: In this lesson in particular, the required content knowledge is science, specifically the causes of weathering. Students need to develop a strong understanding of weathering, identifying what farm practices turned grasslands and wilderness into dirt and dust.

Pedagogical: The required pedagogical knowledge is the best practices for middle school students. PBL research studies at middle school indicate that this approach enhances group dynamics, student collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving. It also increases students’ motivation and engagement (Sources: BIE, TFO, ASCD).

Technological: Students work in collaborative teams to develop documentaries that present the Dust Bowl problem from a stakeholder perspective and offer a relevant solution (Model to Follow, NonFiction Documentaries). Students also have the option to re-create physical spaces in virtual space using tools like Minecraft: Education Edition a la Block by Block approach. Students would also be encouraged to explore a variety of creation tools, ranging from WeVideo, Toontastic, or iMovie, and are invited to incorporate green screen technologies.

EXPLAIN

How? Students acquire opportunities to connect their previous experiences with current learning and to make conceptual sense of the main ideas of the topic being studied.
Technology? Giving this a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) spin, consider the following connections possible:
- Multiple means of representation:
  Encourage students to organize their data gathering–and illustrate through multiple media–about their problem, stakeholders, and solution, as well as plan their documentary video (e.g. traditional or Minecraft-based screencast or blend per student choice). The organizational tool would be Microsoft OneNote, which provides ample ways to students to interact with content. Both students and teacher(s) can create visual guides students can interact with (e.g. semantic webs) with audio/video narration embedded. OneNote would facilitate decoding of text, mathematical notation, and symbols. Although students are not working with many other languages in this scenario, they could rely on tools like Google/Microsoft Translator apps to promote understanding across languages.
- Multiple means of action and expression:
  Given a combination of available apps and software tools, students would have the opportunity to rely on multiple tools for construction, composition, and communication. Students could also rely on teacher-created rubrics for virtual space design (e.g. recreating the Dust Bowl situation and factors that led to it in Minecraft: Education Edition). Rubrics would assist student groups in self-monitoring progress.
- Multiple means of engagement:
  Students will work in collaborative groups self-determined from their interest in stakeholders embedded in the PBL scenario relevant to the Dust Bowl disaster. They will work together to develop problem solutions that consider various demands and resources. The success of their solution development, whether as a documentary or virtual world, will be evident and defined by the rubrics they develop to assess their success.

Wrap-Up

We’ve only covered the first three “Es” of the 5E Model. Elaborate and Evaluate remain to be shared in Part Two (read it now).

July 6, 2018 0 comment

Leadership

A Challenge to Leaders to Listen

by Dr. Bruce Ellis February 19, 2018

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

The other day, I was talking with my wife. She had just come home from work and was sharing a frustration of her day. Before she was able to complete two sentences, I was ready to provide a solution that only included three easy steps. As I interrupted with what I thought was going to be received as a caring gesture, she looked at me and said “I’m not looking for a solution. I know what to do. I just needed someone that I can share my frustration with.” Ouch! While I didn’t gain any Husband of the Year votes from that encounter, it did get me to thinking about how many times I assume everyone is needing a solution when they talk with me…or at least before they get two sentences out.

As a leader at work we have a lot of people that share information with us. Some sharing is just to inform us, while other sharing may have a bigger need behind it. That bigger need could be “I need feedback,” “I need to hear myself think aloud with someone so I can decide the best solution,” or even “I need you to recommend a solution.” Sometimes I have asked at the beginning of a conversation, “How do I need to listen?” if it isn’t obvious or if I’m not sure. By interrupting with my solution, I have found that I break a connection and reduce their likelihood to share with me – neither of which I want to do.

The Seven Habits Include Listening

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey had it correct when he said, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” That is so true. Even when I don’t blurt out a solution, it is likely that the voice in my head is formulating a solution even as the other person is sharing. Doing this robs me of being in the moment and hearing, I mean really hearing what is being communicated. As a leader, when we do really listen, we might be amazed at the insight of the one sharing, touched by their transparency, or even inspired by their perception or thought process. These are definitely traits I want my staff to emulate and share. In response, I find that I reciprocate by esteeming, having more respect for, and even wanting to know more of what they are thinking.

How Best to Listen

My challenge to you as a leader is to hold off on blurting out a solution so you can move on to the next problem that needs solving or the next item on your to-do list. Instead, take time to be in the moment and really listen to what is being said. Just like teachers give wait time after asking a question, give yourself wait time to hear what is being said. If you need more concrete steps, consider the following:

Keep your mind from wandering – Learn to stay focused on what the other person is saying. Don’t let your mind wander to other tasks you have waiting or what you might rather be doing.
Practice mirroring the speaker – Body language can go a long way in letting someone know that we are not only listening to what they are saying, but are interested in what they say. For more information, consider reading Todd A. Fonseca’s post The Power of Mirroring.
Summarize – Summarize back to the person what you think you heard. Sometimes it is easy to miss an important part or overlook something that the speaker was trying to emphasize. And doing this also tells the speaker that you value them enough to pay great attention to their words.
Ask open-ended questions – If you need clarification or more information, ask open-ended questions. This will encourage the speaker to elaborate and fill in those missing details while also letting them feel acknowledged and listened to.

I challenge each of you for two weeks to really focus on listening – whether at work, home, or play. Let me know how it goes. I’d love to have a conversation with you; you can email me at bellis@tcea.org or post your comment below. Either way, you’ve got my ear.

February 19, 2018 0 comment

Educational Trends Good Teaching Professional Learning

Embracing the Extraordinary at ISTE 2017

by Susan Meyer July 3, 2017

written by Susan Meyer

Were you one of the thousands of educators in San Antonio this week for ISTE 2017? If so, we hope you were also one of the thousands who came by the TCEA Showcase. We had a lot of fun meeting and talking to educators from all over the world. We loved hearing the unique perspectives, challenges, and innovative solutions occurring in different classrooms, districts, and states.

At TCEA, we want to support you in your quest to have the most engaged students and productive learning outcomes possible. We want to introduce you to new technologies and new strategies for using those technologies in the classroom to make your job easier and to further student success. Our goal with the TCEA Showcase at ISTE 2017 was to provide refreshing bursts of content with timely and relevant takeaways that educators could add to their toolbox. Here are some of the ways we shared ideas at the convention.

Demo Slams

Our professional development team rocked the TCEA Showcase with a number of demo slams. These 20-minute presentations provided extremely valuable content in fast-paced, resource-rich segments. In less than a half hour, educators could walk away with an understanding of how to launch a digital breakout, new ideas for back-to-school ice breakers, the perfect apps for the social studies or math classroom, and much more! Attending a demo slam was a great way to pack in a lot of PD in a short time frame.

If you weren’t at ISTE or weren’t able to make it to all of the demo slams, you wanted, you can find links to some of the presentations you missed here. Check them out for some great ideas and resources!

Poster Sessions

Poster sessions were another way for educators to take a break from the hustle and bustle of ISTE sessions and exhibits while still learning. Presenters shared about a number of different topics from STEAM and digital storytelling to programming and robotics and augmented reality. Poster sessions allow opportunities for discussion and for the poster visitor to ask in-depth questions of the presenter. The relaxed atmosphere makes it easy to drop in for a dose of innovation before continuing on your way. For a deeper dive into one of our Monday poster sessions, check out my earlier post for some great STEAM ideas.

Always Time for Making

A big convention can be a lot to take in, so sometimes it’s nice to kick back and take a break with something creative. As part of the TCEA Showcase, we offered a little makerspace activity: creating luggage tags out of colorful duct tape. In addition to being a fun outlet for participants, it also illustrates how easy it is to create a makerspace activity without a lot of resources. Instructions were provided, but participants were also free to go off book and let their imaginations take the lead. Makerspaces don’t have to be expensive or high tech to provide opportunities for engagement. Duct tape is just one of many relatively inexpensive tools that can provide the foundation of a meaningful makerspace. For more great makerspace ideas, check out our FREE makerspace eBook Ready, Set, Make! It contains all of the details you need to get a makerspace up and running at your school.

Were you in San Antonio at ISTE this weekend? If so, did you make it the TCEA Showcase? We’d love to hear from some of our new readers and followers. What was your favorite thing at ISTE 2017? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below. If you weren’t at ISTE, we’d still love you to share what ideas you are most excited about getting started in the new school year.

July 3, 2017 0 comment

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