What are you looking for?

"When I say go, do a 360 degree turn and count the number of blue objects you see", I ask my class of 19 First Graders. When everyone has reoriented to the front, I ask, "Without looking, how many yellow objects did you see?"

"You said blue Mr. Hammerlund!" they all yelled.

"Yes, but now I'm asking you about the yellow ones."

How to Be Awesome at Your Job: A Podcast for People who Love Learning Improvement Tools for Happier Work, Career & Achieving

How to Be a Better Leader by Being More Positive

Brenda Bailey-Hughes

 via @PodcastAddict

This year I have a challenging class. Period. There is not a night that I don't go home exhausted.
For the past few months I've been focused on looking for the bad - the negative; the bad behavior. All the while, I know I've been missing the good - good behavior, good learning, increasing skills, those students who are really trying. Those students I don't spend enough time with because of the others.

In the above podcast, Brenda Bailey-Hughes talks about looking for the positive, not the negative. She talks about looking for the positive and gives the exercise above as a way to hone in on the positive.

It is a fun exercise to do with a class and takes less than five minutes. I am going to try this with my students for a while to see how it improves their empathy and observation skills.

Using Book Creator to Convert a Paper Book to a Movie

*Another unfinished post I am just now publishing.

The Grade 1 teacher came to me with a project to digitize the books the students had written. Since our Grade 1 classes are on Seesaw, we decided it would be best to make them publishable to there. I have a natural inclination to movies vs books when it comes to student work, so Bookcreator was a natural fit because books can be exported as video files.

We did this project last year, so I knew it would be great. Last year I looked at this project through the lens of tech integration. This year, I was looking at it through the lens of the new ISTE Standards for Students. Specifically, under the standard for Creative Communicator, there is a substandard that reads:

Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.

Book Creator is an easy way for students to narrate a video. It also gives them the option of different sizes for their books.

Using BookCreator to publish stories

A photo posted by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 22, 2016 at 6:37pm PST

Students use Book Creator to make their books. When you publish them, you can publish directly to YouTube so the books become a video. Any voice annotations in the book will also be annotations in the video.

How to Post to Seesaw

We started using Seesaw as a digital portfolio this year. And while it is great, my students have had issues remembering how to take pictures so I made the following infographic for them.

Work in progress

Make a copy for yourself here.

Original

Moving Workshops Into The Faculty Lounge

Part of my responsibilities when I was a technology coach was to conduct regular workshops on tech topics as a way to move the faculty forward in their knowledge and skills.

Most of the time, the workshops were during the "lunch hour" (Although this period of time stretched out over two hours. Maybe lunch period would be more suitable?) They were also held after school quite a bit. These periods of time were chosen based on surveys given to teachers, and feedback received from teachers.

At the beginning of the second year, I wondered what would happen if I moved the workshops I delivered the heart of the action, the faculty room.

I wanted there to be people to be in the vicinity. The idea was to have people who thought they did not have the time for the workshops to at least get ideas or tips in passing.

Should We Block Google Translate? No Way

This post was started all the way back in 2013. I saw it in my drafts column, and having had a conversation with my wife about this very subject, decided it was time to come back and finish my thoughts.


I came across a share on Google+ by +Jay Atwood that was linked to a blog post called Should We Block Google Translate? by Jen Roberts.

The other day I was having this same conversation with my wife.

I argued they should be able to use it.
But, the results are not very good.
Yes, so tell them that. Then tell them they have to work with a partner to make the translation better afterward.

I really don't have another reason other than that. Google Translate is a tool people actually use, so why not let students use it to see its limitations. As Jen says in her post, even with a calculator you need to know the math before you can use it to solve a complex problem.

With Google Translate, I see it more as an opportunity to solve the problem collaboratively.



Below in gray were my notes at the time.
When I saw this I clicked it to find that



Disagree
Using Google translate is a form of plagiarism. It's cheating and students who cheat on homework won't know the material for the test in class, nor will they have the language skills they need for life in a global society.

Are dictionaries allowed? Professional translators use them all the time. What if I translate one word from a dictionary? Is that a form of plagiarism? Do I need to cite my source?

?
nor will they have the language skills they need for life in a global society


Agree
Long ago, my district used to block Wikipedia. Students used it at home, but at school we had no access to show them why it was not a good source. If you block translate language teachers will be in the same position. Students will use it at home, but at school teachers won't be able to demonstrate why it fails.

Further, correcting translations is probably a very authentic task for a modern linguist. (People get paid to do this.)


http://whatdoyouteach.blogspot.jp/2013/05/should-we-block-google-translate.html

http://edudemic.com/2013/05/how-online-translation-tools-are-now-being-used/


 This reminds me of the calculator debate in elementary mathematics.

A Simple Drive Folder Structure for Turning In Assignments

Google Classroom is the most popular way to share files with students. I was excited to finally be able to use this tool when I was teaching MYP Design at my last school.

The interface of Classroom is very easy to use. It is a great way to share files, assignments, and information with students.

I ran into issues with Classroom when I did not specify how I wanted assignments turned in. Once I received an assignment that most students submitted as a GSlide or GDoc, as a series of pictures. It was frustrating, so I went looking at alternatives.

The above method was what my teaching partner used.

Basically ...

1. The teacher creates a folder for the class in the teachers Drive. 
2. The teacher then has students create folders for the class in their own Drives. Students should label their folders with their names. For their own organization, they should also put the class title in the folder name.
3. The student then shares the folder he/she created back with the teacher.
4. The teacher moves the student folder(s) to the class folder. After that is done, the teacher will be able to view or edit (depending on permissions) the document from within the class folder.

If you use this for assignments ...

1. Be sure to tell students how to title their files and type of file what you want to see.
2. Be prepared for some hiccups.
3. You need to drag over the student folders so it might be best to do this with students in the classroom with you.

Another Collaborative Story

This is our most recent Travelling Tale. 

This time ran more smoothly than before - to be expected, but it was much better. Here is a write-up about the experience. 

Should I Develop This Further?

Should I develop this idea further? #watercolour pic.twitter.com/mk5sbBsHNa

— M J Forster (@Matt_Forster) November 1, 2017

I came across the above Tweet this morning.

At first, I was thinking about how this artist was using Twitter to elicit feedback on his idea. I thought it was a good way to use the platform and one that I try to use myself. Then I wondered who might be giving him feedback.

The next thought that appeared in my head was about my own class. I recently introduced a "Seed Journal" to my students for ideas they want to keep, but don't have time to write during our Writing Workshop time.

I wonder how this Tweet would work as a provocation for when it would be time to drop ideas or develop them further.

I imagine my line of questioning might go something like this ...

• Take a look at this image, what do you see? 
• This artist's comment says he is wondering if he should give up on this idea, or develop it further. 
• Have you ever felt like giving up on an idea you had?
• What did you do?
• What advice would you give this artist?

I am certain my questioning would divert from this in the classroom - my students usually have interesting and unexpected answers as well as their own follow-up questions. 

But that's what makes teaching so fun for me; the unexpected nature of the classroom.