Digitizing Exams

At the high school level, helping students prepare for exams is an important college and career readiness task. At AHS, the implementation of 1:1 iPads allowed teachers to support students in this process in new ways. As with all good  strategies, the potential for how the strategies could be used in other ways became an interesting discussion. Look for changes in credit recovery and blended or online learning opportunities as teachers create transformative learning opportunities with the technology we are given. Many of the examples come from Ms. Burns digital Algebra II exam review, which includes the use of the Explain Everything app, shared Google drive class folders and YouTube.

Featured iPad Apps

Explain Everything, an app developed in partnership by MorrisCooke and The Constructionist Toolkit, was created "to help connect visual and functional designs to both current and educational research and the practical realities of school settings". The app functions as a design tool, allowing users to annotate, animate and narrate explanations and presentations to create lessons activities, assessments and tutorials. The app is reasonably priced at $2.99, with discounts available for Apple Education Volume Purchase. The app easily uploads videos to YouTube, allowing closed-captioning to be added.

One of the unique features of Explain Everything is that the app is supported with a free iTune book manual, which is updated as new features are rolled out with updates. 

Maximizing Google

Instead of focusing on a particular aspect of Google, or a specific app, the power of the tool is often how the possibilities come together. This is evident looking at Ms. Burn's Alg II exam Review. 

• The process begins by establishing a shared folder between teacher and classroom. This allows communication of assignments, support documents and resources that are digitally accessed. When Ms. Burn's creates the review, it is simply added to the shared class folder. Students now have anytime, anywhere access. 
• Ms. Burn's then used the Explain Everything app reviewed above to create tutorials of example math problems.
• The app allows easy upload to Youtube. The YouTube video is then linked to the exam review

Students now have access to not only an outline of content covered on the exam, but teacher examples of problem solving as well as practice assignments for exam preparation. I love it when good tools come together!

Getting the Most Out of Your Learning Platform

Learning platforms provide several options for exams and exam reviews. Edmodo and Moodle both have 

quiz features. Students that are familiar with using the platforms should have no problem taking their exams electronically. Additionally, if classes are developed with assignments, lessons and resources posted in one location, review of material can be systematic and does not depend upon the student's ability to keep track of paper assignments, a real struggle for many. 

Creating a Quiz in Moodle:

1. Create a "Quiz" Assignment.

2. Add questions to your quiz.

Creating a Quiz in Edmodo:

Twitter Friday Follow  

My Twitter Friday Follow recommendations for this week are AHS Government/Economics teachers Mr. Mike Cesaro (@MichaelCesaro)  and Mrs. Kathy Barraco (@kathybarraco). These teachers are excellent examples of teaming and collaboration to enhance curriculum and classrooms. One strategy that they used over the last year is to conduct extra-credit Twitter exam reviews. The teacher Tweets out an exam review question, and the first student to respond gets extra credit. This works well as a review, as there is incentive for students to participate and Mrs. Barraco and Mr. Cesaro provide feedback to all students who participate. 

Library News

At the high school, semester exams are a signal that ACT testing time is just around the corner. The library offers both print and digital resources for ACT and SAT preparation. Most resources are more than practice tests. Included are an overview of the tests, thinking being assess and strategies for individual components as well as timed test taking in general.

                     

Michigan residents can also access test preparation resources through the Michigan eLibrary. Through grants, the state has purchased access to The Learning Express Library. Simply create an account and begin your ACT practice. In addition to ACT practice, there are courses in reading, writing and math for students K-12. Any students or teachers interested in creating accounts can schedule time with Mrs. Wynkoop for assistance.

Tech Enabled Athletics and Extra Curricular Activities

Many advantages of a 1:1 environment extend beyond the classroom. Shared devices, apps and tools create more ways to connect, communicate and evaluate. For athletics, record keeping and feedback in regard to performance and statistics are time consuming. Technology can offer more ways to collect and record data for statistical analysis and to analyze physical performance. In addition, student organizations are often paper-drive and require communication with busy students. Technolgy can be used to create paper-less solutions and any-time communication. Featured below are some examples of how athletics and extra-curricular activities are taking advantage of available technology.

Featured iPad Apps

Statistics, statistics, statistics. Coaches are continuously gathering and analyzing data to evaluate athlete performance. Apps can be found that are designed for specific sports or more generalized use. Highlighted below are 3 apps coaches have found useful. While the featured apps are not free, generally the paper and time that is saved can still result in cost benefit.

iStats Wrestle seems a bit pricey at $39.99, but there are some features that make it well worth the investment, according to Varsity wrestling coach Brian Ranger. First, the app is not subscription based, so there is no renewal fee. Second, the app syncs across multiple devices, making statistical tracking during tournaments seemless. According to the app developer's description "iStats Wrestle is a robust application that lets you manage and track statistics for a wrestling team and sync stats between multiple devices. Simply input your wrestlers, enter stats as a match happens, and the app does the rest. It will score every match, keep all matches chronologically ordered, organize matches into events, and generate statistics for each and every wrestler on your team."  

Varsity girls basketball is using an app called GameChanger. The app also has versions for baseball and softball. There is no charge for coaches and statisticians. Instead the designers finance the upgrades and support through fan purchase of premium accounts that allow tracking of teams and individual athletes.Coach Matzka has is using the app this season and feels that it has assisted the process of data tracking.

Several teams take advantage of Hudl as a way to view and analyze video game footage. Football, basketball and wrestling have found this tech tool has increased access for athletes to highlight film, both internally and for studying opponents. The app is free and allows analysis of film that has been uploaded as well as capturing video with your device. Hudl has it's own YouTube Channel of support and training videos, allowing less tech savvy coaches to integrate the tool. The video below demonstrates how coaches can take their information on Hudl and make it available offline. Great for travel, outside practices and areas without wifi.

Varsity Cheer coach, Minna Turrell, has found the app Coach's Eye to be a game changer this year. Developed by Tech Smith, an industry leader in screen capture and recording software, the primary function is to analyze physical movement in many forms. Coach Turrell goes beyond this basic function and uses the  slow-motion feature to analyze timing, arm position and formations. In addition, the app allows recording of complete routines with voice over capability allow feedback from coaches on athlete performance or creating video examples with voice instructions for cheerleaders to follow when learning routines. The app is only $4.99 and has in the past been offered for free for a limited time.

Maximizing Google

Communicating with parents, athletes, students and the community is a vital part of successful programs. Google has several apps and features that assist with communication, but one of the most powerful is the blog. In fact, this tech blog is a Google Blogger site! Blogs provide communicators a way to quickly share information,  including images, video and text with the all the advantages of a web-based tool. With options of instant update notifications for followers, to the ability to broadcast through other social media like Twitter, Facebook or even linking to web pages, blogs provide a quick and easy solution to communication issues.

AHS Athletic Director, Mr. Jamie Thiede, recently began a blog for AHS athletics. The blog provides a way to communicate information, explain procedure and policies and highlight athletic success. Check it out today! http://algonacmuskratathletics.blogspot.com/

Getting the Most Out of Your Learning Platform

Many learning management systems, including Edmodo and Moodle, have assignment options that can be used for voting. At AHS, Student Council and NHS have used the "Choice" activity when voting for officers. This is easily transferable to the classroom, any time a student needs to make a "choice". Because the management system requires a login, it creates a secure voting system that is automatically tallied. Online voting or polling allows voting to occur over a time period instead of at one designated time. Great feature for our students with busy schedules. The screencast below demonstrates how to set up the Choice activity in Moodle.

If Edmodo is your learning platform, you couuld use the "poll" activity for voting or making a choice.

Twitter Friday Follow

Schools are coming around to the idea that if you want to communicate with students and parents, you have to make it available where they are already engaged. Twitter has become a great communication tool for athletics and extra-curriculars. Some coaches set up an account specifically for the team or sport while others choose to ask their athletes and parents to follow their professional account. Many of your favorite teams, sportscasters and athletic organizations are also on Twitter. (My favorite is Jim Brandstatter: @brandymancan). Here are some suggestions for all things Athletic at Algonac High School:

General athletic news and information (including blog posts!): @AlgonacSports

Sport and team specific (not an exhaustive list, check with your favorite coach or sport web page):

Wrestling: @brianrangerahs   Football: @Algonacfootball  Cheer: @TurrellAHS

Varsity Girls BB: @MrMatzka (bonus: Coach Matzka tweets out cool sport related quotes)

Library News

Getting kids reading can sometimes be a challenge. That is why a good library collection is necessary. By the time many students are in middle school and high school they have stopped reading for pleasure. Their only reading is of the analytical, literary deconstruction type that is part of an English curriculum. This is where the connection between reading and sport can be powerful. Here are some offerings in the AHS collection for our sport-minded students. And coaches.