A Message from ILSTOY Teachers to All Educators

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 

Ever since our stay-at-home-order, I've been pretty bogged down with not only teaching from home, but a lot of other outside projects, too. (Have you seen my media page lately? Lots of podcasts, webinars, etc... I know I don't even have them all listed there!) So needless to say, both this blog and Reset EDU channels have suffered as a result... :(

One of my outside projects is a weekly LIVE tech help webinar for teachers across IL state. It's an effort through Teach Plus IL and the ILSTOY network to create PLCs of teachers, no matter where they teach/live in the state, to help them with their remote learning challenges. It's been fun, but intimidating! The first week was all about Google Classroom, and last week we demonstrated Screencastify for teachers. I was lucky to have Nef from Screencastify stop by to take some Q&A from the attendees. This week will be all about Flipgrid, and Jornea has agreed to stop by! I'm pretty excited. Coming up after that are sessions on Jamboard (w/my friend Kim Mattina of The Suite Talk) and Google Suite for Education tools. 

Another project I'm involved with is the ILSTOY (IL State Teachers of the Year) organization. We wanted to do something to help show our support for teaching during our current situation. One of those things is to partner up with ASCD and PBS to support the #SeniorPortrait Campaign "to amplify the voices of millions of high school seniors whose class experiences were dramatically disrupted by the coronavirus shutdown."

Our other project was a short video that we released to show our support and thanks to teachers out there doing whatever they can to help support our students. You can check it out here:

I know that we would love to get as wide a reach as possible with this video! Please share this message on your social media channels and tag a teacher who you know could use a little boost!

- Mrs L.

My First ISTE Experience

So, I'm almost a week out from my very first ISTE experience. For anyone who's never been, ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education, and their yearly conference is a super big deal in terms of size and scale. It's basically the national version of your teaching association group, but for anyone who uses tech. 

Then multiplied by 100. 

In Illinois, we have a state group, called Illinois Computing Educators, with regional chapters and such. Their state conference is big and all (it's the one I usually go to) but I was grossly unprepared for what to expect at ISTE. 

This year, ISTE was local to me, being held in Chicago at McCormick Place... the place that the auto show and Comic-Con is held, if that helps. Oh, and it's expensive, like too much for a person to pay out of their own pocket. So you have to be lucky and have your company or school district send you there. Thankfully, because of my history with WeVideo and willingness to present on their behalf and work in the exhibitor booth, they offered to send both myself and my husband, who teaches art in Oak Park. We worked in the exhibitor booth for 2 of the 3 days, and just that experience alone was insane and fun and basically a giant overload to the senses!

I know it's mostly because it was my first time, so I was unprepared as to what to expect. I'll do better next round. 

Mr Leban and I doing what we do best. Being weird. 

For starters, it felt like we were non-stop hit by people at the booth! Some with questions, some who wanted to try out awesome green screen activities using WeVideo, and LOTS of friends: both my coworkers AND my virtual friends who I was finally able to meet up with in real life and say hello! 

from upper left, clockwise: Suzee Reinheimer (my D205 coworker) and Todd Burleson (author/librarian/twitter buddy), Ben Hartman (another D205 coworker), Kaitlin Fajks (my grad school colleague), and Abby Almerido (one of my new #LAX18 cohort pals!)

I was able to hit up a few sessions, including one on creativity by Todd Burleson, who was kind enough to include me in his Green Screen Makerspace Project book last year, and one on the Google Dynamic Learning Project, which I am super interested in learning everything about! 

Not only did I meet friends at the WeVideo booth, I also had the chance to present at the Google for Education booth on WeVideo. (WeVideo is a Google for Education partner and so we had a space to present - it was super fun!)

I haven't actually shared the awesome news here on the blog, although I've been tweeting all over - I was accepted to the Google Certified Innovator program this summer! I'm going to LA in a little over a week to work on my project, and I am so so psyched about it. I have a really amazing and friendly group of teachers in my cohort with me, and a bunch of us were able to meet up IRL at ISTE! Don't worry, I'm sure to have a blog post all about it after I get back. :)

(Note to self #1: Always take selfies with everyone you meet at ISTE. I forgot this like 90% of my time here.)

We were invited to the special WeVideo/Soundtrap social at Underground on Monday night, which was super fun, and I met up with even MORE friends. Seriously, this ISTE thing is the best place ever to connect with your PLN! :)

Our WeVideo crew! Back row L-R: John, Todd, Me, Jaime, and Krishna. Front row L-R: Emily and Allison

On day three, Todd and I had the time all to ourselves, so besides hitting up a session AND meeting another friend for coffee, we made a valiant attempt to make it through the vendor hall... and I'd say we did a pretty good job of it? 

I was ridiculously excited to find the Osmo booth (I don't use it in middle school, but Iggy has a setup at home and we keep buying more stuff for it because IT IS AMAZING) and I got to meet Awbie of the Osmo Instagram account, who I'm kind of obsessed with. He's just the cutest. 

I also got to talk with exhibitors at some of my other favorite (and new favorite!) vendors, and learn a bunch of new and exciting tricks and preview a bunch of upcoming fun things: Makey Makey, littleBits, iPevo, Swivl, Flipgrid, Creaza, Strawbees... oh geez and I'm probably forgetting a whole mess of others... I told you this ISTE thing was overwhelming! :)

Did you go to ISTE? What was your favorite part? 

- Mrs L.

Even MORE Green Screen Fun Time Ideas!

I’ve been wanting to try out this fun green screen method for a while now. I even got my buddies from my local Starbucks drive-thru to hook me up with a bunch of green straws (those extra-long venti iced coffee straws are perfect for this)!

Disclaimer: this is not my original idea. I got it from one of my favorite PLCs - Twitter!

Use @SUBWAY straws in your next GS Project.@DoInkTweets #recycle #savethearth #edtech #ipaded #doink #ipadchat #greenscreenguru #2ndchat pic.twitter.com/O3SvbrtzbA— Goodwinnovate (@amsgoodwin) June 28, 2017

A lot of iOS teachers love using the DoInk app, which is great if you’re an iPad school… but I’m a Chromebook 1:1 school, so I use WeVideo. Honestly, even if I was an iOS school, I’d still like to use WeVideo because it’s not device-dependent. Anywhere you can access your Google account, you can access and edit your WeVideo projects and video files! It’s so convenient, and they’re constantly adding features and upgrades to the service. I’m hooked.

So anyways, today I set up a mini green screen set: a piece of green construction paper as a “screen,” and a green straw taped to the back of an action figure - like a puppet stand, if you will. Once you add the green screen magic to it, you end up with a video that has an awesome low-tech effect that reminds me of Vitruvius floating around as a ghost in the LEGO movie:

(That visible string from LEGO ghost Vitruvius gets me every time! )

So, I tried out this method (items on green straws) using a Playmobil action figure, a red speech bubble cut-out shape, and a plastic Super Mario figure. I think I surprised myself by how well it worked overall! Can you see the shadow on some? Yeah. Is it perfect? No. Does it do the job? Heck yes! I’m a fan. 

Here’s what my playing around produced:

Fun fact: the skater that jumps off the curb in the last clip is me! I’m trying to teach myself to skate at the skate park. I’m still a very baby beginner, but at least I’m out there trying. :) 

Using the green screen method on a small scale like this is a fun alternative for teachers without space or resources for large green walls or curtains. And you can typically grab the straws for free! 

- Mrs. L.

Tips For Creating a Good Tweet

Recently, my district has begun to leverage social media to help showcase positive aspects of our students, schools, community, and teachers. That’s awesome! Yeah, it’s a little tardy to the party, but at least they made it.

One thing I’ve noticed across several districts is that they love to post about professional development. Stuff like:

"Look at this special guest talking to us about assessment and data!"
"Check out our math teachers working on common core!"
"Hey, here’s some administrators watching a Powerpoint at the district office!"

(Not a tweet from my district; faces have been blurred to protect the identities of the innocent)

Typically, these kinds of tweets are accompanied by a photo from the back of a room, showcasing adults sitting at tables. They might be looking up at a screen (so you get that back-of-the-head view), or you might see them in profile looking at each other. Most importantly, neither the text nor the image makes it look the least bit exciting or engaging:

(Not a tweet from my district; faces have been blurred to protect the identities of the innocent)

Argh. The sheer fact that you tweeted it out does not make it GOOD!

So, I thought I’d share some tips for how to increase the quality of your tweets:

1. Showcase who is there, and how much FUN you are having. Do you have a guest speaker? Take a selfie with them (like here!), or have a teacher give the ol’ thumbs up and pose with him or her. Don’t just stand there with a neutral expression - make it look like you’re having a good time! 
2. Or, highlight a detail of something actually HAPPENING. Did people get up and walk around? Did you create collaborative charts or posters? Were there high-fives? Laughter? Did you have a book discussion? Take a close-up picture of one of those things, and talk about a specific detail, rather than an umbrella-like generic tweet. 
3. Another option is to create a whole collage of photos to show the variety of happenings during your professional development sessions, as in this really nice tweet below: 





(Not my tweet; check out the variety of activities being showcased!)



4. Tag people in your tweets! Include the handles of people featured, or guests present. This increases the likelihood that your tweet will be shared and liked, and therefore gain a wider audience. 
5. Share something that you learned. A useful take-away or tip for the people who see your tweet is always nice. They couldn’t be there, but they can still share in the goodness. 
6. Hashtags! Use them. Hopefully, your district has a common hashtag for use, or even a building level hashtag, but be sure to include broader hashtags, too, like #edtech or #makerspace. Not sure what to use? Here’s a whole list of hashtag ideas in this blog post.





Not my tweet; I assure you this girl is just as happy underneath the smiley emoji! Isn't that the kind of attitude you want to advertise in your organization? 


As a general rule of thumb, before you post an image to social media, step back, take a look at your image, and ask yourself:


"Does this look like a picture of somewhere I'd want to be?"
"Is this an image that I'd like to know more about?"

...and if the answer is no, re-take that picture before publishing it to social media!  


- Mrs. L.

Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Elective Teachers

My husband and I are both teachers. We did a presentation at the IAEA (Illinois Art Education Association) conference in 2015 all about social media for art teachers. I revised our presentation for Fall 2016, with a focus on ANY elective area teacher, because I strongly believe that social media is a great way to:

• Advocate for your program 
• Stay connected to parents, students, and the community
• Connect with fellow teachers in your subject area - discover your personal professional PLN!

I've embedded our (revised) presentation below:

 

In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of using social media as an educator is to consider your audience. Depending on what level you teach, you will have a different audience of parents vs students. Once you've determined who your audience is, choose your social media services accordingly. For example, my middle-schoolers are so "over" Facebook and Twitter... but they're pretty into Instagram and Snapchat. Ask yourself, "Is there a way to use these services to help enhance learning for my students?"

Of course, regardless of your student/parent audience make up, every level will also have an audience of fellow teachers to communicate with, too. I cannot put into words how important my "internet" colleagues are to me, and how grateful I am for all of the help and inspiration that I've gotten from them!

I am a firm believer of the "Think Big, Start Small" philosophy - if social media is new and scary and you don't know where to start, I always recommend Twitter as a launching point. Start there, and hopefully you can slowly build upon that later!

-Mrs. L