2017 IL Winter Google Summit: My First Tech Presenter Experience

I've definitely attended my fair share of tech conferences in my past 15 years of teaching. This was the first time I actually presented at one! It was like jumping into the deep end, and hoping that you can swim...!

It all started with my ridiculous YouTube video for my 8th graders that I use as an intro to their video assignment. I will always act like a total goofball fool if it means that it might entertain and motivate my students. I don't really consider that other people, like adults, or even other education professionals might watch it. I just figure that they don't have much reason to... although if I was that embarrassed by it, I definitely wouldn't have posted it online in the first place. 

Nevertheless, somebody at WeVideo watched the darn thing. And then contacted me. And asked if I wanted to be an ambassador for them. It sounded super cool, so I said yes! They even did a little blog on my experience with WeVideo and made me the October "Educator of the Month" - this was extremely cool, as I feel like I sometimes can under the radar within my own district. It's nice to get noticed sometimes!

Part of this ambassador gig involves representing WeVideo at select events as needed. I've presented at art teacher conferences, and at in-district PD events, so the thought of it wasn't totally foreign. I agreed to do a presentation at the IL Winter Google Summit hosted by EdTechTeam. This year it was held in Des Plaines, IL, which is not too far from me. Yeah, I could handle that.

...and then it happened.

I discovered that another part of the deal involved participating in the Demo Slam. A Demo Slam is a friendly competition where participants give a 3-minute (or less) presentation on a tech tool or trick, but in a really engaging way. The crowd actually votes on who's the best. So a good hook or creative angle is key. And of course, at the end of the slam, you get to actually say, "Slam!" - mic drop. 

Sounds like fun, right? Yes, absolutely... to watch. To participate? I immediately began FREAKING OUT about it. Although I teach, and I often act like a total weirdo in front of my students, adults are a completely different world. And they'd be JUDGING me. Ooooof. 

My topic was already decided-ish. It was going to have to do with WeVideo. My favorite part of WeVideo is the color keying tool, so I decided to focus on that. I started to brainstorm about how I could demonstrate using a green screen in a portable way. I started by painting a piece of foam core with green paint; I thought that I could hold it behind me and shoot via webcam. But when I tried it, holding the screen was just too awkward and it wouldn't work. 

What does one do in a situation like this? Ask a seventh grader, of course! I ran the concept by a group of students in my class, and together we brainstormed a way to "mount" the green screen on my shoulders using two wire hangers bent so that they fit over my shoulders. It was pretty hilarious, if not completely practical. I had pretty much decided to ditch the green screen contraption altogether until a coworker suggested that I use it in the presentation, even if just as a funny prop. I decided to go with that.

So, by the day the Summit came, I had spent at least a full week freaking out and planning and testing and running through slides and re-running through slides. And making my husband sit through practice runs. He's a champ. My main presentation was entitled "Planning For Video Projects, Featuring WeVideo," and I was feeling pretty confident. I had demo "student" accounts for teachers to try out, complete with a bunch of photos and video clips that I had pre-loaded into the media libraries for the demo accounts to use. 

Want to check out my presentation? Here's a quick overview:

The presenting part seemed to go pretty well, until the second half where teachers logged into the student demo accounts to find NONE of the photos or video clips that I had spent so much time loading prior to the day! Worst. Nightmare. Realized. I was mortified. A quick call to my WeVideo contact (hey awesome customer service!) helped me figure out and fix where I had made a minor mistake in the sharing locations. The rest of the session went fine, but I was feeling pretty down and discouraged for having this issue after all of the planning and testing I had done in the days before in order to prevent just such a thing from happening. How could I have missed that? On a positive note, I'll never make that mistake again!

Algonquin Middle School in Des Plaines (where the Summit was held) has an amazing makerspace classroom that they call the "Dream Lab." In it, they have some of the same robots and tech gadgets that I am lucky to have in my room, plus much much more! The dream lab has a lot of supplies like paint and art materials, LEGOs, sewing machines, a Cricut machine, and even several GoPro cameras!

I drool over spaces like this. I wish that every school had a room like this, and teachers could either bring their classes down, or check out materials and take it to their own room, and I could be the organizer of it all. I could help students with their projects and coach other teachers to incorporate maker concepts in their classrooms. Ugh. I need to stop daydreaming.

So back to the Summit. I gave my presentation, and you heard how that all went, but I still had a Demo Slam to tackle. I was scheduled about 2/3 of the way down in the order, so I had a little bit of time to observe how things went with others. One interesting thing that happened was that the sound system went out. Like totally out. A portable mic/sound system was brought in. It was okay, but not great. Thankfully, I really only needed the mic.

Then it was my turn. It sort of went so fast that I don't even remember too much... "Blah blah, green screen, remove the background... Look! I'm on the moon! Look! I'm in a video game!" And then I put on my ridiculous green screen contraption and the crowd went nuts. I was so excited to hear them giggle at its ridiculousness. I threatened them that they'd "better not steal my idea because I'm going on Shark Tank!"

...and Slam. It was over.

I didn't win the Demo Slam, but I feel like it went really well. I felt good, and I was so proud of myself for getting up there and just going for it. It was such a great counterpoint to my slightly imperfect session earlier in the day. A bonus was that I even got a Twitter shout-out from Jennie Magiera! It made me feel like a cool girl:

In the end, I'm really grateful to have this experience "under my belt," as I'll be presenting again in about a month at the ICE Conference! Let the freaking out commence. :)

- Mrs L.

Museums Are Awesome With Museum Hack!

I had the unique opportunity to take a Museum Hack tour at the Art Institute of Chicago over winter break. Although this doesn't technically fall under a "tech blog" umbrella, it does count as a teaching topic, so I'm going to share my experience here. Also, it was super fun, so who wouldn't want to know about something fun AND educational to do in your city?

Museums are awesome. They're everywhere. You can learn a TON while you're there. But, like many other teaching tools, the way in which you use it will affect people's motivations and engagement towards learning. For most museums, you can't just show up and yell "Hey, entertain me!" and expect it to be fun and exciting.

However, with Museum Hack... you sort of can! Museum Hack leads "renegade" museum tours (currently in NYC, DC, San Francisco, and Chicago) that are engaging, interactive, and entertaining! As a former visual arts teacher, I was super intrigued by how Museum Hack would take the Art Institute and "hack" it for our tour group.

Our tour guide's name was Elise, and she was super friendly and welcoming. We met our group in the museum's main stairway entrance (after buying our tickets and checking our coats), and were given name tags. There was a group of eight adults, not counting our tour guide. This was awesome for me because it was easy to remember who was in my group, and to follow the group through the museum.

The Art Institute is HUGE. Our two-hour tour was a whirlwind sample buffet of artworks throughout time and cultures. Elise delighted in telling us all about the "saucy" details of Rococo art, and the epic "comic book" panels of St John the Baptist, including a ridiculous and gratuitously bloody beheading scene:

A good half of the tour is finding out interesting facts and little-known/fun trivia bits about different pieces in the museum, and the other half was interactive - we participated in a variety of games and fun discussions about the artworks.

Of course, our tour included Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, where we all had our Ferris Bueller moment staring at the various subjects within the landscape, and selecting our favorites:

This is Elise. She likes that weird character facing away from us that looks like a keyhole. I never even noticed that before!

One of our interactive moments included a game in a smaller gallery where we selected furniture and decorative items for Elise's fictional "housewarming" party for rich people. We got to select an item from the gallery that we would bring for her new house. Then we hilariously tried to connect them together ("Ohh that bowl would look great on the table Jen picked! And we could hang Todd's creepy painting above it!").

Another fun game was had in the sculpture gallery where we were tasked with choosing a sculpture that represented our "spirit animal." My husband and I chose one for each other. His was an epic beard-off with this guy:

Elise took polaroids of us with our sculptures, and we got to take them home as souvenirs. We also wrote postcards about our experience that will be sent later on. Dang, when was the last time you can remember writing a postcard? So that was fun.

We went over to the modern wing, and it was no surprise to me that we stopped at every kid's favorite sculpture in the entire museum:

This piece is called Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) by Félix González-Torres. Yes, you get to actually participate in the piece by taking and eating candy. In the museum. It's always funny because people are so trained to NOT touch the artwork, or to get too close, that it feels taboo to actually take and eat candy! I found a fun article here all about where the candy comes from and how it gets refilled.  

Probably my favorite part of the tour though was when we were asked to re-enact a Surrealist painting of random nudes in the forest:

Here we were, just being goofy, and all of a sudden I realized that a bunch of regular museum patrons had stopped and were watching us, smiling. Yes, a bunch of adults re-creating this very random artwork must have been incredibly entertaining. You're welcome.

But it the end, this got me thinking about how much a teacher can learn from this tour: how easy it can be to engage a group of students by simply making them get up out of their seats and physically mimic an image or concept, or by having them choose an item from a whole grouping and explain their choices.

But most of all, by not taking any of this too seriously, we were able to relax and have fun, and probably retained way more information about works of art than any other prior visit. Without even trying!

I really enjoyed my Museum Hack tour, and if you are in a city that Museum Hack conducts tours in, I highly recommend going on one! Museum Hack offers general tours (like the one I went on), but they also offer private/family tours, tours for parties, and team-building adventures! Can you even imagine, a professional development activity like this?

A girl can only dream...

- Mrs. L.

Do You Even HyperDoc?

My favorite thing lately is the HyperDoc. You probably use elements of HyperDocs in your classroom in some form or another, and didn't even know it.

"HyperDoc is a term used to describe a Google Doc that contains an innovative lesson for students- a 21st Century worksheet, but much better." 

I found a great website that goes into depth about the definition, philosophy, and structure of HyperDocs (a best practices overview) over at Hyperdocs.co - I've been re-vamping many of my units into the HyperDoc format, and I really love the simplicity of it.

Here's where it started: I was noticing that my Google Classroom assignments were becoming a bit of a jumble of attachments to videos, rubric doc files, web resources, and templates for work. Then, in the middle of a unit, I'd find another relevant resource, and I'd go add it to the assignment by editing it and adding yet another link, or adding a comment with the link on the assignment. This gets really confusing for students really quickly. Even for 8th graders.

My light bulb moment came while I was going over the Google training information for the Certified Educator program, and I came across the concept of a HyperDoc. Why hadn't I thought of this earlier? I can put everything students need for a lesson into one doc shared to students and it will always be updated, because Google Docs! No more attaching a zillion things to my assignments.

via http://hyperdocs.co/templates

Best practices for a HyperDoc follow the basic components listed above. I'm also a pretty big sucker for formatting - making the doc very easy to read and follow; using tables, images, fonts, and colors to emphasize important aspects as needed. But easy to read/ease of use is number one.

I'm constantly going back over my worksheets and digital resources to update and re-vamp them, so a shared Google Doc that constantly syncs to all of my updates and revisions is really the best thing ever. I made a HyperDoc for my 8th grade WeVideo unit, and I love the fact that I can update my student examples as time goes on - the projects just keep getting better and better, and therefore so do my examples! 

Here are some screenshots from my WeVideo HyperDoc:

A good majority of the links here can only be accessed from within my district network, so a screengrab will have to suffice.

The only part that's kind of frustrating is that YouTube is currently blocked for all of our middle school students. Even if I use SafeShare to get a "clean" view of a video, the view is still blocked because it originates from YouTube. 

What I do in these cases is show the video to the whole class, since my teacher access is not blocked. I still keep my video links in there, so that a student could access it from home, if needed.

You can create a HyperDoc and have students make their own copies so that they can work directly on the doc, and then submit the copies to you via Google Classroom, email, or any other preferred method. I like to use my HyperDoc as a main hub for directions and resource material, with work completed and submitted via separate files (like our WeVideo project file) submitted via Google Classroom where the HyperDoc is posted. The nice thing about my view-only method is that students will always see the most updated version, even if I have to make changes/additions during the unit. (As soon as a student makes a copy of your Doc, it becomes a separate file and does not update. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to be aware of.)  

For even more on using HyperDocs in the classroom, check out this blog post by Justin Birckbichler.

Have you used HyperDocs in class before? What worked for you?

- Mrs. L.

Why You Need an Epic Hallway Maze at Your School.

Every quarter, I put a new maze down out in the hallway outside my classroom. It's just blue painter's tape on linoleum floor, but to students, it's the greatest thing, ever.

My classroom is in the basement, across and around the corner from a couple other elective/specials (whatever your building calls us) classrooms. So a whole bunch of students from all three grade levels pass by in the course of a day. The first time I did this, I had an unexpected but hilarious result: students would walk up to the maze, glance down, and then proceed to walk through the maze pathway to get to the other side as they were traveling to their next class. Like, during passing periods.

The art teacher and I entertained ourselves by watching this phenomenon happen this first week, even joking with students that if they did not follow the maze, they would be reported to administration for "non-maze compliance." This usually resulted in giggles, eye-rolls (it is middle school), or a quick back-track to walk through the maze correctly a second time.

So, advantage #1: Hilarious social experiment.

I didn't put the maze down for the reason listed above, though. I taped down a maze for the purpose of using our Sphero robots. Students use the Tickle app on iPad minis to write a drag-and-drop block coded program to (hopefully) send the Sphero through the entire maze. It's not nearly as easy as you would think! Few, if any, students are actually able to accomplish this task each term. But everyone makes an attempt.

Therefore, advantage #2: Awesome curricular challenge using Spheros:

Another unexpected thing happened when I put down the hallway maze the first time. Other teachers became curious; they actually asked me about what I was doing in class. Students not enrolled in my class would stop and ask about it. My administrators came down to see it. In a random stroke of good luck, it was open house night not too long after I put down the maze. Therefore, parents even stopped and asked about it.

Advantage #3: Curiosity! Opportunity to talk about your class to others! Free advertising!

I made up the maze on my own the first time it occurred. But then I thought, "Hey, why am I doing all of this work, when students will take way more ownership over something that they do themselves?" So for round two, I had a student stop by after school and make the maze himself. He designed it and (with a little help from me) taped it down. All I had to do was give the parameters: ten squares long by five squares wide was the area he had to work with. It was pretty fun.

This quarter, I gave all of my students a chance to design a maze for the hallway: I created a simple grid on a half sheet of paper, and had each student draw and submit a design. I chose one that I thought would functionally work out best (after having done this a few times), and surprised the students the following day with the "winning" design, in actual maze format on the hallway floor. Pretty sweet prize, if you ask me.

Advantage #4: Student ownership and buy-in. Motivation.

After using this maze concept a few times with 8th grade, I realized that I could do so much more with this! My 6th graders have Dot and Dash robots, and the maze would be the perfect challenge for Dash! Similar to programming the Sphero to travel through the maze, students could write a program for Dash using the Blockly app and have him travel the path, too. I love when I can do work and get some extra bang for my buck!

Advantage #5: Bonus curricular content with Dash robots!

My math teacher friend crocheted these cute little winter hats for our Dash robots. :)

Hopefully I have convinced you that you need your own epic hallway maze. I can tell you from experience that blue painter's tape will NOT mark the linoleum floor, no matter what your custodian may try to tell you. Don't use masking tape though - that will!

Even a carpeted floor would be just fine for making a maze. If you have space in your actual classroom, go ahead and do that. But the hallway is more advantageous, if you ask me. I love the curiosity and excitement it builds when people see it. When I was an art teacher, advocating for your program was one of the philosophies that was drilled into my brain as an undergrad. So, anytime I can "advertise" what's going on in my classroom, I consider that a very good thing.

- Mrs L.

Strategies for Building an Ed Tech Resume

I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my teaching and keep things exciting. If I'm not feeling motivated and enthusiastic, how can I expect my students to be?

It turns out that a lot of the things that one might do to keep growing as an educator are also awesome for building your ed tech resume overall - and you never know where that may lead! I'd love to eventually leave the classroom and start helping other teachers (in a more formal capacity) to utilize innovative teaching strategies and new technology in their own curriculum, so I'm trying to get lots of experience in a variety of areas in order to help facilitate that dream.

Here are some things that you can do now, as a teacher in any subject area, to start building your ed tech resume. You don't need to necessarily intend on leaving your current gig; these steps will help any educator at any level/subject area become more effective at their job!

Grad School: 

You don't need to go back to school for a full degree; explore your state's requirements for additional endorsements on your current teaching license. You may be surprised to find out that it only takes a class or two to become endorsed in a brand new area! This is what happened to me when I switched from visual arts to computer literacy. I was actually able to snag endorsements in computer applications and technology specialist at the same time! Depending on your district's policies, you may be able to complete these classes via an online program (my program was through University of Illinois), and even get reimbursed for classes.

Google Certified:

Does your district use Chromebooks? Does your school have G Suite for Education? For either of these situations, I highly recommend the Google Certified Educator programs. There are two levels, so if you're feeling a little timid, you can start at level one and see how you feel before moving on. The Google Certified Educator programs are a great way to learn in-depth about the possibilities and functions of G Suite - you'll likely learn lots of fun new tricks that you can begin integrating immediately into your teaching! There is a small charge associated with each level test, but I think it's a good way to make sure that the people completing the program are really serious about it. When you pass level one or two, you get a nifty digital badge to display on your website, resume, or portfolio for the next 24 months!

Apple Teacher:

Similar to Google Certification is the Apple Teacher program. Although my district isn't a "Mac/Apple" district, we still have some iPads deployed within the schools. I have a set of 8 in my own classroom for use with our Spheros, Dot and Dash, etc... So I feel like this would be a good way to get in some more professional development that expands my areas of expertise. My husband's district is 1:1 iPad, so he's been working on his Apple Teacher badges. I decided to go along for the ride! You can earn badges in the area of iPad or Mac (I'm currently working on iPad), and if you earn all eight badges in either area, you get the privilege of being known as an Apple Teacher, which also has a sweet logo to display, and the opportunity to earn even more badges in other Apple areas.

Teacher Institute/In-service Programs:

Unless you are in a coaching/TOSA type of position in your district, you may not have a whole lot of opportunities to teach other teachers. Keep an eye out for potential small events in your district, or building, and volunteer if you can! Last year, my district hosted a "Tech Camp"-style in-service day, and I taught two different sessions to other teachers in my district. Sometimes you can submit a proposal to teach a class within your district for other teachers, or present to one particular subject area or department on an institute day. If you are lucky enough to have these types of opportunities, be sure to take advantage of them! They're a great way to start small in preparation for larger presentations, like at professional conferences (see below!).

Conference Presentations:

It's one thing to attend a professional conference. It's a whole other ballgame to actually present at one! If you have a job where you don't have a lot of opportunity to be a leader (say you're a classroom teacher looking to move into a coaching position), but you have something to share, try presenting at conferences! If you're nervous, start small. I started out by presenting at my state professional conference (the IAEA - all art teachers!) on a topic that I was really comfortable with. The following year, I decided to present on social media, which, although being a presentation for art teachers, was still within the realm of technology and easily adaptable to many different subject areas. Up next on my presenter schedule are a Google Summit in January, and the ICE Conference in the spring!

Grants:

Grants are awesome for the simple fact that you can get free stuff to help you out professionally - maybe it's supplies for your classes, a rad guest speaker, or tuition for continuing education classes. But winning a grant is also a great item to add to your professional resume, because it shows that you are innovative (hey, you won!), but also willing to go above and beyond in your job, because writing a grant is quite a bit of work on top of your normal job responsibilities. My district has an education foundation that holds fundraisers year-round, and then grants money to teachers who apply for various projects. I've been fortunate to win grants from this program several times! If you've never applied for a grant before, a really simple program to win small tech toys and/or accessories is the iPevo Wishpool program. In past years, I've been granted iPad keyboards, cases, and charging accessories.

As is my philosophy with most educational concepts, dream big, but start small. You'll be amazed how much you can accomplish within a small time frame if you just focus on little steps along the way.

These tips will help you to build your educational technology resume, both for teachers looking to move into technology roles, and for those working on a future-ready approach to teaching. Do you have any special strategies for building your technology skills?

- Mrs. L.

Stupid Questions: How To Teach Google Forms to Middle-Schoolers

There are some concepts that I struggle with teaching my students. One of those are spreadsheets. Sure, if you're out working in the business world, you probably use them all the time, or if you're living on your own and need to plan budgets and life skills of that sort, spreadsheets are super useful and relevant to your experience.

But middle schoolers just don't have the "need" for it that many adults do, making it really hard to get them excited about it. And it's part of my current curriculum, so I'm trying to find ways to make it "work."

Well, I found something, and it turned out to be a pretty fun activity, actually, so I thought I'd share!

I call this lesson "Stupid Questions." :)

It's a 3-day activity (assuming 40-45 minute classes). Here's the basic outline:

DAY 1: 

Go over directions as a class.
Have students take my sample quiz; show results
Show students how to create their own quiz
Work time 

DAY 2: 

Show how to preview quiz and share URL
Finish writing quizzes & submit URLS
Start taking classmates’ quizzes

DAY 3: 

Finish taking classmates’ quizzes
Go over results as a class, show Google Sheets tricks 

Basically, I have each student create a Google Form 9-question "quiz" utilizing the different types of questions available to create. They can ask anything they like, provided that it is both school-appropriate and respectful.

You know how much people love taking those quizzes on Facebook to "see which Disney princess you are?" Yeah, it's kind of like that. No wonder they enjoyed this so much!

Once students had created a quiz, they shared the URL to a Google Doc. They then had to go down the list and take all of the quizzes that their classmates created! Some students were very non-sensical and weird with it. Others were pretty darn clever:

By taking each other's quizzes, students gave each other a batch of data that could be viewed in Google Sheets and be manipulated in a variety of ways. If you're looking for some ideas, here are some of the ways I showed students to view/manipulate data from their forms:

Do you want to take my Stupid Quiz? You can here!

I concluded the lesson with talking to students about how Google Forms can be a useful tool for middle school students: creating review quizzes, surveying friends, making class presentations more interactive, etc.

Do you have any Google Forms or Sheets lessons that seem especially engaging for middle school students? Please share!

- Mrs. L.

Using Pixlr to Combine Images in Creative Ways

I love using Pixlr to combine pictures to make silly photographs! My students do several projects using Pixlr editor that require removing the background on a photo and combining it with another. Removing backgrounds and combining images are pretty simple starter tasks for learning how to manipulate digital images. Here is a breakdown of how we have used Pixlr in class.

Me on a Wheaties Box (left), and Mr Gail-nimals (right)

Visual Puns (left), and Animal Mash-Ups Alliteration Poem (right)

Past projects have included putting ourselves on a Wheaties box, creating animal mash-ups and writing alliteration peoms to accompany them, and visual puns. Just for fun (we had a couple of extra days one term!), we put our assistant principal's head on a variety of animals and called them "Mr. Gail-nimals."

What's great about these projects is that it gets students comfortable with the idea of layers and how to manipulate them, as well as file type limitations (like how a .jpg cannot have a transparent background!) and sizing/re-sizing of images.

We use Pixlr as our image manipulation tool because it is a pretty good FREE resource that works on our Chromebook devices - it's not as user-friendly as fancy Photoshop software would be, but since we can't install software anyway, this suits us quite well. Students need to get used to using the "Free Transform" tool to re-size images and create a selection box with anchor points - they're used to just clicking on an object in Photoshop - but most of the functions are so very similar that the transition from one digital manipulation software/application to another is pretty easy.

This last quarter in 8th grade classes, we made a "Mount FaceMore" project where (as you can guess) we swapped out the faces on Mount Rushmore. After walking around the room and providing assistance to students, I realized that I kept answering the same questions over and over again. So, I decided to make a video all about the process. The first half is about about removing backgrounds using Pixlr, and the second half shows how to manipulate the layers and file types to save as:

This turned out to be pretty helpful in class, as students could refer back to the video (just skipping to the point that they needed help with), but also could get help if they worked from home, or were absent on the day that the project was first introduced or demonstrated. Win!

I really like teaching digital imaging, as it combines my love of art and computers in one happy place. The skills and concepts that students experience in this project are extremely helpful for future applications and across classes, when custom graphics or images can help demonstrate knowledge in other areas.

Do you have a favorite digital imaging project?

- Mrs. L.