This is a good thing, I think.

Yesterday morning, I went to Wiffiti to set up a board for a quiz game in one of my classes. I have used the app several times for this, and it works well, at least it had up until yesterday. They totally changed the layout of the app, and as far as I could tell, Wiffiti was not going to work the way I used to use it with my students. From the looks of it, the creators of Wiffiti wanted to change things up a bit.

I would have been a little more distraught if this didn’t happen on a regular basis. For those that work with technology much at all, change is a daily ritual (or maybe I should say rite?). Apps, sites, browsers, and interfaces are changing evolving on a daily basis. A new computer device comes out weekly that is more slim and sleek than last weeks model and has twice as much power and memory.

There are two choices here: 1. Get mad and frustrated and just quit altogether. 2. See change as progress and embrace it.

There is a camp of people out there who constantly complain about change. This is especially prevalent among users of Facebook. How many times have you heard someone complain about Facebook changing their layout or privacy settings in the last week. I bet it’s more than you can count on one hand. Complaining about these changes is not going make Facebook change their mind, and from the looks of it, they are not going to slow down any time in the near future as far as “changing things up” goes.

This is an important lesson for students (and for all of us) to learn. At times, though frustrating, having a site go down when students are in the middle of a project is good experience.

This happened to me in class today. My students were using Easel.ly to make infographics. For some reason, in the middle of class, the app stopped working. We couldn’t access the students work that was done last class period. The students got irritated and started mumbling under their breath about “dumb projects” or something along those lines. You can probably fill in the blanks there.

What did we do? I explained that we would see if the site was working next class, and we moved on.

There was no use getting all worked up about something that was totally out of our control. if the site never comes online again, we will do an alternative assignment or just scrap it and find another learning activity. The internet is growing exponentially, so much so that keeping up is like running a hundred mile race. Right now, the end is nowhere in sight.

All we can do is just keep running and drag the classroom full of students along with us.

A quick Google search brought up a bunch of different rubrics, but as usual, most of what I found was a little too lengthy for my taste. I want a loose guide that will force students to think hard, not an intricate map that will lead students to the revered “A” by following explicit directions. If they are going to get that grade, they are going to have to get there, in large part, powered by their own creative thinking. I have also included the links to a couple other noteworthy infographic project resources and rubrics that I ran across this morning.

My Rubric – This rubric has 4 different points which should be a decent guide to get students headed in the right direction.

Infographic Resources – This site has a bunch of links that will be helpful in preparing for an inforgraphic project including rubrics, examples and tips and tricks for creating great infographics.

Kathy Schrock’s Infographic Rubric – Kathy Schrock comes through with another great resource. This rubric is more suited for upper level students due to the technical language.

Cache Public Schools Infographic Rubric – A very detailed rubric. This is the road map, if that is what you like to use for a rubric

After looking at several different infographics with my seventh grade current issues class this week, I decided it would be fun for them to try and make their own. Knowing that there had to be a way for them to do this on the computer, I started a search. There are several apps out there, but most of what I found required either payment of some kind or  the download of the app to the local machine. Then I ran across easel.ly on Larry Ferlazzo’s blog.

Today, my seventh graders started making infographics using the easel.ly app. We are into the early stages of the project, but so far, the app has worked great. At the moment, easel.ly is in beta, so registration is free. One of the things I like best about using the app with students is the easy registration process. Students do need an email, but they don’t have to validate their registration by going to their email. This is a big plus when students are not able to check email at school.

As far as training for students on how to use the app, I did nothing. I just showed them the app and let them go. The figured it out in about one minute. The app is intuitive and easy to use. At the moment, I have no student examples to share, but they should be coming in the near future.

I am going to use The Story of Send today with a logic class that I am currently teaching. The hope is that students will examine all of the thinking that goes into the creation of a process like sending an email. Students should be quite engaged in the discussion as the “tour” is supplemented by several videos and pictures of the different stops the email takes along the way, as well as a good explanation of how Google manages all the power needed to make all of this work. In the half hour I took to preview the story, I learned a great deal about a service that I use multiple times on a daily basis.

Understanding the complexity of something as seemingly simple as Gmail gives students (and teachers) a fresh perspective on the importance of problem solving and the outcomes of great thinking minds.

Before reading any further, if you haven’t heard of Adora Svitek, watch her TED Talk. This girl is amazing. From an early age, she has been educating adults on what the younger generations have to offer the world.

At the Mashable Connect, Adora talked about how youth are much more engaged in the world around them  because they are no longer spectators of what is happening in the world but are participants in a global community. To see more of what she has to say, go to Mashable, read the article and watch the video. She makes sense.

I really like this idea of teenagers being participants rather than mere observers. In the past thirty years (and I am sure we could find the numbers to show this) people spent a great deal of time sitting around watching television. They were observers of a creative world  where anything could and does happen. Watching television is purely an observation activity, so much so that the brain function is greatly lowered during the activity.

This is not so much the case in the tech charged world of today. I would be wrong to say that teenagers don’t still spend a lot of time in front of the 56 inch flat screen at night. I know they do, but unlike their parents, that is not all teens are doing while watching TV. While watching television, they may be engaged in a chat room discussion about the show or updating their Facebook status. Assuredly, most students will be also texting a number of different people during this time on various topics. This is the point that Svitek makes in her talk. To those who do not know how to text, or update a Facebook, or talk in a chat room, these activities look quite distracting and unrelated, but in all reality, they might be quite closely related. Svitek is trying to show that teens are not distracted, but engaged in the world around them.

This might very well be the case for a classroom where students are allowed to text, tweet, and update during class.

As a teacher, this is still a little hard to think about and accept. However, I think it merits some serious thought. Just think of the possibilities for a teacher who can learn to harness the power of all these different modes of communication and thinking. In my mind, there is more and more validity in using the tools students use in their everyday life.

Of course, when I gave the assignment, I asked that students to make sure that there was a means of retrieving the video files from the devices before they actually did any recording. I knew that this would not happen, but it never hurts to try at the beginning of the project. Luckily, in one way or another, we were able to watch every single video on the projector in front of the room.

Don’t think it was easy. There were a few technical issues, but in the end, it all worked out.Here’s a few things we did to accomplish the task. Hopefully, these ideas can be of help for you in a future project.

The biggest lifesaver in showing the projects was a 50 in one card reader. Honestly, I am not sure that the small contraption could possibly read 50 different cards, but it certainly helped us to access many of the videos from the various student devices. Probably the biggest help was in reading micro SD cards from student phones. Many of the newer smart phones have a micro SD. Sometimes, if the student has the cord, the phone can be hooked up to the computer, but someone has to have the right cord. This is usually the case. Not only was the card reader useful in reading the mini SD, but we also had to read a Memory Stick Pro Duo.

The next biggest challenge came when a student, and several of his friends, used his new Galaxy Tab to record their videos. He didn’t have a cord to access the tablet, and he didn’t have a card either. This meant that all 23 of us were going to have to huddle around the small screen to watch the video, but then we had an idea! We opened up the webcam on the laptop and the student simply held the tablet up in front of the camera. He plugged the speakers into the tablet so we had good sound. The picture was a little shaky, but I was surprised how well it worked. Before class was over, we ended up doing this with two more tablets.

Another issue we ran across was videos that were not playing correctly. Many of the videos that were recorded using an iPhone wanted to play sideways in Media Player on my PC. After a watching a few videos with our heads cocked sideways, it dawned on me to open the videos off of the iPhone in QuickTime, which is an Apple product. That did the trick. The videos played upright. The same was also true for two videos that played normally but didn’t have any sound. When opened in QuickTime, they played correctly. It was just a formatting issue.

In assessing these projects, rubrics are the rule. Over the years, I have seen all sorts of rubrics. It seems that, more and more, rubrics are becoming the map for a student project. Each and every detail is outlined in the rubric with a scale for grading. Instead of being a road map, rubrics are becoming the vehicle that drives students to the top of the mountain.

As far as I am concerned, this takes the thinking out of the project.

When assigning a project, give vague directions for what is expected and then create a rubric that will assess the skills students are to be mastering through the course of the project. Don’t give them any more than that. When they come to you with questions, tell them, “It’s in the rubric.” Some students will inevitably moan and groan because you, the teacher, won’t help them, but don’t cave. Make them struggle on their own a little bit. This is where real learning is going to occur.

There is a reward for running a project like this. It never fails. Both the teacher and the students will be surprised by the outcome of the project.

This topic crossed my mind as I watched student video projects with a class yesterday. For the project, students had to write a poem and record a video of themselves performing the poem. I didn’t give them a length requirement for the video. I didn’t require music, special effects, or fancy editing. I didn’t even tell them how long the poem had to be (although I might have mentioned that 2 lines was not going to be sufficient). I’ll be honest. I was a little nervous at the start of class yesterday because of all the questions that were asked concerning the project during the last week. I really tried not to answer many questions directly because I wanted this to be a student project.

As we sat in class yesterday watching the students work, I was totally blown away by the work the students produced. Some of the videos were so moving, students got up and left the room because they were crying. I have never had that happen before! My students really raised the standard for their projects. They went far above and beyond what I thought they would do, or for that matter, what I thought they were even capable of.

In the past, I have used blogs extensively as a tool in the classroom but not blogs that were directly written by the students. One of the reasons that I have not had all students in a classroom write their own blogs is the time commitment involved on my part. Reading through 100 blogs on a regular basis seems like a daunting task.Granted, I would not have to read every single blog every day, but even just setting up that many blogs is some serious work.

Summer school will be the perfect place to try this out because the student numbers are limited. I work with the same group of students for 4 hours a day, and there will not be more than twenty students. This should make managing the blogs easier. I can work out the kinks before trying this with a larger number of students.

My hope is that each student will start a blog on a topic that really interests them. To find material for their blogs, students will also have an RSS reader set up where they can read daily about their topics and then post links and information that they find interesting and pertinent. Hopefully, this will get them excited about reading and writing. Okay, excited may be a strong word for students who are spending their summer in my classroom, but at least maybe they will be engaged in their work.

That is the hope

For those that have never used or heard of Cover It Live, here is a quick run down. Basically, it serves as a chatroom. That is the easiest way to think about it. However, this room is set up and moderated by the teacher who has full control of allowing comments, asking questions, posting polls, and even posting pictures and videos.

Using the tool can be daunting at first. I remember the first time I ever tried it with a class. I was sweating like I had just ran a 5K race, and I felt about the same when the session was over. Since then, I have used the tool in almost all of the classes that I have worked with. Every session is a little stressful. Reading posts and approving them in a timely manner seems to be the hardest part, but believe me, this activity is definitely worth the effort.

Cover It Live is an excellent way to get students engaged in a topic of study. I usually use the tool as a means of introducing a new topic of study in a class. Last week, I held a CIL session with a 7th grade class that was beginning a unit on climate change. We started by defining the topic and then spent an hour looking for good links to various parts of the topic and sharing them with the class. As with any tool, overuse will kill the excitement level in students, but when occasionally used, classes love it.

Here are a few pointers to help make Cover It Live run smoother in the classroom:

1. Prepare questions beforehand. This is especially important for the first few times a teacher runs a session. It is stressful enough without having to worry about what question is going to be posted next.

2. Give students specific rules before the session begins. A few of the rules I lay out in definite terms are that students have to register with their first name (real first name), and they need to stay on task. If rules are broken, their comments will not be share with the class.

3. Prepare Quick Poles before the session starts. Again, this is a lifesaver.

4. Don’t preapprove all comments during the first few sessions, if ever. I never preapprove comments at all. I like to read what the students are posting, and approving them myself keeps students from messing around. The minute someone is given “preapproved” status, not so funny things start to happen, even with the best of classes.

5. Use private messages. When students start messing around, a quick private message will often shut the goofy stuff down quickly.

6. Show students how the platform works. Teachers often incorrectly assume that all of the students are right at home in a chat room. The truth is that, for many of them, this is just as scary as it is for the teacher.

7. Post session links on a blog. This makes the headache of getting to the session painless for students and the teacher.

8. Ditch the grades. I know many teachers that use the platform and then count how many times each student participated in order to give a grade. This is one of those activities where students just need to have fun without worry of a grade. Honestly, those students who don’t normally participate in a class discussion thrive with this activity. The nature of the activity makes it highly engaging for all students.

9. Practice before the first class session. The best way to see how the platform works is to test it with another teacher first. This will make sure you know how to use all the functions. With a practice run under the belt, the first live session with a class full of eager students runs much smoother.

10. Have fun! This is a fun activity. Go with the flow and let your students teach one another while you sit back and watch.