February 17, 2020: Update & Vlog #3… Here we go!

I finally feel like I’ve started getting somewhere with my major project! The planning and organizing of all these different ideas and reworking initial plans has taken a lot of time! However, that being said, I still have lots that needs to be accomplished…

My vlog this week was essentially a detailed update on everything I’ve done for my major project and where I’m going next (watch it below). For this blog post, I’ll highlight some of those advancements, but also share some insights I’ve had while working on my major project.

Flipgrid App Review Update

Like I mentioned in last week’s post, I completed my Flipgrid PD session and the students had a chance to explore the app. This week, we got down to business and they began working on their How To… projects. Origami has been very popular in my classroom (their book boxes are exploding with paper airplanes, foxes, and butterflies), so many of my students chose to expand on their skills for this project. Some of my students chose to learn how to draw a certain character or scene, while some are learning how to create clothing for dolls. I’ve been needing to remind my students that their final post should be a tutorial with step-by-step instructions of the skill that they are learning. They have been so excited to start creating, but haven’t been thinking a lot about how to create their tutorial. I am thinking I will need to show them some sample tutorials and break them down step-by-step as a class. On Friday, the students did their first reflection on their projects that detailed what they’ve accomplished, next steps, and how well they feel they’ve used their class time. I have started viewing their reflections and I am loving the accountability that Flipgrid has put on my students! I am finding their work periods are more productive, as they know I am checking in on their work through Flipgrid and that in order to make their post, they need to have something to share about their work that week. When we return to school (after the February break), we will continue to use Flipgrid and work on our projects. Meanwhile, I plan on giving feedback to my students about their progress so far through Flipgrid. I am hoping to do this in the form of a video response, as that seems the most efficient. Prior to creating this week’s vlog, I didn’t know that there was a private way to offer video feedback! However, I have noticed that I can offer written feedback, but it doesn’t appear that students can view it directly on their video. They are given a feedback link and they need to search the link in order to receive their feedback or it can be emailed to them. I have found a video tutorial that outlines how to offer feedback, so I plan on exploring this feature in more depth this week. I would also like to explore the grading rubric feature as well. I’m thinking I will try this out for their next reflection.

Digital Citizenship Unit Plan Update

This week, my co-teachers and I got our learning community set up for our superpower themed photo booth. We put up some student work that is open for commenting with sticky notes (for any students that do not have a media release or a signed permission slip). The student work was based on our presentation from Build Love and the handout used was provided by them as well. In addition we’ve put up some signs as a reminder of the expectations around using the photo booth. The photo booth will be supervised as well. We planned to do this activity on Anti-Bullying Day (February 26), as this seems like a fitting time to be discussing kindness, inclusion, and respect for others. Of course, prior to doing this activity, we needed to do some pre-teaching around digital identity and footprint. Common Sense Media has been my “go to” for lesson ideas and it also is where I found the lesson I taught this week. However, I am on the lookout for other resources that offer lesson plan ideas as well. I am open to any suggestions!

During our lesson this week, my students shared some really great insights, connections, and engagement. I think this topic resonated with many of them as quite a few of my students are active users of social media or at least play online games. I think it was an eye opening conversation regarding how there are some parts of your digital identity that you can control (things you post/comment on) and parts that you can’t (things others post/comment about you). I don’t think many of my students have given much thought to this because it generated a lot of conversation. One of my students made the connection that digital citizenship is basically citizenship… “Don’t say rude things about people in general!” We then discussed our responsibilities for ourselves, but also for others (check out my tweet to see the “highlights” of our discussion). This also brought up commenting on SeeSaw and Flipgrid. I explained that their comments on each other’s work has not been disrespectful, but also not necessary, inspiring, or helpful (referring to the THINK strategy). We had some very insightful conversation about this topic, so I’ll be curious to see how they begin applying this when I open up commenting again on SeeSaw and Flipgrid!

YouTube App Review Update

I am still working on creating my vlogs and learning more about this app. Thanks to our awesome EC&I 832 crew and Twitter, I have some great resources to review about using YouTube in the classroom! Victoria, Sarah, Adam, and Curtis weighed in on this with some interesting information, which I plan on sifting through more this week for my review! THANK YOU! I am still focusing on using YouTube as a vlogging platform, but I started thinking about the educational value of YouTube. Most of my students are using YouTube as their main source of research to learn the skill they’ve chosen for their How To… project. One of my students decided to learn how to do algebra and has been looking at tutorials on YouTube. This made me think about starting a classroom YouTube channel with mini tutorials on various topics and other ways YouTube can potentially be used. I’ve only ever used YouTube to show my students videos, but have never used it to post any educational content of my own. This might be something I consider trying for this course or at another point in time. Although there is still more research and exploring that needs to be done for this app, I was curious to see what social media apps and online games were the most and least popular for my students. I conducted a small survey and YouTube was the most used app by my students. Snap Chat, Tik Tok, and Instagram were also included. With that being said, I think if I were to use YouTube as a way to post mini tutorials or other educational content (either for my students or a broader audience), YouTube might be a good platform because my students are already familiar with the basics of how YouTube works. Food for thought!

Next Steps…

• Finish planning my Digital Citizenship Unit… Updates to follow on our photo booth activity!
• Continue working on my app reviews
• Continue creating vlogs on my major project and experimenting with iMovie… Possibly expanding into creating educational content or mini tutorials for my students?

Thanks for taking a read/a watch of my vlog (the length definitely got away from me on this one)! If you have any other resources you’ve used other than Common Sense Media for your lesson plans, I would love to hear about them! Also, what are your thoughts on using YouTube in the classroom as an educational tool? Has anyone tried it before as a way to share content with their students or to a broader audience? I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences!

-Leigh