Shared Digital Classroom Notes

     Many of my students struggled in the first semester of my world history class this year. Even though I allow notes to be used on all my tests as an accommodation many of them were still struggling to find the information on the note sheets they were filling out.  I decided I would summarize the important points of each day in class as we discussed the concepts, and then have two stationary laptops always set up in my room for students to use and take notes during class. Each day two different students sit at the laptops and are responsible for taking the class notes for this lesson. This puts positive peer pressure on students when they take notes on those day because the class i s depending on them. It also helps the students that are absent or transfer into your class. When we are done with each chapter I will print out all the notes and give each student their own copy. I started off the first few days by modeling with them how to take notes. (spacing, numbering, using different colors) I am also being very specific and telling them what to put down at the beginning with the hopes of gradually releasing responsibility to them in note taking. I would share the Google doc but it is on our own school Google network and can't be viewed outside of it. Here is a screen shot of it.

Creating Videos to Expand Learning

   Teachers often do great things in class to communicate learning and information to students, but what if a student isn't paying attention, is absent, or needs that learning to be repeated? Teachers often don't have time to go back and review certain material with students again. I decided to tackle this problem in one of the classes I co-teach. I think any special education teacher can add a valuable learning experience to any class by taking a key or important concept that is taught and encapsulating it in a video that any student can access at anytime. I co-teach one industrial arts class each semester and am doing it for the second time with wood shop. The first time I co-taught wood shop I noticed that trying to teach 30 kids how to use 10 machines presents many problems. It's hard for 30 kids to see all the intricate details and movements of one person on a machine and then to try and remember all those details when they go to use it a week later. I am hoping creating a video of how to use each machine will help students master these skills and machines quicker. I just used my iPhone to record the general education teacher explaining how to use each machine and then I edited the movie using iMovie on my MacBook Pro. You could use an online site like WeVideo if you don't have access to another movie editing program.  Even if you aren't using machines you could make a video about any important concept you want to make sure that is being reinforced in your class. If it's an important concept you want your students to know, why would you not make that information accessible to them all the time from anywhere? 

Compass Problems??

I have the great privilege of teaching high school geometry to special education students this year. As we were doing some preliminary learning about radius and diameter we began to draw circles with a compass. There were many of my students who struggled using these tools because of their weak fine motor skills. I think we are all familiar with the average hand writing of a special education student. Needless to say holding a sharp point down while trying to swing a pencil around without having a paper move or tear is not an easy task for them. I began searching the internet to find an alternative for them and stumbled across a tool I had not seen before. As an extra bonus it was very affordable at only $1.49 each. I ordered about 15 of them and many of my students love them, and best of all I don't have to hear them complaining about the compasses "not working".  Here is the link to buy them on Amazon.  I also found a great deal on these nice metal rulers for only a $1.50.

Class Moodle Photo Banner

One of my first posts on this blog was how to create a custom banner for your Moodle classes. The main reason doing this is that sets your class apart and helps students know for sure that they are in the correct class. The instructions can be found on this post. I created one today  for my World History class and wanted to share it on here to give an example of what can be done.

Back To School Inspiration

Well that summer went by fast! Between my DJ business and watching my boys all summer I didn't have much time to blog. Thought I would get back into the swing of things since tomorrow is the first day teachers report in my district. This is a very powerful and thought provoking video.  I plan on showing this to my students, but I may need to do some translating for them because of the heavy English accent.  I am also going to post a link to the Ashton Kutcher video that came out a few weeks ago that was very inspirational.

Teach Me How To Moodle

Will Teach Me How to Moodle become as big as Teach Me How To Dougie??  Probably not, but Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Moodle continue to become more popular in education. This may be hard for some to believe but there are those that are not drawn to technology and are not that adept when it comes to using it. With this in mind I am trying to create a resource where fellow teachers can slowly and incrementally learn how to use Moodle in my district or any other school. I know similar videos are all over the internet but I have not seen them put in a simple and sequential order to follow. I did a few trainings last week on each of these Moodle skills, but I wanted to create a resource for them to refer back to and inform those who could not make it. More videos will follow ,but I wanted to get these out there to get people started. Click here to be taken to the page.

PowToon: Put Some Swag In Your Presentation

PowToon is a very unique and interesting new way to present information to an audience. As the name suggests there are many cartoon animation options to put into your presentation. You have the option of making your presentation act like a regular PowerPoint where you click along for animations or new pages as you present, or you can set it up like a movie where you just click play. It took me about 10 minutes to catch on and understand how to best use the application. There is a bit of a learning curve with timing transitions and words appearing on the screen. Below is an example of a movie I made using PowToon to advertise the Intro to Moodle presentation I led at my school.