Thing 40: Mapping & Geography Tools

As a high school social studies teacher I was super excite for this Cool Tools "thing". Geography is something the students always struggle with so when they can use real and tangible tools to see maps that are personalized it really sticks with them. For me personally when I taught History of Rochester I had students use Google Maps to show where their Rochester communities were and talk about similarities of "immigrant" neighborhoods. The students liked being able to put down their pins and it was an easy visual for the class to spark discussion. I've also used Historypin a few times for PD and Thinglink which can be similarly used. When students have free time I have them play Geoguessr and the "airport" Google Maps game where they discover countries and places they never heard of which is useful for the AP kids. If I get the chance to teach History of Rochester again or even my beginning of the year project of thinking like a historian I am going to use "What Was There" to have students build Rochester and their family's history. I really like "What Was There" because it has an iOS app and it gives students a historic "Instagram" feel. I was really drawn to Google Lit Maps as a cross curricular project with English as they have been reading Night by Eli Wiesel to plot the displacement of Jews during the Holocaust. Or even currently with my global crisis project if students choose immigration and migration they can make a personal Google map showing the travels. I am looking forward to sharing these tools with the rest of the Global I and Global II teams during common planning time.


Below is an example of the neighborhood similarities spoken of earlier for History of Rochester to build class culture.

Thing 18: Student Assessment & Feedback Tools

I chose Dotstorm and Spiral because I had never heard of them before and wanted to try new tools out. When I tried Dotstorm I was struck by the fact that it looked like a mood board or similar to Pinterest which I love. I like that you can embed videos and images and I can see it being used for different group projects and collaboration. I also thought Dotstorm would be good for using Expeditionary Learning or Managing the Active Classroom protocols such as a digital gallery walk or chalk talk! Out of the two tools I chose however I enjoyed Spiral much more. I like the fact that it has multiple means of assessing and I started building a discussion lesson on absolute monarchs that will keep students engaged in the mini lecture and check for understanding multiple times. I am looking forward to passing on this tool to my colleagues. The only thing I wish was to make it easier to link to LMS platforms like Schoology or Google Classroom. Out of the other assessment tools listed I have used Edpuzzle, Kahoot, Plickers, Peardeck, Google Forms, Today's Meet, and Quizziz. I love using Edpuzzle to check for understanding during Youtube videos when the class is being too rowdy or I assigned homework. I use Kahoot everyday and besides the usual glitches like timing and picking answers for students the kids love Kahoot. However, if I need to assign individual work or homework I use Quizziz because it is self paced and the students can see the questions/answers on their own screen. I've also used Plickers and PollEverywhere to check answers on the Regents multiple choice and Plickers is a strong tool in the East's science department that many of the students are used to using. I love using Google Forms through my Google classroom to check for understanding and get feedback on group projects because students are used to it. I also like the fact you can turn Google Form responses into graphs and pie charts to make it easier to understand. Today's Meet I've used during PDs but I find you have to remember to check it during the session to answer responses. But it is a nice way for participants to also help one another. Finally I've used Peardeck with Global Review but find lately it has had a lot of bugs and is not counter intuitive to learn. Overall, with East's big push for assessment and learning these tools have made my classroom so much easier and helping build 21st century learning skills.

Thing 23: Infographics & Data Visualization

I chose to create an infographic about human rights violations and current global crisis such as human trafficking. I chose this because both of my classes for their end of the year project will be completing a Google Site presentation on a global crisis of their choosing with solutions to the UN. I created this as an example for my students when they have to create their PSA or infographic for their project. I picked Easelly to use for the project because I had used LucidPress, Canva, and Piktograph to create infographics because and found them "clunky" and difficult to manipulate material although for digital posters Canva is an excellent tool. I liked how easy Easelly was to manipulate symbols, texts, and the templates seemed very user friendly. This seems like a platform that is less likely to frustrate my students and need less trouble shooting so I look forward to trying it out in my class. The only thing I did not like was many of the symbols needed a pro account even for a symbol that should have been free i.e. a human person symbol. Other than that it was easy to use and make visually appealing infographics!

Thing 2: Photo Fun

Photo Credit: Alles (https://pixabay.com/en/helmet-army-german-helmet-soldier-1465352/) 

This was the photo I chose from Pixabay because my students will be studying World War I soon and this is a primary identifier for Germany in political cartoons at the time. I was really impressed with Pixabay and the quality of the photos and the ease with what I found them. Generally I just do Google searches and become frustrated with the quality of pictures so I will definitely be adding this to my arsenal as well as remembering to use Flickr. I was also really interested in exploring Historypin as I taught a History of Rochester course and I think it would be  cool assignment to have students upload their own Historypin pictures around Rochester. I really liked the 10 Ways to Use Instagram in the Classroom article as well because although I have done the "histogram" template  with events like the French Revolution and historical figures. With my students it would still be really interesting to see them actually use the Social Media app in conjecture with global history influences around Rochester, maybe even like a scavenger hunt or who can come up with clever history captions.

Thing 1: Blogging

Hello and welcome to my first blog post!

My name is Jessica Bates and I am a Social Studies teacher at East Upper School. This year I am currently teaching Pre APWH, APWH, and a Global Condensed class! I want to take part in this program because I am very interested in educational technology. In the spring I will be finishing my certification to become an Educational Technology Specialist and I am looking forward to getting to know more "cool tools". I really want to spread technology at East High School and help my students become 21st century learners. In this digital age many more things are being switched to online technology like online courses and job opportunities and we need to prepare our scholars for this shift. 

I am really interested in using blogging in the classroom to get students more comfortable with writing and analyzing. From John Spencer's article Thirteen Ways to Boost Student Blogging,  I was really drawn to having students use blogs to encourage discourse. Currently I use Schoology's discussion board platforms to promote discourse but lately students have not been as thoughtful in their responses. I wonder if they felt they had ownership of their own content and thoughts in a blog, that it might be more thoughtful. I was also drawn to his tip of using "photo prompts" in blogs as there are countless thought provoking historical photos that would lead to more student writing which I want to encourage as many of my students do the very bare minimum or one to two sentences. I also learned how to set expectations for blogs and digital citizenship which our students need to be made more aware of. After completing this lesson I will have students set up blogs through Google's Blogger that will be linked to their accounts. This way when they are absent or otherwise not in class, they can still monitor their learning on their own and show me they now understand the content.