I introduced three of my classes to Classcraft this week. I pretty much also introduced myself to Classcraft this week! I spent a lot of time this summer researching tools and resources to gamify my classroom for this year, and there were a lot of great ideas, but nothing really grabbed me. I am not even sure how I came across Classcraft but I am so glad that I did because I love it!! So far, two of my classes are loving it and the other class seems to be enjoying it but they're holding back a bit :)
If you're not familiar with Classcraft, it's a role-playing game that teachers and students play in the classroom. The students try to earn points and powers with good behavior, and try not to lose points by breaking class rules. It's customizable so the teacher can make the rules fit for his or her classroom. For example, I deleted the reward of eating in class, because I have a computer lab and there is a no eating rule! Today was the first day that we began playing, and one student earned points for helping another student. When the other students saw that, they were desperate to help someone to earn some points for themselves! It was great. The students are also on teams of 4-6 players, and they can help their teammates earn back points if some have been lost. This has encouraged teamwork between students who don't usually work together, which was amazing to see. Even more exciting than Classcraft is my upcoming trip to Rochester Institute of Technology to see my son on Parent's Weekend! I haven't seen him since we dropped him off in mid-August and I am counting the hours until I see him. It will be a short visit but it will be awesome to have him show us around campus, visit the fraternity house where he's pledging, see a hockey game, and we have tickets to see Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters! I'll take him shopping before my husband and I fly home - I CANNOT wait!
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Last year I started my job as an Instructional Technology Specialist. I began part time, and my main job was helping teachers introduce and integrate technology into their classrooms. At the end of the year, I found out that my proposal to teach an elective was approved, and I started preparing to teach Digital Citizenship and Literacy to freshman students (That looks and sounds awkward, right? But freshman is the adjective; I looked it up!). I started investigating curriculum ideas and resources and right away, I really liked the curriculum that Commonsense Media offered. There are four units with topics that cover everything from sexting, building community online, Creative Commons, cyberbullying, monitoring who has your data and more. The lessons are clearly spelled out, making it easy to use the curriculum pretty much as it is, or adapt parts of it to make it work in your classroom.
Nearpod was another discovery I made towards the end of last school year. Nearpod allows you to create lessons which you share with the students, and the teacher guides the lesson the whole way through. Because my students use PCs in our computer lab, I simply share a code with them and they enter it on Nearpod's home page. This brings them to the lesson and I control the speed of the lesson as I progress through the slides. Slides can contain content, quizzes, open-ended questions, polls, etc. The best part of the interactive slides is that the students answer the poll or question on their computer, and the answers all show up on their screens. The teacher can also generate a report of each lesson. A paid license allows the teacher to assign a Nearpod lesson as homework, but my paid account hasn't been approved yet so I haven't been able to try that out yet. I think this could be awesome for a flipped classroom environment. Not only can you create lessons, there is a huge library of lessons that are available to use. Some are free and some need to be paid for; I have only used free lessons so far. There I was, creating my digital literacy and citizenship curriculum, using a lot of material and resources from Commonsense Media, as well as a huge Nearpod enthusiast, and I got an email saying that Commonsense Media was offering their Digital Citizenship curriculum on Nearpod for free! It was a limited-time promotion and I jumped on it right away. Towards the middle of August I got access to the Nearpod Commonsense Media lessons and they have been amazing! I have been using these lessons a few times a week with my students and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. The videos are interesting, the questions are thoughtful and the interactive slides are great. The students are engaged throughout the lesson and eager to participate. Even my most quiet and reserved students are comfortable expressing their ideas and opinions using the interactive slides. I can't recommend both Nearpod and Commonsense Media enough - but put them together and it's really impossible to give them a worthy review! If you are using Commonsense Media Digital Literacy curriculum resources, I would love to hear what you're doing in your classroom! And the same goes for Nearpod - it's a fabulous tool that can be used in any classroom. I recommend it to the vocational teachers at my school as often - or more than - I do the academic teachers. If you know of any great lessons, or if you've created any, I would love to see them! |
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AuthorMom to two sons, married 23 years to college sweetie. Instructional Technology Specialist for a vocational high school. Educator for 20+ years. Love to read, do anything crafty, and spend time with friends and family. Passionate about education, technology, and the combination of the two! I'm a proud foster-failure with Big Fluffy Dog Rescue, having fallen head-over-heels for our first foster and adopting her :) Archives
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