Kidblog Post:How to Use Blogging with Project Based Learning

March 6, 2017Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth 1 Comment

How to Use Blogging with Project Based Learning

Published on Kidblog DECEMBER 15, 2016 • RACHELLE DENE POTH

Over the past few years, I have looked for more ways—especially creative ways—to use blogging in my classroom. What initially started as a way to have my students practice their writing skills in a digital format (rather than the traditional “Daily Journal” writing), has taken different forms over the past year.

Blogging brings students’ work into a digital learning space, where they can feel free to share their ideas, to express themselves without so much worry on grammatical accuracy, and build their confidence in the process. It enabled me as the teacher to not only focus on what they were sharing, and assess them as needed, but also to learn about them in the process. It provided me with a way to further personalize my instruction and to be able to give the needed feedback in a more direct way.

I also use student blogs, in addition to my own, as a means to reflect on what I have been doing the classroom. Giving this information to the students affords them an opportunity for that critical reflection as well. So through blogging, many skills are enhanced and many things are possible besides the initial use of writing in response to a prompt.

Blogging with #PBL

Approaching this school year, I had many new ideas in mind, one of which was the implementation of PBL (Project-based learning) in my upper-level Spanish courses. A big part of the undertaking of PBL is for students to have an “essential question,” to think about what they wish to explore further in their studies. We discuss how it will work, plan to have progress checks throughout, and once they have completed their cycle of research, they prepare to share their information. An important part of PBL is the reflection element.

I chose to use Kidblog as a way for students to take time to reflect on what they have uncovered in their research and to give others an opportunity to learn from them. I can give feedback, and we both have access to that information and refer back to it as often as needed. We can also continue to comment on it moving forward. I can write comments to offer suggestions and provide support. More importantly, a private digital learning space gives students a way to be more independent in their learning. For our PBL, students use their blog as a way to create a guide for themselves during the process. After posting of their initial “Essential Question,” students are reminded of where they started and how far they have come.

All of this valuable information can then be used during the next phase of PBL. It is a great way to track growth, increase communication skills, and collaborate. The use of blogging aids in the building of relationships. It is rewarding to read what students have written, to understand how they worked through their project-based learning experience, and to have that element of reflection as a result of their blogging. For me, it is great to hear directly from students as they share what they have learned, but better to hear them acknowledge how much they have grown. Being able to review and reflect aids students in planning new goals and continuing their path toward lifelong learning.

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As an addition to this, it is helpful as a teacher to reflect on our practices, in what ways can we improve, how is PBL working in our classroom, what are the thoughts of the students. Using this information can be quite helpful, as well as referring to the many resources available through BIE, and recent books including Hacking Project Based Learning by Ross Cooper and Erin Murphy, Dive Into Inquiry by Trevor MacKenzie, and Pure Genius by Don Wettrick. The #pblchat is also a great place to learn on Twitter.

Implementing an App in the Classroom in 3 Steps

January 23, 2017Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Thank you to Meghan and EdTech: Focus on K-12: Glad to be a part of this discussion.

Two education experts offer up best practices for utilizing mobile technology.

byMeghan Bogardus Cortez Twitter

Meghan is an associate editor with EdTech: Focus on K–12. She enjoys following all the ways technology is constantly changing our world.

With more and more K–12 students owning mobile devices, and with Pearson Education reporting that 72 percent of elementary students and 66 percent of middle school students want use mobile devices more in classroom, now might be the best time to add an app as a regular part of school work.

However, as EdTech reported, a survey done by Kent State University’s Research Center for Educational Technology (RCET) found that 30 percent of general education had received training on apps, and 87 percent wished to receive some sort of training on mobile apps.

We’ve consulted with a researcher and an educator who have expertise in adding mobile technology — particularly apps — into the classroom.

Step One: Identify What Kind of App You’d Like to Use

For Rachelle Poth, a Spanish teacher at Pennsylvania’s Riverview Junior/Senior High School, using mobile technology in her classroom came out of a desire to provide easier and more accessible communication with her students. For Poth, the messaging app Celly was the perfect fit to remind students of assignments and provide a place to put class resources.

“[Using an app] can seem overwhelming for a teacher who isn’t necessarily using technology at all or not using it much,” Poth says. “The key is to look at your classroom and ask, ‘What is one thing that is bothering me or taking up too much time?’”

Poth, who is also an education technology mentor with Common Sense Education, says that finding an app that will work with your class is dependent on what category you might need. She recommends the following:

For messaging: Celly and Remind for communicating with students, and Bloomz for parent-teacher communication
For assessment: Quiz creation tools like Quizlet and Kahoot!
For classroom organization: Learning management tools like Edmodo and Google Classroom

Another way to figure out where an app might be helpful is by asking students, Poth says.

“Pose the question to students, like, ‘If you could change one thing about homework, what would it be?’” she says. “You might hear no more homework at first, but if you dig deeper, you’ll find issues.”

Step Two: Find a Quality App and Test It

Once educators have decided what they want in an app, they might get overwhelmed by the sheer number of options.

Poth recommends reading teacher reviews and sample uses on a site like Common Sense Education or EdShelf. She also says you can chat with the communities on those sites or on Twitter to get feedback from other educators.

At Kent State’s RCET, Karl Kosko, an assistant professor, and others are evaluating apps specifically for special education teachers as part of the SpedApps project. Their database can be accessed by all educators.

Once a teacher has found the right app, he or she will need to do one more thing before introducing it to students: Test it.

“It seems like a very simple thing, but it is the first and foremost,” Kosko says. “Educators should play through the app and think about how their students will use it and misuse it.”

Step Three: Make Sure the App Connects with Your Lesson

Perhaps the most important step of all for educators is choosing technology that supports their teaching and their curricula.

Kosko suggests that teachers really think about how they are going to teach their students to use the app, and then use it for a purpose that will work in the classroom.

“Don’t just use it randomly,” he says. “The apps should be related to something students are currently learning.”

Also, if using anything that needs technology at home, Poth says teachers need to be aware of what students have access to.

“At the beginning of each school year, I give my students a paper and ask them what kind of device they have, if they access at home and what kind of tools they know how to use,” she says.

WAVEBREAKMEDIA/THINKSTOCK

How Students Can Use Timeline Templates in the Classroom

November 29, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Written by: Rachelle Dene Poth

Published on November 11, 2016

How Students Can Use Timeline Templates in the Classroom

Mastering Infographics

As a foreign language teacher, I am always looking for innovative ways to allow my students to demonstrate what they have learned.

I want students to be able to choose a tool that brings out their creative side and, as a result, leads to a more authentic and meaningful learning experience.

Because learning a language can be difficult, I try to design a variety of activities and projects that will provide students with practice and unique opportunities to develop their language skills through the creation of their projects.

Using a Timeline Template as a Learning Tool

using-a-timeline-template-as-a-learning-tool

As a student, I recall having to create a timeline in a history or science class to display events or processes. Timelines are a great way to help students organize thoughts and can be very beneficial for meeting the needs of different learning styles.

Creating timelines on paper or poster board are still great options, especially when availability and accessibility of technology and resources is an issue. However, through the use of digital tools, it is much easier to create a timeline that is more visually engaging and provides additional interactive features.

With a tool like Visme, students can select their preferred timeline template and add icons, search for images within the platform or upload their own. With such a wide selection of fonts and other graphic assets, they are able to enhance their visual thinking skills and create a personalized learning product.

How to Use Timelines in the Classroom

types of timelines for classroom and education

In each level, we discuss topics like childhood, recipes, travel plans, school schedules, future plans and more. It had not occurred to me before that I could have students create a timeline to narrate these events.

A timeline could be just as effective as the traditional narrative format, so I decided to go with it and have students choose a timeline template for one of the summer assignments, which entailed narrating a sequence of ten events.

I looked forward to seeing what students created with Visme. Some used the timeline templates available and others decided to design their own timelines from scratch.

Ideas for Timeline Projects

ideas-for-timeline-projects for students

In an educational setting, the use of an infographic timeline can serve many purposes. Students can use it to narrate a personal experience or illustrate something they have learned in class. Teachers can use one to show students the steps they should follow in a process, rather than a traditional word document or other worksheet.

For example, here are just a few ideas of how teachers and educators in general can use timeline templates in the classroom:

In a physics or chemistry lab, a teacher could easily create an infographic timeline to tell students how to complete the lab assignment.
In an elementary setting, teachers could create a timeline to help students learn how to count to 10, learn the alphabet, or even show the steps to tying one’s shoe.
In a cooking class, a timeline template can be customized with your own information to explain the sequence of food preparation, steps in a recipe or procedures for cleaning up the classroom space.

There really are a lot of options available to teachers and students in an educational setting, or to anyone who wants to highlight events or the chronology of something.

And even if the subject matter at hand does not seem like it could involve the creation of a timeline, this is a great opportunity to let students devise their own way of thinking about a topic.

Why Choose Visme?

visme timeline template

Creating a timeline with Visme is a simple and engaging process. The timeline templates available can help teachers and students create something very visual and clearly labeled that can be quickly customized to their needs because of Visme’s easy-to-use drag-and-drop tool.

I decided that the “back to school” summer assignment for some of my Spanish classes this year would be to create a timeline that included at least ten events. Some options included sharing summer experiences, creating a top ten list of favorite activities, talking about a special summer trip–no topic was off limits as long as it included the required grammar topics.

Part of their task was to also choose whether they wanted to create a horizontal or vertical timeline.

Questions to Consider

Any time I try something new, I ask students about their learning experiences. Was it something beneficial? Did it help them learn the material better?

Student feedback is so vital to what we do as teachers, so I took this as an opportunity to try something new with them and let them decide how they wanted to complete this task and then to gather information and reflect on their feedback.

The students were excited to work with the new timeline templates and happy to share their experiences and opinions:

What Students Had to Say

examples of student timeline projects

Christoph

“To start, I absolutely love Visme. I have used it for two Spanish Projects so far, and it is a very easy tool to use. The presentation style makes it very easy to present information in a way that is pleasing to the eye and engaging. Along with this, it makes it possible to share large amounts of information for completing projects of any size, in a much cleaner and clearer format.

I can picture myself using Visme in the future to create mini-presentations as well as large scale projects that I could use notecards with as well. In addition, Visme offers an option to switch things up from a normal presentation.

In class, after ten people have shared Powerpoint presentations, a teacher finds it nice to have another well-made project shown that stands out and is different from all the others.

quote Visme timeline templates

Finally, Visme allows the user to create things with more detail than any other project-creating website or tool. There are a plethora of tools that can be utilized to enhance the project such as icons, shapes, pictures, audio, and a ton of themes. I would recommend this to other students and will continue using Visme in the future for more classes!”

Marina

“Visme was such an amazing tool to work with for our Spanish timeline project! I absolutely loved being able to create my own template while also being able to choose from a lot of different timeline templates.

Visme is a very easy tool to use. Everything is set up and labeled so if a person would have not read the directions about how to use the site to create, they still would have been able to use it. It is an amazing tool for presentations and is unlike any other presentation tools we have ever used. They give you so many options with how to make your project really unique.

quote Visme timeline templates

Visme allows you to insert audio, pictures, shapes and many other wonderful details to customize and really make it your own. I would recommend Visme to a lot of the people in my class because it is unlike any tool we have used before!”

Cassy

“Visme is a great tool to use for projects, presentations, infographics and more. My favorite thing about Visme is how easy it is to use. The timeline templates create an outline that allow you to organize your information in a way that is attractive to the eye. I enjoyed using Visme because it also enabled me to be creative with my project.

Visme has so many options and variations in creating my project. I could insert photos, text, graphics, backgrounds and add audio to enhance my project.

quote Visme timeline templates

I can complete a project in a variety of different ways to fit my needs for what is best for my assignment. It is also very easy to share the work that I have created using Visme. I can publish my work to social media and websites or just present my project to my class.

I am appreciative that I am able to use Visme in class. Web tools like Visme can enhance my learning and understanding of many topics while also letting me be creative and use my imagination. You can create with Visme in an easy and organized fashion.”

Your Turn

What types of infographic projects have you tried with your students or in a classroom setting? If you have any specific projects or ideas you’d like to share, don’t hesitate to drop us a line in the comments section below.

And if you haven’t already taken Visme for a test run, you can sign up here and use it for free for as long as you like.

90% of all information transmitted to our brains is visual.
People remember…

Become a more effective visual communicator.With Visme, you can create, share or download your visuals with no design training.It’s free! Take a tour.

About the Author

Rachelle Poth is a Spanish Teacher at Riverview Junior Senior High School in Oakmont, PA. She is also an attorney and earned her Juris Doctor Degree from Duquesne University School of Law and recently received the Master’s Degree in Instructional Technology from Duquesne.

She enjoys presenting at conferences on technology and learning more ways to advance student learning. Connect with her on Twitter @rdene915.

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Guest Post via @Rdene915: “Summers: The life of educators”

August 10, 2016August 10, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Thank you Sarah Thomas @sarahdateechur and @EduMatch #edumatch for the opportunity for this post on August 1, 2016. Logo from Edumatch.com

A couple of reasons why I love summer

Rachelle Dene Poth

I am a teacher and when people find this out, one of the first things they say is “it must be nice to have your summers off.” Yes, thank you, it is nice to have a more relaxed schedule over the course of the summer break. But in all honesty, I would be fine if I taught year round. And there are a lot of teachers who don’t really have the whole summer “off” because their school operates on a different type of school calendar. And like I said, I love summer, not because it means that I don’t have to go to work. I enjoy being in the classroom and working with students. I look forward to each day and what it brings. I love the routine, the new challenges each day, and more than anything, working with the students and learning from them. However, the main reason I look forward to the summer is because it is an opportunity to seek out new learning experiences that will enable me to return to my classroom refreshed, with new ideas and hopefully improved skills that will help me to provide the best learning experiences for my students.

Connections

Another great thing about summer is that it is a time to connect with other educators. And I have been fortunate to meet a lot of educators over the past few years, but even more so this summer because I had the opportunity to be involved in several tremendous conferences and learning experiences including Summer Spark, ISTE 2016, and EdCampUSA. So yes, it is nice to be a teacher and to have those breaks throughout the year and especially during summer, but I bet if you ask some of your friends who are teachers or even if you meet someone new who is a teacher, if they really have their summers “off”, I bet almost all of them will tell you no, and maybe even follow up with a laugh. And here is why.

Summer for educators

Summer is a time for a lot of things. One of the nice things about being in education, in my role as a classroom teacher is that I do have the summers off. But we all know the reality of it is that we don’t really have the time off. Teachers have time of course for some of the normal summer things like sleeping in late, catching up with friends and family, going on vacations and not worrying about setting the alarm. But it is also valuable time for teachers to do even more, on a personal and professional basis. Time to think about their practice and take advantage of the opportunities that are out there for professional development and growth.

Teachers devote most of their time during the school year, focusing on students’ skills and needs, their interests and providing a supportive, positive, meaningful, engaging learning environment for their students. For some of our students, school is the safe place to be. Each teacher’s classroom is unique and offers an opportunity for the teacher to create a whole new world, for lack of a better phrase, to immerse their students in learning, to draw them into new experiences and help each student develop their skills, to become reflective, to have choice and voice in their learning. In addition to striving to provide this for our students, we work to be a constant source of support and guidance for each student each day.

And contrary to the “school day schedule”, when the school day ends, these tasks, jobs, responsibilities do not end with the ringing of the bell. We may leave our work on our desk in our classroom, but these other parts of our work continue 24 hours a day every day. The impression that we make on our students and the atmosphere that we create for them, the guidance we provide have an impact that does not end when they leave our classroom nor when they leave the school for the day. Each student takes something unique away from the classroom when they leave us. Whatever our connection is with each student, the relationships that we build and that continue to grow throughout the year, in some way help each student. There is something created unique to each teacher-student relationship, that forms the foundation for the learning to occur. We are their teachers, but also their mentors, providing more than just a lesson in the classroom. We don’t just teach. We give ourselves and our support to our students.

And it is exhausting, in a good way. And if you leave your classroom at the end of the day, and you are not exhausted when you get home, then something is wrong. There is more work to be done.

Our schedules

Teachers put a lot of time in outside of the classroom and that time is not evident to the rest of the world. The hours at night at home or on the weekend grading papers, making parent phone calls, preparing lessons, attending conferences, are not factored into how people view the time and place of the job of the teacher. And I do not see this as negative, it’s just the reality that because school is perceived as an 8 hour day experience, that is where the work ends. And maybe in the past it would be viewed in that way because technology did not exist to enable emails or other collaboration to occur beyond the school day. But the work involved and the personal investment was and still is the same.

So back to why I love summer

Getting back to some of the reasons I love summer. Each summer gets better and better, and it’s not because I traveled and spent hours on beaches, or to the contrary, kept idle. It is because I have used the time to learn more, to read, to connect, to reflect and to prepare for the next year. My summer goal is to work so I can start stronger and be better than I was the year before. This summer has been an unbelievable period of growth for me and I knew at the end of the school year that it would be exhausting but a well worth it kind of exhausting.

I have been fortunate to travel to different conferences throughout the country, to confront some fears such as flying and speaking in front of many people, to challenge myself more each day. And no worries, I am enjoying some time sleeping in and also sitting outside on the deck with my cup of coffee, but the computer, a book or a magazine are always there. The Voxer groups I join are part of each day, listening and learning. I use the time I have because I want to learn, to connect, to develop skills so I can be the best teacher and mentor that I can be for my students. I will do whatever it takes to make that happen. And this summer I have met a lot of inspirational role models, leaders in education, Eduheroes, people I have known through Twitter chats,Voxer groups or Google communities. These are things which two years ago I would not have even thought possible. But learning from these different groups and developing a new awareness and new perspectives and facing new challenges, has really given me pause. To be among some of the great educators and benefit from truly amazing professional development experiences, has served to make me want to use every moment of this summer “break” to take in and learn as much as I can. Does this sound like you?

My summer recommendations

Some things that I think are important to do in the summer. I think you have to give yourself some freedom and flexibility with your schedule. So that means if you want to go to bed early and get out of bed late, that’s fine. If it means that you then spend the majority of your day working and reading, or doing nothing at all, that’s okay too. You have to make time for friends and family, connect with people that are important and that matter and that maybe throughout the school year you don’t have as many opportunities to spend time with. Once the school year starts, schedules become very hectic. That is the nice thing about being a teacher in some sense, is that your availability is more open in the summer but then again people with year-round jobs aren’t as available as you. You should find conferences or webinars, join in book studies or Voxer groups, or try connecting with some different learning communities. Get involved in a Twitter chat, whatever it is during the school year that just doesn’t seem to fit as part of your routine, make it part of your summer routine.

There are lots of opportunities out there and while there is not time for everything, there can be time for a little bit of everything. So decide what is best for you. Do you want to be in one Voxer group or join one book study ? Then make that your focus. Or maybe you want to participate in writing tips for a blog or website. It’s up to you, because it is your time to decide how to spend your summer break.

Personally I stay in good practice during the summer because I keep my schedule as chaotic as possible because it’s better prepares me for the school year. The first day or two of summer break I feel a bit out of it because of that absence of routine, the lack of students waiting to hear from me, but I soon develop my summer plan and get started right away. On Monday.