Virginia Society for Technology in Education
In the February 2021 edition of the VSTE Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Webinar, Charlotte Morris talks about how educators can include diversity and equity principles in their learning content. Charlotte is an instructional designer of graduate courses in the College of Professional Studies at George Washington University.
The webinar is hosted by Charles Randolph.
As teachers have adjusted to virtual and hybrid learning one of the tools that has risen to the surface has been Google Jamboard. Jamboard is an interactive whiteboard application that, like most Google products, is collaborative. Our principal, Leeane Turnbull-Palette, began using Jamboards in conjunction with inclusive opener prompts to begin staff meetings and many in our staff, at Salem High School in Virginia Beach, loved the collaborative nature and ease of use. One of the biggest highlights of the tool is that you can use an image as the background making any whiteboard a graphic organizer.
Jamboard has been a versatile tool for inclusive openings, collaborative groups, intentional closings, and advisory activities. It allows teachers to set up prompts, embed graphic organizers into the background, and gives teachers options on how they are going to have students respond. For inclusive openings, the teacher may post a prompt and all students can answer that prompt simultaneously regardless of where they are. As the class moves into classwork, the teacher can assign 1 page of a Jamboard to each of the 5 groups with a graphic organizer embedded onto the slide. Jamboards will allow for up to 20 pages per Jamboard which allows for a lot of versatility, not to mention all of the students' work for the day is neatly on one Jamboard for easy grading.
Recently when using Jamboard for a professional development course, teachers were asked to note on a Jamboard what new tools or strategies they implemented during the first term of virtual learning during the pandemic that was a game-changer. They each noted their tool or strategy and signed their name to their sticky note on the Jamboard. Next, the teachers were asked to think about what they’d like to change to make the next term run a bit more smoothly for them or their students.
On the next Jamboard slide the teachers were asked to write on a sticky note what tool or strategy they wanted to try for the second term to help with their challenge, again they were asked to sign their name. In conclusion, teachers were asked to “ask the experts”, their colleagues who may have already used that tool of strategies for tips and points on where to get started. The Jamboard was their take away with tons of tools and methods that had worked for their peers as well as a point of contact to reach out to.
Another great example of how teachers are using Jamboard is how the catering teacher, Chef Voloudakis, is integrating them into class and creating a culture of collaboration and inclusion in her virtual classroom. Teaching a cooking class virtual was quite a challenge in the beginning. She uses Jamboards in a variety of ways. One way is to share thoughts and options on different foods. During Thanksgiving, students were able to share recipes, traditions, even photographs of dishes they help create with their families for the holiday meal. Another way they are using them is a brainstorming sounding board while discussing dishing as alternative ingredients. Lastly, Jamboards have become the classroom’s virtual bulletin board where students and Chef V can post pictures and video demonstrations of how to create a dish as well as the final products.
This pandemic has been a challenge for everyone. However, teachers are thinking outside of the box, sharing ideas, using new tools, and creating new classroom experiences that may not look like they did in the past, but are equally as rich and meaningful.
Written by Jennifer Blais. Jennifer is an Instructional Technology Specialist at Green Run High School and Salem High School in Virginia Beach. You can follow her on Twitter @MsJenBlais.
As an educator, have you ever stopped to wonder what it’s like on the other side of the screen? What is like to be in the shoes of a student in the year 2020-2021? We did and it changed our entire perspective on virtual learning.
In the Fall of 2020, I and three of my JMU colleagues were student teachers placed at the same school in Virginia and much like everyone else we were uncertain what this year was going to hold. As schools began their journey into the intrepid waters of the unknown, piloting this new ship we call digital remote learning, it wasn’t long before the flood of communications, worries, and frustrations threatened to sink it: inboxes were full, phones were constantly ringing, systems were crashing, and everyone was beyond exhausted, trying their hardest to press on despite the storm of challenges caused by the pandemic.
I sat in a team meeting one day brainstorming how to chart a more effective and less choppy educational course, when the principal stated longingly, “I just wish I knew what it was like to be a student.” As the words struck deep into my heart as a Duke, I thought to myself, “I can do that... I could be a student for a day. I can be the change that I want to see... ”
The next thing I knew, I was rounding up my colleagues and we sat down to develop a strategy with the administration. Each of us was assigned a student schedule in a grade level different from the one we were placed in as student teachers. We borrowed Chromebooks from the library to simulate student technology, selected a specific calendar day that would have been indicative of a normal day’s worth of work for students, and then dedicated time to complete all the work and write out our findings. Before we began, we also noted that our findings were limited by the fact that we were collegiate educated students with reading and digital literacy skills that far surpassed the average student. As we got started, I was suspecting that our results would support the trends we saw as teachers: students were not reading instructions carefully or were just not motivated to do assignments.
You would think that four graduate students would have no problem completing one day’s worth of online instruction, but to be completely honest, it was brutal. While it only took us four hours to complete all the assignments, we were completely drained from the amount of reading, clicking, navigating, and just overall effort we had to put in behind our tiny laptop screens.
Allow me to emphasize that we were completely competent graduate students, who knew how to do all the work, and had zero learning challenges, but by the end of the day even our heads were splitting at the seams. Imagine how much more difficult it is for our diverse students? In our carpool the following day one of my colleagues remarked, “I am so glad that I get to be a teacher again today and not a student.”
We published our findings and suggestions in an informal research report and distributed it to the local school division, but perhaps the biggest take away from our experience was that it is necessary not only to empathize with our students but to also understand their experience by entering into it.
A lot has changed since the beginning of the school year and as routines and norms are established, the waters of education are becoming less murky. Students’ experiences are constantly fluctuating though between hybrid and remote models and so the question is just as relevant as ever—What is like to be in the shoes of a student? I challenge you to find out. It might rock your boat and change your whole perspective on digital learning like it did for me.
Written by Austin Evans. Austin is currently a graduate student at James Madison University finishing his Masters in the Arts of Teaching with a concentration on Middle Education. He worked with Ann Allred, Nicole Popule, and Allison Wellener to conduct the “A Day in the Life of A Student” research project at North Fork Middle School in Shenandoah County.
As Library Media Specialists (LMS), we are always looking for new tech tools to increase student engagement and help teachers enhance their curriculum. One of our favorite tools over the years was Google Tour Builder. Needless to say, we were quite disappointed to find out that Google Tour Builder was going to be phased out and replaced with something called Google Earth Projects. But, turns out, this new tool is amazing!
When school buildings closed during the second half of the 2019/2020 school year and continued to stay closed throughout most of the 2020/2021 school year, the need for tech tools to enhance virtual instruction was at an all time high. Teachers were struggling to learn how to do their jobs virtually while also keeping kids engaged. So, they looked to the LMS and ITS (Instructional Technology Specialist) for help navigating through these unprecedented times. Google Earth Projects was a perfect fit!
Google Earth Projects allows students to travel all over the world virtually, diving into an interactive map and exploring locations with 360° photos and street view, while giving them the ability to create their own tours and projects to share their learning with teachers and classmates. Teachers can create templates and share with their students to edit, or students can create projects from scratch.
Since Google Earth is part of the G Suite, all projects are saved automatically in students’ Google Drives and can be added to or edited as they move through grade levels. Google Earth Projects allows students to drop pins to show locations, add 360° photos for an immersive experience, and add multimedia like photos, videos, and text to pinned locations. Students can also make copies and share out, as well as add collaborators. This tool allows for cross-curricular learning, combining research and writing, as well as content. In addition, students even have the opportunity to present their tours, allowing for oral communication data to be collected.
As Library Media Specialists, we hope to turn what could be a simple lesson into an engaging and interactive experience where students can showcase their research skills, along with their ability to engage in the 5Cs, while exploring curricular objectives. For example, students can show their learning of specific Civil War or American Revolutionary War locations. Additionally, Native American tribes, VA regions, landforms, landmarks, continents, and oceans are just a few of the content areas that have been highlighted within these projects.
As the pandemic and travel restrictions continue, the use of Google Earth projects allows students the opportunity to tour countries around the globe.
Is your class researching countries? With Google Earth projects, students don’t have to just read about it in books; they can take a virtual field trip to see it up close and personal. Teaching geometry? Show students 3D shapes in the real world (think pyramids in Egypt, Spaceship Earth at Disney’s Epcot, cylindrical towers in Germany).
Google Earth projects can even enhance a simple read aloud. Yes, students are able to visualize the events in a story, but it would be fun to follow a characters’ travels throughout.
While you may be used to Google Tour Builder, give Google Earth Projects a chance and you won’t be disappointed! The opportunities are endless and will take your students on a trip around the world all while staying put in the confines of their very own classroom chair.
Written by Erin Nye and Courtney Phillips. Erin is a Library Media Specialist at Kingston Elementary School and can be found on Twitter @enye001. Courtney is a Library Media Specialist at Strawbridge Elementary School, and tweets @MrsPhillipsLMS.
Covid. It’s truly amazing how one word, one event, could single-handedly change the face of education across the world in such a short period of time. However, as we are all aware, that is exactly what happened. In the winter of 2020, Instructional Technology Specialists such as myself, were busy leading professional development, attending and participating in collaborations, and modeling effective instructional strategies for the teachers and students in our buildings. Then, in the spring, everything changed. Our normal everyday educational occurrences were changed in ways we never could have imagined.
I cannot say that everything changed in a negative way. I watched as the teachers in my building and across our city, as well as across the country, learned very quickly how to navigate Zoom and Google Meet. There was more participation in professional development in my building than I had seen in the past several years. Teachers immediately jumped on board with PearDeck, PlayPosit, Flipgrid, and so many other programs to engage our virtual learners in ways they never thought they could. It was amazing to experience and be an active participant in this learning experience. It became obvious that our teachers were going to do whatever was necessary to ensure the success of all of our students no matter what was happening in the world around us.
Another thing that changed was my role and the role of the Library Media Specialist especially as we envisioned our shared library space. Over the past three years, we have worked diligently to create an amazing Makerspace program in our library through donations from parents, the community, and several grants we have received. In March 2020, our Makerspace initiative immediately came to a screeching halt. We missed the looks on the children’s faces as they speed walked to the library to use the Dashes and Dots, the Lego sets, the arts and crafts projects, and Merge Cubes. We went from having approximately 750 students a week rotate through the library to a library that was empty. This fall, it was obvious that the students were missing a much-loved piece of their education.
Thanks to the Virginia Beach Education Foundation Grant opportunities, my LMS and I decided to write a grant for a Mobile Makerspace Initiative. We were awarded $1900 to purchase carts and supplies to keep Makerspace alive in our building. We were given another $1800 to purchase a Makey Makey class set for our students to use. If the students couldn’t come to us, we would go to them! We used the funds to purchase things like arts and crafts, build your own planes and boats, Egyptian tombs to do archeological digs, pots and seeds for children to paint and plant amongst many other items. On the carts, we have also included Dashes, coding mice, Merge Cubes and smartphones, and Ozobots that we have received from other grants.
Now, instead of the students coming to us, we can go to them. Our Mobile Makerspace is as flexible as teachers and students need it to be. Teachers can email us about materials that they want to use in their class as they have a list of what was purchased with the grants. They can check out our electronic equipment as long as everything is sanitized appropriately between uses. Teachers can request a variety of the materials and activities to keep in their classroom for their own Makerspace area, or they can have students meet us in the hallway to choose activities to take back to their classrooms during specific times of the day. Additionally, teachers can sign up for us to work with a small group, socially distancing, with our Dashes and Dots and Merge Cubes. They can also request for us to model and instruct on the class set of Makey Makey in small spaced out groups or as a whole class.
We all know that things have changed since the Pandemic began. What I have learned from the pandemic is that our "normal" is now different. In some ways, things will never be the same. Our shared philosophy behind Makerspace was the value we placed on developing students' communication and collaboration skills. With that, my LMS and I followed our own values and adapted to create a new normal, a Mobile Makerspace. A space, mobile and different, but one that still allows students to create and be innovative, skills which all of us have needed over the last year.
Written by Nicole Cabral. Nicole is an Instructional Technology Specialist at Landstown Elementary in Virginia Beach.
