Battling the Cue Blues

So, I'm starting this blog post during the 2nd day of CUE.  Who knows when I'll finish it.


Honestly, I'm a little disappointed so far this year.  I'll still come back next year because maybe it was a fluke.  I left many sessions early so far, and the planning of the rooms did not go well.  If you follow me on twitter, you knew how I felt about the Leslie Fisher debacle.

Since they were smart enough to put her in Oasis 4 on Thursday, I was able to see her Tools You Can Use Tomorrow session, which I saw at ISTE.  There was a ton of stuff that was new that I was learning about for the first time and lots of new additions to things I already knew.  One thing that I need to look into that she mentioned was Insert Learning.  Their webpage says:

 "InsertLearning is a Chrome extension that lets you turn websites into interactive lessons. Our toolbar is preloaded on this page so you can try it out without installing anything or signing up. Click on the buttons to transform this text."

I need to figure out what I can try this out with.  I'm thinking maybe something informational to prepare either my 11th graders for The Great Gatsby or my 10th graders to A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Any suggestions on good websites for either of those?

I skipped the Thursday keynote in order to (barely) get in and see a session by Brent Coley about Google Forms.  He didn't revolutionize my thinking about forms, but he definitely had me thinking of some pretty neat uses for them.  I use a Google sheet to keep track of parent contact.  He uses a gForm.  I didn't think about using that, which would give me a time stamp that I don't currently have.  So, I need to create a form or add the time to the date when I fill it out.  I think I'll also be turning the PLC minutes into a gForm so I have all the information throughout the year in a spreadsheet.  Oh, the joys of being the "boss" (read: the bullet-ridden messenger).

I enjoyed the Google Innovator's Slam that featured people like Alice Chen and JR Ginnex-Orinion.  I found out that EdTechTeam's CheckMark extension can now be customized; so, I might use it now.  I also got some neat little hacks to gSlides with videos that I might give a try (you can autoplay and shrink a video for music in the background of a presentation)....

It's the last day of CUE.  Took a break and am coming back while I wait for my first session.  Apparently, the "theme" of putting big-name presenters in smaller rooms has continued.  They have Alice Keeler is a smaller room already filled (pretty sure I won't be able to get into her next session, which I planned on going to) while other rooms have a sprinkling of people in it.  For those that don't know, Alice is a Google Classroom Guru.  If you use Classroom, you need to check her out.



I've already learned something about a tool I use that I didn't know and Kate Baker's presentation hasn't even started.  I had no idea that Actively Learn had a gDoc add-on.

So to reflect on yesterday (Friday), my morning sessions pretty much sucked.  It was a mess with not being able to get in for Leslie Fisher, too many people, and I left all the sessions I actually got into early for one reason or another.  I had an over-priced lunch in the Rocks Lounge at the Renaissance and then checked out Ann Kozma's Diamond Time session.   It was a great session.  Totally hit me in the feels, especially the #LAM (Life Altering Moments) section.  One of our students was shot at the Vegas massacre, so that hit home.  The rest of Friday was kind of a dud for me.

Yeah!  Got into the 2nd Alice Keeler, so I'll continue with this once I get back home from the Springs of Palms....

I lazed about the majority of the rest of the weekend.  My calves were certainly sore.  Saturday's sessions were much better, despite the issues I've already stated.  I really enjoyed the Kate Baker presentation.  I really need to find a way to incorporate and try out Formative.   I may try it with my colleagues the next time I need to do some PD instead of trying to fit it into what I'm doing in class. I also learned that with PDFs, I can also add graphic novels to Actively Learn.

Alice Keeler's session on Classroom tips was really good and that was a session that could have been a double session.  The biggest thing that resonated with me was the fact that she doesn't make copies of any of her gDocs, Slides, etc.   She names the versions and restores back to the "original".  I think I may give that a try with some of the things I do, especially the stuff I use every year and make copies and rename with the date to keep track.  That would certainly help illiminate (eventually) my "archives".

I go in for a morning presentation on the premium aspects of NoRedInk tomorrow, taking the rest of the day off for my CT scan, and then back for ILT meeting and then physical therapy.  I may have to take the next day off too.

The First Week Hangover

Screenshot of my Saturday
morning Facebook status

Well, the school year has begun.  Yeah?

My district made the wonderful (🤔😒😕) decision to start school about three weeks earlier than it normally would.  It also made the decision to start with a completely full week of school.  I really like getting eased back in with a half week.  When does your school year start?  Full week? Half week?

The week before, when I was planning out the first week, I was really grateful for my blog (someone has to be right?).  It was great to go back to this post and see what I had done and how it had worked the year before.

We had shorter class periods all week this week for Week of Welcome (WOW).  We had our now elusive seminar at the beginning of each day this week.  I'm having a hard time connecting with this group of kids.  I don't know if it's the "chemical" makeup of this particular group, the fact that I barely know them (I could maybe remember 3 of their names outside of the students that are also in my English classes - though I don't really know their name and faces yet either), or that I just had such a great relationship with my previous seminar that my gauge is off.

Anyways, since we had shorter class periods and an entire week, I broke things down a little differently this year.

On Monday, I passed out all the important first-day documents, and I read through portions of the syllabus with the kids, pointed out the late work policy, and that they needed to bring Chromebooks, but if they didn't I had them covered.  I then showed them the class set I accumulated in 2014.  I told them it would cost them a class participation point though if they used one of mine (by the end of the week, 2 of the classes all had theirs and in the remaining 3 only a few needed to borrow one).  Then, we did a Kahoot that was about me and the room.  It was the same one we did last year.  It worked really well and helped me begin crafting relationships with a few students who found that I liked to watch Game of Thrones because of it.

The day was interesting in the way that the energy between me and the students really had a drastic change between Periods 2 and 3 where I switch from CP to Honors.  The 10th-grade honors students just really gave back nearly the same amount of energy that I was giving to them.  Just really drove home that this group of kids is my niche.

The next day, I had them take a first-week survey.  There were some memorable responses to some of the questions.

For instance, I had a question that asked if there was another name—other than their name on the roll—they would like to be called.  One of the students said I could call him a stick of butter as long as I was consistent.  I'm going to like this kid.

This was an intriguing answer to what they liked most about the previous year.

Here is an unedited sampling of some of their favorite jokes they shared with me (you are welcome):

• What did the buffalo tell his son when he left to college? Bison
• I told my girlfriend she drew her eyebrows too high. She seemed surprised.
• Why did the quadrilateral get late to school? Because it was on the Rhombus
• Q: What did the DNA say to the other DNA? A: Do these genes make my butt look fat
• why did the duck go to rehab? because he was quack addict!
• what's forrest gump's password? 1Forrest1
• Teacher: "Kids, what does the chicken give you?" Student: "Meat!" Teacher: "Very good! Now what does the pig give you?" Student: "Bacon!" Teacher: "Great! And what does the fat cow give you?" Student: "Homework!"

Wasn't sure how to take that last one, but thought I would share it anyway.

This transitioned them into the updated BreakoutEdu from last year.  There were, of course, those that didn't like it because it was a challenge but when surveyed, the students mostly seemed to like that they were challenged and had to think critically.  Here are the some of the survey results from that activity:

Wednesday and Thursday, I got kids signed up for NoRedInk, Verso, and Actively Learn.  Thanks to the Breakout, they were already signed up for Google Classroom.  I had practice activities for Verso and Actively Learn and a planning diagnostic for NoRedInk.  The purchase order for Actively Learn hasn't come through yet, so I'm back to a free plan.  I'm anxious to get back to the Team Plan, especially since I have a cluster of ELs in my two 11th-grade classes and would like to set up some differentiation for them.  A lot of students, including many of those ELs, didn't complete the Actively Learn assignment (answer 2 questions and make one annotation shared with the class), so I sent out a comment on Google Classroom encouraging them to finish it this weekend and I'll look at them again on Monday.

Friday was spent getting student's blogs set up and showing them how to make a post.  I had planned on doing a reflection on Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome, but I think I'll have to find time to fit that in next week.  I might push back the narrative essay a day and have students do it Monday.

I've also realized, after a week of doing the exact same thing in all my classes, that I wouldn't want to teach the same prep all day.  I did it once about 6 years ago, but I need the change of pace more now I think.

How did your first week go?  I hope it was a good one.

Reflections on CATE

So last month, I attended the California Association of Teachers of English (CATE) Conference with a few colleagues.

First, and ironically, it was last, Kwame Alexander - poet and Newberry Award winner for The Crossover - spoke at the last keynote.  He started with a reading of his poem, "In My Closet, On the Top Shelf, Is a Silver Box", which left me gutted emotionally.  I then went and bought all his non children's books and read that poem to my classes.  They felt it too.  I highly suggest looking into his poetry, especially with National Poetry Month occurring next month.  I will be reading a poem a day to my students.  Any suggestions?

Looking back through my notes, these are a few things that stood out to me.

A session about independent reading by Amy Matt.  That is something that my department holds sacred as 5% of a student's overall grade, but something we especially struggle with.  I'm definitely using some of her materials to incorporate them into my Book Review blogs.  I'm also going to try out the speed dating idea at some point (probably next year to be honest).  I think I'm also going to take time, once, maybe twice, a week to have students read in class.  I may start this with my 11th graders after next week.  I'm also going to set individual reading goals for my students instead of a one size fits all.  This is easy to do in the Accelerated Reader program we use.

I had a couple of dud sessions.  Particularly those that promised to help reduce the amount of work in grading.  I have a book I bought a few years ago that I've never read that I need to find.  Something about not working harder than your students are.

I found out about another Reading and Tracking tool, similar to Actively Learn and Owl Eyes, called  CommonLit.  If we don't end up expanding or renewing our Actively Learn account, I may check it out next year and give it a try.  I signed up just in case, and to maybe use some of their questions.  I'm always on the look out for good questions.

I found out about the app, Serial Reader, from Jennifer Naumann.  It breaks down classic lit into bite sized chunks.  The app will send them a 20 minute (or less) section of a book daily.

I went to a session by the Zen Teacher and every teacher should check out his site.  I bought the book, and he has inspired me to be better about taking care of myself.  I've mediated much more consistently (even if it's only for a few minutes) than I ever have.

The awesome Catlin Tucker was there for a keynote.  I really like her story time idea.  I need to go to the bookstore and look through the children's books for some good ones that could teach teenagers good lessons. I think I'll read one to them each month and then have them reflect on them in a blog.

I had a really good time in my last session about unlocking Shakespeare's rhetoric.  The presenters,
Kelly Boske and Melinda Malaspino, did a great job and I wish one of the colleges down here did a Globe Academy.  I might try a few of the techniques with my 10th grade honors class when we read A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Though, to tell the truth, after that session, I'm getting the hankering to teach Taming of the Shrew again.

Stay tuned for a Kid President blog, I'm having my students do one for the first time in a while today.

The First (Half) Week of School 2016

I didn't sleep in any day, at all, during the summer.  I always woke up in the 6 or 7 o' clock hour. Every. Single. Day.  I find this very unfortunate.

It seems to be a trend that is continuing even after the school year has started because now I'm waking up somewhere in the 5 o' clock hour.

But, it's back to the "grindstone".  Though this grindstone isn't making a lot of noise.  So far, my students are soooooo quiet.  It's kind of disconcerting really.

I'm teaching the same preps this year (English 11 College Prep and English 10 Honors), but they flip flop back and forth between periods, which is kind of annoying and will probably get more so when we start doing different activities.  A minor issue, I know.

So, a post on the Breakout EDU facebook group rolled through in the days before school started from Sally Hoyt about a back to school digital breakout she did with her students.  She gave me permission to modify it, so I did and gave it a try.

Like Sally, I started out with a Google Form student survey.  Once the students were done with the survey and had clicked SUBMIT, there was a link to the 3-lock digital breakout I'd created for them.

Many of the students didn't read the confirmation page and closed the tab, which created some problems, but we navigated through them.

I had clues built into the data validation for each lock.

The first lock was a date lock, and I followed Sally's Breakout and chose Back to School Night.  Ours happen to be on the same night.  Many of the kids thought the clue about going back to school meant that day: the first day of school.  Some kids were getting upset with me because they didn't understand and thought they had to put in the date I gave in the example so they would type the date in the correct format, which of course, didn't work.

I followed Sally's example, to a point, with the directional lock as well and used it to lead them to Google Classroom.  I had given them a sheet with all the codes for all the Apps we would be using in class, which included Classroom.  The clue talked about how if you couldn't find your way, you may need to GOOGLE your way to the CLASSROOM.  Some of the kids picked up on the clue right away, others thought they had to find the coordinates to the school on Google Maps.

Once they were in Classroom, there was an announcement with a link to this document:

Many of the kids figured out the code, but couldn't quite figure out (read:  were not reading the help text for the lock) and were writing out the entire word instead of the first letters.

I'd given the kids a half sheet of paper "introducing" myself and telling them they could find more about me on my website (one of the pages on my site is titled "About Me").  Where the following infographic about myself could be found.  I borrowed this idea too.  I thought it was cute.

If the kids paid close enough attention to what I talked about in note (how many schools I've taught at, how many degrees I have, how many Google certifications I have, and how many colleges I've been to), they would pick up on the numbers and order for the 4-digit lock.

I had one girl figured it out, on accident, by deducing that few meant 3, multiple meant 2 (for her at least; but hey, it worked!), etc. from how I worded my clues.  I might need to be a bit more vague next time.

Once they had all the locks right, they clicked NEXT and that lead them to...

I decided to add a few questions to gauge how students felt about the Digital Breakout.  Here is a sampling of some of the results:

I had a few kids report that they liked nothing about it, but many of them said they liked the challenge, some liked how "sneaky" I was with my clues, and many of them liked the mystery of it.

A lot of the kids realized that the objective was to hit all four of the "Cs": Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Communication.  Some missed out on the communication part because they were trying to do it alone.

Overall, I think the Breakout was a success.  I think I'm going to do one for The Crucible.  I think I'll do the "old-fashioned" Breakout for that.  I need to find one for a book that has already been done and modify it.  It would make me feel a little more confident in trying it out than if I tried to do one from complete scratch.

The Breakout didn't take up the whole period, so I had a Kahoot all about me and the room ready to go.  The kids really had fun with this one despite the fact that they'd just met me.  I used it to point out where the station for staplers, sharpeners, and a hole punch is; and, how to go about turning in late work or getting their absent work, etc.  Here were my two favorite questions, the first one comes right after a question about whether or not I have a sense of humor:




The next two days, I spent practicing some of the Apps we will be using during the school year with the students.  We used Google Classroom both days as the springboard for the other three.  I really like the new topics feature they added, by the way.

First up was a diagnostics assessment on NoRedInk.  This is an online grammar learning tool that I found out about from Esther Wojcicki when she came to present at our district on Moonshots (bought the book, have the book, haven't read it yet).  Four of the five classes are having the most trouble with connecting clauses with colons and semicolons.  My 4th period needs help there too, but they were having more trouble with active and passive voice.  So, I now know what my first official NoRedInk assignments will be for the students.

Then it was Verso.  I really like Verso.  I discovered it last year during CUE after having a hallway chat with my friend Crystal Kirch before we headed to lunch with another friend.  I could have sworn I blogged about using it last year.  Apparently, I had meant to and never did.  I really love Verso, and the kids seemed to like it last year in the few times we used it.  I plan to pretty much use it for any online class discussions this year.  The students' responses are anonymous to students, but not the teacher.  The kids mentioned how they liked the idea of anonymity because that way they would feel more confident and comfortable responding honestly and thoughtfully knowing that other students don't know what response is theirs, but they can't be mean to each other with impunity since they are accountable to the teacher who can tell who said what.

Here is the video that the students watched for their first "flip" (What Verso calls an activity) that they did as practice.  There was an accompanying question:

Lastly, I introduced them to Actively Learn.  As I blogged about last school year, I really like Actively Learn.  My school is test piloting it with a Team plan for 6 of us, so I get some special goodies this year.  One thing I noticed is that when I sync my Google Classroom classes with it and then create an assignment, it creates a draft for the assignment in my Google Classroom.  That was really cool.  For this practice session with the kids, I chose a current event article from the catalog on music and how it affects the brain.  It has only two questions, which I thought was perfect for practicing.

I was really surprised at how thoughtful and thorough many of the answers were from the students, especially from my 11th graders.  Many of them wrote quite a bit.  They seemed to like when I went over to the computer and started grading their answers and they would get the feedback in front of them already.

A similar product to Actively Learn reached out to me over the summer through Twitter about their product and this blog.  They talked about my readership.  I wasn't aware I had a readership.  Readership are you out there?  Would love to hear from you.

The product is called OwlEyes, and it is certainly worth a look.  Their slogan on their home page is: Read. Annotate. Collaborate.  It's completely free and houses a bunch of readings from the public domain, and they were going to be adding (should have already added at this point) some texts from Project Gutenberg.  It seems really interesting, and if I didn't already have Actively Learn, I'd probably give it a try with my class. But, we are paying for Actively Learn, and I don't want to overwhelm my students with Apps that carry a similar purpose.  I did sign up anyways, just in case.  I like having my username saved.  I also liked how they have some analysis already embedded into their texts.

Here are two short videos that Samantha over at Owl Eyes sent me:

Two months of turmoil....tranquility tested.

I know.  Trust me, I know.  It's been over two months now since I last blogged.  I'm sorry for those that actually read what I put out there.

I'm just going to be bluntly honest (not that that I'm often not), and tell you this last month, in particular, has been emotionally taxing.  I was hoping to get caught up on my grading during the holiday break, and while I did in the last week get the 5 sets of 5 blog posts and 4 comments graded, I ended up having to deal with something a little more pertinent, particularly that first week.

The Sunday before Christmas, I got into a car accident, or more accurately, I was forced into a car accident.  I've been dealing with the aftermath ever since.  I'm physically okay for the most part, just lots of trips to the chiropractor.  And, the logistics of everything but bodily injury have been taken care of.  But, emotionally--between thinking I was going to die (yup, she went there) and already being stretched thin emotionally with work and my graduate work and having to replace the life saving car that I had had for 9 years (a very pretty blue Honda Civic that I called Belle) with a new car (a very pretty blue Kia Soul named Luna)--it has been noticeably draining.  

But now that the semester is over, all the grades are in (well, all except maybe two, but that depends on if I get an essay on the positive effects of procrastination from a particular someone on Monday morning, and if one student is out of the hospital and can take their final--I hope that is the case), and I finished the working draft of my section of a group literature review for my graduate group's action research project on badges in education, I have a little time to sit down and do some reflecting on my teaching through the written word.

Let me start with the most important tech tool EdTechTeam Google Summit I mentioned in my last post gave me.  I've used it with my 10th-grade honors students a few times now.  I love it, and the kids are still making up their minds about it, but let me--if you don't already know about it--introduce you to ActivelyLearn.  

There are different pricing level's, but there is a free level, which my account reverts to tomorrow (I think) after getting a free trial upgrade from the summit.  You can find some content that comes with questions and notes built in; you can start completely from scratch or add your questions and comments to the ones that already exist.  You can add media right into the story.  I put pictures and videos in the margin notes, which was  helpful with "Murders in the Rue Morgue".  You can also add media and directions to the beginning of the story, like this video I added for "The Tell-Tale Heart".

The aspect I enjoy most about ActivelyLearn though is the ability to grade by question, rather than student.  This is immensely helpful in seeing where the weaknesses and needs are for the class.  For example, for "The Raven" (we just finished a unit of Edgar Allan Poe if you didn't guess), I had added a question about the setting of the poem.  If I was grading it student-by-student, all questions at once, I might not have caught the fact that many of them were forgetting that setting is both time AND place and address it with them.  I was also grading as they were reading and answering questions so, in some cases, they were getting real-time feedback from me on their answers.

I also like the fact that teachers can reset students' answers, or that students can request this themselves.  That way you can give them a chance to get it right.  Sometimes they still don't get it.

I was tempted to give him points for persistence.

But, they often come up with answers that make you chuckle.

As a Walking Dead fan, I enjoyed this answer.

ActivelyLearn integrates well with  Google Classroom.  You can set up your assignments for Classroom from ActivelyLearn.  You can also pull your roster to create the class from Classroom as well.  

You don't have to be an English teacher.  They have content for various subject areas and grade levels, and--depending on your price plan--you can upload your own text.  I highly suggest you check it out and, at least, give it a try.  I'm probably going to try it with my 11th graders for "The Battle with Mr. Covey" and "The Lowest Animal".

I think I'll leave it there for now.  I'll follow up with a quick post about the fun we had reading "Masque of the Red Death" in my next post.