Mr Bass Online | Category Archives: 21st Century Education

Creating a matching assessment with SMART Response

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, Friday Flyer, Technology, Tools Leave a comment

My first experience using a clicker system was about 7 years ago when I was given a demo unit to try out in my classroom. I knew of the system and how it worked but as I set it up I found it clunky and frustrating at best. The software simply wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do but, as with all things technology, the first version of a product is often a proof of concept and simply a way to get feedback. As I look at systems like the SMART Response (formerly Senteo), there has been great growth from my first experience and it’s clear that we’ve moved far beyond that initial proof of concept.

In my work, one of the features that is often requested from the SMART Response system is the ability to create matching questions. While it’s not one of the question types, it can be done. Here’s how:

Create the items that you want to be matched. In the example that I’m going to use throughout this post, I have created a simple quiz where students will identify the continents. To do this, I grabbed a world map from the SMART Notebook Gallery and placed numbers on each of the continents.

On the next slide, create a multiple choice question that has the names of each item (continent) to be identified and matched on the map.

Copy all of the choices from that multiple choice question and paste them back on that first page where the items to be identified are labeled (in my case it’s the map). Depending on the graphic or layout of that first page, you may have to resize your matching options so that they don’t take up the entire page.

Go back to the question that you made (probably the second slide) and clone this page (ctrl-D). After the first time you clone it, you will be asked if you want to create a title page. For a matching assessment like this, you do. Type in the title of the assessment and a new page will be created and put at the beginning of your slides.

Go back to the question page and clone it again for as many matching options as you have. In my case I will have seven slides all with the same question. One thing to remember, using the regular SMART Response clickers, you are limited to only 10 choices before having to start over again. In other words, there are 10 buttons (A-J). Once you reach 10, you will need to create a new set of questions.

Once you have created the right number of questions, you will need to set the correct answers by clicking on the “Response” dropdown menu and selecting “Set all answers”. Select the correct answers for each question and click done.

Now it’s time to start your quiz. Have your students log on and sign in (if you’ve already set up your classes) and go to your second slide. What’s nice about this technique is that your entire assessment can be given from slide number 2 and students will do their matching from the SMART Response handsets.

When all students are finished, end the assessment and you have just completed using the SMART Response system to do a matching assessment with your students.

If you’d like to see it in action, you can download the example SMART Notebook file from the link below and you can watch the following video as it will walk you through the steps involved.

Download the Continent Matching example SMART Notebook File

A Culture of Sharing

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, Friday Flyer, Making Connections, Reflections, web literacy 2 Comments

After being hired for my first teaching position, I remember visiting my classroom the summer before that first group of students were to enter Room 7 on the ground floor of Winfield Jr. High. I walked into the building musty with the absence of kids and teachers and made my way to the office to meet the principal who would show me around again and orient me to the building and anyone who happened to be there. Like all first year teachers, I was nervous about what my future would hold. All went well that day and I met my mentor teacher who was there organizing her materials for the upcoming school year. I don’t remember her name but I do remember that during the 30 minutes that I sat with her that day, she gave me more information and materials than I even knew what to do with. At that point, everything was paper and copies of copies of copies that had probably been handed down to her by someone else. As I sorted through the stacks of papers and books, I remember thinking about how thankful I was to have these materials. Sure I was overwhelmed, but I now had stuff to teach with. I had direction. More than anything, I had a friend. Fast forward almost 20 years and that feeling of apprehension still sticks with me. That was a tough year of learning, but it’s also one that set the stage for me for the rest of my teaching career. During that year my colleagues were there to support, push and share with me all the wisdom and experience that they had to offer.

The world of education has changed a great deal since my first steps into room 7, but one thing that I still hold on to is that culture of sharing that was evident during that first year. In today’s world sharing is even more prevalent than it was then. Technology and the internet make sharing ideas, new learning and resources easier than it ever has been.With the click of a button, a file can be sent via email, shared on Google Docs or posted online. Not only does this make it easier to share, but it makes it easier to continue that sharing. When you forward an email, retweet a Twitter message or even “like” something on Facebook, that extends the reach of that initial idea exponentially because then, in turn, someone else may forward, tweet, or “like” it.

So, what does this mean? A few things, first of all, as educators, we share. We share ideas and resources with students, parents and colleagues and must continue to do so. Second, we must ask ourselves what we need to think about when it comes to student’s sharing their own ideas/content/pictures, etc. I think we’re all familiar with the fact that sometimes kids (or adults for that matter) overshare. What conversations and modeling need to occur in order to make sure they’re safe? Can we ignore it? I think not. Should we pretend it doesn’t happen? Please don’t. Sharing is an important part of our culture. Students will share and now that it’s easy, let’s help them know what to share and when to share it. Let’s teach them about digital footprints and the permanency of the internet. Most importantly, let’s not stifle their want to share.

Finally, let’s look at the ways we share and the models that we create for students. Do we share our thoughts behind a password protected area? Yes, sometimes. Do we share in public? I hope so. If you have a resource or an idea that others can benefit from, why not share it publicly? Put it online and post it for other teachers to use and share with their own colleagues and in their own circles. We learn by sharing our stories and our ideas.

Can this whole thing be overwhelming? Sure, but that’s why it’s important for us to keep sharing. We can act as a filter to find the good stuff for others to help streamline the whole process. That’s why we share, we created or found something good and want others to know about it. The culture of sharing is as strong as it was 20 years ago when I was figuring out how to work with the kids who were going to come and expect me to teach. Keep sharing. Openly and courageously. And let’s teach our students to do the same.

Cross posted to Northeast Middle School Friday Flyer

METC 2013 – Presentation links and resources

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, cyberethics, documents, Education, Google Tools, Literacy, Making Connections, METC, presentations, Professional Development, projects, teaching, Technology, Tools, Video, web literacy Leave a comment

About a month ago the Midwest Education Technology Conference took place at the Convention Center in St. Charles, Missouri. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend this conference for the past few years and serve on their advisory board. The conference itself has made great strides over the years and I think it’s a really good conference. It’s not huge like other conferences I’ve attended but this year there were about 1800 educators who came to St. Charles to learn and share. This year I did two pre-conference workshops and 4 breakout session. Unfortunately, it took me this long to get a chance to post these here. I hope you find them useful.

Pre-Conference Workshops

This workshop was an advanced Google Docs session where we worked with some of the lesser known features of Google Docs and then moved into scripting and some of the other advanced functionality. This site is used for a variety of purposes but the content for this workshop can be found on the “METC 2013 Tab“.

This workshop centered around using YouTube in the classroom and was meant to take educators beyond simply watching videos online but using playlists to curate and create as well as a way to address literacy, privacy, and safety concerns for k-12 students.

Breakout sessions

Screencasting Your PD

My first breakout session centered around using screencasting software to deliver professional development to teachers. Through this session I spoke specifically about the TechSmith tools Camtasia and SnagIt. While I know that they are paid programs and that there are plenty of free alternatives, I also only had so much time and tried not to focus on the tools as much as the screencasting techniques that teachers should think about as they make their videos.

Today’s Students, Today’s Media

I did my second session with a colleague of mine, Kim Lindskog. This session was really about giving students opportunities to create videos in the classroom. We talked about how video projects don’t have to look the same anymore because there are so many tools available that can be used on mobile devices to tell stories. Despite internet issues, I was able to demonstrate Mozilla Popcorn Maker using a video of Ken Shelton talking about METC.

Augmented Reality in the Classroom

This breakout session was probably my favorite one to actually give because I find the topic fascinating. This presentation centered around how augmented reality is starting to be used in education and, with advances in technology, gives students and teachers the ability to create their own AR objects using tools like Aurasma and Layar. At the end of the session participants were able to try some examples using their own devices and we had a great discussion around how this might look in the future.

Speed Geeking – Digital Literacy

My final session was entitled Speed Geeking and is also one that I always enjoy. For the past three years Gina Hartman and I have organized this as about 5 different mini presentations given in small groups. It’s fast, frenzied and a lot of fun. This year we were joined by Greg Lawrence, Drew McAllister, and Cindy Lane as we each took on a topic around Digital Citizenship. All of our presentations can be found on the Speed Geeking wiki.

Hopefully some of these resources and presentations will be useful. If they are, I’d love to hear about them.

Finding Perspective

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, Friday Flyer, leadership, Making Connections Leave a comment

This week was the end of the season for my son’s 3rd grade basketball team. It was a good season and, ending at 7-2, they expected to do well in the post-season tournament. Unfortunately, they did not. Losing two straight they were quickly eliminated by their opponents who probably have a little more experience than the 10 weeks that this group of boys have been playing together. Both games were close and a win could have been had by either team but, in the end, our team lost. As you might expect from a 3rd grade game, there were lots of inadvertent fouls as the teams are still working to learn how to play the game. When the game was over, my son asked, “Why was number 33 so mean?” prompting a long discussion about sports, playing a game and perspective.

In reflecting further on the idea that my son had a very limited perspective and only saw his side of it, I began to think more about my own perspective of the world and my role in it. Our perspective is shaped by our experiences, our beliefs and our own view of the world. But, as I tried to explain to my son, our perspective is our own and we can’t know, we can only try to see the world from someone else’s point of view. As educators, our perspective has great power because we bring it with us into the classroom and, because of our positions, our perspective has influence on the students who walk through the building doors. Their personal experiences are being shaped everyday as a direct result of the work done in class and the experiences they have. Educators are influencers and have great power and responsibility with their respective classes and we must recognize that our perspectives are our own, as our the perspectives of our students. Are these perspectives always right? Absolutely not. It’s simply a way of looking at the world.

All this being said, be aware of your perspective, that of your colleagues, and equally importantly, your students. Chances are they look at the world differently because of their own experiences. It’s not wrong, it’s just different.

Thinking about perspective reminds me of a photo that I saw on Twitter that was taken by an photographer named Steph Goralnick. I’m not posting it here because I don’t have permission, however, I love the perspective switch that she took in creating it. Check it out. It might take a second, but quickly you’ll see how quickly perspective can change. Also, kudos to The Cool Hunter website that pointed me to this photo.

Cross posted to Northeast Middle School Friday Flyer

Using SMART Response to check for understanding

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, Friday Flyer, Professional Development, teaching, Technology, testing, Tools Leave a comment

SMART Response is a great system for creating and giving assessments. There are many strategies to this from giving kids a paper copy of an assessment and having them record their responses to a simple check for understanding. Starting with SMART Notebook 10, much of the functionality around the SMART Response system has been built into the Notebook. It still requires the clickers, but adding questions and giving an assessment are so much easier than they once were. One of my favorite featrues is the “Instant Question” which allows you to, on the fly, insert a question for students to answer. Suppose you are in the midst of a lesson and you just want to see where students are in their understanding of the concept. At one point, I may have had my students give me a thumbs up or thumbs down in response to a question. I distinctly remember that when I would do that, I’d get a lot of thumgs up so that, either I’d move on and stop talking or my students wouldn’t want to be the only one who didn’t get it.

Another way to approach this is with the SMART Response system and SMART Notebook. In that same lesson, instead of asking for a thumbs up, consider posing that same question, but instead, try this.

Open up SMART Notebook and click on the “Instant Question” icon on your toolbar
Have your students join your class on their SMART Response handsets (your class has to be set up in advance)
Choose the appropriate question type that you wish to ask
Pose the question to your class. You don’t have to write it down, just ask them and let them answer on their Response handsets.

As soon as you select the question type, the “assessment” starts and students can immediately begin answering. It’s fast, simple and anonymous allowing those who don’t understand to be truthful without feeling that peer pressure to already know the answer.

When everyone has answered, click on the “Stop Assessment” button on the tool bar.

Your results will be tabulated in the sidebar and you will immediately know if your students understand and allow you to either reteach or move on with the lesson.

Some tips:

Choose your questions wisely. Don’t just ask them if they “get it”. Pose the question so you can tell if they understand.
Have them join your class before you choose the question.
Don’t use this technique if you want to know how everyone answered. This is simply to get the “pulse” of the group.

The following video will walk you through the process. If you have questions about when or how to use this, be sure to let me know.

Cross posted to Northeast Middle school Friday Flyer

Finding Pictures for Student Work (and teachers too)

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, teaching, Technology, Tools, web literacy Leave a comment

20130222_113315

One of the things that’s hard about the internet is figuring out how to talk to students about intellectual property and copyright. I know you’ve been there, you tell students to do a digital project and, when it’s time to insert a picture, they immediately go to Google Images, do a search and copy/paste, they not have an image for their work. If you’re lucky, they might actually go to the site and paste a citation in giving credit to the website (not the photographer) who has displayed that image. Unfortunately, many of the sites that display these images probably did the exact same thing as the student when they were creating that webpage. So, how do you get around this? Here are some possibilities:

Have students take their own pictures. There’s a good chance that the students in your class (even in elementary grades) have already learned how to use the camera that is on their own or their parent’s cell phone. What if they took the picture and then used that in their presentation or paper? At that point, they own the picture because they took it. No attribution is required when they own it (like the picture of the camera above which was taken with my cell phone). Along this same vein, you could have those students who like taking pictures create a folder with images that anyone can use and contribute to. In this way, you can have the students who use the images attribute the photos to their classmate who took them. This can go a long way in helping them begin to think about intellectual property.
Use a stock photo site. I have two favorite sites where I get almost every image that I use in presentations. The first is called Stock.xchng where photographers upload their photos for others to use free of charge. You do have to create an account to download the high quality version of the images but it’s a great place to find pictures. Another place I get my photos is from Morguefile. Much the same as Stock.xchnge, it’s community driven and has a variety of images available. These are easily my go to places but there are others as well. Pixabay has great public domain images and doesn’t require an account to download so it’s really student friendly.

Regardless of the where you point students to get images, it’s important to have the conversation about what intellectual property is and that Google Images isn’t a source, it just points students to the website that is displaying those images. Even in your own work, it’s important to model the practice of finding and using images that are copyright free or in the public domain. You’re students are watching how you use these tools. Let’s show them the right way to do it.

Technology Thursdays – New Avermedia document camera software

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, Professional Development, Technology Leave a comment

About a month ago I put in the Friday Flyer that starting last month I would be offering a new experiment in professional development at Northeast. Because of the interest in learning more about technology and how it can be used in the classroom this coming Thursday will be the second session where I will be available to work with the Avermedia document camera software all day in room 402 in the library. I’m always available to think, plan and work with you around how to use technology in your instruction but these “Technology Thursday” sessions will be centered around a specific topic and will be held every hour during the day so that you can come at your convenience. This is strictly an optional drop in type of session where I will work with whoever shows up around these topics. If there’s only one person, that’s who I’ll work with, if there’s a group, I’ll work with everyone. You can stay as long or as little as you want. During these days I will have nothing else scheduled and will be completely available to help. Hopefully you will find this useful and convenient.

February 21st – Document Camera – New Avermedia software – Document cameras are not new in our classrooms, but there is a new version of the Avermedia software that brings new features and greater flexibility. From new math tools to embedding your document camera image into a PowerPoint, this session will go over these new features. Come share your ideas with your colleagues. (If you’re interested in the new features, be sure to make an appointment with Julie in advance to have your software updated.)

Upcoming Topics

March 7th – SMART Response – Most of you have heard about or used the SMART Response system to give assessments and check for understanding. If you’ve never taken the opportunity to try this system out, this is the session for you. I’ll help you get started and begin thinking about how to use these tools in your classroom.
April 11th – Discovery Education – Discovery Education is best known for streaming videos but there’s so much more to it. This session will focus on finding, storing and sharing the content that you find. If you plan to attend this session and are new to Discovery Education, please let me know so I can make sure you have an active account.

Hope to see you there.

Cross posted to Northeast Friday Flyer

It’s here!! – From Inspiration to Red Carpet

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, Film Festival, leadership, Literacy, Technology, web literacy Leave a comment

For about a year and a half I’ve been working on my first book with some of my colleagues describing and highlighting the film festival that we used to run in our district. Last week at the METC conference in St. Charles, Missouri, I finally saw the final product in print and got to hold it in my own hands. Needless to say it was a very exciting to finally physically see the hours and hours of work that I had done preparing, writing, revising, and editing in print. I still haven’t sat down and flipped through the entire thing because of my responsibilities at the conference but I have my own copy and and found that it’s also available on Amazon. I’ve gotta say, it’s a pretty great feeling to see all of that come to fruition. Thanks to ISTE for helping make it happen.

Using Aurasma Postcard

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, METC, Technology, Tools Leave a comment

Next week is the Midwest Education Technology Conference in St. Charles and I’ve been working on a presentation around Augmented Reality and how it can be used in the classroom. As a part of that presentation, I created this postcard that can be handed out to students describing what to do to access the Aurasma content associated with a target. At some point soon I plan to write an entire post about this but today is not the day. Here’s a handy pdf of this postcard with 4 on a page for easy printing.

Reminder – Edcamp St. Louis is next weekend

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Bill Bass Posted in 21st Century Education, Professional Development Leave a comment

A month or so ago I posted about the EdCamp St. Louis event that was coming up. Well, it’s here. As I said before, I’ve found that some of my best learning has come from other teachers, not necessarily in organized professional development opportunities, but in impromptu conversations in the hallway, at conferences, and online. However, what I like best about going to conferences is the fact that I can get a broader perspective on the world of education and the ideas of others outside my own district and school realm. There are plenty of smart people around and if we only look inward (be that district, building, or even team) there is so much innovation and learning that we are missing because of the limited view. Conferences are hard though. Typically, travel and expense is involved, both of which are major barriers to the conference experience.

To get around such barriers, a number of educators around the world have begun to organize free, personalized, professional development opportunities that they call Edcamps. I’m not sure which Edcamp can be considered the very first one, but they arecropping up all over the place now. The Edcamp experience has many benefits, but probably the biggest draw is that these events are FREE opportunities to meet, network and collaborate with other teachers outside your building and district to provide that additional perspective and ideas. The event itself is typically sponsored by a variety of companies and organizations who see value in education and want to give educators development opportunities.

One thing that you need to know is that these events are not your typical conference experience. Edcamps pride themselves on being what’s called an “Unconference“. An unconference, while not unique only to the world of education, is a participant-driven meeting where those in attendance decide, on the spot, what will be presented at the conference that day and organize the sessions accordingly. You may not know “what” you will learn when you arrive that morning, but you do know that you will definitely learn “something”. In this format, there are no presentation proposals or approvals. If you want to talk about and present on something, you can sign up to do just that. Others who are interested in the topic can come and listen, learn, and talk with you. To a certain extent, it gives structure to those “hallway conversations” that are so valuable.

Last February was the inagural EdcampSTL held in the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District. It was a great day of learning and networking and I would encourage any educator in St. Louis area to go to the EdcampSTL website and click on the “Register Now” link to reserve your place at this year’s event. It’s well worth the time to learn from other educators in the area. Just a side note, when you go to register, you’ll probably be placed on a waiting list. I have assurances from the organizers that those on the wait list will absolutely be admitted.

Next Saturday, February 9, 2013 from 8-3, the second EdCamp St. Louis will be held at Hixson Middle School in the Webster Groves School District. It’s a good day and a great way to expand your thinking, be inspired, and get ideas for the classroom that you can use the following Monday. I’ll be there and I hope you’ll consider joining me there and learn from your fellow educators.