Blended Brags
Last Wednesday, Google came to Bulkeley!
In its attempt to improve experiential learning, Google has created Google Expeditions. Expeditions are immersive, virtual reality field trips to places across the globe and solar system. The concept is simple: View Master meets phone app. The result has the potential to be brilliant. Four Western Humanities classes piloted Expeditions and had the chance to view ancient Roman ruins up-close.
As "Oohs" and "Ahhs" filled the room, possibilities for classroom application seemed endless! Currently, Expeditions are only available through the Expeditions Pioneer Program, but the free app along with Expedition kits will be hitting the market soon.
Cool Tools
HSTRY is a digital timeline creator with a lot of capabilities. As a teacher, you can create a class and view the creations of your students. The timelines are very interactive, allowing for pictures, videos, sound, and quiz questions to be embedded. Students can also collaborate on a timeline. Here is an example of a timeline I created in collaboration with students on the BHS Moot Court Team.
GoSoapBox is a web-based student response system. This program will allow you to give formative assessments that can take the form of polls, quizzes, students determining what question should be asked, and a confusion barometer. Check out these unique features here.
Kahoot! is another web-based student response system. Like the above website, this tool is great for formative assessment. It allows you to conduct quizzes and polls and has the feel of a game.
Professional Learning
While digital tools should only be part of the decision-making process in blended learning, when you choose a tool, you want to make sure it is high-quality. In Five Simple Steps to Edtech Dating, the author describes a process for evaluating a tool's usefulness. You might try it out with some of the tools I have suggested above!
This past weekend, the first national Digital Citizenship conference was held right in our backyard in West Hartford. Read about DigCit expert Mark Ribble's baseline for digital citizenship in The 9 essential elements of digital citizenship and learn why this topic deserves a national spotlight.
We all know about the equity issues around Internet access in our community, so you may find it a relief to know that some members of Congress are also concerned about this gap. Read about a bill that proposes to solve this issue in Digital equity bill targets ‘homework gap’.
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