April 6, 2018
Volume 6 Issue 16
TIS and That Technology Integration for West Virginia Classrooms
Teachers Always Find a Way
In this issue: - ODTP and Blended Learning - Using Ozobots, Spheros and Coding for S.T.E.M. integration - Bon Voyage with Google Earth and Google Tour Builder -Citizen Science Projects - Life after TIS certification
As educators are faced with daily challenges in normal school settings, so are the many men and women who are shaping West Virginia’s youth in alternative settings. No matter the classroom size, or different learning styles, teachers are met with significant obstacles that have to be circumvented on a regular basis. But what if, not only are you dealing with differentiating for one grade level, you were differentiating for them all? That is the challenges that teachers face who work in ODTP schools and state run facilities that deal with our juvenile population. In this issue, we are going to take a look at some educational technology strategies and applications that can be used within a closed-classroom setting. In this modern, digital age, we can’t exclude any of our students from using technology.
With restrictions not allowing email addresses, teachers are missing out on tools that most of us take for granted. And with classes that consist of grade levels varying from elementary to high school, one might not know where to begin. Fear not, we have you covered. Over the next few pages we will cover everything from Blended Learning, S.T.E.A.M., Virtual Field Trips, and Cross-Curricular Coding and Robotics to help clear the road towards educational enlightenment.
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What is ODTP?
The Office of Diversion and Transition Programs (ODTP) is a department of the WVDE. ODTP provides highly qualified teachers and educational services to over 6,000 juveniles and adults in residential (residential facilities are privately owned) and state operated facilities. ODTP provides education to students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. The adult facilities offer a high school equivalency exam known as Test Assessing Secondary Completion (TASC). There are twenty ODTP juvenile facilities in West Virginia that WVDE staffs with educators. You can find out more about ODTP at http://wvde.state.wv.us/odtp/.
What is being covered at ODTP Schools? Some of the high school students are on the Options Pathway track which has different assignments. They will be working on Ready to Work assignments, which is computer based. A few students are studying to take the TASC test. We also have students who need Credit Recovery classes which are online and elective classes which can also be online. Any student who is working on the computer is carefully monitored. We also have some schools within ODTP that offer Career Technology Education (CTE) classes such as Auto Tech, Pro Start or Graphic Arts.
Blended Learning and how It helps. Recent findings have shown the effectiveness of incorporating blended learning in a classroom, and most districts are jumping at the chance for implementation. That should not exclude our juvenile facilities. They have the highest need for effective differentiation on all levels and the perfect model to do so. The juvenile ODTP classroom can be thought of like an old time one-room school. Rarely do you have one grade in the classroom. The teachers and students like to learn about modern technologies, but cannot always use everything, because students cannot have email addresses for privacy reasons. They try to use as much technology as possible so students are not behind their peers when they return to their home schools. A Blended Learning classroom sometimes helps with this multiple grade class. Also, having some assignments on a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Schoology or Canvas helps. To be able to create lessons that are individually tailored to each student and to address learning gaps in a multi-grade level learning environment, make blended learning a great fit for closed facilities. Individual rotation models will help to teach these students personal responsibility, as well as accountability. Students are able to see exactly what it is they are struggling with. It also gives them various opportunities and choices to conquer their troubled areas in an engaging way.
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Using Ozobots, Spheros, and Coding for S.T.E.M. Integration
Introducing your class to computer coding and automation in the real world should start with Ozobots. These affordable, multitasking wonders of technology, are a great way to introduce teamwork, higher-order thinking, enrichment, and cross-curricular activities to your students. No accounts are needed, therefore no email addresses are needed. Students can simply draw lines and codes using markers and chart paper, or go to https://ozoblockly.com and start exploring their easy to use coding platform. The website also has access to a lesson library, with various grade-levels, that will challenge students with everything from creating their own automated snow plow, to creating interactive timelines. Spheros are another great tool for S.T.E.M. integration within a closed classroom setting. If you have access to tablets and painters tape, you have all that you need to create hundreds of engaging challenges for your class. With an easy to use interface, https://edu.sphero.com has everything you need to get started. They add games, lessons, and activities every Thursday to help give you some ideas for projects. Spheros are waterproof and damage resistant, which will allow for some pretty creative courses your students create using classroom objects.
Scratch Who says that video games aren’t educational? Well, mostly everyone, except for a little program that has helped thousands of school children realize the difficulty that goes into creating even a simple video game: Scratch. Scratch has a plethora of activities, lessons, and games that students can access. Part of the “Hour of Code” push, Scratch has been used in classrooms for years. It is completely free, and easy to use, all you need is a laptop or computer. Teachers can implement computer coding in a closed classroom setting. Projects can be used for any subject or simply as a S.T.E.M. integration for enrichment. Adding a “station” for Scratch in your blended learning groups can help you to incorporate much needed technology education into your everyday teaching. To find out more and give it a try, visit https://scratch.mit.edu and sign up for free.
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Google Earth If you haven’t used Google Earth in a while you might want to check it out. There are many new features that can easily be incorporated at any grade level and can cover multiple standards. A favorite feature for most people is that it’s available through the Chrome browser, no extra download required! Google Earth still has the classic search features including street view, but they’ve also included a Feeling Lucky part that will fly you to a random location and Voyager virtual field trips. Voyager can be used with Google Cardboard or it can be shown with a projector. Virtual field trips are premade, educational, and include a short description at each location stop. If you are fortunate to have Google Cardboard, you can download the Expedition App, which has different field trips, including college tours.
Google Earth Classroom Ideas ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
Where do we live? Explore Earth, continent, country, state, county, and city Parts of an address Exploring areas from a book Examining land formations Compare/Contrast our city with another Exploring battlefield sites Using Street View to visit landmarks Learning county seats, state or country capitals
Google Tour Builder Google Tour Builder can assist students with building tours of an area with information and pictures. This program is still in beta mode and uses an older version of Google Earth, but it can be a great way for students to produce a guided tour. Some creative ideas to use with Tour Builder include: ● Battle sites of various wars ● Tourism Projects ● Studying West Virginia Counties ● Following locations of a character in a book ● Elementary Flat Stanley project ● Explorer’s Paths This program does require a Google account to sign in and it will save your work. Don’t have a Google account? Try creating a generic one for your classroom so once students are done researching, they can create a collaborative project using one computer with this account.
Smarty Pins Need a fun interactive geography game? Smarty Pins is great for adults or high school students. It’s a game that combines trivia with finding places on a map. Questions from various topics are given and to answer, you must drop a pin on the map. Get the pin as close as you can, you only have 1,000 miles to play with. Once you’ve used all your milage the game is over.
Geography Songs Youtube has a couple catchy songs that can help students learn US state capitals and world countries. Tour the States Tour the World
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Citizen Science Projects If you are having trouble getting your students interested in science, maybe a citizen science project will help. Technology has allowed us to collect so much data that scientists cannot possibly analyze it in a reasonable amount of time, so they have turned to citizens and their computers. You become part of an actual scientific group and they provide and train you how to collect data or how to interpret the data. We have our own project here in WV, Pulsar Collaboratory, http://pulsarsearchcollaboratory.com/ to identify pulsars from the pictures taken by the Green Bank telescope. This is a wonderful program for secondary level students, and you are provided with all the training and support necessary.
Citizen Science in the Classroom Projects: ●
https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscientists
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http://www.greatsunflower.org/ A great outdoor project https://www.zooniverse.org/ a platform used by many projects and is a place for you to create your own project https://scistarter.com/educators --- has information to get started with using projects in the classroom and projects according to grade level https://www.nationalgeographic.org/idea/ci
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tizen-science-projects/ ●
http://www.worldwatermonitoringday.org/
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https://feederwatch.org/
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https://www.inaturalist.org/
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http://www.learner.org/jnorth/
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What To Do After You Become TIS Certified We are getting close to completing our initial TIS Certification, so what’s next? We will need to find ways to keep up with what is new, what is working and how to take it back to our teachers and students. How about going to a conference? Educational Technology conferences come in all sizes and at all different times of the year in all different locations. I attended the annual FETC (Future of Education Technology Conference) which is held in the same place every year, the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. This was the 38th FETC and they do a wonderful job running this large conference. It was held from 1/23-1/26 and was organized into 5 program tracks: information technology, special education, educator, early learning, and administrator. You did not have to attend sessions for your track, the tracks are a way to organize the many sessions. There were sessions for everyone, including field trips to local schools to showcase their technology. They also made it very easy for anyone who has never attended a conference by having sessions available for first time attendees. The conference planners are taking advantage of technology to help make the conference’s experience more organized and easy to maneuver. There are apps which provide the conference program on your phone and provides a tool to take notes for each session you schedule. Vendors and convention center employees were manned with scanners which took attendee information from their badges, and also to compile a list of the vendors visited and provide proof of session attendance. Vendors came toting lots of SWAG to entice attendees and showcase their products and services. Many also held workshop sessions at their booths. This provided you with the opportunity to get in a lot of workshops in a short amount of time. They provided a fun, up-close venue to explore their services and products. Another major educational technology conference is the ISTE, held in June at varying locations.This year it will be from June 24th-26th in Chicago. https://conference.iste.org/2018/. Maybe you would prefer a smaller closely located conference; each of the neighboring states has an educational technology conference. Ohio’s conference http://oetc.ohio.gov is in mid-February at the Columbus Convention Center. Pennsylvania’s https://www.peteandc.org/ is in mid-February at the Hershey Lodge and Convention Center. Kentucky’s http://www.kyste.org/ is in early March in Louisville while Virginia’s http://vste.org/ is in early December at different locations every year. Our own WV technology conference is undergoing a change and being combined into the 2018 WV Summer Summits for Educational Excellence. There will be a North Session held in Morgantown from July 16-20 and a South Session held in Charleston July 30- August 3. The week is divided into two sessions, Monday through Wednesday will be the typical conference setting with Tuesday’s being concentrated around technology. Thursday and Friday will be the academies. There is separate registration for the two sessions. When it comes to paying for conferences, some counties provide funds each year for professional development. My county, Berkeley County, allows each teacher to submit a request for up to $800 to be used for national professional conferences each year until the funds are all allocated. Some grants will fund conferences for Professional Development and some conferences will have grants available. Check with your county to see if they provide such funds and make sure you plan to submit early. Conference attendance can also count as professional development hours and will count toward your TIS recertification.
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Tech Gurus Cliff Sullivan I am a 5th grade teacher and TIS candidate at Mt. Hope Elementary School in Fayette County. I have been teaching for nine years and I started off my career as a technology teacher in Bronx, NY. Integrating technology into the classroom has been a passion of mine for many years and I hope to make a career out of it.
Andrea Rush I am a TIS at Eastwood Elementary School in Morgantown. I am a Google Certified Educator Level 2. My favorite podcast is the Google Teacher Tribe. I can also be found on Twitter at @AndRush29. When I am not working, I enjoy baking and spending time with my family and dogs.
Jodi Kissner
I was a Medical Technologist for 18 years before teaching. I taught science, including Biology, AP Biology and Forensic Science for 15 years and am the current TIS at Martinsburg High School.
Linda Runion I have worked for ODTP for 11 years teaching Social Studies and have added Options within the last two years. I moved to Berkeley County from Mason County to work for ODTP.
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