Ok.  Future Hubby will tell you that I am a dedicated Special Ed teacher.  I was up until 2 am last night creating a Science test review for not just my students with IEPs, but for any 8th grader who was interested in reviewing for their test tomorrow.  I used QuizRevolution to create the review.  I already have a Quizlet account, but it didn’t allow me to create quizzes with images or video, like I wanted.  Quiz Revolution is fairly easy to use.  The most time-consuming part was trying to search the internet for images that were relavent and easy enough for my 8th graders to understand.  Basically, I took the test, switched some wording around, and put them on the review with pictures and a video clip.  I didn’t use all the questions on the test, either.  Here is the final product.  My goal was for my students with IEPs, as well as the other 8th graders, to utilize this tool to review their Science, since Science is hard.  The terminology is complex.  That’s why I wanted to add images and highlight key words in each question and answer.  I had my students practice the review during my Extended Core (Resource) class since I knew they were the ones that would need the most help.

Unfortunately, I was administering the MEAP test this morning (our state’s standardized test), so I couldn’t actually be in my classroom to observe fully how the students were engaged with it.  However, I was able to make it back to class within the last 5 minutes to see them.  I told all of them to study at home, using this as help.  That’s when the excuses started rolling in:

“I promised my brother he could use the computer today.”

“I can do good without studying.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

My response?  “I DON’T CARE! You all NEED to study for this test tomorrow!  If anything, dang it, I was up until 2 in the morning making this for you.  Do it for me.  YOU. WILL. STUDY!”

Silence.  Then, “Ok, Miss.”  Sometimes you gotta play hard-ball with these kids.

Anyhoo, the last thing I was able to accomplish today was create a Chirbit for the Science test tomorrow.  It is roughly 20 questions, multiple choice.  Some of my students’ IEPs state that they require their tests to be read aloud.  Chirbit allows me to record the test ahead of time and have them listen to it on their iPads or on a laptop.  Essentially, it clones me.  And if any of you have ever read a test aloud multiple times over multiple class periods, you know the toll it takes on your voice.  Hopefully, it goes well.  *fingers crossed*

Ultimately, I’ve hit a point where I’m starting to question everything:  my strategies, techniques, motives.  So many hours are put into creating all this stuff for my students, but it seems as if they’re indifferent to it sometimes.  I’m doing it to better explain what they’re already supposed to be learning in class.  Sometimes, (and GenEd teachers, no offense) teachers can present the material a little too quickly with not enough explanation.  That’s where I come in.  That’s my job.  But researching, trying, spending my own money on apps and memberships, taking away time from my own family to help my students has me rethinking everything.  Is this even working? Am I doing all this for nothing? I really, really hope not.  Waiting for the light at the end of this long tunnel….   🙁

Ok, so just to reiterate from yesterday, here was the plan for today: the students’ warm up was for them to use their Google Form that I made for them while they went on a gallery walk around the classroom, reviewing material from all four of their content area classes. I was really excited about it this morning. Here’s how it went down:

Issue #1: Fire Drill
As antsy I was to get started, we were e-mailed about the fire drill we were going to have at 0900. No worries. We went back inside fairly quickly. I explained to them that they were each going to go to each of the “stations” that coincided with the numbers on their Google Form. There were nine questions total. The rule was, there couldn’t be more than one person at each station. Finally, I said, “Go at it!”

Issue #2: They Didn’t Know How To Go At It
My bad. There I go assuming again. I thought I had explained the directions fairly clearly, but that’s subjective. They didn’t understand how to use the Google Form. I was almost instantly bombarded with, “Wait, Miss! I don’t get it. What are we supposed to do?” They didn’t realize all they had to do was tap on the box for each number and input their answer. If it was multiple choice, they simply had to tap their choice.

Issue #3: Twitchy Fingers
I keep forgetting that for most of my students, this is the first time they’ve ever used an iPad before. I had embedded the form onto Edmodo as a post, so when they clicked on the link, the form came up as a pop-up window. A lot of the students kept grazing their thumbs on the screen, bringing them back to Edmodo, which was greyed out in the background, and losing their work. A few of them had to upload the form again and couldn’t figure out why they were getting kicked off. I had to explain that the screen is very touch sensitive and to use the holding straps located on the underside of the iPad covers to hold their iPads.

Issue #4: Not Paying Attention In Class
Each station was in direct relation to the material they had already learned in their core classes. For example, I posted two stations where they had to figure out the slope of a line, which they’ve learned how to do in Math. The Science stations reviewed the different characteristics of volcanoes. The English stations reviewed punctuation and grammar, and the Social Studies asked them about the Stamp Act. Again, stuff they should already know. They didn’t remember most of it. But that’s why we’re reviewing in the first place, right?

Issue #5: Traffic Jams
Sooooo, I had mentioned to them that I didn’t want more than one student at each station, since there were more stations than students. That seemed to have slipped their minds a few times, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I had wanted them to think for themselves so I could see what they remembered without help, but whatever.

Conclusion:
1. This was a good practice for using Google Forms on the iPad for the first time. I will have to remind them to be aware of their fingers, since several of them had to start over a few times.
2. Next time I will change the form so that all the questions aren’t “required”. For those of you not familiar with Google Forms, you can make it so that your questions are required, meaning, your students HAVE to answer them and won’t let them submit the form until they all are. This prevented all of them from hitting “submit” at the end, because most of them didn’t know how to answer some of the questions and left them blank. Again, blank answers equals no submissions.
3. Regardless of all the issues mentioned above, I think it was a good exercise. The kids were up out of their seats and moving. They were using iPads. They were reviewing the material anyways, even if they couldn’t input their answers.

The rest of the hour was dedicated to studying for their Science quiz, finishing any homework they had missing from their classes, and working on their paper blog posts. They worked well for the rest of the hour, some with their headphones plugged in, listening to to the relaxing sounds of Pocket Pond. 🙂 So, in the end, everything was ok. This was a learning experience for me as much as it was for my students. It’s a journey we’re taking together, and as long as they can be patient with me as much as I am with them, we’ll be good to go.

Rivas, out……

…for today, the technology worked without a hitch.  And it was good.

You should’ve seen how ecstatic I was that there were no issues today with the technology.  Not only that, but things went smoothly and the kids were engaged. No big deal–just everything that I’ve ever wanted.

So instead of telling you the entire plan of the day, I’ll just show you:

So basically, the students needed to complete all the tasks, but had a choice as to what they worked on first, Science or Math.  The QR code that they scanned led them to a YouTube video on volcanoes by Bill Nye the Science Guy which they used in conjunction to the worksheet.  They filled this out as they watched the video.

A student using the Scan app to get to a YouTube video on volcanoes.

Those working on Math were able to use this page from algebrahelp.com to practice figuring out the slope of a line.  I really liked this page because the kids could zoom in on their iPads to count their rises and runs (rise over run= slope) and then enter their guesses in the given box.  They were given multiple different problems to work on, then could check their answers at the end and see which ones they answered correctly and which ones they didn’t.

A student enters her answer to one of the slope problems.

I hope things keep rolling at the momentum they are right now. Even my one student who was mad at me from the day before used his iPad to practice math.  The kids were engaged, they enjoyed it, they were learning, and mommy (me) was happy.   As Ice Cube so eloquently put it, “Today was a good day.”  🙂