Friday, March 20, 2015

MACUL Madness

Today I had the pleasure of attending the MACUL conference in Detroit. I prepped for the conference by reading through the program and writing down the names of sessions that grabbed my interest. I began the day ready to learn and find new ways to incorporate technology in both social studies and spanish classrooms. Despite my careful preparations, the day did not go as planned. One session was canceled and another session focused on technology to be unveiled in coming years - and therefore not very useful for lesson planning right now. However, the other sessions I attended were wonderful, inspiring me and teaching me new ways to enhance my practice.

I began the day with a session called "Starting a TED-Ed Club". Led by Teacher Todd Beard, this presentation illustrated the why and how of beginning a TED-Ed club. I, like many others, absolutely love TED talks. (If you haven't seen "The Danger of the Single Story" or "How Schools Kill Creativity," then watching these videos is your homework.) In general TED talks are inspiring, creative, and informative. They challenge, construct, and share ideas in a fun format, but for some reason I had never considered bringing TED talks into the classroom. After this session, it was clear that a TED-Ed club is the perfect venue for students to begin sharing their ideas and developing their presentation skills. The presenter told us about the process of setting up a club, including applying and being vetted. Once approved, thirteen lessons already made are at your disposal as well as the potential to develop new lessons. The concept of TED-Ed Clubs is fairly recent - I believe they were first developed in 2013 - and I am so excited to have found a way to help students find their voice.

I also attended a session called "Connecting with Experts Through Virtual Field Trips." This session advocated videotaping experts in their field and creating a sort of mini-documentary (aligned with state standards of course) providing students with information. Then, once students had watched the video and had some prior knowledge, the teachers used applications such as Skype and Google Hangout to allow students the opportunity to chat with experts. The benefits of virtual field trips include saving time and money, showing curriculum in real life context, and introducing students to new careers. Additionally, once the videos are completed they can be archived and used in future years. I particularly like the Q&A portion of this virtual field trip where students are allowed to interact with and learn from an expert member of the community. I'm still brainstorming how I can use virtual field trips as a history teacher, but I am excited by the possibilities!

Finally, I also attended a session on web tools. The presenter, Dave Tchozewski, was engaging and had a wonderful list of free tools for teachers. (See the full list on his website goo.gl/65gqm - look under Web Tools.) Though these apps are not discipline specific, they provide a number of interesting and creative ways to engage students and enhance teachers' practice. For example, the Google Story Builder is an interesting tool that allows the user to create characters, type a story, and then add background music. SmartyPins is a type of geography trivia game. Collaborate with Famous Storytellers allows students to begin typing a story only to have their words edited by famous authors like Edgar Allen Poe!

I'm not sure how to use all of these web tools in my classroom yet, but I am so excited by all of the new resources at my finger tips! MACUL was ultimately a fun, inspiring, and somewhat overwhelming experience and I am so excited to begin developing new lessons with all of this technology!

10 comments:

  1. I'm so glad that even though your day got off to a rough start that you still able to find sessions that provided you with what seems like great ideas and resources! I, like you, love TED talks and think that the principal behind these TED-Ed clubs is so cool. After reading your and the other Sam's blog, I definitely will be checking out this opportunity. These virtual field trips also a great idea! We haven't been on any field trips this year or had an opportunity to have students speak with experts in the field...I could use connections that I already have to connect the students with the content in a new way. I'm totally using this idea in the future...maybe even this year! I'm definitely excited by all the resources you have shared, THANK YOU.

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  2. Mantha,

    sorry to hear about the cancelled presentation. I experienced this too. A presentation called World Language Meet Marzano was cancelled, much to my dismay, since it was to deal specifically with the world language classroom. I have researched Marzano online though, and have a basic understanding of his work and how to apply it in the world language classroom.

    the concept of Ted-Ed Clubs is intriguing. It seems that students might be more excited to project themselves and their work through such a popular and renowned medium - at least more excited to do that than to partake in the traditional in-class presentation.

    With regards to the presentation you describe, Connecting with Experts through Virtual Field Trips, it seems that experts could also be native speakers. You could have students connect with experts in their respective countries through skype. Since you might be a Spanish teacher, you could connect students with speakers from South American, Spain, etc.

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  3. Samantha,
    I am so glad you got to attend the TED-ed Club presentation! I somehow missed this one on the list. I also love TED talks so I was excited to read about it here. Like you, I have thought about using TED talks in my class, but I have not been able to figure out a more creative way to use them besides simply showing the video. This wouldn't necessarily be bad, but I realize that students can easily do that themselves. Maybe we can collaborate and figure out some creative ways to use these in our history classes?! I do have one initial idea that I would love to hear your thoughts on! Do you think it would be possible/a good idea to have students research something and then do their own TED talk and play it for the class? I was thinking it might be a way to make the students feel like an expert, but it would also be challenging for them to explain their research in a limited amount of time. It would also be a low-stakes way to develop presentation skills as students could redo their presentations as many times as they needed before turning in the final video. What do you think?

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  4. Samantha, Thank you for sharing about your experience. I too attended a session lead by Todd Beard and I was inspired by his enthusiasm and all of his creativity. I am very glad to know that you attended his session on TED Ed Clubs because he briefly mentioned it during the presentation I was at and I was very intrigued.

    It was a lot of information and new tools all at once. I definitely need time to explore all the possibilities of these tools on my own prior to committing to using them but it was greatly beneficial to be able to add more to my tech toolbox. Sounds like you felt the same way!

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  5. -Samantha
    First of all, I love TED talks too! They are so interesting and its nice that there is such a variety of topics. That being said, I never thought about incorporating them into lessons before! Now that I think about it though, it makes perfect sense to use them in lessons because it is keeping the content relevant to their lives. TED talks are very popular, so it would be a great idea to use them in lessons to introduce them to students. Once you use them in lessons, it might encourage students to research TED talks that they find personally interesting outside of the classroom too.

    I do have a few questions about the idea of a TED-ed club though. At first, when I read TED-ed club, I thought that it was a student club that helped students become a TED presenter. This could be a cool idea too, and it would help students work on their public speaking skills. That being said, I really like the idea of using them in lessons because it shows students what they can accomplish!

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  6. Thanks for sharing your experiences Samantha! I too enjoyed the virtual field trip session, but I am in the same boat as you in that I am still brainstorming ways that I can integrate it into my classroom. I feel like it might be an extremely daunting task to take on with regards to filming and interviewing experts, but it is definitely something I want to do. Let me know if you think of any creative ways to make it happen. I would love nothing more than to make history come alive for students in world and us history by taking them on virtual field trips to historic monuments and ancient cities and towns.

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  7. Oh my goodness, Samantha! I am so excited by the last few things that you mentioned that I can hardly stand it! I learned about Google Storyteller when I was at the MACUL conference as well, and definitely intend on using that tool in my classroom. Currently, my students are working on creating Science Fiction narratives, and I think that it would have been really useful for them to start with that program. I received a bunch of questions about how to get started. Additionally, the program called Famous Storytellers sounds amazing! What student would not want to have their worked critiqued by a famous author? The concept of audience is totally turned on its head in that case. I am so glad you posted this. I'm definitely going to check it out!

    Thanks!

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  8. Oh my goodness, Samantha! I am so excited by the last few things that you mentioned that I can hardly stand it! I learned about Google Storyteller when I was at the MACUL conference as well, and definitely intend on using that tool in my classroom. Currently, my students are working on creating Science Fiction narratives, and I think that it would have been really useful for them to start with that program. I received a bunch of questions about how to get started. Additionally, the program called Famous Storytellers sounds amazing! What student would not want to have their worked critiqued by a famous author? The concept of audience is totally turned on its head in that case. I am so glad you posted this. I'm definitely going to check it out!

    Thanks!

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  9. Hey Samantha!
    It sounds like you found some really awesome presentations to watch. I think it would be really awesome to get involved in extracurriculars as a new teacher by starting a club. Not only would it show administrators and other teachers your time commitment and enthusiasm but it would be a great way to form meaningful relationships with students. I'm super interested in the Virtual Field Trips presentation that you went to!! As a Spanish teacher, this could be an amazing tool for kids to "travel to another country" without spending the thousands of dollars that are required to get there. I will for sure be looking more into this. I think it's so cool that kids can interact with a member of the community, meaning that my students could possibly even feel the immersion aspect of being abroad, even if for a brief time period in class. I also see how I could use tools such as the Google Story Teller in a language classroom by having students write stories in Spanish to correspond with pictures. Thanks for sharing your experience!

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  10. Hi Ms. Stemmer,

    I'm so sorry to hear that this event didn't start out as well as you had planned for, but it sounds like you were able to reach some really interesting presentations. I really appreciated how you planned and attended presentations that were interesting to you based on the technology, and not necessarily your content area, since you left still thinking about how you could apply these to your content. I think having students learn to give influential speeches like TED talks is a really interesting idea, and a great exercise for students. I also liked that these were set up as an extracurricular too, since many students may have a difficult time participating in such talks. I might consider doing the online field trip idea, especially since students can interact with other people anywhere in the world!

    Thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed your post!

    - Ms. Nao

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