Scavenger hunt for Wi-Fi with my AP classes=impromptu fun and functional

The geeky moment:
I wish I I had taken a picture as my 26 students and I quietly sauntered through the hallway holding out our iPads searching for a good signal where the app I wanted to use would download and work. Fortunately the auditorium area had stronger WiFi, so we conducted class on the auditorium stairs today. It was surprisingly enjoyable and fairly successful for a "make it work" moment. (Tim Gunn would have been proud.)

The geeky details:
Our technology director Paul ended up with some extra iPads, and so he was able to give them to my two AP Language and Composition classes, which was ideal because half my students are already part of the school's pilot program through their physics classes, so by supplying the other half with iPads, now two more classes are part of the program. I couldn't be more thrilled and overwhelmed with the prospect of prepping and teaching using the iPad for two more classes.

So today was our first time using the iPads for instruction after a very smooth, swift initial set-up day last Friday with Paul while those students who already had the iPads also assisted the others through the process. (A particular highlight was when the students applauded as Paul walked in the room with the cart of iPads.) For my initial iPad reading class, Paul had been able to get in to the classroom over the summer to boost the WiFi and set up everything to prevent hiccups, so things have been amazingly smooth as far as connectivity goes. But since he just got these students the iPads during the school year, he couldn't have known this would happen in this classroom located in a different hallway, especially since everything had worked so ideally just a few days before when he was in our room showing them how to set up the iPads.

But today, the wifi just wasn't cooperating as the students tried to download the iBooks app, a free version of Scarlet Letter, and the Nearpod app at the same time. Those who have had the iPads for a month now started chatting about the places throughout the building where they have better luck with wifi. So I asked them pack up all their stuff and then somewhat obnoxiously pantomimed for them the manner in which I expected them to walk silently through the hallway while holding out their iPads and watching for increasing wifi and and the app downloading.

After firmly insisting upon absolute silence in the hallway, we all headed off. Perhaps it was the novelty of the crazy hallway skulking the 27 of us were embarking upon together, but they were great with keeping quiet in the hallways during this strange promenade. We made our way toward the auditorium as they started whispering, "It's working better here." and "Yeah, mine too." So we set ourselves up on the stairs and tried the lesson again.

They were impressed when they signed in to Nearpod and I immediately pushed slides about Scarlet Letter and American Romanticism onto their screens. They were amused when the app notified me in red that a student had timed out and so I jokingly called out our endearing class clown on his little infraction. And they were hooked when I broke up the typical lecture format with surveys and polls and trivia questions about the topic.

During the day, I ran into another one of our other technology guys, and so he actually came by for my afternoon AP class to check it out and help. I was able to repeat the same process and trek to the auditorium, and this time it went even more smoothly with his walking around and troubleshooting when a few students got confused or timed out of the app by accident. Yay for an awesome support system!  (Also, when I told Paul about the wifi issue, he promptly resolved it and we have had no further problems.)

Using the Nearpod website and apps for a multimedia presentation/pretest on prefixes and suffixes

The geeky moment:
I love it when I spend from 5 am to 8 am cram-prepping an unnecessarily complicated iPad lesson for that same day, the whole time panicking and convinced that I had shot myself in the foot. But then it all worked out almost perfectly, and I left class with the stupidest grin on my face. Nothing like a successful multimedia presentation as an engaging pretest on prefixes and suffixes.

The geeky details:

I used the Nearpod website to create the multimedia presentation. Once I published it online (thanks to my colleague Don for teaching me that very important step), I was able to use the Nearpod teacher app to push this same presentation onto the screens of all the students, who signed into my classroom through their student accounts using a short simple pin #. 
 

I began with refresher question about what prefixes and suffixes are and why they are important. They each submitted their answers and I then pushed back onto their screens what I considered the top answers. Then I asked them a five question quiz, where they clicked on what they thought was the correct definition of eachprefix. I got data immediately and was able to use the data immediately.  
 

One of my awesome girls was multitasking for me, and she recorded on butcher board all the prefixes and suffixes I chose to assess after consulting numerous top words' lists and my students' biology class vocabulary list. For every prefix or suffix the students knew, I asked this student to write in blue, but for every word part missed by three or more students, she switched to red marker. 
 

Then, I pushed a slide that asked them an open-ended question where they just typed any sample words they knew that had the prefixes or suffixes. Again, we shared and discussed a few and recorded the examples as well. We repeated this process all period (and every Wednesday for the next two weeks to finish up all the long list) and the students participated both using the iPads and also by blurting out examples. Both were helpful.

After the pretest and butcher paper aspect was over, I had about ten more slides with challenging words that included some of the prefixes and suffixes. We played a game where they tried to figure out the meaning of the words using the knowledge they had just gained (and the butcher block posters that their classmate was nice enough to create). They really got into the competition aspect of it and really pushed themselves to figure out the meaning of the words. Perhaps I'll need to use the competition idea again.  

One of the best parts was that Nearpod also notifies the teacher in red when a student has left the app and gone to other apps or timed out, so I could always keep track of student engagement.

Trouble shooting/mistakes I learned from:

While frantically creating it that same morning before class, I accidentally posted two slides asking very similarly worded questions. Fortunately The app lets me see each slide before I post it, so while in preview mode, I noticed that during class and just skipped that slide, and the kids were none the wiser.

I must have "made a mistake on my key," as all 14 students and my tech coordinator who was observing all said they knew the prefix "pre" but it immediately popped up in red for all of them, so I confessed my error and we moved forward. Better go back and fix that for the future--although now that I've published it, that'll require cloning a new one, but that's pretty easily done on the website.

So meta: I utilize my students' classroom online discussion to name and brainstorm about this blog

Yay! I officially have a title for this blog. And I love who created it--my students. They brainstormed some ideas and eventually I chose Syed-ucation.  

The geeky details: 
In my two junior A.P. Language & Composition classes, I've used various forms of blogging over the years to conduct class discussions and extend the classroom community of writers and readers and thinkers to an online medium many of them are already comfortable with.  I started in 2005 using blogger, which was great until I discovered sites that were more specifically made for classrooms. I used edmodo the last few years, and this year I've recently switched to Schoology. 

We have folders for discussions for certain classroom texts, but I also created a folder for an ongoing semester-long discussion of any appropriate, newsworthy, current, or interesting topics they post about and argue/discuss with one another. They are also encouraged to post any texts or videos for their peers to analyze--visual, literary, or rhetorical analysis-worthy texts. So far, for example, a few have posted about sports-related controversies such as the replacement NFL referees and the possibility of adding instant replays to MLB. Some others and I posted about events happening in the news, such as the New NYC law about sugary drinks over 16 ounces and the reaction to the killings in Libya. Others have posted some of their favorite songs for others to analyze as poetry. It's been pretty helpful in keeping them informed and interested in discussing important topics and improving their writing and argumentative skills.  

Since the point of the class is for them to be analytical thinkers and writers, I figured I would share with them that I'm doing the same with this blog, my own writing. So I posted up my own question/rhetorical analysis, explaining my blog to them and asking them to help me brainstorm a title and analyze what type of persona and tone I want to take in my own writing.  

The responses were great. Even the suggestions I didn't use may end up in my future blogs, and I'm now trying to persuade my colleagues to use the runner up on our department t-shirt: Post-Grammatic Stress Disorder.  How great is that?

What I really enjoyed about doing this classroom online post--in addition to how meta it is that I was asking my students for advice about my own online posting about my teaching--was that they conducted awesome discussion about how they wanted it to be a pun on my name since my persona would be something quirky and geeky. They also analyzed that it would be most helpful for me to have a title that reflected my interests and personality but also was open enough for me to write about various topics in my life and teaching.  So yeah. I'm pretty pleased with the results. 

On a somewhat related note: One of my former students from many years ago is now a librarian in our school, and she helped me with the goodreads widget on the side. I loved being taught how to do all this stuff from a former student. Thanks, Monica! 

Notability Note-taking: Stylus vs. typing?

The geeky moment/question: 

I used the note-taking app Notability last Tuesday and today to practice text marking an article. The kids did well with the discussion and using pre-, during-, and post-reading strategies and connecting text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world. Their first attempt at writing with a stylus or their fingers, however, produced mixed results. So now I need to figure out if I should give them more time to practice this skill over the next few weeks, or should I avoid frustrating them and instead move in to typing notes in Notability instead? Is writing on a tablet really a necessary skill for them to learn? I'm not sure whose advice to get about this. There's probably not much research out there on this, right? Hmmm. 

The geeky details: 

Last week I picked a brief ESPN.com article on how the Chicago White Sox had gotten swept by the Tigers that weekend since about half my class told me they are White Sox fans during the general interest inventory. It's possible their interest in the White Sox came as a result of my sharing that the Sox are my all-time favorite team (when I projected my own interest inventory as a sample for theirs). Today I picked an article from USA Today about how the presidental candidates are putting aside negative advertising out of respect for the anniversary of 9/11. Both articles seemed to work well to keep them engaged. 

I only have 14 students, and I'm not ready yet to teach them the whole work flow process using something like Dropbox, so instead, I just created a group email list and then emailed them the article. Together we walked through how to open a file from email into Notability, and we walked through the basics of the app. They seemed to pick it up quickly and helped each other too.  At the end, I just had them share it back with me via email. I figured I'd do this for a few weeks before adding the element of another new app/system. 

Most of my students took all the notes, but about half of them have notes that are barely readable. They are big, messy, and all over the place. This week, one of the boys actually handwrote half his notes with the stylus but created text boxes and typed some of the notes, without my ever teaching them this method.  Maybe I should ask him to show them what he did and why, and then let them choose whichever version they prefer, as long as it produces similar results.

iPad Set-up: The students learn what "pilot" means and I use the iPad set-up as a "get to know you" activity

"Click twice on the arrow to get all caps."
"Use two fingers to scroll down so you don't accidentally make that line."
"You can record your voice with that microphone at the top."

These are the types of statements, suggestions, and sometimes commands my students have been blurting out in class as they learn the basics and nuances of using the iPad.

I allotted two days for initial iPad set up, which ended up being a good way to prevent frustration and set the right atmosphere for our class. After the first day of assigning each student his iPad and doing basic set-up and email, the second day included trouble shooting all the email/login issues we had noted the day before and installing my list of chosen free education apps. The best thing that could have happened was that all the students walked into class on the second day at different levels of iPad knowledge. Plus, I had two other very competent adults in the room to work with them to trouble-shoot.

As my tech coordinator Paul and my amazing TA and friend Angela walked around patiently helping, I started doing the same; soon I instead found myself chatting with each of them about something they installed or planned to install (pictures, wallpapers, apps, and of course games). One boy discussed his pride in his Mexican heritage through his home screen picture and showed me that he's still choosing between other photos of Mexico for his lock screen option. He then volunteered to show me how to do it. (I already knew how, but of course I let him "teach" me anyway.) I bonded with five of them over our shared love of the White Sox. Two boys shared with me pictures of their dream sports jerseys and shoes. I saw more One Direction and Justin Beiber pictures than I really needed. I chatted with another boy, who taught me that the fans of his favorite band are called juggalos. (The band is ICP, in case you aren't hip like I am. Ha ha!).

Another girl showed me how she had organized her iPad into folders: She separated "games" from "school" (My ICP fan also has a similar folder, but of course his is called "Skewl.") Later in the hour, when we were installing the list of apps I had planned, she also shared all her app choices and even led the class in installing them. (The clever girl had thought to get apps like dictionary.com and a calculator.)

Since then, they've regularly been sharing their discoveries and tips. Some of my shy, quiet little freshmen have even gotten up in front and walked the others through how to do it. Letting them take the lead on some of these things is working out pretty well so far.

On the first day of school, my students and I discussed what the word "pilot" meant and what we'd all have to expect as members of this pilot program. Within the first two weeks of school, they're proving to me that they understand and now embody that world.