Schoology vs. Google Drive #smackdown

I love Google. I love Google Drive. I love the fact everything is free. I love the collaboration. I love having students use Drive.

We are a GAFE school so our kids do use it, but we also have the LMS Schoology. It took some time for me to warn up to it, but I have realized is awesomeness as well.

I'll do this smack down style.

What I Love: Drive is awesome for collaboration. I have students share with me when they start a document or presentation. I can chat, comment or edit while they are writing, not after. Feedback is awesome. It's like we are creating the essay/project together.
Schoology allows me to keep everything in one place. It's very organized. I love that I can create rubrics and the students see them right away. I love that I can align the rubrics to CCSS.

What I Don't Love: Drive is really hard to keep organized. I have to use the search feature all the time. I make folders, but things get lost in the folders. OK not lost, misplaced. Grading is a pain. Rubrics have to be shared and it's hard to include them in the assignment.
Schoology is an LMS. So that means that student's work is not accessible to them after the course is over. Schoology has had some blips with syncing with Drive. It hasn't always worked the best. There are so many options with assignments that it gets confusing sometimes. Visible, published, available, ungraded, sometimes I'm not sure what to do with all of the options

Solution: Use both. Schoology allows students and teachers to connect their Drive account to Schoology. Students can create something in Drive and upload it to Schoology. Best of both worlds!

I'm sorry #ohedchat

I want to be honest with my #ohedchat community. I have failed you recently. We started this crazy thing a little over a year ago. I'm an amazed with the progress we have made. But I have made some mistakes.

Mistake 1. Selfishness - in my ambition to make this thing happen, I have selfishly thought that I could do it all. Make the surveys, moderate the chats, make schedules, and I couldn't.

Mistake 2. I refused help - somewhere along the line, multiple people probably offered to help me along the way and for some reason I said "Nope, I got it." I'm not sure why but again I thought I could do it all.

Mistake 3. I procrastinated - I waited to post the topic until late or asked a moderator to cover at the last minute.

Bottom line is that I don't want the chat to suffer because of my mistakes. We need to keep this going and continue the positive conversation. This started out as a grassroots movement and it needs to stay that way.

If you are interested in setting up a moderator rotation or helping out any other way, please let me know. Also let me know if you have any other suggestions to keep this thing going. I didn't start this community, and I don't want my mistakes to end it. Thanks.

Music and Orpheus

Here are my 7th graders comparing modern music to the Greek myth of Orpheus. #learningandfun

Superheroes

Here is a short video of my Sixth Graders using Superhero artifacts to compare and contrast to Gilgamesh. Just another example of #learningandfun.

Learning #AND Fun

I have always had students tell me that they enjoy my class. I even have parents tell me how much their kids enjoy class. I know my students learn as well. I always try to tell jokes and frequently make fun of myself. Most of the time my jokes are so lame that they laugh at how lame they are rather than the punchline. But are my students having fun?

I started thinking about this while I attended OETC and OETCx. While listening to a good friend's FREd talk (Forging Real Education) I really thought about my approach. My kids laugh and say they have fun, but are they learning while they are having fun, and vice versa?

Armed with this new question, I decided to plan something that was both; learning AND fun.

My 6th graders are currently reading The Cay by Theodore Taylor. The main character loses his vision and must trust a complete stranger while they are both stranded on an island. I had started a discussion with then about what it would be like to be blind. Then I realized that they could actually experience blindness.

A couple QR codes and a few blindfolds later, they were laughing and bumping into each other. They were using technology, discussing the book, learning what it is like to be blind, AND having fun.

I'm not writing this to tell you how great this activity was or that I am an awesome teacher that plans great lessons like this all the time. I am writing this to show you that no matter how you feel about your teaching, you can always get better. To quote Ryan McLane, "I'm not trying to change the world. I'm just trying to get kids to hate school less."

It's a great message that we all can learn from. Now, how are we going to learn AND have fun next week?

I'm going to OETC, be jealous

I finally got the confirmation that my district will be sending me to the Ohio Educational Technology Conference. I have wanted to go for a while now because of all the great things that I have heard about it. Not only did my district agree to send me, but they are sending me for two days!

I am really looking forward to the conference for the opportunity to learn new ways to integrate technology in my classroom. I am also looking forward to the tweetup and meetup opportunities. I have interacted online with quite a few people in the state and I am looking forward to the opportunity to meet them face to face.Plus they have an app.

 I am also looking forward to OETCx. An alternative conference might be just what the doctor ordered on the second day of the conference.

Also, I will be allowed to tweet on a Monday and Tuesday during the day, I don't really get the chance to do that any other time. I know, I'm a nerd.

So be jealous people, I'm going to OETC.

A Christmas Carol - 7th Grade

I'm a little late with this post, but I need some help. We recently read this classic novel as a part of our seventh grade curriculum. As a building we are looking at reviewing and revising our book list for grades 6, 7 and 8. I am stuck. I like this novel, but I'm not sure if we should keep it. It seems that I have as many questions as answers for this task. I have some pros and cons for reading the book as a class at the 7th grade level.

Pros:

• The book is full of figurative language that can be dissected and analyzed
• There are many play and movie versions that offer many opportunities to compare and contrast different writing styles and viewpoints
• There are many themes, but they really don't dwell on one singular theme of Christmas

Cons:

• The 1800's. The language is so different and is really tough for the students to get through at times
• The chapter length makes it hard to divide it into equal parts
• Dickens. I love the guy, but students, not so much. The lexile is about right for middle school, but it seems like it is challenging at times for students.
• Timing. Do we have enough time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to read it all and teach it effectively?

So that is where I am with this novel. I can't decide what to do here. So, I'm crowd sourcing this thing. Let me know what you think. I you read it or have read it at the middle school level let me know. Thanks.