How Tech Made This School Year Possible

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ISTE 2.3a

About me and this year's struggles

Intro to this presentation

Meet Michelle

• 8 years teaching, last 6.5 at Dakota HS of Chippewa Valley Schools
• MSU grad
  • BS Mathematics (2012)
  • Physics minor
  • MA Ed Tech (2017)
• Always been drawn to tech in the the classroom
• Love my pups, ice cream, shop projects, and being with my students

Grad School Portfolio          Under Grad Portfolio         @MichelleHeizer

Professional

• New Building & New Classroom
• New Prep
• New Cohort with Different Teaching Perspectives
• The Absolutely Most Challenging Class

Personal

• Trying to Fall Back in Love with Teaching
• So. Many. Doctor's Appointments
• Syncope
• Taking Care of Dad on Disability
• More Medical Testing
• Anxiety

The Struggle is Real

obtained from giphy.com

Class Website

• Bright, colorful, and contrasting headers are easy to find key sections
• Consistent layout and color scheme for entire course
• Simple, clean organization
• Bottom of each unit page has support videos directly embedded and linked for reteaching or making up missed work

ISTE Educator Designer Standard 2.5.a

msheizerdhs.weebly.com

P - Perceivable

O - Operable

U - Understandable

R - Robust

Accessibility

The ISTE Designer Educator Standard seamlessly incorporates accessibility - 

"Use technology to create, adapt, and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs." (ISTE 2.5.a)

MADE Takeaway Lesson

Keep formatting consistent, simple, and easy to read with contrasting colors. Draw attention to key features by using basic formatting like bold and underline. 

How the Website Supported Me

Although I had a new prep this year, having built up my website over the years, I already had the formatting decided upon and had been 'tried and tested' by students and support personnel for ease of use. Adding Algebra 1 to the website was easy to do. Students and staff knew where to go to find information in case of my unexpected absence or for student absences.

obtained from giphy.com

Deltamath.com

• Online math practice
• Built in help videos
• Gives instant right/wrong feedback to students
• Provides worked out solutions after every problem
• Question bank - students get a variety of questions or assign specific problems
• Problem types available
• Track student progress and monitor progress
• Standards based problems

Standards Based Assignments

"Design authentic learning activities that align with content area standards and use digital tools and resources to maximize active, deep learning." (ISTE 2.5.b)

"Use technology to design and implement a variety of formative and summative assessments that accommodate learner needs, provides timely feedback to students and inform instruction." (ISTE 2.7.b)

"Provide alternative ways for students to demonstrate competency and reflect on their learning using technology." (ISTE 2.7.a)

The ease of creating, assigning, and "grading" using deltamath.com reduced a significant amount of stress. Even when sitting in an ER room, I was able to create and assign work for my students to have meaningful learning in class.

A Last Minute Saver

Having access to the pro plan of deltamath.com has allowed me to provide my students with support on any given day without much additional effort on my part.

The feedback students receive and multiple formats of support (videos, example problems, worked out solutions) provides them multimodal access to supporting their learning at all times.

obtained from Amazon.com

Videos & Flipped Learning

Putting in time and energy during Covid to fully flip my Geometry class and creating online units in my graduate program for Algebra 1 has provided me with multiple units of video instruction for my students.

Story Time! My boss took me to the ER, when I finally was able to 'kick him out', I looked at him and said, "well, I guess it's a good thing I already have videos made for this unit!" Talk about low to no stress sub plans/lesson planning!

Creative Commons Licensing

"Create experiences for learners to make positive, socially responsible contributions and exhibit empathetic behavior online that build relationships and community." (ISTE 2.3.a)

The first time I assign video notes to my students is the main opportunity I get to talk with my students about copyright and being responsible users of content. Creative Commons Licensing provides ownership over work but also standing permission to be used without contacting the creator. Since learning about Creative Commons Licenses, all of my videos have a CC License on the opening view.

Failed Goal...this year

I had a goal this year to take a fully online, independent unit that I had made in grad school and convert it into a OneNote unit for students. The platform I used to create the online unit was discontinued. Transferring the unit into OneNote would keep our class platform consistent.

It never happened, I just had too many struggles to get the time to make it happen. But it's still a GOAL!

This is a link to a screencast of the online unit I had created and hoped to move into OneNote.

Online Course on Polynomial Operations

This is important to me because I want to be able to show and share my work, but also because I believe that providing students with the opportunity to really experience independent learning  (ISTE 2.5.a), in a well structured setting, is such an important set of skills to develop but it takes time to learn.

MISD's MADE Program

Thank You!

• Reminding me to be a learner (ISTE 2.1)
• Building my PLN, collaborating, and supporting me professionally (ISTE 2.4.a)
• Providing authentic and relevant tech training and courses that I can explore, grow, and develop as an educator and apply in my classroom.
• Thank you for being part of my journey to love teaching and tech again!