PIIs and Among Us: A Morning Meeting Full of Engaged Learners

 
Recently when I hop on to our class Google Meet I have a lot of this staring back at me:
                                    
When I asked students what or who that was they told me about this game they were playing, Among Us. I heard about crewmates, an imposter, and tasks. They excitedly asked if I could play with them, which I told them I did not even have the app to play. I decided it would be fun to check it out to connect with students. What I did not expect was two morning meetings devoted to an Among Us discussion.

We had been talking about community as a class. This game certainly fosters community among its players, so I asked my students for tips and tricks for playing Among Us. I had students clamoring to share ideas. Engagement was sky high. I also listened to students sharing their parents would not let them play. I asked students to be mindful as this is something not everyone is involved in, as they asked to play a game with classmates.

That night I went home and delved into the Among Us Privacy policy, as I was curious about the PIIs it collects. I came across this:
 

I began to wonder what students really know and understand about PIIs. We had discussed this in terms of our blogging, but we had not had a conversation about what happens when you approve an app on a device.

Our second morning meeting I started by asking students what they thought Among Us collected in the Google chat box in our meet. Students’ ideas ranged from why would they collect anything to names, location, address, school, etc. I started reading through the information they collect and was met with cries of how is that even fair or why would they do that. We had a conversation about what you could be agreeing to when you download an app on a device and the importance of looking for the PII collected. I even suggested students talk to their parents about this. Students were also surprised players of Among Us should be at least 16 years old. I told them sadly I could not play with them. 

At the end of our discussion I set up three polls to capture student thinking on our morning meetings over the past two days. I asked students if they agreed or disagreed with the idea that PII should be collected. 5 students agreed, 7 disagreed, and 9 were feeling neutral. I asked if they knew companies collected information on them. 13 students responded yes while 7 said no. Lastly, I asked if they would consider looking at the PIIs collected before downloading or signing up for something. 11 said yes. 2 said no, and 7 said they would think about it. I am glad 18 agents will look or think about looking moving forward.

I encourage parents and educators to talk to their children who are under age and using these applications. It is important they are aware of data collection and how data privacy impacts us all.

Building Relationships with Students Through Badges

Last spring I saw the benefit of including a badge program to motivate and engage learners. I wrapped my head around how to create a more sustainable badge program for my elementary students before school started. Thanks to Slides Mania I found a fabulous passport slide deck I could use to house student badges.

The BIG question was: How can I create a system that is sustainable and manageable and means something to students. I reflected on the badges I had already created, many of which would not work given we were returning to a full day schedule of school. Thinking about some of the things I used to have pre pandemic I began crafting a few badges. An encouragement badge from last spring was used for students who encourage others to try new things. I have a homework badge for students who complete all home assignments by Friday afternoon. A kindness badge was created next. Our school has an estimation station so any student who guesses correctly would receive an estimation badge, which was also used when we pivoted to remote learning last spring. I had created a badge with the school district logo for something during remote learning and changed that to the school spirit badge. Then I added a participation badge and BrainPOP badge.

I took a pause and thought, why am I coming up with ideas when I now have a class of kids who can drive the badge program. I kicked off our badge passport program last week, explaining what badges were and how to earn ones created. Then I told students I was looking for more ways to give out badges and would any students be interested in coming up with ideas and designing badges. I had several willing students. I divided them up by cohort and met with them at lunch. We brainstormed as a group, and then I showed them how to use Google Drawings to create the badges. When they were done, they shared their creations with me. I added a text box with their name, because I felt it important to give the student credit for creating the badge.

Our class now has a specials badge, which our classroom specialists were thrilled to take part in and honor students in our class. We added a listening badge for students who use good listening skills. A facing challenges badge was made to celebrate students who persevere. One student came up with the idea for an effort badge while another wanted to make a goal badge for classmates who reach goals both in and out of school. A guidelines badge was designed for students who followed our class guidelines, and classmate badge was added to our badge program for those students supporting classmates. I loved that our badges focus more on what it means to be a good community member than content.

When students earn badges it provides me an opportunity to email him/her/them and CC parents to celebrate why he/she/they is earning a badge. I just emailed a student to let him know I noticed his increased participation and raising his hand, which was something he wanted to work on. By giving out badges I am also building relationships with students I have yet to physically meet.

Designing a Google Classroom for Elementary Students with a Human Centered Approach

When designing a Google Classroom for elementary students I began to create one classroom with various topics.

 

 

As the topic list grew, I began to wonder if students would want one Google classroom for a 5^th grade class or would they prefer separate classrooms by subject with a secret agent hub (homeroom for things not content related). I reached out to two MassCUE peers, who both had differing opinions with great reasons. One friend said to create one classroom for consistency, ease of use, and less notifications to families. A second friend suggested multiple classrooms to be used as pods with a homeroom classroom. She also gave the idea of color coding each individual classroom created. After listening and thinking I decided the best way to decide was to ask former 5^th grade students.

 

I met with a small focus group of former students and showed them what I had created. They saw the classroom set up and most of them immediately said I should do one classroom. When I asked them why they felt having one place to go to with a Google Meet link would be helpful. They would have less email notifications for them and parents, and fewer classes to manage. They liked the idea of everything in once place. One student offered that I should create multiple classrooms to able to add more for the content areas than what he was seeing. When I politely explained I would add more as the year went on in one classroom and that what he was seeing was just the start of the year he quickly changed his thinking.

 

I was excited to build an online community for our future agents. The first thing I did was remove notifications from the stream.

 

 

 

This helps keep the stream less cluttered. I designed a classroom banner in Google Draw to add some personal flair to our online home.  I challenged myself to think about best practices and decided to include emojis and fonts to support visual learners. Thanks to Holly Clark's suggestion, I created an emoji guide for students too, so they would know what the images meant. I learned how to do this through a YouTube video posted below.

 

 

I thought about a human centered approach, focusing first on relationship building activities. I know the content pieces will come, but I was easily able to start adapting activities done in a physical space for an online space. I strongly recommend educators start with the good work they are already doing when contemplating where to start in building a Google Classroom for remote and hybrid learning.

 

Helpful Links:

 

EmojiCopy

Emojipedia

Fancy Text Guru

Fancy Text Pro

Lessons Learned in #Remotelearning This Summer

 Our classroom is student driven, so students often make some big decisions! I asked students in June if any of them wanted to continue with remote learning over the summer, and many said yes. Students designed the schedule, suggesting we meet twice a week for an hour each session. They asked me to prepare engaging leaning experiences that included the read aloud book I started before school closed. After reflecting back on our experiences this summer, I realized there was so much good that came out of continuing to build our classroom community remotely for our students. They were faced with having a summer like no other, so I was pleased I could support them in activities to keep their minds engaged and their hearts connected to their classroom community. Here are some lessons I learned and activities you might want to try adapting for your own learners!

 

1.     Give students a plan for the meeting so they know what to expect. Always send an agenda, so students know what to except. It is ok to be flexible and amend the agenda with students, but they appreciate knowing what the plan is ahead of time. Thanks to Laura Cahill for creating this template. It really worked well to help us all stay on track.

 

2.     Engage students in real world discussions. I created a current events activity for students. They loved being able to share their perspectives around the protests, Juneteenth, and the Black Lives Matter movement. These topics were not part of the current standards in our 5^th grade curriculum. These led to conversations about media literacy and source checking, forming an opinion from a news story, and accepting when other’s think differently then you. These are real like skills for students to explore!

 

 

3.     Provide opportunities for building relationships. Students loved connecting with each other over games, whether it was a group math game or board games that can be played in a virtual setting. Game play also allowed me to focus on student’s social and emotional wellbeing. We laughed a lot and were challenged to think critically and creatively.

4.     Create some learning experiences that offer choice. Students could work on a choice board in between our meets. The choice board consisted of activities in different subject areas. One of the activities was creating a Wonderopolis Google Site, which embedded technology literacy into the lesson. Thanks to Tracy Leighton for her shared materials that inspired this Choice Board!

 

5.     Support students where they are. Students had an optional summer reading program, and to support that initiative I asked students to make a Netflix Book Trailer for their summer reading book. Thanks to Nick LaFave for the template and Zachary Mcdermott for the inspiration!

 

 

6.     Expand their knowledge through experts. I always seek ways to bring other voices into our student’s lives. Jason Reynolds created a dynamic writing hub for students called Write. Right. Rite. His videos were short, entertaining, and draw listeners in! He provided students with a task that can be created using paper, pencil, or digital tools. Our learning was enriched through our discussions of work created.

 

7.     Connect work to previous learning activities. Our students were lucky enough to be paired with Chris Tebbetts, author of the Stranded and co-author of the Middle School Series, through #Kidsneedmentors. He had come to visit us physically and virtually during the school year to support our young authors! Over the summer students were invited to imagine they were stranded in the middle school. I was able to secure a map of the middle school for our students to familiarize themselves with. Students were challenged to write their own versions of Stranded. We had some very colorful tales written!

 

 

8.     Challenge students to explain their thinking. Students had the opportunity to explain their thinking in an activity called Which One Are You? I got the idea from Andre Daughty. I simply created a Google Slide to share with four related imaged and asked students which one they prefer. Listening to students explain why they chose the image they chose taught us a lot about them! Some students even wanted to change their minds after hearing the rational of classmate’s choices.

 

As the school year approaches I plan to take these lessons with me as I begin to envision how to build a community remotely. It is possible to take best practices into the remote world!

The Possibilities of Student Centered Remote Learning

Can remote learning be student centered? That was a question I grappled with as our 5^th grade staff came together to create a remote learning slide deck for all our students. Running a student centered classroom physically is a daunting task full of risk taking and adventure. I discovered the physical space transfers over to the virtual space. It just took my own students to show me this!

We have had our Google Classroom set up since September, so our students were well versed in navigating the virtual space. Students started asking me if they could do some of our work we were doing in the classroom online. The first student asked if we could do our end of day circle in Google Classroom. We gather together at the end of the day and share either an appreciation, an apology, or an a-ha moment. I created the 3As online and a discussion ensued. Students started sharing their thoughts!

Another student emailed me letting me know the question of the morning was missed. Each morning we ask a question to check in with students. I took the slides and transferred it to a question in Google Classroom. I scheduled them to go out each morning. This engages students in conversation with each other. We even are modeling how to use the @symbol to alert classmates to responses.

A third child questioned whether or not we could have our discovery quests continue. So I designed a space for students to share their presentations. We are hoping with the addition of Google Meet students will be able to eventually share their work. A student shared a Ted Talk with me about 100 Days of Rejection. This inspired a Ted Talk topic with prompts to discuss.

Another child asked about if we can design a podcast, continuing our story. This one I was not sure about as we had no access to mics, and the students were not physically together to design a segment. The more I thought about this the more I realized we can podcast. We just have to keep it simple. Armed with my phone and my laptop I had my niece test out voice memos with me, and it worked! So I asked students if they wanted to design a Covid19 podcast segment. They came up with the questions and signed up to be interviewed. I called them at home and could feel the smile though the phone! We recorded using Voice Memo on my Mac, which we would normally use on our class iTouch. I then uploaded the segment to Anchor and deleted the file on my computer with the student on the phone. I had an interviewee inquire if she could get a group together to design their own segment, and I could call them to record it once we discussed their ideas. Why not offer this as an option to students?

These moments inspired me to then create a Google Form for the entire 5^th grade to get feedback on our remote learning slide deck. This helped our grade level teachers create the second remote learning slide deck. I encourage everyone to just ask their students what they are missing or want to see as part of their remote learning. Let your students be part of the process!

Some of their suggestions I never thought about, but I am so glad they advocated and asked! These are the life skills they will never forget! It is the experiences we create for our students that mean the most. So yes! Remote learning can be student centered. All we have to do is listen and ask our students.

The Dangling Carrot: A Badge Program to go with Remote Learning

In a mere three days our students have jumped from 1000 IXL problems to 5000! When our school was planning a remote learning website for students, I began to ponder what content would be pushed out. I knew it would have something organized by subject, using the tools available to us.

Wondering about the content took a back seat when I started to ask a much bigger question. How do we motivate kids at home to go to the remote learning website and what best pedagogical practices can I employ to get them there while working from home? This question plagued me for the rest of the night.

At 4 AM I woke up with an epiphany! Educators get motivated by badges, so would students do the same thing? Could a badge be my dangling carrot as Daniel Pink so passionately discussed in his TED Talk, The Puzzle of Motivation?  I began to work on a badging template for a remote learning site I had yet to see. Calling a student was also helpful, and we worked together to create a badging program to go along with the remote learning website. When the website was released the student and I figured I could paste in the content to go along with the badges. Having a student help assured me this would be in student friendly language, so parent support would be at a minimum once kids started going through it.

After the site was released, I emailed out directions to families. They could continue going on doing their own enrichment and engagement. They could peruse the Remote Learning Site, choosing activities at their leisure, or students could choose the badge challenge. I planned to make the badges as students earned them in Google Draw. Badges were then emailed home to the parent and student, with feedback about his or her work. Feedback and reflection continue to be an important part of our learning process, even in a virtual classroom.

An announcement of badges was also made in Google Classroom, encouraging other kids to check it out. I kept track of their badges in a Google Sheet. I check each night to see what students accomplished. It provided me another avenue to communicate to home and build connections with families.

Half the class has been working on badges for a week! I emailed individual students yesterday morning, encouraging those who had not yet started to check it out. As educators we need to think about how to motivate all our students, remembering pedagogical strategies for student success.

*If you would like to use the badge program or want the badges find me on Twitter and connect to me there!*

Staying Connected to Our Kids During #Covid19

Recently I shared with some people that my entire life prepared me to deal with colon cancer the best I could, and the colon cancer prepared me for dealing with covid19. The mile a minute Rayna who would do so much in a day could have never sat back and relaxed, read, and connected with people during the covid19 pandemic. I imagine the old me would have been gung-ho, preparing learning experiences for kids at home. However, the directive from the DESE in MA is to provide enrichment and engagement opportunities for students. My district asked us to think in terms of low tech to no tech. I spent a few days thinking about what this could look like.

Here are some things my students have been doing to stay connected to our classroom community:

·      Every week throughout the year I send home an awesome problem of the week. It is a math problem from the Exemplars program, or you could make problems up. Students have a week to solve the problem if they choose. They have been emailing me answers, sharing in a Google Doc, or writing it down and sending pictures. Then if they solve it correctly, we post a picture of the group with awesome problem solver signs. Due to social distancing and no school this option is no longer possible. So, I asked students to create their own sign and send me a picture, and they did! One student even used scrabble letters. Love the creativity! Next year I might have the kids make their own sign too. The pride on their faces shine through!

·      Each week I send home a week in review in a Wakelet that I create using Adobe Spark and put in YouTube as an unlisted video. This week I encouraged families to send me photos with a caption (features of nonfiction). And I got so many photos the video was 3 minutes long!

·      I had a student email me this morning. Every day we do a circle meeting at the end of the day, participating in the 3As. Students can share an apology, an a-ha moment, or an appreciation. My student asked me if we could still do this. I told her sure! I created an ungraded, optional assignment in Google Classroom where students can share one of their A’s whenever they want!

·      I  also created a place in Google Classroom, which all students have access to, where students and parents could find activities at home to do. Kevin Carroll, author of the The Red Rubber Ball, sent me a great link to Play at Home. Students still need opportunities to move, play, create, make, and have fun!

·      Students are sharing inspirational quotes and telling us why they shared it in Google Classroom. Using the @ symbol to respond to individuals is helpful!

·      We also have a space for students to teach us something new in Google Classroom. A student already shared How to Count to Infinity!

·      One of my students used her leg as a canvas and sent me a picture of her painting. Canvases can be anywhere! Art is everywhere!

·      Some students are continuing to blog, work on digital portfolios, and reading letters because those assignments were part of their regular routine.

It is important that we keep connecting with our kids, letting them know we are here (even by an email or phone call or Google Form (Shout out to Allyson Apsey for the form idea)). There is a lot of information out there but remember keeping it simple is also something to consider. After all we want our kids engaged and enriched during this time. We want their minds going, synapses growing, and smiles flowing!

Reactions Show Character

Many days as an educator I often see students doing things that makes me pause. Some of the things I have seen this week:

·      A pencil being thrown across the room

·      Water bottles being flipped (guess this is back)

·      Students out of their seats visiting peers when it is working time

I often ask a child why he or she did the action he or she chose to do. It is getting to their WHY that is important. It could be as simple as I have no idea why I did that, or I was not paying attention, or I felt like it. There also could be more underlying things going on with the choice. By being proactive rather than reactive I invite a conversation with the child to get to the root of the issue, problem solve, develop a goal, and work towards a solution.

However, what I shared with my students about my thought process was surprising to them. I told them to throw the pencil or flip the bottle. It is their reaction to my response that matters more to me than their action. A reaction shows me their character. Will the child talk back? Will the student take responsibility for his or her actions? Does the child even want to share his or her thinking with me? How someone reacts to a situation tells me more about the person than their original action itself.

I look forward to building relationships with students, and this is one way to strengthen them! Allowing a child to make a choice and then reflect on the action can be very powerful. I hope students will pause and think about their reaction to my comments moving forward. It comes from a place of good intentions and full of heart.