Digital Resources: Doodle

One of my favorite euphemisms is that something is more difficult than "herding cats". It's vivid, concise and accurate. Doodle, a meeting management system that is integrated with whatever calendar runs your day, makes scheduling a meeting time among a diverse set of people waaaaaay easier than herding cats. 

Like many other web apps, Doodle offers a limited free version, with paid upgrades for advanced features. Basically, Doodle allows you to offer your attendees a set of available times for a meeting or event. The attendees can select the times they are available, and from there you, as the meeting organizer, can set the final date and time for your meeting. The requests you send are called "polls".  The big difference between this and YouCanBook.Me (another calendar management web based app I reviewed in November) is that the final date and meeting time are set by you, rather than offering up space on your calendar to others so they can reserve a meeting time that they need (as YouCanBook.Me does). This makes it great to eliminate the often lengthy chain of "I'm not available then, how about at this time?" emails and responses. 

Doodle works with a variety of digital calendars, and the paid upgrades offer some nice features such as custom headers for your Doodle polls, at-a-glance missing attendee lists and requests for additional information sent through the app. Overall Doodle is easy to use, easy to connect and makes it easier for you to schedule time with a group of people.

Where: www.doodle.com

Cost: Free with paid upgrades

What: Web-based meeting management app

Students! Try Doodle if you want to...

organize a club meeting or other after-school activity

coordinate a time amongst group members to meet for a project

Teachers! Try Doodle if you want to...

plan a team meeting 

schedule evening or out-of-school events with 

Makeshop Monday: Including Students in the Design Process

Before I became a teacher, I remember someone telling me that I would rarely know the impact I had on most of my students. It's true - most of my former students don't tell me and probably don't realize how any given lesson has the potential to impact the rest of their lives. So when I have the chance to sit down with students and their teachers and talk about how a project will have a long-lasting impact on what a student learned but also on their understanding of themselves as students, it's an awesome experience. The science class I spoke with is co-taught by Ms. Elaine Tierney and Mrs. Jennifer Tracy. The focus of the class is the principles of Earth Science and they are very familiar with the maker space and the principles of design. At the beginning of the year, the students researched the universe and made semi-functional models of the solar system. Recently, I interviewed them about another making-based project they worked on. 

Avonworth Resource Center: Tell me a little about your project

Student 1: We started off trying to make a movie titled "The Tilt" but that got too complicated

Student 2: I still think we could have made it

Student 3: When we realized it would be too complicated, we thought about doing something else, and we decided to do a podcast instead

S1: The girls in the class were the production crew, and the guys were the research crew. It was about what would happen if the Earth no longer had any tilt.

Ms. Tierney: They did a nice job together of looking at the research and deciding what information to include and which to leave out

ARC: What did you like about doing the project in this way?

S3: It was easier, and everyone was more interested

Student 4: We didn't know what we were going to do [in terms of what the final product would be], so we all got to decide what we were going to do [as a final product]

S1: It was personal to all of us - not the final product but the process was. 

S3: It took us three weeks to plan [including planning and scrapping the movie idea] and about a week to make the product

MK: It [took us that amount of time] cause we worked as a team

Ms. Tierney: How did it help you learn?

S3: How destructive no tilt would be

S1: We learned more than just reading a chapter because we had to do a lot of work. It was kind of annoying [to do that much work] but it was good

Mrs. Tracy: But look at your recall - you remember so much more because you were all so into it.

S1: But we don't have to just remember things. Sometimes I like writing stuff down, but when I've written down a bunch of dates and names am I going to remember and think back to "Oh remember how I wrote all of that stuff down"? Not really.

Ms. Tierney: Would you rather do a project like this or present in front of the class?

Student 5: I would be more nervous speaking in front of people

S1: I hate standing in front of the class, but at least you can see their reactions so it's more reassuring.

Student 6: I'd rather record it [like we did for the podcast because] I get nervous when people are looking at me

Talking with the students about their project, it was clear that they were really invested in the design and production of their product. Because of this investment, not only did they demonstrate mastery of the concepts at hand, but they could see how they had internalized the concepts as well. They knew what they had learned not only about the tilt of the earth, but also about how they were comfortable communicating with their peers and how they best learned as students. It was great to be a part of this reflective and interesting conversation and I look forward to continuing working with this class in the future.

Digital Resources: Google Calendar

Quick: what are you doing next Tuesday at 130 PM? If you're like me, you probably have no idea unless you've written it down somewhere. Google Calendar makes for an excellent "somewhere" that can serve as a repository for all of your appointments and so much more. Because it's web-based, you can have the same calendar on any of your devices, and updating in one location will result in the information being present in any other location you log in to.

Before I moved into the library, I taught on a middle school team. One of the ways that we would communicate with parents and students about assignments was through Google Calendar. Each of us had our own calendar that was associated with a larger team calendar which was published on our team website. Google made all of the set up and management of this fairly easy - once we had ownership of our calendars, we could update them in one location (say, from our school laptop) and the addition would be updated automatically. If students had subscribed to our calendar (which is very easy to do), the change would appear automatically in their calendar. Since most students have some sort of calendar app on their mobile device, this means that when you update your assignment the information will be delivered to your students' mobile device automatically  (depending on the syncing preferences each student has set up). In addition to providing the general information about the assignment (what it is, when it is due, etc.) you can also attach digital copies of the documents that the assignment requires so students have access to all of those materials on their device as well. 

Whereas you can share your calendar passively through inviting subscribers, you can also actively share individual events or meetings through invitations. By inviting someone to an event or meeting that you schedule, they have the option of accepting or declining the invitation and then the event appears in their calendar depending on their response. 

The library calendar - each color represents another space or resource
someone has reserved in the library

Additionally, having a Google calendar allows you to keep yourself organized and make your time available to those who need it. Here in the library I use it to organize room schedules for the various library spaces, and then publish that calendar so that people can check availability of those spaces for their own and their students needs. By using a digital platform, I am able to easily schedule rooms or events for specific times over whatever days the event will occur. So if someone reserves the writing lab for a week during Periods A, D and F, I can create one event and duplicate it over the days I need it. You can also use it in conjunction with web apps (such as YouCanBook.Me) to organize meetings among a large groups of people. 

Where: calendar.google.com

Cost: Free 

What: Web-based calendar

Students! Try Google Calendar if you want to...

keep track of your assignments/due dates and other important events

plan events or meetings with various attendees

Teachers! Try Google Calendar if you want to...

deliver assignments to students' mobile devices (pending their subscription to your calendar)

schedule meetings with colleagues, administration, parents, etc. easily

Makeshop Monday: Fabricatio with AP Latin

One of the first 3D printing projects in the maker space this year was Mrs. Reagle's AP Latin class. When they came in with a piece to print, it quickly became apparent that these students were very invested in the project they were completing and that it was much larger in scope than just a small bust of Caesar. Caesar was just the final touch for a much larger project based on Trajan's column. For those of you who are unfamiliar (as I was before speaking with these young ladies), Trajan's column is kind of like an ancient comic strip - it has an artistic depiction of a series of battles fought and won by the Romans. Similarly, the students' column has a panel that winds around it telling a story, although their column tells the story of the Gallic Wars (as related by Caesar). The six students (Becca Volk, Hannah Shoeppner, Molly Rind, Chloe Mellon, Abby Oberdick and Christina Tuccillo) and their teacher (Mrs. Melissa Reagle) sat down with me to talk about their project and its impact on their understanding of the story they had translated.

ARC: So how did you approach this project? What was the process you went through from assignment to completion?

CT: Well first we translated a chapter from the text. 

BV: Then we each selected a portion to draw.

CT: And we colored in our sections as well.

BV: Then we built it.

ARC: What was the difference between completing this project and writing a paper?

AO: This was much more exciting - [as students] we write a lot of papers so it can get repetitive

MR: Plus I was much more immersed in the story 

The column is impressive - it stands at almost 6 feet tall and has illustrations covering the entire structure. Although their Caesar is pretty small in comparison, he makes for a fitting finial atop the reproduction of Trajan's column.  In addition to building and illustrating the column, Mrs. Reagle also asked her students to write a Latin composition about their section so the students were responsible for their construction and also for a written component as well. 

Digital Resources: Quizlet

There are SO MANY things that can get in the way of studying - losing notes, poor time management, lack of a strong study strategy, Hulu. Quizlet can help students overcome some of these issues and also can help teachers connect students with test preparation and study material. 

The opening screen for the study game Gravity

As a student, you can prepare your own "study set" - basically digital flashcards - with terms and their associated definitions (or any matched set of information). Alternatively, you can find study sets that are prepared by other students or teachers that relate to your topic. Once you have a study set, there are many ways you can interact with the deck. You can review the information in Cards mode, you can define the terms in Learn mode, you can play games in Scatter or Gravity mode, or you can take a practice test in Test mode. I found Test mode to be really impressive - Quizlet does the work of generating the questions and the answers. 

As a teacher, you can create study sets for your students and add lots of multimedia content to each individual card, such as pictures or audio recordings. Additionally, you can create a class, assign study sets to your students, and then track their progress as they work. Students can compete against each other as they earn points for right answers, you can see how your students are choosing to study, and you can even see where they are struggling as they are studying. Between creating formative assessments for you, the gamification of studying and the valuable data you can collect about your students study habits and struggles, Quizlet offers teachers a multitude of benefits that index cards and pencils do not.

Where: www.quizlet.com

Cost: Free (with paid subscription/upgrade)

What: Digital study tool

Students! Try Quizlet if you want to...

create your own study materials for an upcoming test or assignment

use information using materials created by students and teachers to study or learn new material

Teachers! Try Quizlet if you want to...

provide your students with dynamic study tools

develop formative assessments that will provide you and your students with feedback on skill/concept acquisition

assess how your students study

Makeshop Monday: Destroying and Creating

Whenever Mike Foster, Jake Jallait and Cameron Kirsch are in the maker space I can count on a noisy period. At the beginning of the year, I mostly heard a lot of crashes, smashing and breaking as they (literally) tore through the small pile of discarded electronics in order to take apart whatever they could find. They realized that from destruction that they could put together a "frankenstein" computer from the parts they had dissembled. They set to work and focused on overclocking a CPU using a processor cooler they made from fans, heat sinks and duct tape. When they pushed that part to failure, they started working with a Raspberry Pi that the maker space had recently acquired. They are now working on figuring out Linux, playing games on their Pi, and are eventually planning tp mod and build their own machines (all while also making ping pong sets out of found material and playing guitar). They were inspired by talking with the IT staff here (they are conveniently located in the library as well) as well as just taking things apart and seeing how they work. What's especially awesome is that these guys are pretty much self-taught - although Cameron has built computers in the past, the rest of the guys are figuring it out as they go along. 

Digital Resources: Piktochart

If you are a consumer of social media, chances are you have come across quantitative information presented in a vivid, visual manner. These aids go beyond the simple pie/bar/scatterplot arrangement of information and incorporate meaningful icons and images to relay the information more clearly and accessibly. Piktochart is a web-based tool that can help you and your students to create custom infographics easily.

This is a diagram I designed for an in-service presentation
You can navigate through the design process using the menus
on the side of the screen.

Piktochart has a somewhat limited collection of free templates, although you are able to create your own infographic (without the benefit of a template) without a paid subscription. Although access to templates is limited, a free subscription provides access to a fairly extensive gallery of icons and shapes. You can also upload your own images to use in your graphic.

In addition to making graphics for web publication, Piktochart can also be used to make vibrant images for presentations or for printing. The software is very easy to use, and navigation is also simple. You can even import results from surveys created using Survey Monkey as well as videos from You Tube or Vimeo. Another interesting feature is the option to include interactive maps that display data when a mouse hovers over a part of the map (such as a state or a country). You can also easily create beautiful charts within the program rather than importing graphs from another program. 

Piktochart is an easy way for users to display information and data in beautiful and innovative ways. This allows users to convey messages that are meaningful while they are also grounded in substantial quantitative or qualitative data. 

Where: www.piktochart.com

Cost: Free (with paid subscription/upgrade)

What: Web-based infographic design software

Students! Try Piktochart if you want to...

create infographics for a presentation or web publication

use an innovative and eye-catching way to express data or survey results

Teachers! Try Piktochart f you want to...

share quantitative data in a innovative way with students or colleagues

present complex information in a clear and engaging way