We have reached mid-semester and I am just so very thankful for how the year is progressing! A few years ago, I was blessed to be accepted into the NextGen pilot program and was given a bunch of technology and what I felt like was a huge spotlight. Life both at home preparing for and at school felt like I was constantly reinventing myself and my lessons. As the years have passed, I have become more settled, confident, and mindful of the technology in my classroom and I share this so that you know it may not always start out easy or natural, but if you give it a chance, you can reap the many rewards too!
Our 1st units all ended with 2 different types of assessments. Students in technique-based classes all performed a culminating combination that had both teacher and student choreography. We film the combinations as performed in small groups for the class. The following day, students watch the videos in class and use a Google Form to complete a self-evaluation. Next we take the video and load them in to a student portfolio app called SeeSaw. Students make a small personal statement to the video for quick reference to their evaluation. Assess, evaluate, build!
On the more traditional side, students also completed a more formal assessment that included both history facts and vocabulary. We use Google Forms and an add-on called Flubaroo to process all the grades in under a minute. I said goodbye to my scantrons a few years ago and am never looking back!
We also quickly used Google Classroom to quickly grade journals, vocabulary, and self evaluations for every single one of our students. I love I can do it from anywhere and on a device as simple as my phone!
After Unit 1 wrapped up, it was time to prepare for our fall showcase. I made promotional materials on Canva and shared on social media. Then, being in charge of volunteers, we used Sign-Up Genius to fill spots. I created another Newsletter on Smore to make sure all parents had the information they needed to be ready for the show. Lastly, practice videos were shared in the private space of GC so that students could practice their choreography. Post performance, we could share the iMovie created show edit with the students and have them complete an entire show critique. The last step will be to add them to the student's portfolio in SeeSaw so that students can look back at their entire year!
In other classes, we continued to use GC from everything to turning in team-related required materials to collecting ideas for lesson plan templates. Dance Educators used these findings to create their own lesson plan template on Sheets. And social media blasts were a breeze using Canva to create images. Jazz 4 used Popplet to create a word-web image for production vocabulary while other classes used Sheets. And Dance Educators is about to explore the app called Randomly to create randomly generated lists of warmup moves with their upcoming 4th grade students. And I was able to make a stunning picture and video montage of our 1st day teaching using the amazing app called Quik.
If you notice a trend...there are lots of programs that have been repeated both throughout this post and throughout the history of this blog. It is because I have found a solid stock of programs that can seamlessly enhance my classroom and create digital fluency for my students. So I encourage you to ASSESS your needs for each day, EVALUATE what could make your life easier, and BUILD a solid stock of resources to support you!
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