Using Diffit - Creating Differentiated, Tiered Readings

Earlier, I wrote up a blog post about learning about AI and how it can be used in the classroom, especially for creating readings in the target language. Here is another web app resource which Stefanie Gigante demonstrated: Diffit.

According to its website: What does Diffit Do?

• Adapt any reading, excerpt, article or video for any reading level - to help all students access the content you’re teaching. 
• Generate short informational or narrative texts on any topic, for any reading level.
• Cherry on top? Diffit creates an automatically generated summary, comprehension checks, vocabulary words, and more to go with whatever text you’re working with! 

Then export to our ready to use Google Slide, Google Doc, and Google Form Templates.

Essentially, Diffit can take any text and create a differentiated reading of it based on the level parameters which you set.

In her presentation, Stefanie gave an example of creating a differentiated text using a Cambridge Latin Course reading. I decided to do the same with a stage 27 reading, where Modestus and Strythio hide out beneath the granary. I entered the text with the following parameters to create the following readings (the unique word count is my own):

Original (202 words/152 unique words)

Modestus et Strythio, e carcere egressī, ad horreum fugerunt. per aditum angustum repserunt et sub horreō celati manebant. centurio Valerius, cum portās cellārum apertās carcerem desertam vidisset, iratissimuserat.

imperavit militibus ut Modestum Strythionemque caperent. militēs tamen, quamquam per tota castra quaerebant, eōs invenīre non poterant.

illī duōs dies manebant celati. tertiō die Modestus erat tam miser ut rem diutius ferre non posset.

Modestus: “quam infelix sum! malim in illō carcere esse potius quam sub hoc horreō latēre! qualis est haec vita? Adest Strythio, comes exiliī, sed me non adiuvat. nam Strythio est vir maximī silentiī, minimī ioci! eheu! me taedet huius vitae!”

Strythio: “mi Modeste, difficile est nobīs hic diutius manēre. Nunc advesperascit. visne me, ex horreō egressum, cibum quaerere?

Modestus: id est consilium optimum! i primum ad coquum! eum iube cenam splendidam coquere et huc portāre! deinde quaere Aulum et Publicum, amicōs nostrōs! invitā eōs ad cenam! iube Aulum amphoram vinī ferre, Publicum lucernam. tum curre ad vicum; quaere Nigrinam! optima est saltatrix! saltatricēs mihi solacium afferunt.”

Strythio, ut mandata efficeret, invitus discessit. persuasit coquō ut cenam splendidam parāret. persuasit Aulō et Publicō ut vinum et lucernam et aleas ferrent; oravit Nigrinam ut ad horreum venīret, sed ei persuadēre non poterat.

4th grade  (144 words/105 unique words)

Modestus et Strythio, duo homines qui ex carcere evaserunt, ad horreum fugerunt. Ibi se celaverunt. Valerius, qui erat centurio, erat iratus cum vidit portas cellae apertas et carcerem desertum. Ille imperavit militibus ut Modestum et Strythionem caperent, sed milites eos non poterant invenire per tota castra.

Illis duobus diebus, Modestus et Strythio manebant celati sub horreo. Sed Modestus erat tristis et miser. Vita sub horreo non erat bona. Strythio, amicus Modesti, non iuvabat eum. Modestus dixit, "Vita haec qualis est? Me taedet huius vitae!" Strythio respondit, "Difficile est nobis manere hic diutius. Nunc sol occidit. Visne me ex horreo egredi et cibum quaerere?"

Modestus acceptavit consilium Strythionis. Strythio discessit ut mandata efficeret. Ille rogavit coquum ut pararet cenam splendidam. Ille rogavit Aulum et Publicum ut ferrent vinum, lucernam, et aleas. Ille quaesivit Nigrinam, saltatricem optima, ut veniret ad horreum, sed ei persuadere non potuit.

2^nd grade  (106 words/77 unique words)

Modestus et Strythio erant duo amici qui evaserunt ex carcere. Ibi erat periculosum, itaque fugerunt ad horreum. Sub horreo se celaverunt et ibi manebant. Centurio Valerius, miles iratus, eos non poterat invenire. Modestus tamen erat tristis et misellus. Strythio dicit, "Nobis hic diu manere difficile est." Modestus respondet, "Vade ad coquum et iube eum cenam splendidam parare. Postea quaere Aulum et Publicum, amicos nostrum, et invita eos ad cenam. Iube Aulum amphoram vini ferre et Publicum lucernam. Tum curre ad vicum et quaere Nigrinam, saltatricem." Strythio discessit ut mandata efficeret. Coquo persuasit ut cenam splendidam pararet. Aulo et Publico persuasit ut vinum, lucernam, et aleas ferrent.

Observations

1. While it did create differentiated readings of the original passage, the various versions were still very vocabulary driven. I do wish there were a way to explain to AI how to create a reading which "sheltered vocabulary, not grammar." In other words, while the length of the passage was shortened, for a differentiated reading, being an "easier" read for some students is debatable.
2. I am still impressed at the grammatically-correct Latin (for the most part) which AI can produce!
3. Diffit can also produce assessment questions - this is a tool which I wish to explore further!

Playing Around with ChatGPT - Creating a Story

This past weekend, I attended the American Classical League Summer Institute in Tucson at the University of Arizona. It had been 5 years since I had attended a Summer Institute fully in-person since the pandemic, and at first, I was not sure what to expect. I am so glad that I attended, because 1) there were a lot of very good presentations there and 2) I had forgotten how much I missed my Latin teacher community. (I was also there as one of the recipients of this year's Merens Award).

One of the presentations which I attended was "Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Latin Teachers" by Stefanie Gigante. I have had little to no training on AI in the classroom, and quite honestly, I have been very leery of how it can be used properly. Stefanie gave an example of how ChatGPT can be used to create a lesson plan, and the key is to be as specific as possible with your parameters in terms of what you want. She gave us a bit of time to play around with it during the presentation, so I ended up asking ChatGPT to write me a little story in Latin using some specific vocabulary and grammar forms. It produced a very short paragraph in Latin for me, and I was amazed! 

Cut now to being home from the Summer Institute, and today I decided to play around a bit more with ChatGPT in asking it to write me a story with some VERY SPECIFIC parameters:

This is the story which ChatGPT produced:

However, I wanted to see if I were to do it again and to give it the same parameters, would ChatGPT produce the same story? The answer is NO!

Observations

1. Wow, ChatGPT actually produced a story in Latin which makes sense, i.e., it did not create a bunch of gibberish using Latin words. In both versions, there is an actual plot with a beginning, middle, end, conflict, and resolution!
2. It took less than 30 seconds for ChatGPT to create a story - I would venture to say around 15-20 seconds!
3. For the most part, the grammar is spot on (with a few minor errors in each version).
4. ChatGPT basically fulfilled all of my parameters except for the imperfect tense, perfect tense, and gerundive of purpose. I may have to be more specific with my parameters next time or better learn how to get ChatGPT to include that in a story.
5. For the purpose of creating a story, ChatGPT did add a lot of words in addition to those which I had requested. 
6. I do not know to what degree ChatGPT will ever understand the concept of "sheltering vocabulary, not grammar," but I did notice some different grammatical uses of the verbs - maybe it needs more input regarding the concept? Maybe I need to say that each vocabulary word which I list has to be used at least X times in the story?
7. I made a spelling mistake in my parameters in asking for "neecsse est" to be used, but ChatGPT "knew" that I was actually asking for "necesse est."

I am absolutely blown away by this tool! Essentially, AI could help write a framework for a story which I can then edit and "CI/ADI" it up! There are tons of other uses which AI can be used in lesson planning, so using some other AI web app resources, I will investigate writing up assessment questions, creating tiered readings for differentiation, and creating images. What success have you had with CI creating a reading in the target language?

Using Blooket

I feel like I have totally come late to the party on this web app tool, but near the end of last semester, I was introduced to the website Blooket. Around November 2020, the German teacher at my school shared it with my department, and Rachel Ash (one of my Latin colleagues) then created a novella chapter review for our Latin 2 team. My students really enjoyed the different activities which we played, so it is now one of my digital web app tools which I use for review. 

Blooket has so many different games and activities which you can assign students to play either as a whole group or as individual work. The best part is that you only have to create one set of questions, and then you can choose which activities you want to do with those questions.

I will usually do 2-3 different activities in a classroom lesson.

Racing

Usually, I will first start out with Racing, which is simply students answering questions, and if they answer correctly, they can move forward one space in the race course. The more quickly one answers questions correctly, the faster one will move across the screen. However, as you answer questions, you gain chances for random rewards, which can move players up a space, players can choose to move leaders back a space, and players can shield themselves from attacks. I like doing this activity first, because it exposes students to the questions in a quick 4-5 minute game. This will prepare them for the longer game which we will play next (I learned this from Rachel too).

Gold Quest

This is a really fun game to play for about 7-9 minutes! I tell students that they will either love this game or absolutely hate it, because it is all based on chance and just because one may know all of the answers, it does not mean that person will necessarily win. 

The premise is very simple: players will answer a question and if they answer correctly, they can choose from one of three treasure chests. Each of the treasure chests has a different reward or "punishment," e.g., 100 gold pieces, lose 10% of your gold, triple your gold, take 25% of another player's gold, swap gold with another player, etc. Because this is based on chance, no one has an advantage over another in terms of being able to win. It all depends on which treasure chests the players choose.

There was a holiday version of Gold Quest released for December, and that was a lot of fun to play!

Observations

1. I will usually make about 35-45 questions, which means that students are getting LOTS of repetitions of questions during an activity.
2. I have found that students enjoy playing Blooket more than GimKit. I think because it does not necessarily cater to the students who know how to "game" GimKit to get to a million points within a minute, so it seems more fair. Also depending on the game, everyone has a fair shot at winning due to the chance factor.
3. I always play along with students. Just because I know all of the answers (and questions!) does not mean that I will win the game. On the contrary, I usually am the one who ends up doing all of the heavy lifting, only to have my points taken away from me by other players. 
4. Some of the games have rewards such as blurring everyone else's screen so that they cannot read what is on it, putting trees all over the screen, minimzing screens, turning the screen upside down, icing players' moves for 10 seconds. It is a lot of fun! 
5. During this hybrid teaching situation, Blooket has been a godsend!
6. Although it is "free," there is a limit to how many "blooks" you can create with a free account. For a price, you can upgrade to an unlimited amount of blooks and exclusive features. I suppose you could rewrite existing blooks to make new ones?
7. A lot of these activities can be assigned as individual homework - great for asynchronous learning days!
8. Much like GimKit, I will do Blooket every 5-6 weeks in order to preserve the novelty.

Have you used any of the other Blooket activities in your classes such as Cafe or Battle Royale? Let me know how your students liked them.

GimKit - Draw That

Just recently, I tried out the new Draw That game on GimKit. In this current hybrid teaching situation of trying to balance in-person and digital students and of me remaining 100% seated behind my desk in front of a screen, so many face-to-face activities which were mainstays of my CI-driven classroom have been pushed aside for another day. Even GimKit has gotten a bit stale with students, so this new drawing game could not have come at a better time!

Essentially, this game is a digital version of Pictionary, where a student draws a picture and in real time, it appears on everyone else's device screens. Meanwhile, the rest of the players guess the word by typing it in their devices

Observations

1. Students loved this game! Being able to see the picture being drawn in real time is what made the activity so attractive and engaging for students.
2. Like Pictionary, your choice of words need to be easily illustrated, i.e., don't pick a word like dignity.
3. The only drawback I found with this was that it requires correct spelling of vocabulary words. For an inflected language like Latin, what form of the word should I pick? For nouns, just the nominative or should I pick a more common form with which students are more familiar from the readings? For verbs, should I pick the infinitive form or a particular form (tense, person) which they know better? For example, one of the words which students was guessing was urbs, but a lot of students were guessing urbe instead, since the readings tended to have the phrase in urbe more than urbs.
4. Students found that when using a phone or tablet, autocorrect would change the spelling of the Latin word to an English word. I will play along with students, and when I typed in the word misit, autocorrect changed it to moist. 
5. Because students knew that they could be called on next to draw, they had to pay attention and to be part of the game at all times!
6. Now from a CI perspective, I prefer the Charlala Draw Room because I can have students illustrate full sentences instead of individual words and then they can choose which sentence they believe the picture is depicting. 

After we played it last week, a number of my Zoom students (who are normally very quiet) wrote in chat, "That was so much fun! Can we play it again?" As much as I love hearing that, my pat answer whenever I hear that is, "Yep...in 5-6 weeks (in order to preserve the novelty)." 

Car Park - Movie Talk

Here is another fun movie talk which I had done 4-5 years ago and had completely forgotten about but just recently found it in my Google Drive. It is called Car Park (this animated short was made in the UK, so a "car park" is what Americans call a "parking lot" - I had to explain that to students. I remember when I said that the movie talk was called "Car Park," a student innocently asked, "Is that like a dog park?"). The animated short is relatively brief but gets in a lot of repetitions. Target words for this movie talk are man, dog, barks/makes a loud noise, car, looks for, finds, through the window, frightens/scares, is frightened/is scared, hides, his (reflexive use of the possessive pronoun).

Car Park - Latin script

Car Park - English script

Ormie the Pig - Movie Talk

Here is a fun Movie Talk which I had done many years ago, but I completely forgot about it. Just recently my colleague John Foulk reminded me about it. It is called Ormie the Pig (is he a character somewhere?) and his attempts to steal cookies from a cookie jar on top of a refrigerator. Again, the best movie talks are those with a lot of repetition in it in terms of action, and there is a lot of that here in this animated short. This is a good Movie Talk for words such as cookies, refrigerator, want, steal/take, in order to, on top of.

Ormie the Pig - Latin script

Ormie the Pig - English script

False Story Sentences using Google Forms

As it is now a year since I have begun some form of digital teaching, at this point, I feel like I am scraping the barrel for new, novel ways for students to review stories in an online setting. I have been dog paddling for a year with digital teaching, doing everything I can just to keep my head above water, and I am weary. I know that my students are weary too of this weird hybrid teaching situation. Because of this, I am trying to limit the web app tools which we are using in class so that there is familiarity for students in using them and that they do not have to learn a new tool on their own. I feel like I have been milking Google Forms to an extreme, trying to find different ways of using them for assignments and for students to demonstrate comprehension/mastery of material. 

My colleague John Foulk came up with a new way for students to review a reading: False Story Sentences. It is actually very simple and is a good way for them to demonstrate understanding and comprehension of a reading. If you are like me, one of the things which I hate about this hybrid teaching is that I really have NO CLUE if students are actually comprehending anything which we are doing. While they may be completing assignments, that does not tell me much per se, other than they completed the assignment. This use of false statements at least forces them to indicate meaning and understanding to me.

Directions

1. Take 10 sentences from a reading, and change just one word in that sentence. Do not change more than one.
2. Put those sentences in a Google Form, and put the answer setting as "Paragraph"
3. Give students a copy of the reading. They will use this to find the correct sentence.
4. Tell students that they are to figure out what is false in that sentence and then to write what is incorrect and what the sentence should say instead. Why in English? Because this is a comprehension activity. While students could tell me what the correct Latin word should be, e.g., the sentence should say "iratissimus" and not "laetissimus," that does not tell me whether students understood what they were actually reading. Considering that they have the actual reading as a resource, writing down the actual Latin word is nothing more than a copying exercise. 

Observations

1. This definitely was a novel way for students to demonstrate comprehension while truly showing me what students understood and did not understand from the reading.
2. Since I was able to print up students responses on a spreadsheet, it made grading very easy, because everything was in a grid. I was able to compare student answers against each other and to see where there were common student errors.
3. This was a new way for me to use Google Forms - euge!!

Digital Word Cloud "Predict the Story"

I am currently taking a district-level, learning management system professional development, and one of our assignments dealt with creating a digital lesson demonstrating concept attainment/application/prediction (yes, very Educationese terms) which would use with our students. Rather than invent and learn a new web app tool, I decided to revise/adapt an already existing strategy to a digital setting: Word Clouds.

I am introducing a new reading with students, so I created a word cloud for students involving words which would be in this passage (see here for how to create a word cloud using MS Word). Based on the word cloud, students are to predict what they think will happen in the story which they will be reading soon. 

In creating the word cloud, I found using Dark City color format was easier for students to distinguish the words. I also set the layout to Horizontal. 

Directions

1. On a Google Form, insert your word cloud as an image/picture.
2. The directions are simple: ONLY using the words from the word cloud, write your FOUR sentences in ENGLISH below. Be sure to number your sentences. 

Why respond in English and not in the target language? Because this is a prediction activity using vocabulary, I need for them to respond in English to demonstrate comprehension of those words. If I asked them to respond purely in the target language, I would get students who would put the Latin words together to form a sentence, but if the sentence were not to make any sense, I would not know why: did they just throw Latin words together just to complete the assignment? Did they not understand the meaning of a particular word which then impedes my comprehension of what they wrote? What if students just created a sentence which was all nouns or all verbs? By having them respond in English, I can at least tell that students are demonstrating comprehension of the given vocabulary words.

Observations

1. This was a very easy digital assignment for students to complete, but it still involved some degree of higher-level thinking, as it was dealing with prediction based on given information.
2. This was a very easy digital assignment for me to create. Probably creating the word cloud took the most time.
3. I enjoyed reading student responses. Many students tried to predict the entire story, but most just wrote four random sentences (which is perfectly okay!).
4. Students told me that they liked the assignment, because it was short!

Using Vocabulary Know-It Boards as a Formative - Google Slides Manipulatives

As I continue to embark on this hybrid environment of teaching both digital and in-person students simultaneously, I am learning how important formative assessments and observations are in informing me as the teacher how to proceed when for most students I cannot physically witness their progress. My colleague Rachel Ash introduced me to Google Slide manipulatives, and she has demonstrated a way in which students can let me know how well they know their vocabulary: Vocabulary Know-It Boards (look for the specific activity on the page - you can actually make a copy for yourself from her example).

Essentially, from the list of 25ish provided words, students will drag the word to the quadrant which best describes their knowledge of the word: I Really Know It, I Know It, I Kind of Know It, I Don't Know It.

Student Examples:

Observations

1. This is a really easy way for students to "check-in" with me about what they feel like they know and what they do not know.
2. The downside of this is that the vocabulary words are presented in isolation, so in some ways, it may be that students actually do know the words when they see them in context but in isolation, they do not.
3. Using Google Classroom, this is so easy to assign, because I just "Make a Copy for Each Student" and then they can "Turn It In" when finished.
4. I do manually tally what words are most commonly being placed in the "I Kind of Know" and "I Don't Know" quadrants. These become the words which I target.
5. I do make this an assignment for students to ensure that I receive feedback from every student, but I also give them a 100 as a completion grade.
6. I do this assignment every 3-4 weeks to see what students feel like they know and what they feel like they do not know.

Multiple Stories - Put the Sentences in Order - Google Slides Manipulatives

I am continuing to experiment with Google Slides manipulatives, and here is another activity which i was able to adapt to a digital environment. It is Multiple Stories - Put the Sentences in Order but now converted to an individual virtual assignment (see my blog post about how to create Google Slide manipulatives). 

Due to teaching hybrid classes in this weird digital environment, I have being going deliberately slow and almost painfully overdoing the amount of repetitions of stories in different ways to increase vocabulary and language structure exposure for students. An activity like this allowed for me to consolidate the stories into one assignment as a review. Below is a picture of what the assignment looked like for students - it is based on two Movie Talks and an ongoing story about Augustus (can you tell that I have to introduce war-related, imperial vocabulary this year?):

Observations

1. I love that in Google Classroom, I can assign this as a copy for every student and that when students submit it, I can immediately correct the assignment and then return it with comments.
2. Again, this is a great higher-order thinking activity, because it forces students to distinguish which sentence is for each story and then to determine the correct order of the sentences.
3. The "draggable" nature of the assignment lends to its novelty and definitely appeals to tactile learners.
4. Students did quite well on this, so from a formative perspective, this let me know that they were ready to move onto new vocabulary.
5. This is a great assignment for an asynchronous learning day (if you are able to do those)!

Using Whiteboard.fi to Deliver CI

Since I have a degree in Instructional Technology and am furthering my graduate studies in this field, many times I get asked by other teachers, "So what are some web app tools which I can use in my classroom?" Especially now in this time of digital teaching, teachers are searching for new novel ways of delivering instruction. Quite honestly, so am I, but I am actually very selective in what new web app tools which I want to introduce into my classroom. 

When reviewing web app tools for student use in the classroom, here is my primary test: Does it require that my students create an account for them to log in for use? If it does, then I most likely will pass it over. I know for many that sounds like a flimsy reason not to use a particular web app tool for instruction, but hear me out for my reasons:

1. Practical reasons - I do not need students having to keep track of what log-in IDs and passwords which they are using for all of the various web app tools in all of their classes, because there will always be those few students who cannot remember their information and then cannot take part in the online activity. Even though students in my classroom have a district email account, I am amazed at how many still do not know what it is. 
2. Student privacy information issues - As teachers in this digital age (and as required by federal laws COPPA and CIPA), we must do everything we can to protect student privacy and any online information which students may knowingly and unknowingly transmit when using digital tools for classroom purposes. The less information which students can provide web app tool companies, the better in my opinion. My district has a list of 3rd-party online vendors which we are allowed to use for classroom purposes, because those companies' student data collection procedures align with my district's guidelines. 

Currently, the only web app tools which I use that require student log-in are Google Classroom, Remind, and GimKit (and I am not happy that GimKit now requires student log-in!). I applaud web app tools such as EdPuzzle and Nearpod which allow for open classroom usage and do not require students to create an account.

With that in mind, last week Meredith White (who is also a teacher in my district) shared a great resource with a number of us: Whiteboard.fi. It is a free web app tool which turns a user's device screen into a digital whiteboard! Best of all, it does NOT require students to create an account or to log-in to use. Yesterday and today, my colleague John Foulk and I have been using it for a drawing dictation, which is how Meredith told us she used Whiteboard.fi.

Observations

1. I love how, like the Draw This function in Nearpod, I can see in real time what students are putting down on their whiteboards on my screen! This is a great formative tool for me as a teacher. 
2. I like how easy it is to set up a "class" and that I can do it at that moment!
3. This tool works great for a hybrid class (in-person and digital simultaneously), because the focus is on individual device screens and does not require me as the teacher to share a screen/divide my attention. 
4. After students completed a drawing, I "pushed" some of their drawings onto the class's device screens so that others could see them. 
5. Whiteboard.fi does not save what students draw/write on their device screens, but you can download everyone's whiteboard screens to a PDF prior to clearing them if you wish to have a record. If you are wanting a whiteboard web app tool which will store images, then consider using Jamboard
6. The URL for Whiteboard is Whiteboard.fi - if you are curious, the fi stands for Finland.

Using Nearpod to Deliver CI and Higher-Order Technology Use

If you are like me, you are teaching hybrid classrooms - a group of students who are physically in your classrom and those who are in a digital Zoom environment all SIMULTANEOUSLY! Recently, I have begun to implement Nearpod again in my curriculum, and it is really making a difference. I had used it before many years ago and had even demonstrated its use at conferences. Once PearDeck came around, I began to use that (in my opinion, PearDeck is the next generation of Nearpod), but for some reason, i stopped using either of these web app tool in my classroom. Fast forward to this new normal (and the fact that my district has a Nearpod account), I am now using Nearpod again. And I am wondering, "Why did I ever stop using this tool (or PearDeck)?!" 

If you are not familiar with Nearpod or PearDeck, they both are web app tools which allow participants to engage in live interaction with a presentation in real time (you can also have it set for "student-paced" mode). As the presenter, you can pause throughout your presentation and take "time-outs" for comprehension checks through shorts quizzes, ask participants to predict what they think will happen next, take opinion polls, ask participants for comments, ask participants to draw something in particular, etc. And the best part is that you as the presenter control what participants see on their device screens!  

Recently I used Nearpod as an introduction to an expanded, embedded Latin reading, where the base version I had introduced earlier the week before. Although this was an embedded, expanded reading, I still treated as if it were a sight passage, so my goal for students was comprehension. Below is the Nearpod which I created - it is a passage on Augustus which I wrote, and it is patterned after the sentence structures found in Emma Vanderpool's novella Kandake Amanirenas: Regina Nubia, which I will be introducing later, as well as influenced by my district's mandated vocabulary list. You can view it below in the Student-Pace mode, but I played it as live mode in class digitally via Zoom. NOTE - because this Nearpod was the first day of viewing this fuller reading, my goal was comprehension, therefore, my questions and answers were in English.

1) Go to join.nearpod.com

2) Join Code: 5FYZ9

The last page of this particular Nearpod is a Collaboration Board, which I have turned off in Student Pace. I posited the statement: According to Augustus in the passage, he brought peace to many lands. Do you agree/disagree? Why/why not?

Obervations

1. When used with a live audience (whether it be live or digital), Nearpod rates on the highest level of the SAMR technology model, which evaluates the level of critical and higher-order thinking involved in a particular implementation of technology. It ranks at the Redefinition level, because it is allowing for an outcome which is INCONCEIVABLE without the use of technology, so in this instance, live real-time interaction and feedback from participants during a presentation which can immediately inform the presenter how to proceed.
2. Students were quite engaged in this activity, and the many breaks in-between passages with different types of questions and activities broke up the monotony and contributed to the novelty of Nearpod. We actually went for a whole period doing this in a hybrid class, and a number of students commented afterwards "Wow, that was fun!"
3. I liked the Collaboration Board at the end as a discussion board. I hid student names to keep the comments anonymous, but it gave students an opportunity to voice an opinion in a safe environment and for them to read others' opinions. 
4. I showed all of the drawings which students did during the "Draw This" portion of the Nearpod, and this is where students were the most engaged.
5. Because this was an embedded, fuller reading of an earlier version of the story, students were still receiving understandable messages, along with a recycling of the former vocabulary now used in new sentences. With 2/3 of my classes doing digital, I erred on the side of caution by overdoing the amount of limiting vocabulary and getting in vocabulary repetitions, since I really have no idea what students are acquiring when they are not in-person.

Digital Pictionary Dictionary

Here is another use of a manipulative using Google Slides which I have learned about recently: the Digital Pictionary Dictionary. Pre-Covid, I would have students hand-illustrate 15-20 vocabulary words as an intrapersonal review of words which we had been targeting. Students liked it because it was an easy classroom activity which they could do in-class on their own at their own pace, and I certainly enjoyed the break from teaching on those days. Now that we are teaching in a digital format (even if in-person, I am refraining from using traditional pen/paper methods as much as possible), this activity can easily be adapted to an electronic setting. It does take a bit of preparation on your end.

Creation of Template

1. Pick twelve vocabulary words which you wish to target or to review. 
2. Create a manipulative Google Slides template like below (see post here about creating manipulatives). I overlay the "Insert a picture, GIF, bitmoji, or drawing here" and not as part of the background template so that students can delete this. Below is an example of a template which I created based on words which students informed me that they "kind of knew/did not know" from last year

Assignment

1. Students are to find digital images of TEN of twelve vocabulary words, whether it be pictures, GIFs, bitmojis, memes, or drawings, and to insert them on the template.
2. I assign this on Google Classroom so that each student has a copy of the template to manipulate. As a result of using Google Classroom, they can also turn it in electronically.

Observations

1. Although there is some time spent on creating the template on my end, I love the creativity of students in their choice of digital images. While many are just doing a Google image search of vocabulary words and then just cutting/pasting the first image they find, many are actually taking their time to personalize their images. From an instructional technology standpoint, personalization is a very high-level demonstration of critical thinking and creativity! Below are some examples where students created themes of images as a demonstration of personalization:

2.    Allowing students to use digital images such as GIFs, memes, emojis, bitmojis, etc., 

       gives students the opportunity to use tools with which they are familiar and to apply in 

       different ways. 

Conducting a Live Movie Talk via Zoom

I am a huge fan of doing Movie Talks, because I feel that they are a great way to preview vocabulary and language structures prior to a targeted reading. As much as students will complain about me stopping the movie clip to narrate it and to ask questions, when we go over the actual reading of the movie clip in various ways, they actually like the fact that they have a visual image in their heads of the passage already and know what to expect. However, in the digital learning classroom environment, the question for me has been "What is the most effective way to conduct a Movie Talk via a Zoom session (or Google Meet, Microsoft Team, etc) with a class of 25-30 students? Is it even possible?"

The answer is both yes and no. Yes, it is possible to conduct a live Movie Talk via Zoom, but in some ways, it is going to be different from how students fully experience it in the physical classroom. There are going to be some aspects which are identical to a classroom usage, but at the same time, there are other aspects which you will have to sacrifice and therefore will have to address in other ways.

The way in which I conducted a Movie Talk via Zoom was through the use of Google Slides. Now this is actually not a new concept at all, because I know of many teachers who have been using Google Slides for Movie Talks for years. When I created the Movie Talk Google Slide, I actually liked the layout very much, because everything which students and I needed was there on the slide itself. The layout of the slide was very basic and only had the list of target words and the video clip itself (directions for inserting videos into Google Slides). Below is my actual Google Slide for the Movie Talk (it is an active Google Slide, so you can push/play pause to see how it works):




I used the screen sharing function so that students could view it on their computer or device. 

Observations

1. Asking questions and having students respond back and forth does not work too well in a Zoom session. I tried doing this, but since students were already muted, it took too much time for students to unmute themselves and to respond. As a result, it ended up being more of a Story Listening experience. I guess you could make it like Dora the Explorer by asking a question, pausing, and then answering it yourself.
2. Having the target words on the slides is very helpful, and if you set the cursor for "laser," it helps draw attention to which word you're pointing and pausing at.
3. Because I was not asking questions, I repeated the sentence an overly amount and used different variations of sentences using the target words to get in repetitions. At the same time, sentences need to be simple and short and full of repetitions with pointing and pausing to work in this environment.
4. Whenever I pointed and paused at a target word using the laser pointer function, I truly had to pause and count to 4 in order to allow for student processing.
5. In many ways, you are talking into the nethers. I found myself talking extra slowly and self-defining a lot of words as I went along to ensure that students were understanding. 
6. I had A LOT of screens and tabs open for this (Zoom, Google slides). This made it kind of tricky at times.
7. if possible, use the chat function for student comprehension check. They can enter in a number of 1-5 letting you know their comprehension level. Make sure it is set only to "Communicate with host." At the same time, depending on how many tabs/windows you have open, it may be too much.
8. I would set "students cannot unmute themselves" during this, because I had a student who kept sneezing and there was a lot of background noise from students who were unmuted.
9. This took about 25-30 minutes - maybe too long for a Zoom session, since it was just a listening activity? I told students get comfortable before we did this.
10. My colleague John Foulk suggested that we use Google Slides for doing Movie Talks when students return face-to-face again. I tried it out by projecting it onto my classroom screen, and I really liked having everything there that I needed on the one slide. 

How is your Movie Talk experience going in a digital environment?

Creating Manipulatives Using Google Slides - Picture Sentence Matching

School has now been back in session for 1.5 weeks (albeit virtually), and my technology goal for this year is to learn Google Classroom. Even though my district uses the Brightspace learning management system (with which I am familiar using it as a grad student so I understand the student perspective), I have been wanting to learn more about Google Classroom, especially since we are currently teaching in a digital environment. Wow - why did I wait so long?!! Although there is a definite learning curve involved, I really like it!

One of the tech tools which I am learning how to implement is using Google Slides to create manipulatives - thanks to my colleague Rachel Ash for introducing me to this! It is a wonderful way for students to interact with material and to manipulate it in a digital environment. Even better, it lines up perfectly with Google Classroom, because I can assign it to every student, who then can work on it and turn it back into me all within Google Classroom. On her blog, Rachel has written about how she has used manipulatives to create a My Favorites and Opinion Board assignments for students (which I too have implemented in classes with great success thanks to Rachel!). 

Just recently, I did a Movie Talk with my classes via Zoom (it was an interesting experience). As a post-reading activity, I created a manipulative for students to interact with the story in a basic way - basic, because I myself am still a novice at this. Using screenshots from the movie talk clip, I created a 5-slide manipulative where from a list of sentences, students had to drag the sentence which best described the picture. 

Rather than write out a list of directions of how to do this (it is kind of complex to write out), let me show you to do it. Once you learn the basics of creating manipulatives on Google Slides, it is not difficult. 

I hope you found this helpful, and I have a ton of ideas now about how to use manipulatives, so I hope to write about them here. 

GoFormative - Get a Taste!

I have been playing around with Formative, which is an online assessment tool. When we had to switch abruptly to online teaching, I heavily used self-grading Google Forms for various ways of assessing students (and have written here about those uses). However, now that I have learned about GoFormative and as I am beginning the school year again in a digital environment, I am going to be using this web app tool, as well as Google Forms. 

I will post more about Formative here on this blog, how to use it in conjunction with Google Classroom, and how I plan to use its various functions in a classroom setting, but if you wish to experience it yourself as a student, here is a quiz which I just made as I was playing around with it. The majority of the quiz is Latin, but if you do not know Latin, you can at least see the various ways of assessing students. 

Go to goformative.com/join
Code: 6J845M

Formative is not free, but I used the 30-day free trial to create this formative assessment.

Integrating Technology: Explaining TPACK Theory

As we educators are faced again with the possibility of teaching 100% online in the fall, we can be better prepared for this undertaking than in March. As I said in my previous blog post, remote teaching requires a completely different set of skills and knowledge than classroom teaching. I have posted here on this blog about the SAMR model which is a good way to envision technology usage and the creation of new meaning in a Bloom's Taxonomy way. Although the SAMR model is understandable, critics argue that it focuses too much on a finished product at the end of a unit and that educators rush up the SAMR model to get to the higher levels, when in fact, like when using Bloom's, it is okay for teachers to focus on lower levels of critical thinking as needed. As this blog post title states, I am going to focus here on TPACK theory. 

Like the SAMR model, TPACK theory is another way to view the application of instructional technology to the classroom. TPACK stands for Technological Pedagogical And Content Knowledge. Formerly known as the PACK theory before Technology was added to the acronym, this theory is a Venn Diagram of three domains: Technology Knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge, and Content Knowledge:

• Technology Knowledge - Do I have a working knowledge of various information and web app technologies? Do I understand instructional technology theory? Do I have an understanding on instructional technology design?
• Pedagogical Knowledge - Do I understand learning theory? Do I understand how to teach my content area in a developmentally-appropriate manner which is suitable for all learners? Do I understand how to facilitate and to scaffold lessons for the development of higher order thinking in students and for the creation of new meaning? Do I even adhere to a particular learning theory? 
• Content Knowledge - Do I understand my subject area?  

When these three domains intersect properly, the TPACK is formed. The goal is that sweetspot in the center where all three domains intersect and where educators present subject material through the proper use of technology for the development of critical thinking in preparing students to be 21st century digital citizens.

Retrieved from  http://www.learninginnovationlab.com/tpack.htmlutm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly

So often, even without a knowledge of TPACK, we educators attempt to implement all three domains but fall short usually with only two intersections:

• Pedagogical/Content - Educators know how to present their content with an understanding of learning theory and how students acquire knowledge but continue to implement 20th century tools for its delivery. We need to remember that today's students are 21st century learners who need to be using 21st century learning applications. 
• Content/Technology - Educators know their subject material and know their technology but do not understand learning theory or how to use technology properly for student learning and the development of higher order thinking. I call this "throwing technology at students" and results in either disconnecting students or just entertaining students without engaging them.
• Technology/Pedagogical - Educators know how to implement technology to instill critical thinking in students but address subject material in a very limited scope due to a lack of knowledge. This does not occur often.

Do you see yourself in any of the above examples?

Although the TPACK model looks good on paper as a Venn diagram, the major criticism surrounds: What the heck does that center sweetspot even look like in the classroom? At least with the SAMR model, there is a finished product or artifact at the end which illustrates the end goal! While I confess that I too do not "know" what that sweetspot looks like, however, I will continue to implement TPACK as a planning guide. So as I begin to look ahead now to the possibility of teaching 100% online again and begin to create online lessons, I am asking myself these questions IN THIS ORDER:

• Content Knowledge: What is skill or content do I need to teach? Do I know what I am teaching? As educators, this is probably the easiest of the three knowledge domains for us.
• Technological Knowledge: What technologies do I want to implement for this lesson? Does my use of technology line up with instructional technology theory? If I were to be teaching 100% online, I would have to address this question before addressing pedagogical knowledge. However, many times, the technology will naturally lend itself to the focus/goal of the lesson, while other times, it may be necessary to seek new ones which will support your goal. 
• Pedagogical Knowledge: How can I implement Comprehensible Input in this lesson? How can I ensure that I am addressing the learning needs of all students? What are my student learning goals for this lesson? Is my lesson addressing higher order thinking in students? When addressing these questions, in many ways, one must also ask if the use of particular technology can achieve these goals. This is where Technological and Pedagogical Knowledge overlap. 

Examples of TPACK thought process in lesson planning:

In many ways, I hope that I have not oversimplified TPACK theory, but hopefully this theory can help guide you when creating online lessons or even in-person lessons for the classroom. 

Looking at Online Learning

Yes, I am back! I had envisioned that I was going to take a long respite from blogging, because I did not feel the need to blog anymore and just wanted to take a break from it all. Looks like I only lasted a month. Now that there is a huge national debate raging about schools re-opening for the fall, and with many school districts giving parents the choice for their children to attend school either in-person or online, suddenly, I want to blog again and to add my voice to this debate, using my Instructional Technology knowledge and degree. I am only speaking for myself in this post and not for the online learning community as a whole. 

One of the main arguments which I am hearing for schools re-opening in person is that both parents and students had a negative experience with online learning when schools closed. And to be honest, what else can I do but to agree and to congratulate them on their remarkable perception, because most likely, they are correct: Parents and students did have a negative experience with online learning. However, the blame should not be on online learning per se, i.e., online learning in and of itself is not bad. Rather we should focus on the fact that most teachers have never received any type of training related to remote learning. As an Instructional Technologist, I will say that teaching online requires a completely different set of skills and knowledge than teaching face-to-face in the classroom. When schools had to abruptly switch to digital learning, most districts were caught off guard. Although many districts had learning management systems (LMS) set in place, teachers never anticipated the necessity to implement them as their primary means of instruction. To be honest, I had only really used my district's LMS for housing CI stories for students to review prior to exams and for the occasional snow day lesson. So when suddenly faced with having to deliver instruction solely in a digital manner, most teachers simply took their face-to-face lesson plans and set them in an online environment, as if a 1:1 complement existed (which it is not at all). This is not to say that teachers were not doing the best they could in the situation - I was definitely thrown off by it all, even with a degree in the field and being a doctoral student in Instructional Technology! In addition, toss in the fact that many districts did not set up clear grading guidelines or student accountability, an uncertainty for how long this digital teaching would occur, and a lack of technology access for students. It is no surprise to me at all that many parents and students do not have a positive view of online learning.

So some terms to define, since many districts are tossing them around, and the terms can be confusing or be misused:

• Blended-learning - This is a mix of face-to-face and online instruction. The idea is that half of a student's instruction comes from physical in-person classroom time, while the other half is delivered in a digital environment. The flipped classroom is an example of blended-learning curriculum. If you teach in a traditional classroom and have a LMS, this is how on paper a curriculum should be delivered, but most likely, teachers still implement 90% of their instruction face-to-face, with the LMS serving solely as a supplement or storehouse for past class notes or activities. 
• Online/remote/virtual/digital learning - This refers to a 100% online delivery of instruction. A student's curriculum occurs solely in a digital environment, where "face-to-face" instruction occurs in a variety of ways: screencasts, YouTube instructional videos, Khan Academy, Zoom meetings, Google Meet, Microsoft Team, Blackboard, etc. One of the major benefits of online learning is that it allows for a learning environment no longer bound by physical space or time, i.e., students do not have to adhere to a specific meeting space at a specific time. Within prescribed deadlines, students can learn at their own pace according to their own schedule. As a result, online learning is not meant to have daily assignments but rather a list of prescribed tasks and assignments to be completed by X time.

When schools closed suddenly, immediately teachers had to switch to a 100% online delivery of instruction overnight. The biggest problem with it was that teachers had never been trained properly in how to teach online, and most were struggling to keep their head above water with it all. Many schools (mostly private) required students to continue their daily schedules as before except in an online environment such as Zoom, so these teachers were able to continue face-to-face instruction. On the other hand, since I teach in a public high school which is not 1:1 but rather BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), I did not feel comfortable setting up face-to-face sessions, primarily because I had no guarantee that all of my students even had access to technology or home Wi-Fi. 

As we see COVID-19 numbers spike dramatically in almost 3/4 of the country and as many district are having to consider 100% online learning again, if we wish for our students to learn in the best way which we can offer digitally, then I propose the following:

• Districts need to provide educators with proper professional development in online learning. Just as there are learning theories for the classroom, learning theories exist for digital environments. Educators must understand how to best to address the learning needs for all students, which includes instructional technology learning theory and instructional design theory. As an online graduate student, I will admit that there have a number of courses which I have taken that have been quite boring. At the same time, there are other courses which I absolutely enjoyed and had an incredibly positive learning experience. In my opinion, the difference was due to the professors and how they had designed the courses. In the same way, provide educators with the correct tools and information for how to design an online environment backed by proper learning theory. 
• Districts need to provide the necessary technology for all students who need it so that they can take part in online learning. 
• Districts need to provide take-home hotspots for families who do not have Wi-Fi at home. Pre-COVID, a large number of students relied on school Wi-Fi and other Wi-Fi hotspots in the community to complete their assignments, but during the shelter-in-place ordinance, these students lost their sole access to Wi-Fi. Districts should also consider mobile hotspots on school buses, such as Kajeet SmartBus, and park them throughout the community for students. Once we return face-to-face instruction, then students can continue to use the school bus Wi-Fi during their transportation to and from school.

Let me finish by saying that there is no substitute for face-to-face instruction. During the shelter-in-place, I greatly missed my students and interacting with them. I missed the relationships and getting the opportunity to teach them in person. As language teachers, so much of student learning is dependent on student interaction with the language and with you as its deliverer. However, in this current COVID time, until there is a vaccine, safety of my students and my own self-preservation are my primary concerns. Therefore, if necessary to go 100% digital learning again, we need to be prepared and armed with knowledge which will help our students best learn in an online environment. We need to make the best of this situation and to adapt as we can.