Tag: test

Developing Young Authors with Storybird #aaim14

StorybirdI’m enjoying being in Ft. Smith, Arkansas for the 2014 Arkansas Association of Instructional Media Conference. Below are my slides from the workshop that I facilitated yesterday. All the workshop materials and resources (including a video tutorial, additional examples, notes, etc.) are available on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively. The slides also include a link to a special download containing information for using Storybird in preparation for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessment.

Storybirds are short, art-inspired stories, presentations, reports, or tutorials you and your students make to share, read, and print. Storybird is a fun, collaborative website that can be integrated in all content areas and at all grade levels. It can be an effective resource for teaching parts of a story, the writing process, promoting creativity, and more. STEM and social studies teachers can use Storybird for engaging alternatives to traditional lessons, reports and presentations. Storybird also seamlessly keeps a portfolio of each student’s work.

Participants will be guided in setting up accounts and helped as they begin using Storybird.com’s tools and services. Participants will learn how to use the teacher-specific tools.

Blubbr: Play & Create Video Trivia

Blubbr is a free website that makes it possible for you to create and play trivia games with embedded videos. Blubbr calls the games trivs. You can play trivs in different categories, from celebs and music to sport and education. Click on the image below to play a sample triv now.

blubbr-600

I setup my Blubbr account (I’d be glad for you to connect with me) and gave it a test drive. It seems that at its core, Blubbr is about making interesting things into fun games. I see many potential educational connections and personal uses.

Educational Connections

Here are a few ideas that might be useful to teachers and students.

  1. You and your students can create trivs focused on the unit you’re currently studying.
  2. Students can develop a triv focused on personal interests and then extend that into research, writing, journaling, etc.
  3. It can be a useful strategy for pre-testing, review and as a study guide.
  4. Trivs can be an engaging alternative strategy for book reports, science presentations, social studies reports, and more.
  5. Allowing students to design quizzes puts them in the role of the teacher. This technique can encourage higher-order thinking.
  6. You and your students can create trivs to introduce yourselves at the beginning of the year.
  7. Developing trivs can be a fun way for students to reflect on a novel, science unit, historical event, poetry, or the highlights of their school year.

You can challenge your students and their families by sharing trivs on your website, via email, through social networks, or by sharing the links in your print-based newsletter.

Personal Uses

In addition to it’s many educational uses, Blubbr can also be used for fun with family and friends. Here are a few ideas that I considered.

  • Develop a triv about your parents and share it with your family to celebrate your parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.
  • Prepare for the sights you’ll be visiting during vacation by sharing a triv with your travel companions.
  • Show your support for your favorite team or athlete with a triv about them.
  • Challenge your family to a scavenger hunt with a series of trivs that will lead them to a surprise.

You can challenge your family and friends to complete trivs by sharing them on your blog, through Google+, Facebook, and Twitter, or via email.

Your Turn

Blubbr is simple and fun. With well-designed activities it can make significant educational contributions. So what are you waiting for? Go triv something…and share your trivs in this post’s comments so that we can play, too.

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Seminar on Poverty with Ruby Payne, Ph.D.

Internationally renowned author, speaker and career educator Ruby Payne, Ph.D., will serve as the featured speaker at an upcoming fundraiser for HopeWorks.

From years of life lessons, Dr. Payne, founder of aha! Process, has written more than a dozen books on poverty. Dr. Payne is an expert on the mindset of economic class, the socioeconomic assumptions of class and the framework for effective social change. She has worked to educate communities across the world about the effects of class and poverty on our society. Her book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, provides practical, real-world support and guidance to improve one’s effectiveness in working with people from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Since 1995 A Framework for Understanding Poverty has guided hundreds of thousands of educators and other professionals through the pitfalls and barriers faced by all classes, especially the poor.

You may know how to use a credit card, checking and savings account, but do you know what to do when you don’t have enough money to pay your bills? As Dr. Payne eloquently illustrates, hidden rules and unspoken cues in social classes are numerous. Oftentimes, members of higher economic classes take the hidden rules of the lower class for granted. To break the cycle of crime and emerge from poverty, one must practice the rules of the middle class.

HopeWorks sees this, and encourages this with its students and provides the tools necessary for those in poverty to achieve success every day. Through our holistic approach to daily classes and meals, educational training and spiritual counseling, HopeWorks strives to give our students the tools they need to break free from the cycle that traps so many in our city. But what will serve our students even more is to help those in higher economic classes understand the hidden rules and challenges of those in poverty so that these individuals can be better served.

An Evening of Hope
Fourth Annual HopeWorks Fundraising Event
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Woodland Hills Event Center