Teachers across our district work tirelessly to crush barriers to student learning. Armed with a desire to do whatever it takes, many rightly equip themselves with a tool set that includes technology in order to make themselves extremely effective at demolishing walls to student achievement. Moodle is Multilingual One barrier that is being dismantled is that of language. Teachers,…
Now here’s a test I’d actually like to take. Recently, Dr. Olga Dub at Woodworth assessed her students on their understanding of the rock cycle. To do this, Dr. Dub created a Moodle quiz complete with quality images in full color, as well as a variety of question types including multiple choice and matching. Here’s…
As I mentioned in Part 1, we can spend a lot of time adding things on to our lessons that make them shine…at least for a while. It’s often just glitter. Here today, gone tomorrow–along with all of the time we spent putting it together and learning how it all worked. This is no less true…
Over the past two weeks, I have been working with a team of outstanding high school social studies teachers, including Mr. Hussein Beydoun, Mr. Marc Golles, Mr. William Harrison, Mr. Pete Kotsogiannis, Mrs. Katie Meyers, Mr. Jamie Nack, Ms. Fatmeh Rida, and Mrs. Colleen Schumm to create a comprehensive review course on Moodle (iLearn) for the High School Social Studies M-Step. The result…
As I have sat down with students who are not doing well in my class over the past 17 years, one recurring conversation has gone something like this: “Mr. Harrison, I’m studying for your tests, but I’m still not doing well on them. I don’t know what else to do.” I would reply, “Well, how…
Today, students in Joe Shannon’s 2nd hour history class at Fordson generated QR codes for their “My Learning Plan” Pages and submitted them to Mr. Shannon’s iLearn course. Mr. Shannon can now print the QR codes so students can place the code in a location like their planner cover or a poster on the classroom…
Over the past couple weeks, Dearborn teachers Scott Apple, Marla Wiacek, and Julie Wooton have had their students using the Moodle (iLearn) Workshop module to submit writing and then self- and peer-assess that writing based on the rubric designed by the teacher. The workshop module is one of my favorites. It is one of the…
It’s really tough to change education when our thinking is, um, well… 80 years behind. At a foundational level, we will always need to know what students know before we can effectively address their needs. The way we do so, given the available resources and technology, has to change. There’s hope. In Dearborn, there are many…
Over the past several weeks, students at Fordson have been using Mahara ePortfolios to collect and curate their best work. This morning, I worked with students in Mrs. Bridget Patrick’s classes to help them learn new ways to manage their files and display them in appropriate ways on their portfolio pages.
One tool that is being consistently used across the district is the notetaking format called Cornell Notes. In order to support teachers who are using Cornell Notes + technology, I’ve created a simple Cornell Notes Google Docs template (click here). The Doc consists of tables that expand as the student enters increasing amounts of text. Note…
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