Beep Boop Blog: learning to incorporate digital media in the classroom

 I created a short quiz using the app Formative.com, which helps teachers create digital formative assessments The quiz itself is just for fun, but the process of exploring this app and creating the quiz was very interesting. The app is mainly for use in the classroom. Teachers can create different classrooms of specific students to use with multiple different formative assessments. What I loved about the app is the possibility for facilitating real-time feedback for teachers and the flexibility of what kind of material and responses are available. I'm not as tech-savvy as I'd like to be, and I know from observation that some students will participate in a digital format that will never raise their hand to participate in a classroom discussion. The possibilities with digital communication helps bridge that gap for some students and maybe even help draw them out into real-time participation.  Formative allows teachers to create questions that can be enlivened with all sorts of ...

 1) I really liked the discussion about flipped teaching, and screencasting. While I was watching envisioned a tab full of short screencast lessons on my class webpages. I think it would be the perfect way to have little minilessons or reminders, especially on things like grammar that I'll have to repeat. To be able to refer students to refresh or remind themselves about mechanics like that instead of reteaching it every time I come across the problem would be invaluable. It would translast across classes and grades. So my biggest goal is to start developing minilessons for grammar principles that I can turn into short videos to have on my class websites.  2) Become more comfortable with screencasting using the software she recommended like screencastify. 3) Determine some effective ways to utilize the tools she suggested for assessment.  4) Experiment with flipped lessons. I'm especially envisioning this as I set up writer's workshops. It would be helpful to have a video...

When I read the “Ode to an Orange” piece by Larry Woiwode, I was struck in particular by how strong the sensory experiences of eating oranges had stuck with him since his childhood. He had detailed information about craving, awaiting, and consuming oranges, and had made strong associations that have stuck with him and manifested in beautiful descriptive language. I am often fascinated by the ability of my own children to relate to the world around them, the associations they make, the freshness of their experience. This motivated me to approach the process of adapting Woiwode’s essay through the lens of my own children’s experience.  I first interviewed each child while they ate an orange. I told them I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, and just wanted to hear about their experience eating an orange. I wanted to know if they had any strong memories about oranges, or if anything came to mind when they thought of oranges. It was interesting to see the different approaches ...

Form Link

  On Reading and Creating Digital/Social Media As one of the most recently emerging genres of expression, social media texts are still evolving in form and substance. Social media texts can consist of plain text, stylized text images, photographs, other forms of visual art, video, etc. and each of these forms can take many variations. Many social media platforms limit the length of a post either in characters or time (for video format), so social media creators need to carefully consider how to convey their message within the given constraints. Social media can be used for keeping in touch with individuals that one knows in “real life,” to reach a wider audience, to connect with notable people that one wants to communicate with, to sell products or persuade toward ideologies, and many other reasons. Social media has recently been used in neutral, positive, and incredibly destructive ways. Because most forms of social media are open to use by anyone, there is a wide variety of motiv...

Well shucks, why not just rip off the vulnerability band-aid all at once? The blonde beauty gliding in the light blue coat is my 9-year-old daughter. This year has been incredibly trying for my family in ways that we may not even be able to understand for some time.  This girl, though. She was always made of sunshine, with only occasional storms. But this year those storms became more frequent, violent, and lasting. But most concerning was the increasingly inward direction of those storms. “I’m scared.” Became her most frequently said phrase. The fear she couldn’t explain was constant. Fear that wouldn’t even let her rest, but woke her from sleep with horrifying dreams. The anxiety/panic attacks were unrelenting. While I was glad that we were her safe space to fall apart, and she would hold it together at school only to come home a complete mess the rest of the day - it was heartbreaking that my husband didn’t see his little girl for weeks. Where did she go? Would she come back? Th...

Rachel Dotson’s 10 Most Significant Hmm, well now I can’t remember if this list is meant to be “of all time” or the last year, I feel like it was of the last year…  Restoration (book by Patrick Q. Mason) Strauss: 8 Gedichte aus "Letzte Blätter" (I forced myself to start singing again and my voice teacher had me learn a few of these songs) PNW Road Trip Playlist (Spotify compilation, but it rocked our summer trip) Ted Lasso (TV Series, Apple TV)  Schitt’s Creek (TV Series, Netflix) Arrival (Movie, 2016) Dune (book by Frank Herbert - quick, skimming reread, and the 2021 movie) Keep Moving (by Maggie Smith, or really any of her poetry) Claude’s Girl (song by Marika Hackman) The Chosen (TV Series, BYU TV)