Written by Taking the time to sit down and write about my action plan has been a long time coming. I’ve been trying to find a solution to my action plan question…
“How might we promote organization and student ownership while relaying the importance of independence in a personalized framework?”
What I was looking to solve by asking this question was :
“Is there a tool that can help consolidate all of the materials for the personalized units (explained in my last blog post) where students would only have to go to ONE place?”
I’m going to take you through some of my thought process, so bear with me. I promise I’ll get to my action plan!
Some things that my action plan is aiming to fix:
- The organization – I want students to have to go to ONE place, not many to go to see and use the materials for the unit that is interactive.
- I want to provide timely feedback, with less work from me. Can I leverage technology to help?
- I want to make it at least seem like there are multiple entry points (less linear)
- Is there a way to make tracking easier for the teacher?
After some brainstorming at Cohort21 F2F #2, in my mind there were several routes to take:
- Create an iBook for the unit.
- Create an iTunes U course for the unit.
- Create a Google Site to house the information for the unit.
- Create a Blackboard site using course sites.
- Use Google Slides.
- Someone at Cohort21 also suggested Hapara.
So I did what any list-loving person does and created a Pros/Cons list for each:
| Tool | Pros | Cons |
| iBook
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| iTunes U Course
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| Google Site
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| Blackboard
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| Google Slides
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| Hapara
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After many lists and discussions here are my first choices:
1. My first choice as of right now would be iTunes U because I like the ability to link iBooks. iBooks are great for us, and as far as I understand this would provide an opportunity for students to open the iBooks without having to download them. This means that if we changed anything there would be an update and students would not have to download the newest version. However, there seems to be some technology issues with this, as a course must be public to use it on a MacBook. Because of this, I don’t know if this will be a viable option (as much as I want it to be – Maybe one day!)
2. My second choice would be an iBook that would contain the entire unit. It has all of the user friendliness and interactive nature, and creates an immersive experience for students. There is a problem that if we, as teachers updated it, the students would have to re-download it every time.
3. My third choice would be to create a Google Site. This seems like the most viable option as there are capabilities to embed Edpuzzle (I’ve been wanting to use it for a while), Geogebra applets, and Google Forms as quizzes. I could also have Flubaroo self-mark the Google forms to give instant feedback to the students.
To end my rambling (again), what I’ve decided to do for my action plan is:
- Create either a Google Site or an iBook for our linear relationships unit in grade 9 to house our information. I’m still deciding between the two.
- If possible:Embed Edpuzzle videos, Geogebra Applets and Google forms marked by flubaroo with the results emailed to students.
Some things I’m still wondering:
- Is there a way to import an image into Google Sites and have multiple parts of the image link to different things?
- Is there a way to create a bank of questions in Google Forms and have students link to a random set of questions with one click?
- Which will serve my needs and wants more. An iBook or a Google Site?
- What else can I incorporate that I haven’t thought about? – I need to be careful about this, since I don’t want technology to lead the way I teach, but I’m curious what’s out there.
Christine,
I think that your and my action plan definitely have some overlap. Your inquiry into the various tools is seriously impressive. I would cast my vote for the Google Site, as it has the ability to embed all sorts of content (you could embed Google Slide shows in lieu of an iBook, which would update live as you make changes), and you can organize it however you’d like. We introduced Google Sites as an alternative to Blackboard for our course management a couple of years ago, and while it is not as intuitive to learn as the rest of the Google suite of apps, you can definitely create a well-designed and user-friendly site if you spend some time with it! I would just encourage you to plan how you want students to interact with it, because if you just start creating pages and subpages, it can quickly become quite messy! I’d be happy to chat more about my experience with Sites if you’d like!
For your question about images that link to various places in a Google Site – yes, there is a way! A colleague of mine recently shared his experience with this with me. You could also explore ThingLink as a way of doing this as well.
As for the Google Forms question, I’m guessing that @lmcbeth would be your best resource!
Looking forward to chatting with you on Friday!
Jen
I forgot about ThingLink! And I could embed it in a Google Site too.
Thanks for the tips 🙂
Looking forward to Friday.
Great post Christine! I like the idea of Sites and if you’re curious about ITunes U @marsenault is the person to speak with. He has extensive experience with it. If it’s only the information from one unit – I’ve seen great use of a Google Doc using a Table of Contents from a colleague who I can connect you with on Twitter and @jweening is right – anything Forms is @lesmcbeth! I’ll be on the Forms journey as well as I try to give real-time feedback – I’m doing it using Edsby but the Ss have to search in too many places – I’d like it to be in one place! @trollwag is in the same boat as well so it looks like the assessment and feedback piece will covered!
Looking forward to hearing more about it on Friday!
Is there a way to import an image into Google Sites and have multiple parts of the image link to different things?
Google Slides also supports “hot spot” linking. I can show you how to turn a google presentation image into a fully clickable resource. This can be embedded in google Site
Is there a way to create a bank of questions in Google Forms and have students link to a random set of questions with one click?
You can do this differently. I would need to know more about what you are trying to achieve but there is a way.
Which will serve my needs and wants more. An iBook or a Google Site?
Why not both? Ibook for content delivery, google site for tracking and interaction. Best of both worlds. Your links in the ibook could TAKE you to the google site if you designed it properly. I’ll show you how.
What else can I incorporate that I haven’t thought about? – I need to be careful about this, since I don’t want technology to lead the way I teach, but I’m curious what’s out there.
Let’s map it all out on Friday. See you soon
Christine – a multitude of great questions reflecting your narrowing thought processes. You are definitely heading to the right group of people on Friday who will be more than able and willing to answer your questions and I am sure, expand on some of your proposed tools to help support the project.
Your project here is huge, and I commend you for taking it on! I’m interested to hear what you come up with, whether it meets your criteria for teacher efficiency and student independence, and whether it is robust enough to keep up with regular updates to unit modules, etc. I look forward to chatting more on Friday!!
Great action plan Christine! Just a quick note – There’s a program called Thinglink that allows you to create images that contain pins within them – then allows you to embed them in a site. I use it for my dissections in grade 10 science. I think it will solve your ‘parts of the image that link to different things’
Check it out here – https://www.thinglink.com/
See you…. today!