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Don't Leave Your Students Alone in the Text!

4/28/2015

This post is geared primarily toward literacy teachers, but in case you didn’t know, that is everyone. Yep, even you Mr. PE Teacher are a literacy teacher. All of us are responsible for incorporating literacy activities in our classroom. Now I’m not saying let’s read Ivanhoe in Algebra I (that’s just silly), but why not have your students take a look at this non-fiction article and debate the merits of Algebra. And in fact, the Common Core advises that students should, by 12th grade, spend 30% of their time reading literary texts and 70% of their time reading informational/non-fiction text, furthermore suggesting that a great deal of non-fiction reading in grade 6-12 can happen in classrooms outside of ELA.

All right, descend from soapbox and let’s take a look at a tool that will help us in the teaching of literacy. This tool is called Actively Learn. It is one of my new favorite tools for ELA, well it’s not new, just newish to me. If you are not familiar with Actively Learn, watch this short video to get a quick overview:

Teacher Overview from Actively Learn on Vimeo.

So why do I love Actively Learn? Here is my top three list:

Content - the content available in Actively Read is phenomenal. I taught the gamut of HS ELA classes (everything from English 9 to AP English Lit and College Composition) and in the available content in Actively Learn is representative of most of the texts that I taught. Additionally, texts are Lexiled and sorted by grade level and subject. Additionally, teachers can add their own content by going to the “Create Assignments” tab and selecting “Add Content”. They can add from a URL, Google Doc or PDF. So go ahead, add those lyrics from Thunder Road or Don’t Drink the Water, they will work.
Support - The Actively Learn interface has a ton of support built right into the tool. When teachers log in, the first stop is their “Checklist” which shows them what they need to accomplish to fully leverage all of the features built into Actively Learn. The checklist links to a help video on the topic as well as text instructions with screenshots. Additionally, you will always find a helping hand hanging out in the lower right hand corner of the app. Click on the photo of the support person and you can launch into a live chat.
Collaboration - My mantra has always been “comprehension is collaborative”. Ok, I don’t think that I came up with that one on my own, but it is true. Comprehension hinges on the student’s ability to build/activate their schema and make connections and the best way to support this in an ELA classroom is to create a collaborative reading experience (my other thoughts on schema building). Kids should be talking about text, they should been sharing what they see in the text, and they should be having debates about the text. Actively Learn allows this to happen at anytime. No longer is a student “alone in the text”. They can post notes for their fellow students to comment on, they can send a private “I don’t understand” flag to their teacher, and they can accommodate for themselves as needed (i.e. have the text read aloud, look up definitions of words, etc.). In short, they have a community of learners to aid in their comprehension. Additionally, teachers can co-author assignments together and they can co-teach classes.

Actively Learn truly puts the student experience at the forefront. Students have great opportunities to collaborate and connect with their classmates and teacher via the text and this helps aid comprehension and the development of schema. So, if you are a literacy teacher (and I know you are) give Actively Learn a look and don’t leave your students “alone in the text”.

- Gina Rogers, Technology Consultant, Grant Wood AEA (@grogers1010)

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How To Sell Your School Without Selling Your Soul!

4/21/2015

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Recently, at the Iowa 1:1 Conference, I gave a presentation on how (and why) schools are turning to social media to help promote the great things that they are doing in the classroom. It can be a daunting proposition, but it is not as intimidating as you might think, especially when there are so many amazing examples of schools who are already reaping the benefits of leveraging social media to increase communication, build community, and tell their stories.

1. Why Sell Your School?

Marketing and branding are words most associated with businesses, but whether you know it or not, schools are already doing a healthy amount of this. For instance, do you have a website, a logo, school colors, a mission statement, and branded clothing? If so, you are already branding your school. We may have learned these lessons from the business world, but they are more relevant today than they ever have been in education. Here are some reasons why selling your school is so important today:

If you don't tell you story someone else will. It is becoming a cliche, but it's true.
It can boost parental engagement and lead to a great home school connection.
Schools can model appropriate uses of social media for students (and parents).
Bond issues and PPEL votes may be more likely to go in your favor if you have a connected, engaged community that understands and believes in your mission.
Partnerships with local businesses can be fostered through exposure online. Everybody wins.

However, perhaps the most important reason to sell your school is to share the awesome things that happen in the classroom every day! It can provide a window into the learning and success that teachers are having with students and finally provide a real answer to the one question that parents really want a better answer for - What did you do at school today?

2. Where Do You Start?

Before you venture out too far with new technologies, take stock of what you already have and get it ready for your new mission. The school website is an excellent "home base" for all the sharing and storytelling that you are about to embark on. However, not all school websites are really set up to do this. Many are very traditional and are focused around essential information like calendars, lunch menus, links to service logins, and so forth. They have the potential to be so much more. Take a look at the website that the CCSD59 school district in Illinois uses and you will start to get a feel for what I mean. It is dynamic, clean, and easy to navigate. It tells stories. Does your school website do all this?

Blogs are a great way to share long form content that may not be meaningful on social media. It is a great medium for telling stories, and for embedding images and videos that sell the great things that are going on in your school. The more people that contribute, the more stories you can tell, and the more connections you can build with your community.

And, if you are serious about your website, as you should be, it really has to be mobile friendly. Smartphones are almost ubiquitous devices these days and with up to one third of all web traffic estimated to be carried out on a mobile device, you can be sure that your parents are going to hit your website on their phones at some point. So, save them the pain of pinching and zooming and make sure that you have a responsive web design that will adapt to the screen size of the user.

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Changes to Meraki Systems Manager

4/13/2015

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I wrote a post a couple weeks back about using Apple’s DEP to manage your organization’s iPads. In the article, I showed how we use Meraki Systems Manager to accomplish this at GWAEA. You may have heard that Meraki recently announced that their Systems Manager product will be moving from free to a pay model. Here is a link to their announcement.

https://meraki.cisco.com/blog/2015/03/one-systems-manager-to-rule-them-all/

I have been a Systems Manager user for several years and wondered what this will mean to our organization and I. Although Meraki has offered a pay (Enterprise) version for awhile, they have always had the free version, which is what we use for iOS management. Last week, I was able to speak with Saralyn Koenig who is an MDM specialist with Cisco Meraki. She answered my questions about the consolidation and some new features coming with the Enterprise version.

Q - We currently have around 600 iPads in our free Systems Manager dashboard. What are our options?

A - You could stay with the free version. As legacy customers, you are able to do that. If you are new to Systems Manager, you will only be able to use the free version if you have a client count under 100 devices. You could also upgrade to the Enterprise version and pay for each client.

Q - If we can stay on the free version, why would we want to upgrade?

A - With the Enterprise version you get support. You will also be provided with update features.

Q - Will the free version not get updates?

A - The free version will not receive all the updates and feature releases that the Enterprise version will. It is possible that some updates, for example, updates associated with iOS updates may be included in both products but there are no guarantees.

Q - What types of features will I receive in the Enterprise version that I do not currently have?

A - Specifically with the MDM portion of the Systems Manager Enterprise, you will find several useful features. One feature is the ability to whitelist and blacklist apps. While you cannot prevent installing blacklisted apps, you can set a policy to notify an administrator or even block the device from the internet. Another feature will assist with managing shared iOS devices. Users will be able to authenticate on the device and then have a specific set of apps and settings deployed. Lastly, Meraki is planning on releasing a teacher management app. Some features will include the ability for teachers to unlock devices and to lock devices into a single app.

Q - How will the pricing model work?

A - The pricing will be based on device count. Like all Meraki products, you will be able to purchase one, three and five year licenses.

Q - If I need to add devices to my dashboard will I have to purchase the licenses first or will there be a grace period?

A - You can enroll the devices and then make sure you purchase the licenses to cover them within 30 days.

Q - If I have under 100 devices and I want access to the Enterprise features what should I do?

A - You should upgrade to Enterprise, but you have under 100 devices so you will not be billed. Once you add the 101st device, you will be bill for all devices. Also, if you are a new client you can enroll in Enterprise and pay nothing as long as you are under 100 devices. It is important to note that users in this scenario (no pay) will not have access to support.

Q - What does the pricing look like?

A - You will need to contact a Meraki reseller for pricing, but it will be very competitive with current pay for products available.

Q - Anything else we should know?

A - We are currently in a window where we are offering steep discounts for educational institutions to convert to Enterprise. That window will likely close on June 1, 2015. Also, if you want to see what features you will get in Enterprise, you can demo it for a few weeks.

I want to thank Saralyn for taking the time to answer these questions for me. I plan on demoing the Enterprise version and will put out a post on how that goes.

Jason Marshall - Technology Consultant
@jmarsh77

For more posts like this, please subscribe to our blog! You can also connect with us on social media if you Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter or add us to your circles on Google+.

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Don't Leave Your Students Alone in the Text!

How To Sell Your School Without Selling Your Soul!

Changes to Meraki Systems Manager

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