Category: assessment

  • Podcast475: Lessons Learned Teaching During the Pandemic

    Welcome to the first episode of Moving at the Speed of Creativity for 2021, now starting its 16th year as an educational podcast! This podcast episode features a conversation with Shelly and Wesley Fryer on January 3, 2021, reflecting on some of their lessons learned teaching elementary and middle school students during 2020, the first…

  • Takeaways and Learning from the MSON Summer 2020 Annual Conference

    Last week I had the opportunity to attend the second edition of the MSON Summer 2020 Annual Conference, held virtually via Zoom. MSON is the “Malone Schools Online Network” (@MaloneSchools), and for the first time this year (I’m guessing because of COVID-19) their annual conference was open to educators everywhere. Our school (where my wife…

  • Deep Work and the Race to Minecraft

    Last Thursday was the last day of our second trimester at school, and therefore the end of my second opportunity in 2019-20 to teach Digital and Media Literacy to 5th and 6th Graders. As classroom teachers, one of the things we quickly learn is how different the dynamics of separate classes can be based on…

  • Seesaw Skills, Assessment and Parent Feedback

    Last week I had an opportunity to attend the LLI Southwest Conference at The Oakridge School in Arlington, Texas, and present with two of our second grade teachers about our “Seesaw Skills iPad Pilot Project,” which I’m leading this year with teachers in our Lower Division at Casady School in Oklahoma City. In this post,…

  • Design Thinking Takeaways from Our #k12onlineconf Panel

    Last Friday after school I had an opportunity to facilitate a 60 minute panel discussion about “design thinking” with Brad Ovenell-Carter (@Braddo) in Vancouver, BC, Canada and Brian Lockwood (@BrianLockwood) in Copenhagen, Denmark for the K12 Online Conference (@k12online). In this post, I’ll share some of my learning points and takeaways from the panel discussion.

  • Students Need Teacher Relationships Not Just Adaptive Software & Videos

    Thanks to the web of connections facilitated by Twitter, this morning I watched the popular (> 1 million views) YouTube video, “Digital Aristotle: Thoughts on the Future of Education” by YouTuber CGP Grey (@cgpgrey). Like many snappy and impressive videos about “transforming our education system” created by professional YouTubers, however, this one makes some flawed…

  • Interview with Chris Davis on “Journeys in Podcasting” Project

    This afternoon during the “Hack Education” event at the 2015 ISTE Conference in Philadelphia, I was interviewed by Chris Davis (@chrisdaviscng) about using media to document classroom learning. Chris is conducting a series of audio interviews at ISTE this year for the “Journeys in Podcasting” project he’s continuing with Natalia Leon (third grade teacher) and Diego Lopez…

  • Podcast423: Mystery Skype, Minecraft, iPad Digital Portfolios, & More with Shelly Fryer

    This podcast is an interview with 3rd and 4th grade teacher Shelly Fryer, discussing mystery skype, Minecraft in the classroom, iPad digital portfolios with Seesaw, and more. Check out the podcast shownotes for referenced apps, links and resources. Thanks to Adam Jones for sharing his podcasting inspiration!

  • Strong Reactions to Today’s Note on Makeup Work

    Update 4/16/2015: I emailed Rachel’s teacher and she decided to change her policy on late work and redone assignments. She is going to accept late work with a penalty and redone assignments within a reasonable time limit. The following tweet (which I’ve archived as an image on Flickr using the free Chrome extension “Awesome Screenshot”)…

  • Show What You Know with Media (Feb 2015)

    Updated 2/20/2015: An audio recording of my keynote is available as a YouTube video. These are my slides for my opening keynote at the February 16, 2015, “Little Apple Tech Fest” in Manhattan, Kansas, for teachers in USD 383 Manhattan/Ogden Schools. The keynote description is: Media products created by students can provide a clearer, deeper…