My Beauty Best Teacher

I've done posts about using Facebook in the classroom, but I know that it is still a bit of a hot topic. Because of all the scandals that arise on Facebook from those few unprofessional co-workers, lots of schools are being forced to crack down on social networking tools in the classroom. Because of the strict social networking rules in lots of districts, many teachers are wary to use even a Facebook fan page in their classrooms, for fear of violating a policy.

The bad news is, if you abandon social networking in your classroom, you will miss out on lots of teaching and discussion opportunities. The good news is now, though, is that there are alternative social networking websites besides just Facebook. For one thing, there's Twitter (which has a multitude of uses in the classroom; read more about my thoughts on that here). But Twitter doesn't exactly have the user interface or multiple capabilities that Facebook has.

Even more good news: there's a new social networking site out there that was created specifically for schools.

My Big Campus is a social networking site that is only available for students, school staff members, and parents. Just like Facebook, My Big Campus features notifications and comment sharing via "walls." Also like Facebook, My Big Campus allows for instant messages and posts on discussion boards, which enables students to collaborate online. Unlike Facebook, however, My Big Campus gives teachers the ability to group her students by class and/or period. The teacher can also upload documents (homework, notes, pictures, videos, etc.) and assign quizzes. One nice feature is that My Big Campus will grade the quizzes you post and gives you the option to export those grades to your computer and/or other online gradebook system. Another nice feature about My Big Campus is that students can submit homework online through this application. Some of you may remember a post I did about creating your own classroom website. In that post, I mentioned Class Jump (which reminded me of Blackboard), a no-frills way to post classroom documents and allow students to submit work. The ability to submit assignments through My Big Campus reminds me of Class Jump, but Class Jump doesn't have all the discussion features, so I think My Big Campus is definitely the way to go!

In addition to the ability to submit assignments online, My Big Campus allows teachers and students to easily see which assignments are past due and which are upcoming. The teacher has the ability to easily see which students still need to turn in work, which sounds like a real time-saver to me!

Another feature of My Big Campus is that the teacher can actually post comments and give grades to an assignment -- all online. The more I look at My Big Campus, the more I'm convinced that it will help schools transition to a paperless system!

Finally, there is an app for this. Connect your smartphone to My Big Campus and take a piece of the classroom with you wherever you go.  The My Big Campus app is free, too, which is an added bonus in my book!

Administrators, if any of you are feeling uncomfortable with this description of My Big Campus, rest assured that you have a lot more control with this online tool than you do with Facebook. As an admin member of your school, you can join My Big Campus and link up to your teachers' pages. You can manage their content and decide what everyone is allowed to post in each class. Perhaps you dislike the idea of an instant messaging feature for whatever reason; you can disable this feature on one class or all of the classes in your school -- it is completely customizable.

My Big Campus requires school staff members to submit the name of their school upon sign-up. I suppose this is so parents and students can more easily find their teachers' webpage. This feature probably also prevents the general public from overtaking My Big Campus and using it as the next Facebook, which also keeps this website a bit safer than a run-of-the-mill social networking opportunity!

When signing up, the teacher has the option for the basic, standalone (and free) version, or he/she can sign up for the integrated version. The paid version (which does not list a price...there is only a link to request a quote) allows teachers to post content from regularly-blocked sites to My Big Campus and has a few other nice perks. Once one teacher in the school has created a profile using My Big Campus, he/she can hand out the invitation code so that other teachers, students, and parents can easily find and connect with that school's sites.

I'm anxious to know how your experience with My Big Campus goes! Leave me a comment and let me know!

There is a rumor going around that some teachers are able to use create quizzes in Google documents. This is one way they keep their classrooms paperless. I liked the idea, but was wary about having to grade them all.  I've seen so many online tools that will automatically grade student work, and I'm sure you can understand if I want to make things as easy as possible on myself!

But when I saw an advertisement for Flubaroo, a grading tool for Google documents, I was intrigued. I went over the Flubaroo website to check it out, and I liked what I saw.

Source

Those of you that use (or are thinking of using) Google documents in your classroom will love Flubaroo!

The creator of Flubaroo made a pretty explanatory 3-minute video that I think can explain his product much better than I ever could. So, for your viewing pleasure:



 Seems pretty simple! I love how it highlights the students who were struggling with the concept, and also how teachers can generate reports with the simple click of a button.

(By the way, if you're having trouble figuring out how to create a quiz through Google docs, watch this 10 minute video for some help!)

I was on Twitter earlier today, following along on one of the #edchats, trying to find a way to reply to someone or put in my two cents (heh heh), when someone called attention to a new website for educators: Socrative. I'd never heard of it before, so I immediately typed the address into my web browser. I am so glad I was in the right place at the right time; Socrative looks absolutely amazing, and I can't wait to use it in my classroom!

What is Socrative?

Socrative is a website that connects students and teachers. Kids can access the student portion via a computer or a smart phone's app. Teachers can go in and create quizzes (multiple choice, true/false, short answer) and exit tickets to administer to students. Students can log in and take the quizzes, answer the exit ticket questions, or play an educational game. After the activities are completed, Socrative sends an automated e-mail with a report of all the scores to the teacher's e-mail address. As long as your students have access to smart phones and/or computers, there's no reason you couldn't use this in your class! It works for every single subject.

This can be a quick and innovative way to assess your students' knowledge using a free technology tool. ...Man, I love every thing about that sentence. :)

I'm on board; how do I sign up?

Socrative is still in its beta stage, so to really get started on it, you have to sign up to get invited. You provide your e-mail address and a few things about what you do and why you'd like to use Socrative, and they send you an e-mail immediately that tells you how to register. One thing that worried me, though, is that, in the welcome e-mail, Socrative stated, "We're currently in beta mode, which means you get our software for free. We just ask for your feedback on how we can improve our product." I may be over-analyzing this, but the wording of this worries me. To me, it sounds like Socrative will start charging customers once it leaves the beta stage. :( If this is as cool as I think it's going to be, that makes me really sad. If you're a teacher, too, you understand how tight our budget is!

Once you register, it walks you through the process of using Socrative, step-by-step. I was so excited and wanted to share it with you, so I took screen shots of every step. :) [If you want to see the picture in a bigger size, just right click and open it in a new tab or window!]

Step 1:


When you first register, it takes you through a series of 5 steps that introduce you to the program and how to use it. FYI, if you're going to try to use this after registering, you'll need to access the site through two separate devices. One is supposed to be you, the teacher, and the other is supposed to simulate the student. The welcome e-mail states that there is an Android app, but that iPhone, Blackberry, etc. apps are coming soon. Looks like I won't get to access the mobile version for awhile, since my cell phone is of the iPhone variety.

Step 2:

Step 3:


Step 4:


Step 5:


From this screen, you can choose each leveled arrow to change the settings.

Although I couldn't truly test it (because I don't have two devices),  I did look into all the separate sections. When I clicked the "exit ticket" at the top of the page and then exited it out when I discovered no "students" were completing the activity, Socrative automatically sent me an e-mail that told me the statistics over the exit ticket participants. The results are sent in a convenient Excel document.

If you want to help me try this system by coming into my "Socrative Room," go to m.socrative.com, enter room number "1028" (you'll notice that number is different than the picture; you have the option of changing the number to something that is memorable for you!), and click "join room." You can take my "mock quiz." Also, see how much you can browse the room...can you see all the options, or only the "quiz" I made?

I'd like to not only use this for quizzes and exit tickets, but I'd like to think of some unconventional ways to use it. For instance, why couldn't I use the "exit tickets" as a way to take attendance? Even though they're called exit tickets, why not treat them as bellwork or entrance tickets? As soon as students enter the room, they could log into the room and answer a short question that gets them thinking about the day's activities and/or asks them to recall what we talked about the day before. Teachers could use this as a way to quickly take attendance, since Socrative immediately sends the results to your e-mail in the form of an Excel document.

In any case, I just wrote an e-mail to the Socrative support team and told them that I think this is the neatest thing I've seen in a long time, and that it will change the way I assess my students. I believe wholeheartedly in that, and I am SO excited to try it on my kids!

Engrade is a free, online gradebook.

I know, I know: your district probably already has a gradebook for you to use, and it probably works just fine. But there are some perks to this one that I wanted to tell you about...and you can decide for yourself which one you'll use...

 First of all, Engrade is totally free. Obviously, it costs your district NOTHING. I'm not sure about schools in your area, but here in the south, the budget is T-I-G-H-T! Schools are trying to cut back on things in order to keep enough money in their checkbooks and enough teachers in their classrooms. I have now officially taught at two different school districts, and both of those districts used a different online gradebook. Both had their pros, but both also definitely had their cons. One of the major cons I saw was that it cost so much in licensing fees! And I'm one of those people who doesn't quite understand the point in paying for something you could get for free. :) Engrade is FREE, folks! I can't imagine how much school districts would be saving if they'd just switch to a free gradebook. (So, uh, teachers: you might get some brownie points if you bring this website to your admin. :)

Second, it has a lot of cool features. Obviously, you can enter your students and classes as you see fit. Students get a specially generated username and password and can access their grades any time, from anywhere. I checked into multiple teachers at a school using it, and it looks like the student only has to sign up for Engrade ONCE, and then other teachers just add that student to their class. So, yes, it might be time-consuming to add all of your students, but it's a one-time deal.

There are several grading options. You can weight your grades however you'd like, and the gradebook calculates everything automatically. You can generate reports for individuals or across your classes, and see averages, as well.

Here's where it gets interesting: it almost acts like a classroom website! Teachers using Engrade can add FILES to each class's gradebook. That means you can post your syllabus for each class (or classroom expectations and supply lists, for you elementary teachers) right next to the students' grades. Furthermore, you can add wikis. Now, I'm not a big wiki fan myself (mostly because I don't really understand how they work), but if you are, this might be a huge perk for you. I've seen lots of classroom websites that are made entirely of wikis, so if you're using Engrade as your gradebook, this pretty much eliminates the need to maintain that overall classroom website.

Now for my favorite part: the teacher can create flashcards and quizzes to attach to any class(es). Students can log on to study via the flashcards, which is great. All the flashcards are teacher-made, so the student is always guaranteed to have the correct answers and be studying the correct material. It's like a study guide that you don't have to print! I love the quizzes even more, though. Students already have a log-in username and password, so they're going to be on the site, anyway. But if the teacher creates a quiz and assigns it to a class, each student logs on and takes that quiz online. They're multiple choice, which kind-of stinks in some ways, but all the standardized test questions are multiple choice, so maybe it would give your students good practice. In any case, as soon as the quiz is submitted, Engrade automatically grades the quiz and puts it in the gradebook in the appropriate place! ...Are you serious?! This blew my mind. I think keying in grades is so time-consuming! And while grading multiple-choice question assignments isn't TOO bad, it definitely saves you some time if the program grades it for you. I am IN LOVE with these features.



At the first school district I was in, they paid for a scantron machine and scantron cards for exams. It was a beautiful thing. But I found out that these items were fairly expensive. At the second school district I was in, they did not have scantrons for teacher usage, so I graded everything -- MC or not -- by hand. At this school, I taught 6 different classes per day, so that could equal quite a bit of grading! But if you use Engrade, you don't have to pay for expensive scantron equipment, and you still get the same benefits.

One more thing that's really neat about Engrade: AllThink Lessons. The teacher can create mini-lessons for her class (or classes) and upload them to the gradebook. They can include documents, videos, pictures, and/or include a quiz at the end of the lesson. Basically, it's an all-online lesson that ends with a short assessment. So if you have students that are absent, you could still reach them with that day's lesson at home. If your school participates in "eDay" (online school for one day), this could be a great method of sharing information with your students and then testing what they know afterwards.

If your school is already using another gradebook system, you might have some trouble if you're the only one in your building that wants to use Engrade. I admit that it would make it difficult for the students if their grades were posted on multiple websites. But if you could reel in some more teachers and/or convince your administration to use this as a district-wide option, you're set! I don't think it's any more complicated than the gradebook systems I've used at my past two schools (in fact, I think it's easier because it comes with an FAQ section!), and as far as I can tell, it does the same or MORE than those costly systems.

Check it out for yourself!

I gave a presentation at school today about tech in the classroom, and I gave a stack of handouts to the teachers who came. In that stack was a list of other websites they might find useful in their classroom, and that list included Rubistar. I confidently told the teachers at the presentation that all links listed on their handouts would appear on my teacher blog. ...Then, when I visited my blog to make a new post a few minutes ago, I happened to notice that I had yet to create a post over one of my most-used resources: Rubistar. 

If you are a rubric-user at all, you really should join the Rubistar bandwagon!

What is a Rubric?
A rubric is, above all, a fair and easy way to grade otherwise subjective projects, activities, and/or assignments. A rubric looks like a large grid of boxes with words in it. Running across the top, you'll have the point values. Running across the left-hand side will be the categories. In the middle, you'll see descriptions of each category, in varying stages of completion. The top half might look like this:


This particular rubric happens to be for a speech (and it's incomplete), but you can make rubrics for virtually anything that has some "gray area" to it.

I say the rubric you see above is incomplete because I still see some ambiguous descriptions in those middle boxes. For instance, what is "appropriate clothing"? And what is that, vs. the "mostly appropriate clothing"? Before I would hand this one out, I would definitely edit these boxes to make sure they're as clear as possible. There can't be any doubt left in my students' minds as to what I expect. If I were to edit this for student-use, I'd put numerical values to the descriptions in the middle boxes. For instance, I might say "appropriate clothing: dressed 'business casually,' with no holes, wrinkles, or dirt. Hair and face are well-groomed, and students appears clean." or something like that. I'd be as specific as possible. For the body posture descriptions, I might use percentages. For instance, "student maintained correct body posture (standing up straight with no slouching, slumping, or curving of the shoulders) 100% of the time" might be in the 10 point description box. (See what I mean about being specific? That's sometimes the hard part: nailing down EXACTLY what it is I want students to do.)

What's in a Rubric?
Keep in mind that this entire thing is completely customizable. No only can you change the title, categories, and middle-box descriptions, but you can also change the point values. I've seen some teachers grade on a "1, 2, 3, 4" scale, and others grade on a "10, 20, 30, 40" scale. It's really up to you. In the end, all my assignments are worth 100%, anyway; it's just a matter of deciding how much of a "point gap" you want between levels.

Why Use Rubrics?

I use rubrics for all my projects because I feel it's the most fair way to grade. Right up front, the students know a) what elements I'm looking for, b) what I consider "worth 5 points" vs what I consider "worth 10 points," and c) EXACTLY what they should do to get an "A."

I give rubrics to my students at the beginning of projects and ask that they not only keep up with these until the end of the project, but they must review them, as well. Early in the year, I taught my students how to skim the rubric's highest point-value column, looking for specifics as to what would get them a perfect grade on the assignment. I also taught them how to read the different levels. For instance, we made a board game over Romeo and Juliet. In this board game, students had to include at least 15 questions and answers about the play, the Elizabethan times, and/or Shakespeare himself. On that rubric, in the "quantity of questions and answers" category, I made sure to stair-step the point values (all 15 Q&A's earns 9 points. 10-14 Q&A's earns 6 points. 5-9 Q&A's earns 3 points. 0-4 Q&A's earns 0 points). So, when I was talking about time-management with my students, and about how to get the best "bang for your buck," I was trying to reason with them... If you're OK with only getting 6 points on your question and answer quantity section, and you have a very limited amount of time (because you've procrastinated), then how about only doing 10 Q&A's, since you'll earn the same amount of points, whether you do 10 of them or 14? It was examples like that that, I think, really nailed the point of the rubric home. Most of my students have actually expressed that they enjoy and appreciate the rubrics because it sets clear boundaries for them.

This also keeps me fair when I grade creative projects. Otherwise, how would I be able to distinguish between a 90% and an 80%? I can't trust my judgment to be fair and consistent every time (particularly if I'm in a bad mood when I'm grading! Yikes!). This allows me to be very stable with my grading. More than once, I've been in the middle of grading and wanted to dock points for something that I felt was sub-par, compared to others, but when I looked at the rubric, I had no choice but to NOT dock points. So I guess you could say that the rubric has helped some of my kids' grades! :)

Another thing I really like about the rubric is something that really just has to do with me. I feel like I'm a better teacher after I've made a rubric. In order to make one, you have to know EXACTLY what criteria you're looking for in the project, and you have to be able to communicate that very well in a short amount of space on paper. I feel that creating rubrics has made me a more clear and concise speaker, and that I am better at communicating objectives when I use rubrics.

Back to Rubistar

OK, now that all THAT is said and done, let's move back to Rubistar. Rubistar is a free, online rubric maker, designed especially for teachers. (By the way, 4teachers.org has tons of other useful teacher-websites, too, if you wanna check it out!) You can either choose one of the [many] free ones that Rubistar has already made for you, OR you can create your own. You can edit one of the [many] templates, or you can start from scratch. It's really up to you. Once you have a Rubistar account, you can save your rubrics until a certain time, or you can save them indefinitely. (I always save mine indefinitely.)

One you're finished, you have the option to print directly from the Rubistar website, but I usually copy and paste it all onto a Word document, just so I can add a few more features. I add a header (usually the name of the project and/or the class) and adjust the spacing of the boxes and words. I sometimes add a "student comments" section, where students can explain themselves in a few sentences before they turn the project in. I always add a "points earned" and "total grade" section at the very end; this way, students know EXACTLY what his or her grade is when they get the paper back. (To grade on a rubric, just make lines in or circle the boxes that describe the student's performance in each category.)

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Students may be a little confused about rubrics at first, but I know they'll love 'em once the year is over, and so will you! Grading goes a lot more smoothly and quickly, and everyone is on "the same page" as to what you're actually expecting on an assignment. Check it out!!