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Digital storytelling is an art form conveying a message. It uses images and voice narration to convey emotion with the message, and to ignite empathy from the audience. It incorporates storyboarding and writing a script. It is created with digital tools and published on the Internet. I often think of digital storytelling as something done in first person because it creates that personal connection. Whereas, I think of a digital story as an anecdote or story typed or narrated in third person. Image attribution: Lyn Hilt's Slideshare , used with permission. Original work: "Writing- Pen & Paper" CC-by Laurie Richie Benefits Here are some of the many benefits of digital storytelling and digital stories: The 21st century skills and ISTE's Standards  applied are critical and creative thinking; written, oral, and digital communication; collaboration; authentic learning; digital fluency;...

Educreations received a slight makeover, and it now has a few new features that allows teachers to push lessons out to student accounts, while also being able to see published student work for those enrolled in her/his classes. What is Educreations? Educreations is an interactive whiteboard and screencasting tool for both the iPad and desktop computer. Its features include drawing, annotation, and narration. You can insert photos straight from your camera, photo album, Dropbox, Google Drive, and from the Internet. Benefits Students can use Educreations to investigate ideas , and create videos to share their thinking and learning. Teachers can use student artifacts as formative assessments as evidence of learning or misconceptions/gaps in understanding.   Teachers can use Educreations to send presentations to students as well. How do you use it? How do Teachers sign up and create a Class account? How do students sign up and connect with the Class...

Formative assessment helps teachers make data-informed decisions to plan for and/or adjust instructional activities, identify potential misconceptions, monitor the pace of instruction, etc. While there are many ways to formatively assess students, I recently saw  Eric Sheninger use Plickers during his workshop at the Ventura County Office of Education, and thought, what an easy and inexpensive way to quickly assess groups! . @E_Sheninger Using Plickers #l3vcoe pic.twitter.com/rEHcTMgNKb — Tracy Watanabe (@tracywatanabe) November 7, 2014 Purpose and benefits Collect data from multiple choice or true/false questions from a group. View data as a group snapshot in a graph, or view individual data from audience. Quick, low-tech tool to use, especially when you don't have the budget for clickers. Technology and prep Teacher/Facilitator creates an account at Plickers . Download app for portable device: iTunes or Google Play . Print out a set of reusable  car...

Formative assessment informs educators about student learning, and when done correctly , it also informs the students how to improve and move forward with their next goal. Teachers must know how to use the data to drive their instruction. Formative Data by Tracy Watanabe - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires Gleaning results from the data and providing specific feedback must be timely, which is why I like using Google Forms (along with other tools). Why Google Forms While there's a plethora of tools that can be used to collect formative data, I am going to focus on Google Forms. Google Forms is an awesome time saver for collecting data in surveys, assignments, mindsets, exit tickets, etc. It aggregates the data collected into a Google Spreadsheet, and gives me a summary of the data in nice graphs as well. For example, below is a Google Form used by a high school teacher. He told me that this tool is a time saver because he can quickly se...

How does a teacher start to use iPads in the classroom? This post will include the basics for getting started. Part 1 focuses on the hardware fundamentals with iOS 7, while Part 2 focuses on iPad integration in the classroom. Hardware basics Turning on / off the iPad : Hold the sleep button for five seconds until you see the apple appear on the screen to turn it on. To power down, hold the sleep button for five seconds, then  "slide to power off." Putting the iPad to sleep : Press the sleep button . To wake it up, press either the sleep button or the home button . Use this feature to save the battery or to have students' full attention. Open an app : Tap once on the app you would like to open. If it is not on the first page, you can swipe through the pages with your finger to look for it. If you have many apps/pages, then you can find it with the Spotlight search . Just go to your Home screen by pressing the home button , and swipe down from the middl...

What skills are most desired by employers? On most lists , communicate effectively is the number one desired skill. How do we communicate? We communicate face-to-face, in writing, through various technologies, and multimedia. What is does it mean to be literate? Being literate is being able to effectively communicate. Therefore, every classroom must teach digital literacy as part of literacy, and not something separate. Original image by Andrea Hernandez Why have technology-rich writing? Writing is a huge piece of literacy. Writing should occur across content and grade levels. Common Core writing requires students to create and publish writing online, and to interact and collaborate with others. Writing Anchor Standard #6 : Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others. We must design lessons that incorporates digital mediums for students to communicate and collaborate with others. "(St...

What does it mean to be literate? Traditionally, being literate meant the ability to read and write, a trademark of being educated. In essence, it meant the ability to communicate face-to-face and in writing. The Internet has changed what it means to be literate because communication; writing; and how we retrieve, share, critically evaluate, and synthesize information includes digital fluency, which requires a new set of skills . Originally adapted from: opensourceway via Compfight cc The development of this new skills set affects online reading comprehension and literacy ( Coiro, 2007; Leu et al., 2005; Leu, Zawilinski, et al., 2007 ). Those who harness the power of the Internet have increased reading comprehension online relative to those who lack online reading skills regarding locating, critically evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating information ( Coiro, 2011 ). Therefore, we need to change how we teach literacy . Literacy must include sophisticated Inter...

What type of thinking does the Common Core ask of students when it comes to Craft and Structure? Analysis. Analyzing the author's craft and structure is a shift for students to do, and a shift for teachers to design tasks and questions that require analysis.  This is the critical thinking we want students to engage in. Shifts The big shift in this is the analysis. What does that look like at the elementary level? How do you teach Craft and Structure? There are many ways to teach craft and structure . Make sure students are analyzing the text , not just identifying the answers . Craft structure close read questions from tracywatanabe Every spring, our school district uses Title IIa funds to pay teachers to attend training. This year, our Spring Academy focuses on various aspects of Common Core... and teaching Craft and Structure is one of the sessions. I was charged with creating a training module for the K-6 sessions. Training Document: ...

One of the things that I love about AJUSD is how technology integration and 21st century learning is part of every layer of our district, from the students, to the teachers, to the site administrators, to the District Office, through a supportive School Board. Furthermore, one of the pieces that make us successful is the ongoing professional learning with the Superintendent, Principals, and the Education Services Team. Technology integration, PBL, and 21st Century Learning is not an afterthought, but rather it's planned into our conversations . Dr. Wilson makes sure we have discussions about how all the pieces and initiatives connect. Connecting PBL, the Common Core, and Teacher Evaluation Tool Below is a presentation from one of the Leadership Meetings earlier in the year. In a nutshell, here's what that training looked like: Think through a series of questions about what 21st century learning skills look like in the context of PBL, and as described in the Common Core ...

Digital storytelling is an art form conveying a message. It uses images and voice narration to convey emotion with the message, and to ignite empathy from the audience. It incorporates storyboarding and writing a script. It is created with digital tools and published on the Internet. I often think of digital storytelling as something done in first person because it creates that personal connection. Whereas, I think of a digital story as an anecdote or story typed or narrated in third person. Image attribution: Lyn Hilt's Slideshare , used with permission. Original work: "Writing- Pen & Paper" CC-by Laurie Richie Benefits Here are some of the many benefits of digital storytelling and digital stories: The 21st century skills and ISTE's Standards  applied are critical and creative thinking; written, oral, and digital communication; collaboration; authentic learning; digital fluency...