Flexible Learning with Schoology at Mercy High School

As mentioned recently at the Drive-thru, we are preparing an updated edition of iMercy, a Multi-Touch book available at the iBook store.  Since publishing the first edition we have adopted Schoology as our learning management system. This has lead to many improvements in instruction.

The two minute video below describes how the Schoology app on our students' iPads facilitate paperless workflow, formative assessment, 224/7 instruction and more. This video will be placed in the "Flexible Learning Environment" section of our new edition.

iMercy 2013 edition

Presentation Topics

Assessing individuals for group project is one of my proposed topics

I have written some proposals for upcoming conferences and webinars. These are the two topics I would like to develop for presentations:
Individual Assessment within Group Challenge and Multimedia Projects

This presentation will explore a variety of methods for evaluating individual students as they work in groups on challenges, problem-solving or other authentic groups activities.  The presentation will consider that a good teacher may be eager to examine prescribed objectives, soft skills, or even unanticipated outcomes.

Evaluation methods such as shared documentation, rubrics, slide presentations, prompts, and podcasts will be discussed by a teacher who has conducted several engaging challenge projects (large and small) with high school students.

The methods presented have specific application to group project learning and broader application to the evaluation of multimedia projects such as slides, video products and audio reflections.  It is hoped that attendees will have lots of questions and suggestions.


What We Have Learned about Professional Development for the iPad
This school year Mercy High School transitioned from 1:1 HP laptops to  the new Apple iPad.  Quickly realizing that no cookie-cutter professional development programs would prepare its staff for a challenging year, Mercy customized its professional development.

The first step was determining how the iPad would fit into the workflow of various curriculum areas.  Additionally, a high priority was given to differentiating PD across a broad spectrum of staff tech mastery and interest. Achieving "buy in" to the new program was considered critical.

Mercy ran workshops, drop-in labs and even a "boot camp".  All these activities will be described in this presentation(warts and all).  Mercy had to adjust and refine its efforts "on the fly" as the staff became better acquainted with apps and the iPad itself.

How does a school provide meaningful PD when its staff possesses widely varied levels of skill and motivation?  Find out how Mercy is doing it in this session.

Evolution of a Multimedia iMac Lab

The Custodians stripped the floors over several hot summer days and then waxed them.  Electricians were brought in to re-wire the room

The Mom's Club Bought New Desks.
                                                                                  

The Dad's Club paid to have the room cabled.

The computers arrive and our crack team of Gary Bank and Tom James install expanded memory and the purchased software.  The iMacs are running on the brand new "Mountain Lion" OS.

Voila!

Assessment Methods for Challenge Based Learning

Digital Anthology update

Last year, my major project for the summer was for my AP American Government and Politics class. I posted this plan at that time:

I am using Google Docs to collate my materials. The hyperlink feature (see Hyperlink Heaven) allows me to pull all the resources into one space. After seven years I have a pretty clear idea of the kinds of topics I want to include for my students. As I pull together the resources, I also compose critical thinking topics, which I compose in a different color text)

Next school year, besides saving my students fifty dollars, I will break by anthology into course packs which correspond to each unit. Students will have direct links to the resources with attendant topics to write, vlog, blog about (according to instructions).

The plan succeeded in nearly every respect, and I promoted the concept at MAME 36 and to our school staff on in-service day.

But since the strength of the anthology is its ability to stay current with events, it was time for an update. While I did add materials on the fly during the school year, I usually just bookmarked them for later consideration. By last month the bookmarks had accumulated to over fifty, and I felt like a slacker. But I'm glad that I procrastinated. As I sifted through the bookmarks last week, I found that many of the articles which had seemed very interesting a few months ago, already had lost their zest.

The anthology is organized into seventeen chapters which correspond to our text (available as an ebook of course!). I added material to eight of the chapters and deleted many old pieces, so I am pleased with the new level of currency. But I also have two regrets:

1) I could sense as I was adding some interesting sources to the later chapters of the anthology that they would probably not seem so great when we are finally ready for them in 2011. But the day to day time-consuming tasks of classroom teaching make it pretty difficult to freshen the anthology a priority during the school year.

2) I only added two multi-media resources to the updated anthology. This was also due to very practical reasons-- it is much easier to browse an article than a chunk of television program or a podcast.

Despite these regrets I am happy to share a slice of the 2010-11 Digital Anthology. (The red text describe the assignments which correspond to the resources.)

Chapters 8-10 of Baker's Digital Anthology for AP Gov

Feedback is welcome!

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Screen Capture from MAME 36 "Digital Anthology" presentation.

Experimenting with Assessments

Last school year, I taught six sections of American Government. And I had very positive results with the projects I designed for the class. These resulted in multi media products, presentations, self-reflections and other unconventional means of assessment. Nevertheless, most of the assessment for the class was dominated by a variety of conventional quizzes and tests.

I ended the school year determined to shake this habit. Somewhat cautious (or perhaps practical) by nature, rather than tackle the entire course in one fell swoop, I decided to address the first unit. My first impulse, as usual, was to over-complicate everything. I tried to correct this, but I'm sure I will create plenty of confusion on the first go-round.

Here are the main features:

* Students choose from a menu of assessments.

* Within the conventional testing choices there are options.

* A project assessment (two choices) is available instead of some of the testing.

* A pass/fail pathway is available to a top grade.

* Students can stick with conventional testing if they (or their parents choose).

* Students will track their own progress toward their grades.

Possible Strengths

- The variety of assessments should allow for more individualized personal assessment.

- This should work well as a pilot-- With three classes in the Fall I will generate lots of feedback.

- I think I have come up with a couple of interesting multimedia ideas that are valid tests of authentic knowledge.

Possible Weaknesses

- By only sticking a toe in the water of alternative assessment, I may actually generate little enthusiasm for the alternatives.

- It's still likely to be pretty confusing for students, I'm afraid.

- I want to try this out early in the semester so that I can build upon it if I choose, but the earliness may only compound the confusion.

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Please check out the plan. Feedback of any sort is welcome:

Unit One Assessment Options

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"Studying Hard" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Dean+Barb

Procrastination

Having taught at one school for 35 years, I don't have a broad perspective on the subject of procrastination. But I observe that procrastinating has become a deeply embedded part of my school's culture-- students and adults are rather notorious for waiting until the last minute.

Why blog about such a mundane subject at the Drive-thru? Because multimedia and procrastination are a very bad mix.

I'm thinking of a student group that had all sorts of interesting ideas for expressing information about "equality under the law" on a wiki. They started plans for doing interviews with experts and creating a dramatic enactments on video. None of these came to fruition. They severely underestimated the logistics for achieving their best ideas. Appointments were postponed, technical complications were unanticipated.

Now, before you chalk this up to immaturity, consider this. I've had two academic departments at school approach me about the possibility of helping with video presentation. Cool. I'm glad they see that video can be an attention grabber. But I don't think they appreciate the logistics of making something good. Anyone can turn on a camera. But certainly they don't want to ad lib information about their departments. Who's going to story board this? How may takes will they need? I'm willing to edit their best takes, but not the night before the presentation. As I've warned them, editing is time intensive if you care about production standards.

I'm guessing that at least one of these adult groups goes belly-up with the multimedia. Likely cause of death? Procrastination.

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"07072007012" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by petemaskreplica