Interactive Presentations

Interactive presentation tools are useful for engaging audiences and can be used in many ways. As with all things, educators should be aware of the features as well as consider whether or not it is the best tool for the job.

Many of you have likely heard about Google Slides' recent Q and A feature update. If not, you can go to this overview from Richard Byrne. Basically, Q and A allows a presenter to invite audience members to submit questions or comments and then vote those up or down. The presenter can then respond as needed or use the archived record for follow up.

One thing I discovered with Andrew is that a presenter cannot delete a comment, and students have the option to post anonymously. You can see the potential for trouble there. Using this feature could be a good opportunity to have conversations with students about the purpose and expectations around digital interaction, and it is probably best to be aware of what may occur when you give it a whirl with students.

As always, I encourage people to think about the potential value of an instructional choice. Is it worth the time needed for students to pull out devices and enter the link? Is a slideshow the best option for your objective? Are there other ways for students to inquire and interact? These are questions to consider. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying that we should be intentional about it.

Another tool that offers a similar feature is GoSoapBox, and it provides additional ways for a presenter/class facilitator to engage an audience meaningfully as well. Whatever is chosen, it should result in a deeper learning experience, and it shouldn't be cumbersome, time-consuming, or distracting. If you have examples of what is working for you, please share with us and others.

(this post was originally published on Kent ISD's Ed Tech Blog. link to post)

Drawing for Assessment

The Gist: This post focuses on the Show Your Work question type available in the formative assessment website Formative. With this question type, teachers can provide a background for students to draw on or annotate (e.g. a grid or text passage) or just provide a blank space for responding to a prompt. When students are responding, teachers can view the live results and/or choose to display them to the whole class for discussion, review, or analysis. See the bottom of this post for a screenshot of what that looks like. This supports all levels of formative assessment, and is fairly simple to facilitate.

Here is a portion of a workshop I led at the 2016 MACUL conference. It is a guide that takes you through the steps from getting started to responding to results.

More Details: One of the most effective ways to determine students' proficiency on a given topic is for them to demonstrate it visually. This has traditionally been done through paper assignments or on classroom surfaces (whiteboard, interactive board, etc.), but those examples can be difficult for teachers/peers to view and respond to. The Show Your Work option in Formative allows for a quick way to ascertain student understanding while providing students some creative license in how they represent their thinking. Teachers can also respond readily either through the system or in person.

There is much more to explore. This is just one tool to use as part of a more comprehensive approach to assessment. Check it out and see how it works for you.

Screenshot of live result example

More Meaningful Math

In order to understand math, you need to interact with it. Desmos and Geogebra may be the best tools for bringing math to life, and I want to share some features in these systems that make it easy for teachers and students to use them effectively. See below for more:

Desmos (online graphing calculator on steroids)

1. Search the pre-made activities on a wide variety of topics. You can post links for students to access without accounts, or you can sign up and tweak the activities for your purposes.
2. When students have accounts, teachers have access to an impressive dashboard to use when facilitating activities. Here is a guide for the steps involved.
3. Here is a general learning guide for Desmos that I have used when working with teachers.

Geogebra (a geometry and algebra platform built for action)

1. It also has a library of pre-made activities with links that you can provide for students. You can copy existing activities and modify them with a free account. (the editing features are a little bit cumbersome, unfortunately).
2. Similar to Desmos, teachers can create groups (AKA classes) in which participants can complete tasks, provide feedback, and more. See this help guide for more details.
3. Here is a sample activity I created to help provide opportunities for M-STEP tasks without "test prepping".

There is definitely much more to explore with both of these tools, but this is enough to infuse any math class with some boom. Get them acting, talking, and exploring. Repeating question sets is not the answer for building mathematicians; nor is it the way to excite and ignite.

(this post originally appeared in Kent ISD's Ed Tech Blog)