Technology in Education: Notes from the Closet

Each year at Chicago Foundation for Education 's Annual Workshop (for teachers by teachers) I present on grant writing tips and tricks.  While the presentation is geared toward Chicago Public School teachers to complete CFE's small grant application it still contains information that is best practices when applying for any grant.  The presentation is below.

Our middle school is 1:1 with Chromebooks so students spend a fair amount of time researching topics online.  A teacher noticed there is a lot of copying and pasting of information by students and asked me to come in and have a conversation about plagiarism.  I developed a Prezi with an accompanying notes guide for the students to complete as I presented the content to them.  The Prezi and notes guide are below.  As we wrapped up the students were able to use their Chromebooks for a bit of fun (with a topic that isn't so fun).  We played a Kahoot game where they reviewed concepts about plagiarism from their guide.  They loved it!  What I loved is that Kahoot also provides a summary of student responses to the game- I can see which students missed specific questions which allows me to follow up if needed. Resources used in the presentation (good for teachers and students): http://www.plagiarism.org http://en.writecheck.com (this has a plagiarism checker available) https://o

When students are released for summer break teachers may not come to work each day but it doesn't mean they aren't learning.  Each year thousands of teachers seek out opportunities to continue their professional growth.  This summer Coonley teachers had a chance to work at their own pace to learn about technology tools that could assist them with formative and summative assessments. I designed an online professional development website titled "Coonley Technology Road Trip" where teachers could learn the basics about these tools, create sample artifacts and then blog about their experience.  Blogging offered teachers a chance to hear from their peers how they thought the tools could be used in their learning situation.  It also allowed me as a technology coach to see how everyone was feeling about specific tools so I can reach out this school year to offer additional support. The tools featured aren't all exclusively made for assessment purposes but like any go