Snow Day Success

Well, hello everybody, I'm Maureen Paluzzi and I'm from Forsyth County, Georgia, and I'm here with my friend Amanda and She's gonna introduce herself in a second I'm an ETC educational technology coach and I've been doing this for about 14 years and I've been tinkering in wixie and pixie and things for that same number of years and Every time I do a lesson it's so much fun to see the kids because their faces show how excited they are to be in there and Trying something new and so that's why I'm here tonight to try to share some of my love Hi, I'm Amanda Sheeler. I'm Teach second grade in Anne Arundel County, Maryland I have been the e-coach as well for my school for the past Ooh, I think seven or eight years at this point, maybe And have really gotten to know wixie have really enjoyed taking the different classes for wixie and learning more about it And I'd love to share my knowledge so that you can use it for your asynchronous and synchronous days So we have to text Maureen So we want to talk about different ways you can use wixie for Asynchronous learning and learning in general I know Amanda and I both have a little different take on it the way our school systems do it So we'll both share a little bit of what we do Recently, I did a lesson that my teachers are really disappointed because we did have an inclement weather and they did it the day after And the way we set it up, they wish they had had it the day before So our teachers when we have an inclement weather day have to do ELA math Science or social studies and they have to do 20 to 30 minutes each and they very easily could have done that With some of what we did. So I'm gonna start off with a lesson we did I'm gonna go into my wixie Drive You should be able to see it popping up and I have a few things loaded here And this was a first grade lesson we did and very easily the teachers could have used this in their lesson and the way I did this I Set up all the directions for the kids.

We have a morning news every day and it always starts out the same way and So what I did with the first graders is we wrote a script out So we actually gave them the paper and we had a script but we had empty spaces and they were gonna do a new segment on landforms and so they had to do research to find out Information about their landform and give three facts about it. So they had the template They didn't write everything but they had some writing to do So this lesson itself would have covered their social studies for an online learning day and their writing So they would really have one lesson for the two activities one thing I found which is so awesome I could put up my own video. So if I click on here in play mode, it's probably easier in show mode Let's see if I've got this out of the way a little bit.

There we go. I can actually Actually Marine if you move that back over onto the screen the second Icon between the X and the play box is a minimize. So okay in the upper right hand corner.

Yep Yeah, click that All right. Hey, oh, nope that went out now go back to your wixie bill. I Can probably drag it right over here for a minute and off my screen.

There you go. Can you see now perfect? So I found that if I kept the video under five minutes I could screen record the whole lesson so the kids could self watch a little lesson and I love the videos now that we can put on because the kids can hit the Full size page and they can go watch the whole video hit escape to come out So I was able to do that and then on the next page they went in and they decorated their background changed their title and they got to add themselves a Talkie that was the best part the talkie. I have to tell you I love the fact that now every image is a talkie So I don't have an actual example of what the kids did I try to get parents permission But it was so much fun to see them And I now have kids who in this class I told them if their project wowed me it wasn't just good it had to be Wow Then we would take their video record it again and actually put it on our school news So every morning we have a live news program.

So that was our easy entryway now My teachers are like, okay, how are we doing this next time if we have an online learning? Could we do something like this? So it isn't the whole lesson plan, but it would get the kids here engaged and having some fun Amanda do you have something? Yes, I do Actually Permission from a parent to share one of my talkies That we did for the war of 1812 which was They had to do let me do this real quick Okay, I stopped sharing there. It's fine. I could take away I can take it away from you All right, there we go, so they had to do a little bit of research on Something from the war of 1812 that we had learned about whether it was James Madison or Dolly Madison and Francis Scott Key Which being in Maryland a lot of it hits really close to home with Fort McHenry right down the street almost So this one student picked the constitute the USS Constitution, and I hope you can hear it I Mean So that was just one example of the kids being able to use the talkies in explaining their learning And I know it was kind of hard to hear because he wasn't speaking up as much but basically he was Retelling about how the USS Constitution got the name the old iron sides during the war of 1812 So using those talkies can be a great learning tool.

I know Maureen and I spoke about like retelling stories and just in general explaining things that they have learned and giving them another outlet and Engagement strategy to be able to show that especially when they're at home and doing asynchronous learning They have an option to be able to You know have a little fun with it and make it their own rather than just you know recording a video with themselves Retelling something. Oh I see you pulled up some retelling things. Yes, I did.

Sorry It's good, all right, so can you see my screen right now? It is not fully shared, all right, let's see if I can go back and fully share that Back here and go there. Let's see. Stop resume presenting.

Let's say that does it? There we go so she was talking about retelling a story and Along with this a couple things I've learned along the ways the kids love Everything they can do in Wixie and they love to paint and they love to spray paint especially spray paint Sometimes too much, but they love it But I have to tell you it was a game changer When I learned that I could take some of those away and control what the kids could do Because if we're gonna do a retelling the story I want them to type the book tell me the main idea maybe a little bit about setting and I have a second page Where they literally recorded separate segments for the beginning middle and end This was a first grade lesson that turned into a second grade lesson But we chunked it because it was easier on them, but they would always get distracted So if you haven't done that before if you go up to file and you come down to project settings You can control what the kids have access to and I have to tell you especially the little ones This has been amazing. The first thing I do almost every time is turn the spray paint can off Unless I'm really needing footprints and things across the way because they will just design like you wouldn't believe it's kind of crazy But then I also will you know decide if they need it But I really also love the fact that if we're doing something, you know Whether it's landforms or I'm doing something with historical figures I can also pick which folder of images opens up first I can't even lock it So it's only that folder but that just helps especially those little ones that are to search for the images And I just love all these extra features that help us with our lessons for the kids She taught me this today because I actually did not know that this was a thing and Can I just tell you I'm excited to be able to use this because I do have some friends that really like to go to town with a lot of the features and Need to be able to be reined in a little bit So I was actually really excited to find this out as well Even knowing all of that I know about at Wixie. So yeah, always learning something new.

Yes So one thing we talked about Maureen and I was Not recreating the wheel Absolutely, and there's lots of different ways to that. So our Curriculum our curriculum our amazing OIT group Carrie Lambert and some other friends made our county some pre-made asynchronous slides That we could use and they made them for Grade groups, so they did pre-k first and K All right, I'm pulling it up and I'm taking over sharing There we go I Had to find this the other day even though I knew where it was so they made lots of different Pre-made Wixies that we could easily assign to the kids for asynchronous days and it has basically everything from reading science math And other things so if I open it's a snow day you know you can go through and There's you know beginning middle and end for a Pete the cat story that was linked in here What else was there that I really really liked oh It was the kindergarten one we were looking at earlier. That was really cool, too Graphing, you know dragging them and moving them and things like that So it's just this is just the basics and then you take it and you kind of create your own a lot of things a lot of people forget about this and I know I'm one of the people that forget about it is the design templates there is so many and This curricular activities is everywhere else too, right? Everybody has something with curriculum.

Okay, cool. Just want to make sure I Was actually playing around in curricular activities the other day and there was so many things that I found that I went Oh my gosh, I didn't realize this was here And all you have to do is make you know open something so if I go to math This is one of the things I found and I think it was based on because we've been doing base 10 blocks In second grade and we're not in the hundred cents and ones yet Our hundreds yet. So, you know, I can always alter it to fit my classes needs Go up I can customize but I always like to make a copy first just to be safe that I have it But you can customize it to fit your class what you're doing and things like that and you're not having to completely Recreate the wheel That's one of my favorite things I love to and you go get those when you grab it and you hit that customize it's yours Nobody else owns it.

You can edit my teachers like what am I gonna mess them up for everybody? No, no, no, even in your school one. Once you grab it. It's yours.

You edit it. It's so easy to work with I love that so much and I love if you at the top when you're on your screen and I don't know You can see my screen again When you're on the top of it, I don't know. I keep popping out a little different.

Sorry about that And you're in that same area you're looking at if I just go up and search up at the top It goes through all those folders So I don't even have to go in and out of every folder and I I just love how it's organized And every time I come in there's something new I was telling Amanda I was at a meeting last week and we were spending about 15 minutes in here playing as ETC's and Someone said well, you really get excited about talkies. I'm like, well if I'm not excited, how are the kids gonna be excited? So I just I'm like a kid in a candy shop. I'm gonna come in here.

Absolutely You want it might want to click resume presenting again? Okay, by the way. All right, I will do that and And I'm gonna resume Perfect. There we go So now the other thing I did last night and I just you know, it's we're doing this I'm like clicking around trying to figure out what else I know or don't know about things and I clicked into the Learning Center and Amanda and I were talking about this earlier because This is a in my opinion relatively new I could be a little off on that but I know you have a help section But this is so much better and with online learning days for me.

Not only do they have their main core lessons they have to have specials and so I'm gonna do is make sure my music teacher knows because I clicked on lesson ideas yesterday and The code music kind of caught my eye with the tech background that I have So I went and clicked in the lesson plan and that was amazing So I've been tinkering in your lesson plans in here If you haven't gone in here and you're looking for a whole plan idea You just come in here and I was amazed I was able to copy this right here And when I opened up the keyboard in wixie I was able to make it play it codes it and I don't know anything about music So I really didn't know what I was doing But if you were a child or a teacher who knew just a little bit about what the keys mean They could play the songs and I just thought that was just so awesome that not just your academic classes are being Thought of in wixie, but even your specials classes Yeah, I really like that aspect too with all the Learning Center things going in and just playing around and Looking at the different subjects that are there You know things you would have never realized were there There's a lot of learning ideas a lot of it Yes So it's definitely something I'm looking at even more just so that When I want to incorporate other technology into my class with wixie Then I can do so and the kids get another chance to really show their learning in different ways Just what we really want because not everybody can show their learning in the same the same way The other thing I think we wanted to talk about was the fact that the going back to that not creating reacquain Not recreating the wheel But being able to share it between each other as well Marine since you're already up. Do you want to show that sure? Okay, let me grab that back up. It was just I talked to inspire when we're talking about no recreating the wheel Yes, so you can see my page now Yeah, okay, so I'm gonna get out of the Learning Center and go back home Mmm Center and home So for not recreating the wheel and starting all the way over from our school we have Both the school level folder and a county level folder And so we do a lot of sharing if I'm in a project and I want to share to my co-teachers I just click on the three dots outside and I move it to a folder now when I move it I'm really not moving it so It's confusing it first it's really just making a copy and I'm gonna go out of my folder I'm in I go out of my projects and I go to whatever folder I want to do So I go I work at Shiloh Point Elementary and so I would want to do is put it in the shallow point elementary folder and I would move it right in here and then depending on the grade level I would drop it into that grade level We made our own folders because we want to make sure it's easy to find things So now that I've done that I can go back to Shiloh Point and I can go to I think I did second grade Maybe I didn't do second grade, but it should be right in their folder.

Did you second grade? Well, there it is so it's in their folder then they can just come on in and make a copy so everyone doesn't have to start over and Make that and the other thing that's really nice is from that same spot. You can see all these different options It's like a right-click on the three dots. I can assign it right to my students by clicking on assign I can pick one or two.

So if I want to differentiate my learning, I don't have to give everyone it's very easy I get a list of all my students if it's rostered and I just pick the kids that I want to have it and Then once I assign I so highly recommend assigning things because once I assign things it ends up being It lives in the assignment tab and it's a folder and when I open up the assignment I'm not sure if I have any I can open up right now most of the time when I go in I'm in a teacher's class and I go on the panel and I do it is The teacher and so most of my assignments are as a teacher And so if I were to open one up I might have this is like a folder and then I would have some kids projects in here This is opening up one like that. So I'm gonna go back out of that really quick but it's really nice because I can see all my kids work in the assignment at one time and Easily see how they're progressing The other reason I like it if I've got it one student is struggling and I can see some kids having some struggle time I can open up the assignment find someone who's doing good open there's large so everybody can see it and then they have a chance to learn from each other because we really believe in Learning is a class thing It's not an individual project and we share what we learn so everybody can learn from each other yeah, I know I like sharing it with my Teammate as well because it's I Have a I tend to be a bit quicker when it comes to wixie sometimes and being able to throw some things together So just being able to share it Really helps out others who might not be as tech savvy as some of us And it gives them a chance to also being able to incorporate that in their classroom And they have access to everything And my background is actually the gym. So I came from the gym.

So sometimes my Academic connection is limited in my opinion So they may come up with the idea, but I know the tool like wixie and how to get there So we work together doing that and it's a lot of fun All right So I do have something that I've worked with my fourth graders on fifth grade I used a different tool to do this and I was just sharing with her tonight I'm going to share and see if I can show this because it's really neat And this is where you can get your upper grades to do it because sometimes I hear wixie isn't for me It's it's a little kids toy. No, it's everybody. So one of the things I like to do Let me get the right tab open here If I were making a new project and since I'm in new projects, let's just mention here I can open it like a Landscape portrait a book when you're in show and it flips like a book.

That is so cool Especially the kids that are writers. I tell them go in there make a book We'll publish it if you're a teacher and have a PDF and you want that background upload that background It's really easy and works so great. But what I do with my kids I'm starting to do with fourth grade is teach them that if I have let's say I have more than one page in my project I'm on page one and I type a question up here and then I have my answers I should have had an example for you.

I apologize But I now can come in here and I'm gonna do test and I'll just highlight that word We have a way that we can link that to another page So I love that you can actually link that to another page so that if you go here to link And you open up a link I can either do our URL or to page two So if I were to give a test question and I'm a student and I make my own I can make up a little test This is the difference of a student getting a three We do a formative grades for part of our grading a three would be Getting the standard understanding the standard a four is going above and beyond and one thing they could do is teach other kids The other option with this instead of a quiz if they're a writer you start a story decorate your page Do a paragraph of writing and then maybe they have two different endings and the reader gets to choose Which any they want to do because they're linking to different pages. So every time I come in here, I find a new tool I find something new I raise the bar. I mean, I haven't even played much with animations There's so many things your older kids your older teachers You can get them hooked just one or two of them the rest follow it just takes one or two things So I know there's another Aspect that I really liked especially, you know, I use it in the classroom, but thinking about those snow days and asynchronous or synchronous, however your county chooses to do them are the team projects and Because if we're all in our separate places All you know sitting in front of computer and things like that The kids don't really have a chance to work together like they would normally in the classroom so by Creating some of these using some of these projects and turning them into a team project.

You can have multiple kids on multiple Different assignments, so I Know cuz it'll show my kids names But if you go to teen projects on your Wixie It'll show all of your homeroom and then when you get added to a team it shows up there What I did for some of my Projects that we've done That even some of my kids chose to work on at home Was I created multiple copies of the same? Thing so that I could make small groups because you don't always want your entire fossil one. I've tried that once Let's just say wixie decided that it was not going to work for me But we were also trying to attempt copies and courtroom with James Madison. So Because we were trying to either convince James Madison to join the war of 1812 or to not so that it was it was a interesting learning experience, but Having them being able to go on to do a team project where they can they can each have like maybe a job or A page where they're creating something that goes with whatever they're learning about Maybe they have to read, you know going back to the retail story because that's usually the easy one that pops in my head You know, they could have read a Yes They could have read a story and now they have to turn it into you know use the same format but turn it into their own and Each of them could maybe take a section of the story and each retell it kind of in their own way And then you know put it together in that book section that book and they have their own new story that they've Co-authored basically with teammates even if they're in separate houses in other places on a snow day So the team aspect is really nifty.

I created my teams mainly because I saw that Scott posted the kids can add kids to the teams from the class Not other classes I Really liked making my teams because I also you learn who works well together and who doesn't and who's gonna try and mess up This person's and who's not so there's a couple different ways, but I definitely like the making multiple copies of it Just so that you could make several different teams as well That was that's a really fun idea for when we're stuck at home and having to learn Yeah, oh great second graders for the younger ones it's definitely easier to set it up for them Yes And then we have an LMS where we have a choice We can assign it in Wixie and put their projects or we can assign it in our LMS for our little ones I think going to Wixie is just one less step for them Tell them the directions and go and I think it's great your upper kids at the teacher So for fourth and fifth, they have some formatives and some percentages if they're really doing percentage grades off that project I see doing the LMS let it grade it and send it over to our IC But that's up to them. I just know I was telling the story earlier. I did it in our LMS It's new second year with kinder our first time just to see and I didn't have it go in its own screen so the Wixie project was in a screen about this big and they had never used it before and It was and what it was a great learning experience for me and the kids they had no difference They loved it, you know, and I'm like, oh my gosh, so we learn best right from our mistakes Yeah, and I agree with I agree with you with the whole You know having the younger ones just go straight to it we don't they don't need all those extra steps You know, obviously the older kids They can make it faster but Wixie in general is amazing for in class, but I really started leaning into it and setting up things for my Virtual learning if need be I mean there's talk of us having possible Precipitation tomorrow.

So hey, who knows I might wake up in the morning and You know get on Wixie and be like, okay. Well this can fit into My lesson for today or this not so it's definitely a nice quick easy way to Really bring home some engagement for those kids even when they're at home.