Clearing the Fog on eLearning: 4 Tools for Consideration

If you're like me, you've been watching the weather more closely - especially as foggy mornings are more frequently causing school delays across our area. As the season changes, and eLearning becomes an ever-increasing reality, what's your go-to tool or approach for delivering high-quality lessons in a digital environment? Do you have one?

Across our region, there are typically two primary approaches to delivering instruction for eLearning: 1) distribute something in advance of the anticipated school closure or 2) post lesson material on your school's LMS (Schoology, Canvas, or Google Classroom are most predominant in our region).

Sending materials home is not always a practical solution, and posting content online for students to access with ease is a good start. But, it's still not enough to simply use the online product as a mere substitute for the physical classroom. With the environment shifting from classroom to cloud, lessons should also make a similar leap.

The challenge of eLearning is that our instruction has to be more enticing than the distractions students have at home.

To compete, we need students to get excited about the task ahead or, at the very least, to ask questions about the concepts presented that will, hopefully, lead towards further inquiry on a topic.

The prepared worksheet probably isn't going to make that happen - for most students. And just posting the assignment in Canvas to read Chapter 8 in the online textbook, or to take an online quiz, probably won't do that, either.

So is there a way to flip the script on eLearning and to make the shift from practice to application? Is there a way to engage our students in the power of questioning?

Sure, but our approach must be measured and intentionally designed. And, to be honest, it must become a regular part of your classroom practice. With that in mind, here are a couple of tools you might consider integrating into your routine lesson design:

1) Google's Newspaper Archive: I've found that this is one of the most dynamic and unknown resources on the internet. If you remember the microfiche machines of the past, Google has taken the advance step to digitize newspaper archives, simplifying the process while putting the information of the past at our fingertips in the present.

How could you use this? A few ideas:

1. History - what are some significant dates related to your current unit? Have your students read an article from this time (yes, they are searchable) and respond with their impression of the events as the papers revealed them. 
2. Math - check out the advertisements for food and other items. Simple math - what was the difference in costs between now and then. Complex math - what are the rates of inflation given the changing times and economic influences. 
3. Reading - have your students read the long news articles - or the short "local" articles in the back and reveal their impressions of the language used, bias revealed, conflicts explored, etc... 
4. Foreign Language - Check out some of the papers written in other languages. 
5. Graphic Design/Art - compare papers of the past to papers of the day. What has changed with the influence of technology?

The opportunities are nearly endless for coming up with lessons that could be applied at nearly every grade level and in every subject.

2) Jamboard: Google released Jamboard in 2017 as a stand-alone tool similar to other smart whiteboards on the market. What's best about Jamboard, though, is that you don't need to have the physical (and expensive) device to use the app or web-interface option with your students.

This tool can literally change the way you deliver instruction to your students and the way you have students interact with their learning. In its most basic element, Jamboard is an interactive whiteboard with all of the collaborative benefits of the other GSuite tools. You can create one for your class and share it with your students, or your students can create one and share it with you.

Better yet, if your students have a touch-screen Chromebook, Android device/tablet, or
iPhone/iPad/iPod, they can add the app to their phone with even more integrated features.

How could you use this? A few ideas:

1. Integrate the assignment with your LMS to force a copy of a template Jamboard to every student for completion. Canvas, Schoology, and Google Classroom all work really well with this product. 
2. Leverage the digital whiteboard capabilities to change backgrounds, add photos and pictures, practice handwriting, make graphs, do math, take notes, or save your hand-written content. 
3. As a collaborative annotation/note taking tool. Up to 50 collaborators can work on a single Jam at the same time.
4. As an eLearning activity. Post a picture/image of an activity/prompt/worksheet you'd like students to complete and students can write/draw/note directly on that image. 
5. As a blended-design tool to save your lesson/instruction to re-use with future classes or to post on your LMS as a learning tool. 

3) Flipgrid: If you haven't yet jumped aboard the Flipgrid train, it's totally worth doing! Flipgrid is a video-based response tool that allows you to post a video, resource, text, or website for students to view or complete and respond. Student-recorded videos can have a range of 15 seconds in length to 5 minutes, and they can be redone until students believe they're submitting their best work.

How could you use this? A few ideas:

1. Like Jamboard, this tool integrates really well with the most common LMS's used by districts across our region. 
2. Post your eLearning instructions / lessons here and assign students to record a video showing you what they produced during the lesson. 
3. Provide a thought-provoking or instructional video for students to respond. Students can respond to their peers for a "real-time" video-based discussion. 
4. Allow students to tell a story, read a book, or "show-and-tell" via Flipgrid, even on an eLearning Day. This tool allows teachers to quickly assess students and to quickly engage them in participation-based activities. 

4) YouTube: While YouTube isn't a new option, you might rethink your utilization of it, especially on an eLearning Day when students may already be drained or lacking focus by the time they get to the work for your class or lesson. Paired with a tool like Flipgrid, or EdPuzzle, students go from being passive viewers of the videos to engaged participants. Additionally, you might also consider the videos you're directing students to watch - are they information or inquiry-focused? Do they tell students what to learn or do they prompt students to find ways their learning is reflected or revealed?

Some of my favorite YouTube channels promote engagement while also prompting our students - young and old - to ask big questions about the content or topics covered.

1. VSauce - With over a billion views, VSauce reveals the science behind many of the biggest questions that exist, like - Is Cereal Soup? or Did the Past Really Happen? 
2. RealLifeLore - Similarly, RealLifeLore highlights and explores some of nature's biggest mysteries and offers viewers hypothetical answers to many of life's unknowns.  (How Big do Hurricanes Get?)
3. Dude Perfect - Trick shots at their finest. This group of friends makes clean videos that challenge our understanding of physics and patience. Are the makes real? How many attempts did they need to do that? How expensive was it to make this video? Not only are their videos relevant and fun, the science and psychology behind their videos can drive some great classroom conversations, no matter the subject.

The point is this: No matter the tool, what we're really looking to do is prompt our students to ask questions and engage in complex thinking. This is where learning happens. Providing them with a worksheet or a routine activity on an eLearning day won't advance learning and it certainly won't drive instruction further. Odds are, if your design isn't intentional, you'll find yourself reviewing and re-covering the content they should have already completed.

As Fisher, Frey, & Hattie reveal in their book, Visible Learning for Literacy,

“A teacher who emphasizes (and assesses) surface learning will cultivate surface-level learners. On the other hand, teachers who encourage learners to plan, investigate, and elaborate on their learning will nurture deep learners.”

What are you doing to engage and encourage deep learning? Check out the tools above for some help. If you'll be at the Indiana Connected Educators conference or HECC in the coming weeks, I'd love to see you at one of my sessions highlighting some of these tools, topics, and the way they can be tied into your day to day routines!