Friday, December 9, 2016

Using Twitter to fight the Winter Blues!

Friday Five 12/9/16

With the rush of the holidays, the reality that arctic air will soon be visiting, and the excitement of the students over the coming break, it can be easy to get into a December funk. I was feeling this way as I was trying to plan this Friday Five. Instead of skipping this week, I decided to search for some inspiration!  

My go-to source for inspiration from edu-rock stars is Twitter. So I sent out the following Tweet:





Of course, there are dangers in venturing onto social media. Once you log-in you can quickly find yourself lost in a series of clicks and end up on some inane PopSugar article like this one. Fortunately, I use Twitter only as a Professional Learning Community, so I was safe!  



Low and behold...I got some advice…. I got some inspiration….I was reminded that great reward comes from connecting with inspiring educators from across the globe.


So thank you Twittersphere for helping me get back in the groove!  


Friday Five Tips and the Tweets that Inspired Them!



1. It is all about the Badges

 Gamification is a trend being implemented in and outside of the classroom. Those of you who completed the Canvas Beginners and Canvas Intermediate Courses were awarded badges. Consider adding Badges to your courses. Here is an overview article of how you can use badges. I am working on a PD course on how to build badges into your Canvas Courses. More information to follow!
2. You can earn a Microsoft Badge and Act 48!
Chris B. sent out an email last Friday alerting all faculty of this opportunity being offered for PSD Teachers. Here is what he wrote: “In order to help teachers satisfy their Act 48 requirements, an internet course through the Microsoft Education Community entitled “Microsoft in Education” has been posted to OTS.  This course reviews the basic operation of Office 365 and how it can be utilized in the classroom.  Following completion of this course 3 hours of Act 48 will be awarded.  Please use this link ,which directs you to the in district OTS system, if you are interested in this opportunity.”



3. More on Discussions!


We have explored Discussions in the past. But what does “focused” vs “threaded” mean exactly? Focused discussions ask students to reflect upon a single idea. For example, “Who is to blame for Romeo and Juliet’s deaths?”.  A threaded discussion is used to explore more complex ideas that may naturally break into sub-topics. For example, if the question is “Was the South’s secession justified?”, the discussion could quickly become threaded based upon political, economic, or cultural distinctions. This threaded discussion could be revisited throughout the course of a unit, while the focused example may be used a single assignment.  
4. Video may have killed the radio star, but video enlivens learning!  

Embedding videos into your Canvas Course is easy thanks to the integration of YouTube and the ease to upload your own video creations! But there are some important things to keep in mind. Here are some great tips on incorporating video into your classes.


5. Fast Track Videos 

Want to learn more about Canvas? Canvas has a series of videos designed to quickly give you key information or skills to utilize some of Canvas’ most popular features. We used a few in our training courses. The complete list of videos can be found here.

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