Are you an Egghead, a Chatterbox, or a Twitterlebrity?
(Note: I give an overview of social media and my own Twitter journey before starting this activity.)
Are you an Egghead, a Chatterbox, or a Twitterlebrity? In an effort to differentiate for the teachers I train, I created three different levels of Twitter users: The Egghead (beginners), The Chatterbox (intermediate), and The Twitterlebrity (advanced). As with most training and professional development, I have a variety of educators with a variety of skills and abilities. I needed a way to meet each participant where they are, and further their Twitter skills. There are so many great guides and resources out there, thanks to Cybraryman and Edudemic. So I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel, I just needed to piece together the parts for each level. I created images for each level in PicMonkey, and then converted them to interactive Thinglinks. The results are detailed below. (Note: I give an overview of social media and my own Twitter journey before starting this activity.) Twitter Level: Egghead (Beginner)Twitter Level: Chatterbox (Intermediate)Twitter Level: Twitterlebrity (Advanced) How do you differentiate? Please share in the comments below.
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As an instructional technology consultant, I spend a lot of time telling teachers how important it is to give students ownership of their learning through student choice and differentiated learning experiences. I try to model the strategies I want teachers to embrace in the classroom. Teachers have a wide range of interests, skills and ability levels--especially when it comes to technology. And when we live in a world where information is just a click away, it’s easy to curate resources to support teacher learning. I have also been trying hard to walk-the-walk in my professional development sessions, and incorporate more modeling and facilitation. Teachers are my students, and it’s just as important to give them voice and choice in their learning. One of my favorite ways to incorporate choice and differentiate is to use learning menus. One easy way to dip your toes into the learning menu water is a Tic-Tac-Toe menu. A Tic-Tac-Toe can be used for anything from short activities, to bigger, unit projects. Below is an example of an iPad Tic-Tac-Toe menu that allows teachers to spend some time digging deeper into their content area iOS apps. I typically use the middle square as the one assignment that I wanted all participants to complete, but this can be used as a free square as well--giving participants time to explore on their own or to propose their own activity. Then I try to balance the columns with somewhat equal activity and product/response items. Since my time with participants is limited, and I usually have a varied group of grade levels and content areas, I start with best practices and apps that can be used in a variety of ways across a variety of grade levels. Then I give participants an activity like this to delve deeper into their own instructional areas. Another menu that I have developed and used with the Digital Fluency Academy is differentiated based on self-assessment results: entry level, adaptation level, infusion level, and transformation level. Based on their level, participants choose their own way of exploring and learning more about communication and collaboration tools. This menu does literally resemble that of a restaurant, and participants work their way through the three courses of the meal. (Dessert is required!) (By the way, all of these pages were created as Google Docs and published to the web so they look like webpages instead of documents to edit. One of my favorite features! It also makes it easy to edit when links change!) The feedback from participants on these types of choice activities are always very positive. Teachers really appreciate the fact that this activity doesn’t teach to the middle, doesn’t involve “sit and get,” and allows them to work at their own pace guided by their own interests and needs. If we want teachers to understand what student ownership of learning actually looks like, we have to model it in professional development. Next on my list: embedding Genius Hour into professional development for teachers! |
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