In the past, Lufkin Middle School (LMS) has utilized various programs in order to warehouse and access teacher lesson plans. With the introduction of Google Classroom for teacher use this school year (15-16), the Associate Principal, Charlotte Davis, has set a precedence for teacher and administrator collaboration. All administrators are “teachers” of the Google classroom and can access the lesson plans submitted weekly by teachers. This leads to ease of access while completing walk throughs and submitting reports.

Mrs. Davis created a Google classroom that approximately 120 teachers have joined and set “assignments” for teachers to turn in weekly lesson plans throughout the year. Tricia Durham, 6th grade math, was excited about the ease of use of this system! Tricia stated, “This was very simple to use. You just sign in, upload it, and you’re done. You can also check back to make sure you turned it in for when you forget whether you sent it or not”.

The setup of the Google Classroom allows for teachers to upload multiple files or one common file. The files can be stored on a teacher computer or uploaded from Google Drive. Some teachers are utilizing Google docs to collaborate on one lesson plan template then uploading the one file for all teachers. This is helping with accountability and encouraging team work.

Contact our department for more information on utilizing Google Classroom for your campus or classroom!

For weeks I’ve been struggling with creating videos to reinforce the information I had presented in several training sessions. I knew that teachers needed something they could re-watch when they had questions but finding the right program was more of a challenge than I expected. There are so many questions you have to ask yourself as you begin: What are you explaining? Who is your audience? What are the issues the audience might encounter? Will the program you use “play nice” with the computer the audience uses to watch your video? What program do you use to record? How do you learn to use the program you choose? Where is the video going to be stored for easy access? How will your audience know the video is somewhere for them to few? Can you find how-to videos already created? Are they good videos?

I’ve always been a huge iMovie fan but I’m not familiar with screen recording in the program and I was worried about the Quicktime movie file “playing nice” with other computers. So I decided to utilize a school purchased program called “Camtasia” because my partner was familiar with it and I could ask her questions as they arose.

Then I settled on recording short (2 min) videos of various programs teachers had informed me they needed more information on using in their classrooms (Mimio/Smartboard/School webpages/Google Drive/etc.) and I placed the videos (unlisted) on Youtube. I emailed the links to the videos out to the teachers that needed them and hoped for the best.

While recording, I found that I do not speak as eloquently as I try to pretend I do. It was also difficult to find quiet times to record in an office of 4 people. If I messed up, it was easier to record the whole thing over again than it was to cut and edit the messed up parts. Overall, I felt that I was doing a horrible job.

Then I realized that students feel the same way. They are given questions and asked to put information together to share with others in the best format that they can. If I don’t feel like I’ve mastered the skill then I need to re-assess my understanding and re-create.

So I sat down and created a video I had been putting off for a while. Is it the best video ever created? Debatable. ^_~

Did I learn something from my experience of creating it? Of course.

I have to put myself and the video out there to receive feedback (constructive!) and learn how to progress. I am new to this position and new to creating how-to videos.

We all have to start somewhere!

P.S: Here’s the video…https://youtu.be/5I5NK5FoYV0

Today we had our first Coding Club meeting at Dunbar Primary. I was a little leary of coding with kindergarteners, first and second graders (yikes!), but it couldn’t have gone better! Here are ten great things about coding club:

1. Code.org has all of the information that you need to get started.
2. You can set up your classroom in advance and print student login cards.
3. Start out the first session with a snack and the uplugged activity.      
4. Kids learn great vocabulary words like algorithm.
5. Young children can log in with a secret word or with a picture password.
6. Have several teachers/mentors available for the first session. We had a 6 to 1 student to mentor ratio.
7. Students immediately began making connections between the process and the outcomes.
8. Kids can work at their own pace or collaborate with each other to problem-solve.
9. They can work on any computers or devices.
10. They can’t wait until next week for the next coding club!
11. (Bonus!) Parents were impressed and excited.