LEX Talk Tech- Mrs. Hall's Technology Blog

Front Row is an online program used by my school to allow students to practice math and help fill in gaps where needed. Front Row has all core subjects- math, language arts, science & social studies, is research-based while also proven to increase test scores. This is my school's first full year of implementation. While I do not use Front Row in my science class (I plan to, just haven't had a chance to check it out yet), I do use it in my Tier 2 math class. The Front Row math program is available in K-8 and personalizes math practices that allows students to work at their own pace. As students progress throughout school without truly retaining the content that needs to be mastered, they become further and further behind their peers that are progressing. Front Row helps to fill in these gaps. In my class, I have a set curriculum that I have to teach, but I can also allow students to practice other skills and concepts at their own pace. This results in an increase in learning...

I've always struggled with my English Learner (EL) students and presenting the lesson in a way that's best for them. As our demographics continue to diversify, I continue to look for ways to best communicate expectations and objectives to these students. This week on Richard Byrne's blog, he posted a how-to video on using Microsoft Translator. This is a tool used for translating conversations in real-time. The teacher and students can host conversations from their computers or devices and these conversations are translated to the preferred language. Also, as the conversation is taking place, not only can the conversation be read, but it can also be recorded and played aloud so participants are hearing AND reading the conversation. Multiple participants can be involved and it also supports various languages at one time. Participants can select their preferences during the joining process. He also posted a video of how to use this tool during a PowerPoint (PPT). This would b...

I am so excited to share this resource with you all! With our recent class discussions on the pros/cons of technology, a lot have mentioned that it is difficult to monitor what the student is doing while on the devices. Classroom Orchestrator is a management program that is designed to organize the online device environment. This program is made by Lightspeed Systems. They are the company my district (FCPS) uses for web filtering. Classroom Orchestrator takes it to another level. I use the program to monitor my students' online progress of individual tasks. When students log in to their Chromebooks, their activity is view-able. There is little to no lag time, it is a live monitoring of all of my student's computer screens. It shows the entire rostered class on one page via thumbnail images of their screens. I am able to send out links, pause progress and send messages to students. All my classes automatically show up in the program thanks to a link between Infinite Campus and C...

This week, Richard Byrne introduces a tool that I cannot wait to try out. It's called Kaizena and it is a feature that allows for voice commenting on Google documents. Kaizena is a free add-on that allows you to record voice comments on Google docs that students have shared with you. Another feature offered by this resource is the capability for a teacher to link a comment to a lesson (the lesson has to be stored in your Kaizena account). I plan to use this resource while grading lab reports. My students complete about 10 lab reports throughout the year and they share these with me through Google docs. Having the option to record voice comments versus typing out the comment would make this process more efficient. There are 120 to grade... 120 x 10= 1,200 lab reports by the end of the year! I'm always looking for ways to work smarter and not harder :) Byrne also has a recent post titled, "Ten Overlooked Google Slides Features". A couple of the features he mentions th...

To start off my classroom use of technology blog, I wanted to talk about all of the great educational tools offered by Google. I'm sure just about everyone has heard of the many Google Apps for Education (or G Suite). These are tools I use every. single. day. My students access our Google Classroom page multiple times throughout the week to complete assignments or to announcements. I send out a daily homework e-mail to parents and students with the link to a Google Sites page where all 7th grade teachers update homework for their class. Every Friday my science classes take a flashback quiz on Google Forms. Google Forms is one of my favorite resources. I create the quiz, add it to Classroom, and schedule the assignment to post at the beginning of each class. I can pull up my Google Classroom account and see which students still have not submitted their quiz. If a student is absent, they can access the quiz from home. I will often make the quiz multiple choice so students are able ...

One of Richard's posts from this week is '10 Good Math Resources for Teachers and Students'. After solely teaching science for four years I was 'volun-told' that I would be teaching a Tier 2 math class this year. To make a long story short, the class that I planned for and stressed over all summer long has turned into my favorite class of the day. In his post, Richard mentions numerous resources that I could implement in class this week (and look forward to doing so!). My favorite suggestions are the Math Challenges. Those three challenges are reviewed below: 1) Expii Solve Expii Solve is a series of word problems that are designed to relate to real life. These problems vary in difficulty level so it is easy to assign different problems to students at various ability levels (which is PERFECT for my Tier 2 class). As students work through the problems, they are able to receive instant feedback as they try and solve the problems. If a student is struggling, they ar...