Appitic: A Great Resource for Classroom Flipping Apps

I found this website a few weeks ago when I was researching EdTech, but this a great resource for apps that support flipping the classroom.  I'm sure that I will be referring to this website many times as I slowly begin to flip my English classroom over the next few weeks.

Introducing Celly to My Classroom

In typical Northern Virginia fashion, we had a two-hour delay on Monday because of a little ice, which ultimately caused my school to reschedule our two exams that we had planned for the day.  There's nothing like waking up to a text stating that there was a two-hour delay, our exams were being rescheduled, and students would be dismissed at the regular time (instead of the 11:30 early release).  So . . . come to find out that we had three classes scheduled, including the two exam classes, and we were supposed to do more exam review.  Instead of grumbling about not having any lessons planned, I took this opportunity to introduce Celly to my two IBMYP English 9 students, and review for the midterm at the same time!

Celly is a free text messaging service that allows me to take polls, create 140 character quizzes, send announcements or assignments, or anything else that a Twitter-like service provides.  Celly has an app for the Android market, but not for Apple.  Not that it matters, as the students signed-up through their phones by texting @classname to 23559.  I had already set-up individual "cells" or classnames ahead of time on the Cel.ly website, so all I had to do is give the students directions on how to sign-up with each @classname and have them create a username that could be easily identified.  When I set-up the cells, I made sure to add each class separately, and choose the curated option, so I could control who was added to each class.

After each student was added, I created quiz questions (as "polls"), with the answers as #hashtags.  I put the question up on the SmartBoard for those without cellphones, so they could answer in their notebooks.  As they answered, the website kept a running tally for each #answer so the students could see the outcomes.  No names were shown during the quiz/poll, just a running tally.  Also, Celly does not show phone numbers, only usernames.  Next, I asked more open-ended questions, such as: Text an example of assonance or alliteration.  Student answers scrolled on the SmartBoard as they texted.  Toward the end of class, we went to the computer lab so students without cellphones could sign-up, and everyone could change their avatars -- such consternation about the avatars that were chosen by Celly!

Anyways, I will be experimenting with Celly this semester and seeing how I can incorporate it into my instruction.  I already see it as a great Bellringer, Entry Task, or Exit Ticket for informal assessment of student learning.  Plus, students seem to really love it! 

  

I found this site at 19Pencils.com for my class

Flipping the classrooom: As I begin to reinvent and re-envision my classroom through educational technology, I am doing more research online about teachers who are having success already with this idea.  The link is a report of one of those teachers and his classroom. 

Trying Out Quizlet in the Classroom

SJHS adopted the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in October, so these last few weeks were the my first real foray into integrating devices into my classroom. We were using cell phones to look-up words for vocabulary and affix study before this, but I finally had a chance to look at some of the apps that could be useful in my classroom.

Since we were studying for midterm exams this week, I decided that a good app to utilize with exam prep was Quizlet.  Quizlet is a free app on the IPhone app store, but not on the Android app store. 



Quizlet app

Android Mobile Browser

Those students with an Android phone could use the mobile browser to sign-up for the service, though.  Quizlet allows students to use and create flashcards for their classes.  It also has a few games for student to test themselves on the class content, as well.

 

     

I set-up classes for IBMYP English 9, English 10, and English 11 that focused on the literary terms, vocabulary, and character lists for the three novels that we read (The Time Machine, The Scarlet Letter, and Night.  At first, it was very time-consuming to enter all of the terms and definitions.  After completing one of my classes, though, I noticed that if you click "Auto-define" under the entry, it will give you choices from other quizlet users that already created the same entry, so this saved a lot of time when I was creating the entries for my classes.  All told, I probably spent a few hours setting up each class with approximately six or seven sets of an average of 10 entries each.  

I previewed the app by putting the website on the smartboard and showing them how to use the flashcards online, then showed them the app on my IPhone.  The kids were very excited about the fact that they could download an app and use it for my class, since this was the first time we did this.  Not all of the students have a smartphone or internet access on their phone, so those who did not have a phone looked at their neighbor's.  They each had to sign-up for the app with a username (school appropriate, since everyone will see their username) and password, then search for my name and class - luckily I have an original name and was easy to find.  After they found my class, they had to add my class on the class info tab.  Once they requested to be added, I had to add them as an administrator.  They immediately began to use the app and compete against each other on the scatter and the space race game, which quizzed them on the terms through games. 

Although I have only been using it for a few days, it seems to be a hit with the students.  I have already added about half of the students to my class, so I need to find out who has not been added due to lack of a smartphone or other reason.  The next day after I introduced it, one of my struggling students mentioned that while he was using the app, his mother told him to stop playing games on his phone, so he showed her that he was using the it to study and she was surprised!  He also hoped that other teachers would use it, as well, because he needed the extra help.  That being said, I guess I need to see what impact it has on my midterm exam grades.     

Beginning the EdTech Journey

As a public high school English teacher in Manassas, Virginia, adjunct professor at UVA, and reading specialist, this blog is a record of my day-to-day journey through the wilds of education technology, as I try to negotiate and integrate electronic devices in the secondary classroom. Videos, apps, and blogs, oh my!



For 2012-13, I teach two sections of pre-IBMYP English 9 (students take MYP classes before formal acceptance into the IB program at the 11th grade), one section of integrated English 10 with special educations students, one section of general education English 10, and two sections of English 11.

With my educational background, expertise, and experience, I feel that I have a great opportunity to develop different models of best practices for other teachers. The social demographics (increasing ESOL population, high percentage of free and reduced lunch) and academic diversity (integrated special education/ESOL and IB programs) of my high school also provide an excellent proving ground to develop and support these practices, as well.

Hopefully, as I outline what does and does not work in my classrooms - both at the high school and college level - I can reflect on my ongoing curriculum design and development using best practices that I have learned and taught over the years.

It has been a great year so far, and I’m excited about the journey on which my students and I are about to embark!