Good evening everyone. Welcome to tonight's webinar on behalf of the American, empowering our students to lead and serve. Lead for change is changing lives, transforming communities and improving our world. Learn more, check out the research and access free leadership curriculum now at leadforchange.org. Hello, I'm thank you all for coming. On behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, I'd like to welcome everyone to today's webinar on Dare to unplug, resetting how educators use technology. My name is Caitlin Scanlon and I'm an administrative assistant here at the AST, and I will be your moderator before we begin. I'd like to thank today's virtual conference sponsor lead for Change, which is celebrating its 10th year leave for changes. A free leadership curriculum for grades six through 12 with a community service framework. That is easily integrated into any class club or setting lead for changes. The nation's fastest growing, privately funded student leadership program with more than 15,000 educators and nearly two million students give your class, club or school a chance to win up to $10,000 in the lead for Change Challenge. You can learn more about leads for change by clicking on their local on the right side of your screen. We truly appreciate your support. Now let's watch a short video on how our webinars work. Hello everyone, welcome to our 2022 share my lesson virtual conference. My name is Kelly Booze, director of the American Federation of Teachers. Share my lesson before we begin. We'll go over a few housekeeping items. For those of you who have joined us many times before, you know that we make our webinars as engaging as we possibly can. So to get us started, please open up that group chat box and tell us where you are from and why you are joining us today. And what interests you about this particular topic? In addition to the group chat, if you're joining us live, you will be able to provide some different reactions throughout the webinar today, so let us know what you're thinking and throughout the webinar, whatever reaction you want to give, share it with us and share it with your fellow participants. At the end of this webinar, we will be facilitating a question and answer session. Use that Q&A widget to submit any questions that you want us to ask the presenter. If you have any technical issues, please also use a Q&A widget and one of our share. My lesson team members is there and ready to respond to you. If you would like a copy of the slide deck or any of the related materials, you can find those in the resource widget. For those of you who want professional development credit, you will be able to download a PDF certificate at the conclusion of this webinar verifying your participation today, you do need to answer the poll questions that you will see throughout the webinar. To access that certificate now, let's turn it back over to your moderator who will put up a sample poll question for you to try. The poll question is located directly in the slides. You can answer your question. And then hit submit. From all of us at share my lesson. Thank you for joining us today. Enjoy your webinar. Alright. So now. We should see the poll question. Here's the practice Polk question. Summer will be here before we know it. If you were given the option of an all expensive page trip, which would you choose? Disney World Alaskan cruise Six minute trip to space. Sandy Beach or a cabin in the woods? We're gonna give you about a minute to respond. Take a moment and answer. Be sure to hit the submit button and once you submit, tell us in the group chat why you chose your answer. I'd like to go for the six minute trip to space, but only 6 minutes. I like Earth and I would need to come back pretty quickly. Let's see where we're at here. Give me another 10 seconds. Alright. Here are the results. Oh, Sandy Beach and Alaskan cruise, both of those are good. I see those are very popular. Alright. Now it is my pleasure to introduce our presenter, Amber Chandler, with the Frontier Central School. You can read their bio on the right side of your screen. Thank you for joining us today and welcome. Hi everyone, I'm Amber, Chandler and I'm so happy that you're here. I'm very excited to talk about this topic and it's interesting. 'cause as I was reading why people were here, people were here about reasons to engage with technology and then some more reasons not to. To kind of take a break from technology. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about tonight. You're going to find that this is very interactive. I'm going to ask you to have conversations in the chat box with each other. We're all here to learn together and they'll be poll questions throughout. The first thing I want to do though, is let you know that you can find me at Miss Amber Chandler at here. My lesson are these are the tags and live tweet. One of the things I want to let you know is that tonight if you are live here right now, I'm going to be giving away five books and I'm super excited about that. The book is just released yesterday. It is the 2nd edition of my book The Flexible SCL Classroom and it's been updated. So that there are pandemic principles that go along with all of Castle competencies. There's a chapter on resilience and a chapter on restorative circles. I I wrote it while in pandemic, like the deeper part of the pandemic, and I think you'll be able to feel that so anyway, if you were here live tonight, follow me on Twitter and after we're done the share. My lesson team is going to pull five winners. You do need to be following me on Twitter because we're going to announce on Twitter, but I'm really excited. I I'm. Looking forward to getting my ideas out there, particularly about the pandemic and kind of what's been happening since then, so follow me on Twitter for your chance to win tonight. Copies of my book they'll be mailed to you. It literally just came off the presses yesterday, so very excited about that. So the first thing I have is an admission and you can see my picture of this fire hydrant on fire. I wanna I wanna make everyone aware that yes, I do realize that there's some irony in the in the fact that I am on a web and are talking about unplugging. I'm an English teacher so I felt like I had to start there and it is. It is one of those things that this is sort of ironic that we are talking about unplugging while we're you know at home. And are you know. And our technology and all of this. So the first thing we're gonna do is actually start talking a little bit with a poll question about where technology is right now for you and your situation. So my first poll question it says how much technology have your students been using in the last three months? And the the answers don't. There's no shame in it. Really depends on the school that you're in. Any students are on computers. Every class that you know about students are on computers for four times a week. Students are in computers one or two times a week and students are not using computers. So think about what you've been doing for the last three months. I know things are so changing I could have put, you know, the last two weeks and and probably been more accurate, but just give it a thought. I want to get a feel of how much. Technology your students are using while you're doing that, I will. Tell you that my students, we've gone through spurts. I very specifically started the school year. Very low tech and the reason I did that is because so many people were burnt out. The kids were burnt out of being online. I have a 13 year old and a 17 year old so we did a lot of low tech stuff, but I had found some tools during the pandemic that really. That were really, I don't know really important to me that I share with you here that I I like and I wanna keep using 'cause I know they work. So I'm going to give you just a second there. But right now my kids are actually did a greater discussion today in Google Classroom Online live in class. So I am using a lot of technology but I also have some found some real need to unplug as well. Alright I'm going to go ahead and see our results. Alright, students are on computers, every class? Yeah, 60% that does not surprise me. That actually the not using computers at 13.2% really does surprise me that there are some kids with no computer and I do know that some inequity issues as well. So we're going to keep going 'cause I have another question and when I answer this one in chat in the chat share, what subject can grade you teach? But really, how you feel about the amount of technology your students use? How do you feel about that while you're typing? I'm gonna kind of be scrolling and looking at what your answers are, how you feel about this meta technology. Do you feel like it's too much? Do you feel like it's not enough? What are your thoughts about this? And I wanted to bring this up because I have such mixed feelings. I found some great tools that I love using and before the pandemic I was a paperless classroom. I. I mean, it wasn't even on my supply list. There weren't paper. Ways we use everything online, but post pandemic. I've I've found some ways to unplug and give kids a a tech break. I do, Yep, and I think that the inequity is there that I'm seeing that here is, and some kids who just don't have the opportunity and some real little kids that, again, you wouldn't have that opportunity. I like Michael's comment, ambivalent, I I'm, I don't, it's funny, it's this point in the year where I'm not sure. If everything that we're trying to do. He's working, so I keep throwing new things in. I'll do something a different project. I'll do some unplugging there too, but I'm seeing a lot of comments that people are in this being. Kids are on all day kids being on all day that actually your comments go right along with what I'm going to show you next, which is this this little flash from the past pre pandemic view. So this was CBS News 2018 kids and teens age 8 to 18. Spend an average of more than 7 hours a day looking at screens. The new warning from the HA recommends parents limit screen time for kids to a maximum of just two hours per day. For younger children, two to five, the recommended limit is 1 hour per day and I included this because I feel like we all forgot this like we knew it as teachers and families and parents, but when we had to make that and this is my like, least favorite word in the world. When we had to make that pivot to being online and doing virtual pandemic crazy teaching that we were doing. I think that one of the things that went by the wayside was this recommendation, and this idea, so it's hard. You know we had this so much screen time that was required and there was a time when I was at home and I was at home. My two kids, 13 year old and A and a 17 year old more at home. My husband was at home. We were all in different activities and we're all trying different different computers and we were on so much I would. I would see my daughter. She'd fall asleep. My son was doing something different. I was trying to manage. It was really hard, so we're all there and it is challenging. The kids have burnout like they're pretty burned out of technology. Of course they have their technology, but now I have a question for you about your technology. Respond to this statement. Students are addicted to technology. What do you think about that? How do you feel if this is like an addiction, can they? I'll ask this question. Are you struggling as I am in my classroom with students cell phone news pre pandemic? I was one of the few classrooms that allowed students to have their phones. I use them for games. I I really sort of D sensationalized it. So go ahead and and. Check in the in the. Fill out the poll. We're getting there. This this idea these like bone things are really causing a lot of issues and one of the things that I think I'm noticing is that they have been trained to continually be on that they and parents. I'm sure you're experiencing this as well. I have so many people, parents texting their kids during my school day. And it is really difficult because as a parent I you know I wanna make sure my kid can get in touch with me and that kind of deal with that and so many students are really seeing this bone addiction thing. Let's take a look at what you guys think. Yeah, strongly agree only there's a strongly disagree. I I'm. I'm surprised that there's any strongly disagree, but I I can imagine in certain circumstances that could happen. But you know, with the agree and strongly agree the addiction. And I don't mean the addiction necessarily as. Saying yeah, I'm not blaming the victim on this, the the addiction. I think all of us have which is my next question about how we feel about technology and that is in the chat. Share your own feelings about how much you engage with technology. Is it? Is it too much? Is it too little? What do you think? Do you scroll constantly? This is Oh yeah, social dilemma. Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt myself there. Social dilemma is very eye opening. So for your own technology, do you feel like you're spent? I mean, you're here I, that's why I had my fire hydrant on fire. You're here, obviously using technology. Do you feel that you rely on it too much? Are you a scroller? Are you a person? I will tell you personally I have taken the habit of putting. I have taken the habit of putting my phone in my desk drawer because if I am nearby and I see a notification pop up, I have a hard time not picking it up. I am. Yeah, I'm I have a hard time with that. I have a hard time with. This is, uh, this isn't technology, but it is screened recently. I have had this kind of relaxation numbing thing where I have a busy day or a stressful day. I'll end up binge watching two or three episodes of, you know. First, it was Ozark and then lately it's been. Designated survivor where I find myself wasting time and I'm seeing that with a lot of you as well, I think we aren't very good at unplugging ourselves either and I don't think we're very good at, you know. Finding other things that maybe we should be doing that would make us feel better about our time. Again, technology, love, technology and I'll talk about some things I would never give up, but I do find myself kind of dealing with that as a as a personal thing that I want to be connected with my kids. My daughters at the high school and things just changed throughout the day and I think we're all used to that. So the next question respond to this statement. Let's see what you think teachers need to dramatically cut down on assignments that require technology. As you're answering that question, Ashanti, actually, I hope I'm saying that right. At talking about a mini computer, I answer more emails on my phone. Than I probably do on a computer just and it's just the nature of of what my job is. I'm a Union president, so I have a lot of. A lot of questions coming in a lot of text, a lot of emails that are more like that. So I think that that's I think that's hard. Yeah, it's very hard for me to to not to do this so kind of having that. Is there now as far as having to cut down on assignments that require technology? This is a little bit of a complex question because we obviously have to, you know, deal in our in our culture. In our world right now with the inequities of not having. You know that there we don't have equity in who has what. I know in my district I I live in a suburban district. We found that students had devices they did not have Wi-Fi and that was a big thing. We had a bunch of kids. We have a a coffee place that place Tim called Tim Horton's where a lot of the kids were going to get their Wi-Fi. They were sitting outside so that's really interesting too. It's it's a lot of those things, so let's see how. Let's see, I'll give you another minute or so as we're going through that. I think that I think there is the challenge of what we want to do with technology and this is what the focus of the webinar is. Tonight is what do we want to do with technology versus what have we maybe just become accustomed to? As just a matter of course, are the things that are more meaningful to students and my background. Obviously my book is about SCL, that's it. Kathleen Harrington said kids need to learn to speak to one another. Again, voice to voice, face to face, 100% agree, and so a big focus of my book is about how do we take what we've learned during the pandemic, and capitalize on the things that were Silver Linings. And the things that helped us. And how do we just eliminate? We're good, the things that aren't useful for students and that is that is an issue for sure. So I'm gonna go ahead and we'll see how our poll is so. I think Pete. I think you guys this is actually interesting. I'm you're kind of in the group of, uh, where I am. I believe I will. My caveat for this is it definitely matters. The grade. I think some of the younger, the youngest kiddos. I teach 8th grade and I'm a little nervous for, you know, the years from now. Like between now we have to get those kids just socialize more. Able to speak with one another. Learn the social skills, learn the relationship skills. My son is struggling greatly in 8th grade. He was in the middle of 6th grade when we went out, struggling greatly with a 8th grade for so many reasons, but a big part of this, yeah, a big part of this has been the lack of of sort of social skills and knowing how to handle situations so that definitely falls into my background and my my interest in social emotional learning. So what we're going to talk about are three ways to unplug and then I have three. I have 3. The things that the tools that I would not give up for anything I absolutely love and they are really making my life and my students life better. So even though this is daring done, plug-in is also some things I don't want to give up. What I will say about the unplugging is that I feel it comes at a. It comes out at A at a risk in a way, because I feel like so many of the tools that districts are asking us to use our technology based. And so you know we're getting ready to do our New York State 3 through 8 testing and and it is computer based so there is that piece of it. So I'm going to tell you about three different things that I did this year. I actually did the thing I I dared to unplug. I started off the school year. Very low tech with some things I was doing and I periodically give them. Tech breaks, so I'll talk about that. So the very first thing was sketchnoting and so this fall, one of the things I taught my students is how to do visual note taking. I don't think a lot of my students had picked up a pen or pencil during the pandemic because everything was online, but they weren't even like learning to take notes, they weren't learning to think that way. There's a lot of research, so that suggests that the the very act of handwriting notes. Then that's I didn't notice the typo, so I'm mortified. And handwriting notes helps create pathways for recall, and I will, you know, Carmela. I just saw that some teachers have been criticized for using pencil and paper. Absolutely, I find this to be a very sensitive issue. And also Beverly. I'll add to Beverly is talking about mandating the kindergarten students to take the test online. The reason I ever let my daughter touch a computer was because I was on our districts committee about assessments and I found out before she came to school the year before she came to school. At 4:00 that she was gonna be taking a kindergarten test at 5 and it was so hard on me 'cause she didn't. At that point she had never touched the computer so I got her on the computer 'cause I knew that's where the tests were going. Yeah, I agree. The handwriting is is hard to read for sure. So anyway, back to this activity. Sketchnoting what I did is I there's a ton of great videos on YouTube. There's all kind of teachers who are really good at sketchnoting and I do a lesson with my students 'cause I'm not. Good at drawing at all. I'm good at. I think it's more like icons like. I'll draw, you know. I'll have exclamation points. Question marks. I'll underline, I'll highlight, I'll draw boxes. I'll use addition. I'll do those types of things, but the students who really like to draw love this activity. One of the things. That I will tell you is that sketchnoting does require a different type of thinking, but it's a type of thinking that's helpful to students. It does slow them down. What I did, which is interesting is I did this. The sketchnoting. Yeah, absolutely. I think that Sharon was mentioned of trying this out with students. It's very kids. Love this. What I did is I actually have a lesson and you can find it on. Share my lesson. I started the school year with Cruella, the movie Cruella. That's the book I'm working on right now is about using social emotional learning. In movies and I used the movie Corolla and I had the kids just sketchnote ideas things that they notice. So it was a really low. Of low content they were more sketching their emotions about things so they could get used to it and so that was what I did and kids really did love it. And now when I give note taking options I will say OK you can hand in a page of sketch notes you can hand in your sticky notes that you put in your book or you can hand in something you typed up. I don't care how they take notes, but I think it's really important to give them that this opportunity and and you know it's it's fun. It's different. And right now I believe one of the. The task we have at hand is to reconnect with students at school on social, emotional levels, but also on like academic levels of getting them back engaged in school. And what I'm reading from in the notes is that people have really people who've tried sketchnoting have had a lot of success with it with their students, and I I really do find it to be a useful skill. A lot of students always are are they're the doodlers and that's what they do. I like when. Artistic students become the center of attention, sort of unbeknownst to them, there's minor celebrities because they know how to draw, like draw different things. So I would have my students who were good at art give us like a little mini lesson. Like how do you draw a coffee cup? How do you draw this? And they would give us those lessons. So one of the things that was one thing we can do to like stay unplugged. The second thing is I did this around Thanksgiving students. We had them write thank you notes for Thanksgiving and we discussed why a handwritten note that you create yourself can have a special meaning. And this one like I I just adored this one. This is one of my students. My son actually had this teacher Miss Ryder, but she's retired and so I got to mail this to a retired teacher and it says thank you for being my favorite teacher. You really were amazing. You changed my view on how you can make up for things and not stay in trouble. All the assignments you had us do were fun and that's why I'm thinking of you six years later. Thank you. And it was really one of those things that. I I did on a whim, my Co teacher and I really focus on social emotional skills about expressing themselves relationship skills and you know one of the things kids loved this. They really, really did love this and we've done this for years. But for a lot of years we were doing emails we were having them email teachers and this year we decided we would. We would move off of the of the computer, move off of technology and go in this direction and we had such a great response to this. Actually, a student asked me recently she said well at the end of the year, can we do the thank you notes again? You know, maybe we could leave thank you notes for the teachers we're leaving behind 'cause I have 8th graders, which I just thought was really awesome. I don't know if any of you and you can mention chat if you want. If any of you have students ever do thank you notes, the gratitude we are in still a very difficult time and back at Thanksgiving when we were doing this, things were feeling really emotional for a lot of a lot of kiddos and a lot of adults and so helping them. Helping them express some of the things they had that were that they had to feel thankful for. We spent a lot of time talking about. You know what? There's not a lot right at this moment. You know, there's not a lot, and it's a great light. It's a great writing lesson. It is one day lesson. We my my Co teacher made these little you know, little cards for us. We've ordered notecards before. Oh I like put yes that's a cute thing Beverly. Yeah we we made this in and we did it for teachers or or we did it for any adults in the in the there lyrics periods so it could have been like somebody from elementary school and I I love it because I do this every year. My Co teacher and I will get the the text from my you know my friends at the high school or an elementary school teacher or whoever and they'll say like you made my day like this is it and it's so good for the kids. The third thing is bringing back class discussions. And student LED is even better and this is and you can look on share my lesson or you can email me. It's in my it's in my my first book the Flexible ELA classroom. Exactly how rotating chair works, but I'll give you the lowdown. So studenta answers the question posed by the teacher, so I'll ask a question so that student then answers a question and that certainly is then after they answer it, they call on the next student who has raised their hand so. We're in a circle right now. We're in a square in my room right now. So if we're talking about the outsiders, I'll ask a question, student a answers, and then after student a answers looks around the room for a student whose hand is raised student B. And this is the important part. Student B has to respond to begin with by saying I agree with Amber and and add something to it or I disagree with Amber because and explain that I see. Whatever they want to say, but I also think, and so basically studentby then calls on the next interesting student and students see responds to Bob. So this is just a strategy that I use, and I I call it a rotating chair because my professor, who taught me this, you know, 20 years ago, called the rotating chair. It's basically a student LED discussion. I teach a college class and same thing. I teach this because what happens is whenever I want to have a discussion that becomes student LED, I will then tell students I'll say, OK, we're going to go into a rotating chair to talk about that. And that was like a really big piece of this. Is getting students to talk and getting them back into class discussions because it's so hard. It's so hard to get them talking particularly. We are now masculist where I am, but when we had mask it was really hard. It was very, very hard. So that was one of the issues. So those are three that I do. I have a bunch of other ones. Like I said I have. I have like 300 lessons on share my lesson so you can kind of scroll through and see which ones. Our low tech, but these are three that I am using right now. This year I'm using rotating chairs. Now I'm gonna give you a quick a quick thing. It's kind of a trick and it is a high tech way to use this class discussion. So tomorrow I have to be out of school. And my role as Union President. So I have to be out of school. So what I've done is I've set up a in Google Classroom. I have scheduled questions to be posted. I took my period like my period one question one will post at 9:05 and that question will post at 9:05 and students will be responding to the question and then they have to comment on each other's questions. So they're going to be doing a rotating chair digitally when I'm not there, which I think is really cool. And then I can read their conversation later. So even though I did it as a low tech activity in the rotating chair, you can easily translate that into like a high tech activity. It did take me a little while, but there's a way to. Reuse on a post so you can kind of set it up for later, and I did this. Yeah you can do it in flipgrid, but I did this in. I did this in Google Classroom where it says ask a question. You can ask a question and so I basically set up six questions 5 minutes apart for my students to answer tomorrow when I'm not there and they have to respond to each other's comments as well. I did tell them they had five minutes or they only had to answer. Sorry they only had to answer 5 questions out of the six, in case they kind of got really into one of them or, you know was really interested in it and then they had to comment on three other people. Comments and I I did a Guinea pig activity the other day with one of my classes and they loved this. This is to them. This is chatting like this is a group chat is what it is and they their answers were great. I reminded them to be school appropriate and all that, but what I really loved is how encouraging they were. I found so many nice comments. Kids would say like oh that was a good question or that's a good answer. So I think that that's kind of exciting. So the three unplugged that I sort of would draw to your attention would be the sketchnoting, the gratitude that thank you notes. And the rotating chair. So I'm gonna lead you to a poll question. So which unplugged activity appeals to you the most. Here's the sketchnoting, the gratitude writing the student LED discussions, or all of them, or none. I don't see it myself. Using any of these. That's OK too, and I hopefully there's some you know if there are other ideas, definitely put them in the chat. You know I'm not the only one teaching on here. The rest of you are definitely there. But you know, there's everybody in this together right now for sure. So think about which one you would use, or maybe all of them, or maybe none of them. Kind of what you think. I know that the gratitude writing one, if you're not an ELA teacher or you're not a language arts teacher, you might feel funny about doing that as an assignment, but you're all teachers or administrators here, and everybody can kind of agree the day before Thanksgiving. It's probably one of the more useful exercises that you can do. It was torn again. You know I was torn again by this. Like you know, idea of like throwing on a movie. I love movies but I don't want to use him as busy work when I use a movie I wanna use it for a purpose and and for me it's almost always social emotional learning. So this one is is for me. I'm really a really nice one to do as the gratitude when to not waste the day before break. So OK, oh good, I'm happy to see all of them and I'm happy to see that no one thinks they're all bad. You never know. Sometimes there's that one. You know, there's that one kid in class. Sometimes there's that one person who's like no, I wouldn't use your stuff, so that's exciting. The student LED discussions. Kind of edged everybody out. But then I the all of them makes me happy too. And they are all easy to implement and they are all activities that do not require a lot of setup. They also don't require you to purchase anything, which I'm really cognizant. I like things I can kind of come up with on my own. Again, that's why I push my and, you know, use free resources like share my lesson. Alright, so now that we have the three ways that you can like low tech with their students, there's three ways to make tech work for you and your students, so let me. Talk about the tools, the different things that have helped my students greatly. These are three tools that were life changing for my students. I'm going to give you some activities, some ideas with them. I if you have not used Ed puzzle, I don't even know how to begin to tell you how good Ed puzzle is. Ed puzzle and it was funny. A math teacher told me about Ed puzzle. Ed Puzzle is a. It's a platform where there are videos. And the videos have multiple choice or open-ended questions that are embedded in the videos and you can set the videos so that students have to watch the whole video for completion. You can have it that they have to answer questions as they go as a part of the the the assignment. It's amazing they are editable. It works with Google Classroom. Well that's where I post them really. Important lets the teacher know that I'm on task. If students are not doing well and they're doing. If they're not doing well, it's so important to me that. I am able to look to see well did they rush or do they really not know this? Like what what is going on so knowing the time on task is a big one. It does allow teachers to prevent skipping. Students can't just skip the video and you know rush through it. It is so helpful. I absolutely love and puzzle and when I first heard of it I wasn't really sure about it, but I've made my own Ed puzzle. I was at one point quarantine so I videotaped myself teaching the lesson. Uploaded it to add puzzle. Put in my own questions. Love doing that. The other thing I would say is I search on puzzle all the time. I just search it. There's for example for the outsiders. There are a lot of people. Who posted themselves reading because I do want my children and my students to have that option of of reading of hearing it and what they do, which is kind of cool is. What they do is they will post it and then those students will be able to listen to it, but they'll have questions intermittently to stop to make sure students are understanding. Look at it, I just saw somebody look it is. Amazing as well. This is look at came to me because my own student or my own children came home talking about it. All students are on task absolutely on task all the time. I've I've never had a class where students did not want to play book yet the gamification aspect allows the review to be fun without singling out lower students. This is super important to me because I am a I'm a inclusion. I have an inclusion teacher. I have an ICT setting for two of my classes and I don't want students to feel they never. Can kind of compete and that the high students will always win. All of that is taken out of look at because the wave look at works is there's a lot of game like gaming in it where you can steal somebody's gold, or you can knock down their tower so it's a review that is competitive, but the competition has a bit of luck involved in it as well. There's a little bit of strategy so it is not simply who is the smartest one in the room is going to win. It's nothing like that. Novelty of it? It's really fun, yeah, the novelty of it is is great. It is a lot like kahoot it. It even feels like it looks like kahoot a lot too, but it has this gamification part of it that that I like. You can also import from quizlet, which you know I'm old school. I have. I don't know tons of quizlets over the years that I've made. So you can import it easily from quizlet. I saw quizizz. Yeah Quizizz is a big one. My social studies on my team she. That's what she she uses quizizz all the time. These are again things that I've learned that kids love. That they really loved and that they worked well. For sure what I'll say about the puzzle is I. I teach grammar. I'm an English teacher. I teach grammar, but kids struggle with grammar all the time, every single time they struggle with grammar, and one of the things that they struggle. With is using commas with coordinating conjunctions and complete sentences. We during the pandemic my Co teacher and I were like look, they still have to learn this. So we found a bunch of Ed puzzles and it was a lot of drill like it was a every day to start class. They did a Quick guide puzzle reviewing it and even teaching virtually even teaching in like sort of this ridiculous pandemic way that we were when we used Ed puzzle to help kids. With the grammar aspects our scores on my comma test with that teaches appositives list introductory phrases and commas and fanboys that quiz that. I gave my students last year during the pandemic at home in this horrible condition. Did better than I've ever had, as my students results, so that's where I was really sold on Ed. Puzzle is there. Sometimes they use technology where it's to get the drilling in. That is fun and I just saw the results with that puzzle. Look at super fun kids love it. Google sweet. Obviously I think a lot of people lived in this world where you had to have a Google Classroom students arm. Real already familiar with it actually real quick. Before I go onto this one. Seeing people nickname, nickname Solutions is good, so if you're scrolling, look at what people are saying about the nickname solutions, 'cause that is always an issue. I teach 8th grade. There is always someone who wants to have some inappropriate name, and so we kind of have our ground rules for that as well. But it is kind of fun too. So anyway, back to going sweet students are already familiar with it. Now is the time to deepen their knowledge because they have a very, very cursory knowledge of Google Sweet. My students there were so many things that they did not know even though they spent a lot of time using Google over the pandemic, they do not have a lot of that allowing the collaboration, there's career skills. There's a portability for their information, so I'm going to show you I'm going to walk through and kind of give you some examples of what this looks like, so this is an example of an Ed puzzle that I made. So this ad puzzle kind of walks through thesis statements, which was difficult, and so you can see that it has multiple choice points. Throughout over here, and this is an example of a multiple choice point, and this is the data that it gives you, and this is important like you can bind the information about the students about the groups. I definitely love this and so that's what it looks like, so I'm going to show you a video of blue kit in my classroom because if you are not sold on this I think you would absolutely agree. When you see this. Kind of where the reason I would want to do it, so this is this is my classroom and my kids. Round. Yeah. I'm worried though. Sorry guys, I'm not sure what happened there, I don't. I'm going to stop it 'cause I'm not really sure what you guys were able to see, so I'm sorry about that. What I will say is you could hear it is that that chatter that like live chatter was super important and that's what you're aiming for in your classroom, so this may go into the video clip. We'll see what happens. I have no idea why it's playing like that, so I'm gonna jump ahead. So sorry about that. Oh OK, good so it looks like we did see the kids so I'm gonna jump ahead. Those. I mean, those are my students and they they love it and they had a good time what? Sorry about that. What I will show you though, is one of the tools that is super important. For using Google Suite and using for in particular using documents and being able to give students some feedback as it as they are going, I have the private comments. I remind them and this is this is cute 'cause this is my thesis statement lesson and I taught them how to make three part thesis statements and you know, I was able to get them started and figuring out where this is and. They I had told them they had to highlight their thesis statement and she had not originally highlighted it. So she went back and highlighted it for me and what was cute is she left her three and her numbers in for her three reasons. So I'm able to tell them, tell her to take the numbers out and kind of walk through that. That is the kind of feedback that can happen live. So my students are typing working in my class. I do not give homework, but that's an entirely different web and RI do not give homework. So they are working on this in class and So what happens is I go into their documents and comment as they go. If I see a kid who needs encouragement, that's what I'm I'm I'm flipping through if kids are way on their right track, I can stop them. If things are not going well. If they don't have a thesis statement. If it's not right, I can do all those things. So even though I'm in the room and it's silent, I'll have you know, I have, like you know, classical guitar music playing, and they're all typing while they're typing, I'm. On their documents, checking to see how they're doing, and I don't know if a lot of other teachers do that, but it really is. I do love Google collaborating with students as well. I think that that's really important. Is letting them do that? I actually have a couple of projects where I allow them to collaborate and they have to. Just like adults. You don't want to let your project get handed in with common mistakes and so everybody is editing, everybody is working, so it is. It was very cool to do so. I wanted to show you that as an example, again of a higher tech thing. So between Ed puzzle book it and Google Sweet, I would say that that is the use of my technology. Uhm? That's pretty much where I've kept technology because I also incorporate the other low tech skills and those low tech things, and so that's really where where I've been and the things I wanted to share with you is we can reset how we use technology in a way that makes sense for us. The way that makes sense for us, but also a way that makes sense for our students. Recognizing that we're in a different time and and the the rules have all changed and I I do think it is daring to unplug because we have become reliant ourselves on technology. Don't get me wrong, I believe 100% that students need to be able to use technology, but I think when everything was technology we lost a little bit. And I think we need that as particularly discussion part to come back. So we're going to do a poll question. Which tech activity appeals to you the most ad puzzle book it Google Suite or all of them? Or none of them. I don't see myself using any of these. Like I said, if you have the Littles, the little kids, it might be harder. I can't imagine the difficulty and whoever is out there hearing this. The crazy difficulty of the the teachers who are teaching like the lower elementary grades. I can't even imagine one of my very best friends is a. She is a Chihuahua. She just retired. She was a kindergarten teacher and what she was doing was amazing but also crazy and so it's definitely one of the things that that that really catches my attention when I think about the technology use that we had here. Alright so go ahead and get your vote in your poll for which activity you like the most. Jamboard I actually just was I I did a I I did a. Robin R. Recently, where there was a jam board involved, there's also a padlet I. I just learned a little bit about padl it. I have a webinar for the Association of middle level educators coming out in early April and the participants are leaving notes for each other and as a as a sort of feedback tool in padlet for that. So I'm going to check that out for students as well. Let's see how we feel about these ad puzzle. I like the fact that people are willing to use all of them. Add puzzle is is really great and again if you have little kids matter entirely, sure how it all ties together there. That is definitely a complication for sure. So really you have to find the sweet spot and there's this moment in between where you have low tech activities and you have high tech activities and you really need to look at two things. One of them is engagement and engagement. Right now I think is a huge issue. I don't know about all of you, but I spent a portion of this winter trying to pull my students. Out of themselves, they were so shut down that they were too nervous to to talk in clowns. They weren't contributing. They were. They were much more comfortable behind their screens, but I like some of you are noticing. I was feeling very uncomfortable with their lack of social skills. Their lack of just chatting. Everybody is done that you know you at the end of class I would say, OK, everybody there's you know 3 minutes left everybody you can chat amongst yourselves in my room would be dead silent. And it just it made my stomach hurt because I knew it was because they really didn't know how to talk to each other. And that was so hard. So one of the things that's been really helpful is when I have those at the end of class. You know, 3 minutes I will throw up. And this is kind of mixing things together. I'll throw up on my smart board. Just a random. Would you rather question and then we have a conversation and I I kind of do that one. And and like, make sure that there's some engagement at the end with each other. You also have to look at proven results. I mean, my comma test was never better than when we have used Ed puzzle and I have taught commas for 22 years and the most success I had was during a pandemic where it was online teaching just really showed me exactly. Yep, Felicia 2 truths and a lie is great. I mean I have a bunch of would you rathers queued up? I have a bunch of you know and it's funny 'cause it's middle school. We'll do, you know what's grosser than gross, we'll do. I do a stand up sit down, stand up, sit down is just where you have a question and you'll tell the students OK. Stand up if you're an only child. Sit down, stand up. If you like broccoli you know, sit down and it's just a up, down, up, down. That kind of gets them moving. So for me that low tech stuff is really where I hit the social emotional things and that's my particular. That's my particular background. That's my passion is making sure that I'm meeting the social and emotional needs of students. While I'm academically preparing them, which is where that happens with the high tech, the high tech things there and so that that engagement and that sweet spot those things I think are really, really important. So the last thing I wanna talk about is the opportunity to win one of my books tonight. I'm gonna be giving if you're on here live I am gonna be giving away five books about 9:30. I'm going to have to share my lesson people my people send me 5 random names of people who were here tonight and then I will announce on Twitter who those winners are. Then I'll DM you and get your address and I will have my publisher send you the books. And so I'm really excited for the opportunity to connect with some of you that way as well. I am A and you'll hear this probably from me a lot. I'm very, very big with Twitter because. There's a excellent community I chose years ago. Actually my first book, my my publisher, said you have to have a Twitter so. I gotta Twitter. I thought that only people like the Kardashians use Twitter. I had no idea what Twitter was for so I made this plan that I would just put only so if you follow me you'll only see academic stuff. I only have education stuff on my Twitter and it's awesome because I can ask a question on Twitter and I can say, does anybody have a fun sketchnoting video and within a couple of minutes I will have links to them. People are great so I would love it if you would follow me on Twitter. You can also email me at my it's my miss Amber Chandler. At gmail.com, if you need a resource. If you have questions if you ever want to collaborate on anything, I am very very responsive. In my email my website isflexibleclass.com tons of resources on my website. You can kind of get a feel. There's some, it's more. It's definitely a social emotional learning. Slant to things, but a lot of my lessons are there. My webinars are there as well. One of the things that I would say to you is also to check out my share. My lesson. I am a partner. I have over 300 resources uploaded and it's great to be able to just like look up a lesson on Romeo and Juliet and scan through and they're vetted. So if you would make sure that you follow me, I think we're going to go to a question and answer now and again. Stay tuned. I will be at 9:30 posting the winners on Twitter. So let's see, let's see. Sorry I love cats and learning that that that one is good for me. I saw someone, sweaters on cats and learning. So at this point I know this is some upcoming things I don't know. I don't know if Caitlin wants to jump in and and take any questions. Yeah, we're going to jump right into that. I just wanted to make sure that you were all good. Amber, thank you so much for this presentation. I think everybody really got a lot out of it and it's so timely and every something everybody has to deal with right now. So thank you so much we do. Have questions if if you ate as a participant. Has any questions, please post them in the Q&A. Box which is on the Q&A widget on your right side of the of the browser page. So Amber I guess I I like to start by asking. Are there any other tech materials you'd recommend? Anything that you didn't get to talk about that maybe you'd wanna add? Yeah, actually it's interesting because the as always, the participants really know a lot of these things already. For example, I think that the padlet Jamboard those are recommendations. Cahoot Cahoot looks a lot like looking. I feel like they might be I. I think you might find out somehow that they are. The owners are the same somehow. But Kihuen book it. I don't know if anybody mentioned this, but my my teenager makes cahoots with her friends like they. They love it that much. So that's that's another on another one. So those are the ones I would look at. There's so many and there's always something new around the corner. Definitely look to your students and listen to what they're doing in their other classes. To other teachers are great at this. I teach class for teachers at Canisius College and they are always coming in with like some new idea or something that they'd heard about. So I'm always on the lookout. Or something new, but those are. Those are some tried and true ones for sure. Excellent, we do have time just for one more, but since this is the final hour and I Oh yeah, here we go. Sonya Thomas asks do you have any outdoor related low tech ideas? Anything you've come across? You know sometimes when I was when I was hearing you talk about kids with their phones I was like that Pokémon Go early or at least gotten outside like I don't know if you've ever come across that. Ansonia is curious as well. So what I do is low tech. I do like to get the kids outside as well. One of the things we do in April is we do poetry on the sidewalks so we you know get get sidewalk chalk. Definitely get permission to do this. I did not get permission my first year as a teacher doing this and you should get permission. My principal is happy with it but he's like what are you doing? Basically 'cause everybody looks out the windows and sees you and your students outside. So we were we were leaving. We've we've left messages. I know that we went outside and did that again. A lot of my things. Kind of tie into social emotional learning. We do outdoor breaks one when it's nice outside the last 10 minutes I'll get my kids outside and we'll do like a big duck duck goose and I know that sounds insane for like a middle school, but you have no idea they they can be very very persuaded to be super goofy and they love that. And it really does knock down those defenses of, you know, not wanting to talk in class. If if you chase somebody around playing Duck Duck Ghost, you'll probably share something in class with them. Well, that's I would. I would play duck, duck, Duck, goose now and I'm in my early 30s so I'm with you. Well, Amber Chandler thank you so much for your presentation on getting unplugged. We really appreciate having you here for virtual conference and we appreciate everyone who came out tonight. We really love doing this for everyone. It's a it's a great pleasure of ours and we do have. One more short reminder. Video before we close out, be sure to download your certificate, your certificates and enjoy the rest of your evening. Thanks again, Amber, no problem. Thank you all so much. Be in touch. Hi everyone, Kelly booze rejoining you again. I hope you enjoyed today's webinar as much as I did. I want to go over a couple reminders and I have one big favor to ask of you. First, you should now be able to download that PDF certificate for your participation. Today you can access that PDF certificate using one of the widgets, the one with the checkbox. 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