Episode #25: ToonDoo & Speed Presentations

On this weeks segment of the Donatelli Edzone, learn how you can use ToonDoo to create innovative comic strips, help students imrpove their communication skills with speed presentations, and laugh/be inspired with a joke & quote!

If you liked this weeks video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel HERE. Thank you!  

5 Creative Ways To Use Weebly In Schools

Weebly gives millions of people a surprisingly easy and affordable way to create a website that is as unique as they are. With a Weebly site, people can start their own business, communicate with their clients, showcase their achievements, and be an authority on personal and professional interests.

In 2015, Matt Bergman and I gave a presentation at the PETE & C (Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo & Conference) to showcase how Weebly can be used by educators and students to create organizational websites, digital e-folios, teacher class websites, summative projects, and district resources for schools. Here is the link to the (FREE GOOGLE DOCS RESOURCE) sheet from our presentation. Please explore the examples and let me know if I can answer any questions for you regarding how you can use this awesome software in your classroom  to engage students in project based learning!  

Endless EdMagic With Flipgrid

If you weren't at ISTE following along via social media or were too exhausted at the end of the year to care about any new technology, chances are you haven't heard of Flipgrid yet. The software is as the kids say today, "LIT!" As Karly Moura states in her awesome blog post "15 ways to use Flipgrid in your classroom," Flipgrid is a video response platform where educators can have online video discussions with students or other educators. Teachers can provide feedback to students AND better yet students can provide feedback to one another. Flipgrid empowers and amplifies student voice. You create the topics. Students respond with video, and everyone engages!

Check out my EDUCATOR GRID that I created to better network and learn from fellow educators. I would love to hear your video responses about your "Best Educator Tip" you have to share with others!

Flipgrid has tons of videos to help you get started if you are a newbie HERE.

What I want to do in this post is build off of Karly's article and highlight more ways that Flipgrid can be used by educators, parents, administrators, and coaches alike inside and outside of the classroom.

1. Personalize PLN's: I couldn't help but notice on Twitter how many people at ISTE were "shocked" when they ran into someone in person that they chat with every week online. Flipgrid can help break the 140 character barrier and give people a deeper way to learn from each other using audio and visual. It will also build stronger and more meaningful relationships.

2. Flipped Twitter Chats: Twitter chats are one of the most powerful ways educators learn from each other today. With anything that has been around for a while, they get stale. Flipgrid can flip Twitter chats upside down by using video response to questions instead of text. Instead of having eight questions to respond to really fast while trying to read what everyone is typing, you can take your time, thoughtfully respond to a topic, then engage and debate with whomever you agree/disagree with.

3. Inspiration/Faculty Meetings: At the beginning of the school year, the principal usually gives an inspiring presentation filled with vision, goals, etc. Throughout the busy school year, these visions and goals can get lost. Leaders can use Flipgrid to provide weekly/monthly inspirational videos for teachers. It can also be used to spark conversation before or after faculty meetings. Before to pose a question for all to think about. After to gather questions and answers faculty may have had but didn't get answers to.

 4. Administrator Feedback: As an aspiring administrator, I thought about how I could use this tool with the educators that I lead someday. Meaningful feedback to educators is often one of the things that is hardest for administraots to do because of time. With Flipgrid, leaders can offer feedback to teachers anytime, anywhere. Also, it can be used to share best practices within a school and to cultivate a culture of learning and growth.

5. Public Speaking: I have my students do a lot of public speaking in my classes. One of their comments to me at the end of the year is "we wish we had more time to practice our public speaking skills." With Flipgrid, you can inegrate public speaking into almost every unit. Students get to practice their facial expressions, voice control, language, etc. Also, with the classroom version, students can comment and give feedback on each others videos!

6. District/ParentCommunication: Community members and parents are always curious as to what's going on in the district and classrooms. Flipgrid is an excellent tool that allows leaders and teachers to share news through a creative way and take questions based on their videos.

7. Clubs/Sports: Clubs and sports teams can use Flipgrid for various things as well: Brainstorming ideas, sharing important news, getting community involvement, and creating rich discussions.

If you can think of any other ways Flipgrid can be used in or outside of classroom, please comment below. Flipgrid Fever is real!