Mr. Marchyok and Xavier

in , ,

Mr. Marchyok helping a student edit his writing using Google Docs...

Today I was visiting Mr. Marchyok's classroom and saw something that made more greatly appreciate what technology in our classrooms can do when we think about it differently. As I entered the room I noticed that his students were working on their Chromebooks. As I walked around the room, I noticed that the students were working on biographies. I noticed that Xavier was writing about Rock and Roll guitarist Jimi Hendrix. As I walked around the room I noticed that Mr. Marchyok was also working on his computer, and when I got close I could see that he had Xavier's Jimi Hendrix document open and was basically conducting a writing conference with him via the chat feature built into Google Docs. With Google Docs users can share documents and view and work on them in real time.

Using Google Docs and the Hapara Teacher Dashboard program Mr. Marchyok, and our other 4th and 5th grade teachers, are able to conduct writing conferences on the fly with students. In this example Mr. Marchyok was using the Teacher Dashboard to quickly view what students were working on and to open those documents and provide feedback and encouragement. Something different than collecting notebooks, shlepping them home, writing responses with a red pen, and then redistributing them to students the next day.

Moves: An iOS app to keep track of how much you move…

in

moves app moves app

Moves is an iOS app that tracks your physical activity through the course of the day. It keeps track of mileage, steps, and the amount of time you are engaged in a particular activity. It can also determine the type of activity you are engaged in, for example distinguishing between running, walking or cycling. No need to turn it on say before a run or bike ride, it just runs in the background and figures out the type of activity you are engaged in and tracks it. If by chance it doesn't quite get it right, you have the option to change the type of activity logged.

I've been using it for a few weeks and am finding it useful to keep track of my activity and somewhat motivating too.