Five simple tips for teachers to get the most out of Firefly
Firefly is a great way to set and organise work remotely. During normal schooling, I mostly use it to record homework tasks so that no-one has an excuse that they did not know what to do! During lock-down, its remote learning potential comes into its own. Here are five simple tips to make the most out of Firefly.
1.
Always require students to submit a file before they can mark it as done. Do this for every task even if the task would not obviously need one. For example, I had students work through a question at Oxplore, with the consolidation work to follow in the next lesson. To make sure they actually went to Oxplore, I asked them to take three photographs as they scrolled through one of the questions and then upload them.
This makes sure that students cannot mark something as done if they haven’t done it!
2.
Always upload worksheets as attachments (or embed them) even if pupils are just writing an essay. I teach an essay subject and would normally be happy for students to write on file paper but there are two problems with doing this during remote learning.
First, because students are writing at home it is impossible to properly encourage them to take the time they need. An attachment with a writing box nudges them to fill the time.
Second, if they can download an attachment it encourages them to write their answers in Word and easily upload them. This avoids the problems of having to read poor handwriting, receiving files in weird formats, or having to tilt your head 90 degrees to read photographed work (if you have access to Microsoft365, using Office Lens can fix this).
3.
Make use of the forum feature. We also use Microsoft Teams, where channels are good way to have class discussions but Firefly has a similar feature. Go to the parent resource where you would like the forum to sit. In my case, I have a teacher page that sits under our departmental page. You might have a class page. Click “Create” then chose “Forum” under “More Templates.”
So that students engage in a debate, rather than simply make a comment and leave, I set a rule that they have to make one original comment and reply to TWO others.
Forums is something that Firefly could improve as the formatting is a little clunky. Teams does a better job of threading comments, for example, although in both cases, students need to be coached on the difference between making a new comment and replying to an earlier one.
4.
Try to embed everything you want to use to the Firefly task or page. Talking to my students, they prefer it if everything is in one place rather than having to open multiple links or tabs or download lots of files. This is an example of a forum task set by a colleague. Everything needed to participate is all on one page and therefore much simpler to access.
5.
Always archive tasks once they are finished. As a parent of children who use Firefly, I know they get anxious when it appears that their dashboard is clogged up with tasks. Often, many of these tasks have been done but teachers have not archived them. So, this is a plea to teachers from students: mark work then archive the task!
Any other tips or simple hacks? Please share in the responses below or find me on Twitter @ronanhead.
