So, if you are following my blog you may have realized that there has been a larger break between posts than last year. With the privilege of becoming NextGen, I was like a kid in a candy store. I over indulged in finding new apps, integrating devices into the lessons, searching for the newest-coolest ideas, finding time to play and plan it all, and stayed up late to write all about it. It was a delicious experience, but not always the most balanced or healthy.
This year I have found time to cook healthy (literally) , start running, manage a statewide dance assessment, serve on my state organization, and continue to care for my 2 amazing children and my talented and fearless students. This balance has brought a little bit more focus to both my classroom and personal goals, something all of us educators should work to remember. Now that does NOT mean that I do not have any dance-tech inspired fun to share! So what have we been up to?! Get ready it’s a long one!
Since my last post, we have wrapped up our Spring Show season! The students always celebrate by watching the full length show and writing a critique of both the show and themselves. Our room looked like a glow in the dark park! iPads and Chromebooks and Google, oh my!! Using Google Classroom we posted a Form we created that gathered all of their critiques into one handy location for easy grading, in the same fashion that we evaluate in-class combos. It’s a great way to use the Substitution portion of the SAMR model, incorporate ELA, practice critique skills, and give another writing assignment to the gradebook. It also keeps “everyone” engaged while watching the video. Bonus? Students that were absent could use the video and form links to complete the assignment at home!
After that was the lovely FitnessGram. As students completed the required events, we used various fitness apps to complete the days lesson or provide activities for those that were complete while absent students made up their work. One of my favorite apps is Nike Training Club and another is Abs Workout by Passion4Profession. Both are semi-customizable and easy to follow. Can use music from the app or play your own from your device.
Following that was Spring Break!!
So you can see where that 3 week gap was not the most write-worthy….
When we returned from Spring Break, it was back to the classroom for all classes. We continued to use Google Slides for our daily journal/vocab/lesson presentation, Google classroom for journaling, and Google Sheets/Classroom for vocabulary posting, Google Forms for self-evaluation of their dance, and completed the unit taking their quiz through Google Forms.
Dance 1 & 2 began it’s modern history unit with a history presentation using eMaze, If you have never seen eMaze before you really should! You can create new or give your old power points a facelift! https://www.emaze.com/@AFQQRRIO/modern-history-dance-1
They took notes on a sheet delivered in Google Forms.
Jazz began it’s Broadway unit, recording their vocab, completing self-assessments, and testing as described in other activities above. Ballet not only recorded their journals & vocab too, but they also got to practice their new center ballet positions by using the Mimio board to match pictures with position names and position names with definitions. It was a visual and physically interactive way to learn new material. I am getting my student teacher brave about exploring technology for our lessons as well. I introduced her to Classkick as an option for a summative assessment of their new vocabulary. She enjoyed creating, delivering, and grading it. It is a highly engaging way to take a test. Teachers can watch the progress live while students, listen, draw, and insert pictures for their answers. (We did prepare the day prior to the test by Airdropping all of the pictures they would need into their camera rolls). Here is a fun look inside the test!
Dance Educators got very busy teaching at multiple schools this semester. To stay organized as a class we relied heavily on GroupMe, Remind, and of course Classroom. They created lesson intros on Google Slides as needed and made playlists in iTunes for class materials.
Dance and Media began their exploration into video dance as an expressive art form. During a day I was absent, video examples and assigned questions were loaded into classroom to view and analyze before their 1st project. Then from the curriculum, we began to explore social issues and social change. After students picked a topic, they use the Diamante Poem app to create a poem to share with the class. After some lessons on choreography from the poem/social issue, students began to plan their lesson and shoot their footage.
Final products were edited using Musemage, Perfect Video, Quik, iMovies all with both their cool features and their limitations. Here are a few examples of the student products.
So, you can see we have managed to stay busy (and paper-free). Proud of all of the hard work happening here at Cedar Ridge. I hope the Spring doesn’t keep me from you for long. Sneak peek for next posts: Bonus issue-”Practice What you Preach” and “Operation Project Station”