What's the point of social media?

Good morning y'all!

I have a lot of thoughts swirling in my mind this morning, stemming from a 7:30 am wake-up call with a technology question from my mom's best friend, to news out of Silicon Valley about Facebook, and a great post from a friend and colleague, @aadamsELA. All three of these things have one common connection: social media. I'd love to quote Beyoncé when she says, "Who runs the world? Girls!" because, really, social media runs the world.

I am not immune to this - I love social media as much as the next person. It can be a time sucker if you let it. But it all comes down to how you use social media in your life. That's the focus that I want for this post. What's the point of social media? To me, social media comes down to the desire to make and share who you are and what you do.

Facebook: I deleted my Facebook two years ago, and I haven't looked back. People that know me might say, "Wait a minute..." Yes, I have access to my husband's Facebook. Yes, I have a Facebook page for my photography. But the account that I started in college, in 2004, no longer exists. I do not spend my time mindlessly scrolling through everyone's lives. I do miss catching up on my friends and family's lives, but it wasn't worth it for all of the ridiculousness. I am SO glad that I didn't have Facebook during the election.

Twitter: I have my professional Twitter that I use for all school-related things. I am 100% appropriate and non-political. I've curated a great PLN and have made some fantastic connections. I also have a personal Twitter that I use all things NON-school related. I am 100% inappropriate and overshare my political views. Only friends follow me - it's basically become my Facebook feed had I still had one. It is not a watch to catch up with me but instead is a way to be annoyed by my "know-it-all" behavior.

Snapchat: This is arguably my favorite social media app because I enjoy taking pictures of my day and being stupid. I love that the pictures disappear after 24 hours! You don't need, forever, to see a video of my cats chasing a spider, or me making espresso in the morning, or of someone's car with a Hawkeye sticker in a parking lot. I have some family members and close friends on Snapchat and even have a sisters chat going. This is what I use instead to keep in touch with others while also letting people know that I'm alive and okay in Colorado.

Instagram: This is 100% professional. I only post my photography, and if I do a live story, it's while I'm out shooting. I follow other photographers so that I can learn from the best. I probably use Instagram "wrong," but it works for what I need it to be - a platform for curating and sharing photography. I would also liken it to Redbubble which I use to share and sell my photography. I did recently start an Instagram for my broadcasting class. I am using it to share behind the scenes images of what my kids are doing. I would like my students to take it over, but they haven't gotten excited enough about it... yet...

Goodreads: This is also one of my favorite social media platforms, but not many people I know are on it. That's because most people don't have (or don't take) time to read! If you don't know what Goodreads is, it's an application where people post what they're currently reading, can read (and post) reviews of books, and can be recommended books. They also have a reading challenge (last year I read 54 books) where you can challenge yourself to read a certain amount of books. What's cool is that I see what people are reading, look at the plot, and decide if I want to read it too. I've found a number of books that I would not have found (and read) otherwise. I also like that I've been on Goodreads since 2011 so I can reminisce about what I've read in that time frame.

Spotify: This is probably the most used app on my phone. I listen to music while I get ready in the morning, on the way to work, at work, on the way home, and before I go to bed. We got a Google Home in September, so we also listen to music while we lesson plan or work around the house. I like seeing what people are listening to and enjoy sharing my playlists with others.

So with that, I encourage you to think about your social media accounts and how you use them daily. Is there a purpose? If you believe so then keep it up! If you don't, ask yourself why you don't delete your account. Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

#satchat gratitude

Happy Saturday everyone! Hopefully, everyone is ready for a restful and relaxing week... as long as you have the week off, right?!

Last night at yoga, we were challenged, when stressed, to think of ways to demonstrate gratitude. As it is Thanksgiving week, I figured it would be apropos to blog about gratitude. It's been a stressful and trying year, so I should be grateful for many, many things.

My husband: Not only do we share love and companionship but we also both teachers. Even though our lives are incredibly taxing and we argue about school, we respect each other enough to be sounding boards. Sometimes we need to bounce ideas off of one another and other times we just need to vent. I can't imagine spending my teaching career with anyone else - no one else quite understands the trials and tribulations of this occupation. I can't imagine being with anyone else as we just understand each other, and have a shared ridiculous amount of love for our furry babies.

My friends: I have many friends that love and support me. Even though we are all stressed out, we can be there for each other when we need it. Sometimes it's for happy hour or a yoga class, or supporting my obsession with the Cubs during the World Series. They are my people and they are my family away from "home."

My family: I miss them dearly every day while I'm out in the Mountain West. It makes me happy to know that they are only a day's drive away if I need to visit. I am glad that I have been able to travel multiple times in the past year to see them. I am lucky that we have a good long distance relationship so that we can celebrate across the phone or internet. I am fortunate to have such good people in my life!

My Twitter family: Even though most are completely random strangers, they've impacted my professional career more than they know. In a time of, usually, awful PD, they've given me new ideas for my classroom and refreshed my excitement for my career. I am so grateful that any time I am down on my job, I go to Twitter for some renewing.

My job: Every job is frustrating and infuriating, not only my own. Sometimes I need to keep that in perspective. Especially considering that I work with some awesome people, have a supportive admin, have the flexibility to make my classroom my own, and have 1:1 devices that spur my creativity. We had a staff meeting this past week with the CEO of D49, and it reminded me how lucky I am to work in a fantastic district. I have a sweet schedule and set-up - I would not be as lucky elsewhere.

I could keep going on and on, but I will leave you with a list of "little" things for which I'm also grateful: Canon EOS 80Ds, espresso machines, Spotify, yoga, Younger, Kindle Paperwhites, avocados, and pickle popcorn.

Thanks for reading! Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and I'll see you in two weeks!

- Rachel
@historicalipad
My Teacherspayteachers website

40 hour work weeks???

Good morning colleagues! I was scrolling through Twitter this week when I stumbled across a post about teachers saving time.

5 Powerful Ways to Save Time as a Teacher https://t.co/mDgim96y1m #worklifebalance #timemanagement

— Jennifer Gonzalez (@cultofpedagogy) August 11, 2016

I thought the article was quite good, and it made me think about how I've learned to save time over the last ten years of teaching. 

Once I started teaching with iPads, my work life balance went completely out the window. I felt like my teaching career was going down the drain (i.e. I had concerns that I was going to get fired), so I put more time and effort into my job to be the best teacher I could be. That meant that I was working 10-11 hours a day through lesson prep, teaching, and grading/feedback. I was trying to do it all, and I was burning myself out quickly. I really had to take a good look at what I was doing to find a healthy balance and cut out what I didn't NEED to be doing anymore. Having 1:1 technology in my classroom worked in my favor to make these changes. 

This last week, I was still working 10 hour days, but that was because of meeting with teachers who needed support in their class. Hopefully this next week slows down. But here are some things that I'm doing to support myself in having a life outside of my profession. 

1. This summer, I finalize my flipped learning. Part of this was to get it posted on Teachers Pay Teachers, but part of it was to simplify my life. I realized that I was having the students take quizzes, create sketchnotes, post reading discussions... and I couldn't keep up with all of the grading. The reason I was doing flipped learning was to ensure that students were accessing content information, and a quiz could easily tell me if they were paying attention. Schoology quizzes aren't perfect, but they work fine for what I need and it grades the quizzes automatically. Problem. Solved. Now I just do a quick check every morning to make sure students are completing the quizzes, and then send weekly missing assignment notices and D/F e-mails to keep parents informed (Infinite Campus is not the best, but their messenger functionality is top notch! Such a time saver!). Keeping parents informed is incredibly important as it sets a tone that I communicate with parents and care about my students.
2. I've started using Socrative in the classroom a lot! I've heard of Socrative for five years now, but never understood the hype and never really gave it a shot. Last year, I would use Kahoot as a formative assessment, but ISTE and GAFE hit home why Kahoot is not all that great. Yes, it is fun, and I will still use it for fun in my class, but some students are slower processors. Why am I punishing them for not being a fast clicker? Anyway, Socrative is amazing as I can do quick checks or exit tickets, or can do full on quizzes or a Space Race. I can then download reports of their answers, and now I am in the process of moving the information to a massive Google Sheet to show their growth over a unit. I am finally figuring out how to progress monitor, and have data that I can show my evaluator!

The blog post also listed five ways to save time, so I thought I would break those down as well.

1) Eliminate unintentional breaks.

I've realized that I cannot have much going on in the background when I work. I definitely CANNOT have the tv on as background noise because I will watch whatever's on tv. The best thing for me (and my coffee addiction, but not my wallet) is to go to a coffee shop and work for 3-4 hours. This also ties in to #5 below as I have a set time where I work.

2) Figure out The Main Thing and do it first.

I'm pretty bad at this one as I do all of the simple tasks first to avoid what I really need to get done. The big thing that I procrastinate the most at is grading, so I need to make sure grading gets done at school and use weekend time to plan for the next week of school. I have started to schedule meetings with people, so I don't let them do a "fly by" to my classroom to ask me a question. "Need video, blogging, Google help? Let's find a time this week for you to come by." This way I am using my plan time for what I need. And if a teacher doesn't want to schedule that time, then the question probably was not that important. AND this sets boundaries with my colleagues so they know I am not always available (plus I am not an instructional coach anyway!)

3) Work ahead by batching and avoid multi-tasking unless the work is mindless.

I am pretty inefficient with batching work. The best example of this is that I leave my e-mail open all day and reply to e-mails as soon as I can. I need to close my e-mail so that I reply to all e-mails at the beginning or end of the day where I'm focused on the task at hand: e-mailing.

4) Look for innovative ways to relax any standards that create unnecessary work.

I am a perfectionist when it comes to my classroom and curriculum, so I need to relax my standards. Step one for this this year was to allow flexible seating and make my students clean up the classroom at the end of each day. I do not need to do this for my students - they can be responsible for moving a chair to a stack in the classroom, or putting a yoga ball under the table. AND not everything has to be perfect at all times; I have to decide what the priority is and focus on that.

5) Use scheduling to create boundaries around your time.

I am started working on this last year, and am trying to amp it up this year. I told myself, leave school at 4. 7 am - 4 pm is a 9 hour day. I don't need to work more than 9 hours a day. I will have days where I leave later, but I should not have to take more than 9 hours to get a task done. That requires me to create boundaries with my colleagues, and requires me to schedule weekend time to get extra work done, but I need to have free time myself. I am a teacher, but that is not the only thing that I am. 

Wow, this was a rather lengthy post, but I felt like it was important for me to think about the changes I am making and how I am growing as a teacher. I hope some of this advice is useful, and some of these thoughts spark some ideas for your own classroom. 

Thanks for reading! I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel
@historicalipad
My Teacherspayteachers website
Donate a Google Cardboard to my classroom!

#gafesummit recap

Hey guys: I want to be honest with you. I'm scared to death about this upcoming school year. To be even more honest, I have not been looking forward to going back. There are going to be some changes around me that I am not ready for, and because I am the eternal pessimist, I wasn't happy about it either.

But this past Tuesday, I was at a GAFE summit hosted by our own district! Holly Clark was there, and I have been in awe of this lady for awhile. Not only is she an amazing and engaging speaker, she always says it like it is (but really nicely), and her teaching ideas are phenomenal. Her presentation was called The Right Question (with ideas from the Right Question Institute), what I consider an innovative way to add student choice to your classroom.

Holly mentioned that it would be beneficial to read Make Just One Change in order to fully understand how to incorporate the QFT (Question Formulation Technique) into the classroom. I am glad that I did. I finished the book last night, and in order to help myself incorporate this into my class, I created a sketchnote.

 

(link to full size image)

When Holly presented on this topic, she modeled the six components of QFT for us. While it was incredibly valuable to see in action, at the time, I struggled to see how to incorporate the ideas in into my class. Reading the book helped me think through the entire process. I am excited to use these ideas in my class, and I hope that they work with my students. 

Step 1: come up with a QFocus. Instead of asking your students questions/prompts to get them excited about learning, you give them a focus that will have the students generate questions. For my American Indian unit, I ask the students How did American Indians change the history of the United States? Now, for my QFocus, I will tell the students American Indians changed the history of the United States. 

Step 2: produce questions. I will then have the students work in groups of three to generate questions. They generate questions based on the QFocus. They may come up with questions such as the actual essential question (How did American Indians change the history of the United States? or Who were the American Indians?) The students have 5-8 minutes to write down as many questions as they can. They cannot discuss the questions, judge them, nor answer them. They must write all questions exactly as they say them. If they make statements, they must change them into questions. 

Step 3: assign questions as closed or open-ended. The students look at the questions and determine if the questions are close-ended (have a one word answer) or open-ended (needs further explanation). They should also change three questions from open to closed, and from closed to open. 

Step 4: prioritize questions. There are options, for this step, to have students work individually or in their small group (or both). They have to decide on the top 3 questions, depending on the focus of their QFocus. In my case, for the American Indian unit, I am thinking I will have the students prioritize the order of the questions based on which questions need to be answered first. I am using these questions to help the students research and gain interest in American Indians. Once the students have prioritized, they have to justify their order to the entire class. 

Step 5: next steps. In the case of my American Indian unit, the students will continue to research and create new questions based on their research. They will be working in their groups of three on a unit project, so their research will support them in answering the essential question and making the video project. The nice thing about this is that students get to focus on their own interest with American Indians (i.e. student choice). It is almost like independent research, but with much more support from me. 

Step 6: reflection. I still have to think through exactly what this looks like, but I know that the focus will be how the QFT led to deeper learning, developing confidence, and applying new skills. I will likely have the students vlog using the app Recap and posting their reflection and unit project on their digital portfolio. 

I know that this is a lot, but I am envisioning (however scary it is), that I will film myself facilitating the QFT in class in order to a) personally reflect and b) give you guys a visual of what this looks like in action. QFT is making me excited for next year (which I was not at the beginning of this week), so at least year 11 won't start off as a bust.

Thanks for reading! I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel
@historicalipad
My Teacherspayteachers website
Donate a Google Cardboard to my classroom!

Welcome to my blog!

I've been fighting blogging for the past few years. I always made excuses about how I never had time, it would take too much out of me, and that no one wanted to hear what I had to say. Turns out, not one of those things are true - so here we are.

To introduce myself, my name is Rachel Jeffrey. I am about to start my eleventh year teaching. I am originally from Iowa where I graduated from Luther College. My now husband and I first moved to Kingman, Arizona where I taught high school world and US history for three years. The recession hit Arizona hard, so we packed up and moved again to Colorado Springs. The last seven years I've taught 8th grade US history at Skyview Middle School, and the last four years I've been lucky enough to teach on a 1:1 iPad team. My curriculum has essentially been developed by me with a lot of help from online sources and material. I believe in having students answering open-ended essential questions through projects and document-based questions. My curriculum is challenging, but the information and projects are engaging. I am a "pusher"; I push kids to what I think is their best potential.

Because I am new to blogging, I am not entirely sure what I will blog about per my classroom. I know that I have a goal of blogging once a week, hence "Sat. Chat". I do a lot of work and grading over the weekend, so it just makes sense that I blog at the same time! I want to talk about what I am doing in my classroom, what I've learned on Twitter, and other educational topics that I want to talk about. I sincerely hope that my voice can be heard, and I hope that people WANT to listen to what I have to say! It is scary to put oneself out there, especially when the internet can be scary and cruel.

Even though it is not Saturday, I do want to blog about my experience at ISTE 2016. Wow - what an overwhelming, informative conference. For me, the biggest takeaway from this conference is that there are a lot of like-minded teachers like me. Even though I have times where I feel very isolated at school, I am not alone. I have to remember to reach out to other teachers, whether in Colorado Springs, or around the state, the US, or the world. Even though I am a self-proclaimed "black sheep" at Skyview, I am just a normal, typical sheep all around.

I went to some amazing sessions

• The keynotes from Michio Kaku and Ruha Benjamin were absolutely inspirational! Mr. Kaku talked about what technology will look like in the future and how we have to prepare students to live in that world. Ms. Benjamin talked about designing schools as laboratories of democratic participation instead of reproducing inequality. Ms. Benjamin's keynote was eye-opening and challenging. It made me think about inequalities in my own classroom. Powerful, powerful stuff!

Transform education - how do you use this information instead of memorizing --> time to stress concepts and principles #ISTE2016

— Rachel Jeffrey (@historicalipad) June 27, 2016

We can’t force our Ss to turn off culture in order to learn #ISTE2016

— Rachel Jeffrey (@historicalipad) June 28, 2016

•  I also enjoyed the flipped learning session with Aaron Sams and Jon Bergmann, web tools with Monica Martinez, the Google infused classroom with Holly Clark, and sketchnoting with Sylvia Duckworth and Kathy Schrock. Needless to say, I was FANGIRLING when I met all of these people. They were amazing and motivational! I aspire to be like these presenters someday!

I definitely have a lot to think about with my classroom for this year. Step one for me, this summer, was to finally create my Teachers Pay Teachers account. I don't know if my curriculum is worth anything, but it doesn't hurt to find out! Step two is to clean up my curriculum. As a Marzano district, I need to make sure my unit scales are in order. This will then tie in to some sort of standards-based grading (classroom only - the district has not moved this way... yet... hopefully). I also want to use the Knoster Model to outline my unit projects.

Sorry this was such a lengthy post! I hope that I said something of some interest to you so that you will keep reading! Have a happy Fourth of July on Monday, and be on the lookout for a new blog post on Saturday, July 9th.

 - Rachel

@historicalipad

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