Blended Learning

       Have you been hearing all the talk about this "new instructional method" called "Blended Learning"?  What about being asked all the time "have you flipped" your class?  Have you been told you will do this by your school administration, but nobody has explained to you how to do it?

       I've seen both experienced and new teachers both get the "OMG I'm going to blow if they tell me I need to learn one more new technology tool on my own. Grrrrrrr"  Usually accompanied by other not so scholarly words. 

         You will find many different definitions of what "blended learning" is if you Google it.  I like the definition that I found in the Edutpoia article"Blended Learning: We Are All New Teachers". It cites that there are many definitions of blended learning to be sure, but for our purposes let's take the definition of blended learning from Innosight Institute which defines blended learning as: a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home. The institute even goes on to say: there are four models of blended learning that categorize the majority of blended-learning programs emerging across the K-12 sector today. These four models are: Rotation, Flex, Self-Blend, and Enriched Virtual. (Not a perfect definition by any means, but one that gives us food for thought.)

       Wow, what a mouthful and a lot to digest and think about! Don't panic, essentially what they are saying is that the teacher and student uses multiple methods to deliver the education. Some by online, some by face to face, some by independent research, some of the pace of delivery is set by the teacher or school, and some is set by the student. Essentially it means you use technology to help meet all of your students learning needs.  It's just a more technology based version of "doing whatever it takes" to teach your students.

       In all of my research I yet to find anything better than Math Johnston's "What a Flipped classroom is not" that you can find on his YouTube channel. He explains this concept is easy to understand terms for you, students, parents, and administrators.

      The trick to successfully blending your class so that you "FLIP not FLOP" it is to find what works best for YOU and YOUR students.  There is no one way to do it or just one magic tool that works for everyone. Don't be afraid to try new things. Do NOT think that you have to use "experts videos" because they know more than you do.  Believe it or not, your students actually pay more attention and learn more from your "unprofessional" videos. 

        Also, you do NOT have to be the expert on the tools, you are already the expert on your content area. Have fun and allow your student to try new things. We learn more from fail at the first time, than what we get right the first time.  Just tell them up front "We are doing this unit over XYZ.  You will be excepted create XYZ, refer to the rubric I have given you. you will be allowed to use whatever tool you want to create it, just show it to me and explain why you want to use it.  But be forewarned I am not an expert in that tool and you will now become the class expert on it".  

      I promise you the time to spend to blend or flip your class will come back to you 5 fold at least.  I blended/flipped my classes over 10 years ago before there was an official term to call it.  I did it so I could best serve my students, after all there are 20-30 of them and only one of me.  With my instructional websites and videos, the students are able to get help with a step when they need it and work at his/her own pace. Kids love it, administration love it, parents love it, I love it because I never have to explain what it is that were are doing or learning in my class.  It's right there for everyone to see. 

      Feel free to borrow any of my units or lessons. I purposely made everything public for you to use.  :)  Let me know if they help you and have FUN blending/flipping your class. https://sites.google.com/site/mrsbaxterworld/  

My Some Cool Web 2.0 Tools Blog
My Going Green Project Based Learning Site from the CTE Summer 2014 Conf.


Work Cited:

• Website Title: YouTube
• Article Title: mathjohnson
• Publisher: YouTube
• Date Accessed: September 29, 2014

Website Title: Edutopia

• Article Title: Blended Learning: We Are All New Teachers
• Date Accessed: September 29, 2014

1st EVER CHS Lip Dub 2014

Our First Conroe HS Lip Dub!!

We're going viral! We are doing our first CHS Lip Dub to the song "Best Day of My Life" by American Authors.  I'm sooooooooo excited that my campus is finally doing a lip dub. This has been a dream of mine and a couple of other staff members to do for over three years now.

NOTE: If you don't know what a "lip dub" is = "Google" or "YouTube" it. There are lots of awesome and not so awesome ones out there.  We did a "twist" to ours, it's not just the same old walk down halls singing.  :)

It's easy to find the videos, but not the explanation of how they went about creating it. Thus, the reason the post was born.

The MOST important thing you need to do when you want to do something like this is = TEAMWORK! We have core team of 16 staff members who have helped with all the different parts. No one person can do it all. You have to work together!  Here is our awesome TEAM and what we all did, to help make it a success. Let the people who are awesome at what they do = do what they do best. Why would I try to plan the formation of the band kids to spell out "PRIDE !" on the field?  Our band directors know how to do way more cool and complicated filed formations. I have no clue how to actually video and make the scenes look cool, but others do.  You sure don't want me trying to teach you how to sing or dance either.

The other thing you need to do is to use Social Media to your advantage!  Our campus Twitter acct., ISD acct., & counselors acct. sent Twitter tweets out bi-weekly telling students to go sign up to be a part of our video. Our campus FB page also posted links and encouraged people to join. Of course our Conroe HS campus website promoted too on our main splash page. 

My areas of expertise is Organization, Communication, & Technology. So here is what I did to help get this organized and out there online. That way the kids and staff could all access info, without us having to send emails daily and use up the email memory. (A personal pet peeve of mine.)

#1 = Set-up a Google Drive folder that anyone can see  http://goo.gl/ol8jpc.

A. Share edit rights with only the core group of organizers

B. Create a planning calender using Google Docs, so everyone can see the dates

(You know how we educators LOVE calenders!)  
C. Check ours out  to get ideas for how organize yours

D. Yes you can put videos here (if your ISD doesn't have that blocked in the admin  console) and use it to share the choreography steps if your ISD has YouTube blocked.  
(BOOO!! Unblock it for secondary at least people.)

#2= Use Google Forms to create a online Sign Up form  http://goo.gl/zW8wxn

A. This is so we can plan and prepare for the # of kids being filmed

B. If you send an email from Gmail = you can send it "Bcc" to all the email addresses   

you get from the sign up form. To remind kids when to film, what to wear, bring your signed release form, etc...

C. SECURITY NOTE = make sure that you turn off "Share with anyone who has the  link" for the Google Form results. Only three of us have access to our data.
D. Don't forget to "turn off" accepting responses to the form, once your due date has passed.

#3= Use Google Sites for it. http://goo.gl/OqCh6f

A. Create one that breaks out the lyrics that need to be learned by group

B. You can upload dance choreography to YouTube and embed it into this site

C. Then just share this site with staff and students. This is how kids and parents want 

to  be able to access information. So why not give it to them the way they understand and want it?

#4= Use YouTube to "go viral".

A. Make sure you have gotten written permission from the author of the song to use it. 

We had to get this from both the author AND the publisher. We have email proof  that we can use our song. Be forewarned, getting this permission took us two months!  YouTube can and will pull audio from videos, if you can't prove this.

B. When your Rock Star filming team gets done filming and editing post the final product on YouTube. I will share ours as soon as it gets done.

C. SECURITY NOTE = only one person on your campus should keep the original finished video. We have an AP who will keep ours, part of the agreement we have to be able to use the song.

I hope this helps or inspires your campus to go out and "go viral" in a positive way. Let me know how it goes for you.