There is so much that occurs during a lesson. Educators are constantly being asked to ‘add one more thing’ to their repertoire.  At the end of the day, we must teach content. That content can be any of the core topics, technology and personal relations. Due to time, these tasks are best combined.  As a technology trainer, it is my job to teach our professionals how to do it. How can we do that effectively?

Recently, my school began our two month unit on digital citizenship. Throughout the course of it, the students will learn different aspects of it and when it concludes, will be

embedded in their daily activities. To begin, we look at several different topics and follow the guide lines set up by Common Sense Media. They created a fabulous unit where it’s broken down by topic and grade. Once you click on the lesson, there is a script, google slide and activities the teacher can follow. For example, during a 4th grade lesson on private and personal information, the teacher will ready a script that defines the words and complete some physical activities with the students. After that, there is a video to support the content and digital activity that can be inserted in your Google Classroom.

Now it’s time for me to take hold and insert a little technology magic. The digital citizenship lesson is wonderful. It holds all of the pieces needed to teach the content, however I want to add a little bell and whistle. Most adults have a device with them at all times. What if we use it to scan for answers? Plickers is such an easy tool to use for formative assessment. This takes the traditional Q & A, puts it in a digital format where the presenter gets immediate feedback from the members of the class. It takes a few steps to set it up: the teacher creates the question, prints out the cards to pass out to the students, and scans the cards with their device. An app is downloaded to the device where the teacher scans the student cards for feedback. Immediate results can be viewed  and if the results aren’t what you had hoped for, you can discuss the question, have the students answer again and receive new feedback.

The third piece of this activity came in the form of modeling. Although we started with a scripted activity from Common Sense Media, I must find a way to model the technology integration. This lesson, which occurred in my Makerspace Lab, was the perfect scenario to make it happen. Before the lesson was prepared, I created the classes and questions in Plickers. There was a teacher in my building who already had the cards printed off so those were borrowed. During the lesson, I modeled how to use the tool, answer the questions and scan for results. The classroom teacher continued with his engaging discussions, and through provoking questions.

Combining the premade lesson, assessment tool and technology resource teacher allowed the students and classroom teachers to learn more than expected.