The Schoenblog

Because it was a first time event and at a college, our attendees were new to edcamp, eager, and diverse. They still travelled NY, NJ, CT, and as far as PA and even TN (Hi, Katrina!), but didn’t get burned out since it was only a half day. Plus, organizing food for just breakfast and snacks makes the logistics easier, I realized. Since we were at a college, we had teachers, admins, and education students from all over the place. Because school was about to start, they were eager, fun, and excited, with an authenticity that I don’t often see at these events. 

We had around 70 attendees, gave out dozens of prizes large and small, and filled a session board with 20-or-so great sessions. The sessions ranged in topic--not all were about tech--and were mostly great discussions with honesty and spontaneity, not presentations. We had all of these new-to-edcamp and new-to-Twitter teachers tweeting, on Remind, and social media, and were even #2 trending in NY for a while. 

I’m a guy who loves to be everywhere with major FOMO--fear of missing out. I loved that as an organizer, I could bounce around to every room, take pictures, manage social media, and experience the event from all sides. Giving out prizes from the swag bag for Remind challenges--like taking selfies with organizers and sharing learning--was so much fun.

#EdCampMville pic.twitter.com/7LUh3ucBz6

— Nicole Sibiski (@nicole_sibiski) August 29, 2015

Love these two :) @edCampMville #edcampmville #edcamp pic.twitter.com/kjxvzgd6G6

— Katrina Keene (@teachintechgal) August 29, 2015

My favorite part, though, as it usually is, was walking into Dani’s session on Google Classroom, where we wound up co-presenting for a half an hour. Of course we played “Let it Go.” I thought I’d answer before you even asked. This is what #edcamp is all about for me: meaningful learning that fit our needs--it wasn’t forced, overplanned, or perscribed. It was fun, had choice, and it mattered, and I loved it. Of course, I planned it, so I’m likely biased. But I’m thankful and humbled for Tweets, e-mails, and feedback from our attendees!

Enjoy this GIF i designed! For teachers everywhere! Honored to be a part of your #PLN! #edcampmville #edchat #edtech pic.twitter.com/gLOSNxhh10

— КristΛ ШΞLz (@kristawelz) August 29, 2015

First time I've really, genuinely enjoyed an #edcamp @edcamp in a really, really, really long time. Amazing job @edCampMville #edcampmville!

— Dani Kennis (@kennisdani) August 29, 2015

I planned to spend the rest of my weekend relaxing, but was pushed by Dani to attend #edcampHV on Sunday to learn for the both of us. It was an hour away, but as Dani reminded me, I made a decision not to let any cool opportunities pass me by. So I woke up early and off I went--and it was great! It was so cool to attend two #edcamps in one weekend and have very different but wonderful experiences. #edcampHV was BIG--200+ registered and it seemed like most attended. They had something like 8 session in each slot for a full day of learning. They did a wonderful job organizing food, the raffles, and introducing the #edcamp culture. I ended up leading two sessions, the first focusing Google Classroom. Around 40 teachers and I discussed pros, cons, and best practices, using my classes from last year as a model. Then, I attended a fun discussion about ELA CCSS strategies. Finally, I led a discussion about the ways tech is changing teaching and learning. I’d love to do more like this--facilitated discussions and collaboration.

Great session on Google Classroom basics with @MrSchoenbart #edcamphv pic.twitter.com/DBj2VIgXE0

— Jenn Nilsen (@MsNilsen2012) August 31, 2015

Session 1 is off to an amazing start! #edcamphv pic.twitter.com/W34fRdkDIL

— Edcamp Hudson Valley (@EdCampHV) August 31, 2015

This was a great weekend of fun learning and connecting, and I’m excited to take this energy back into the school year. I can’t wait for a weekend to sleep in and relax, which sounds greedy for a teacher at the end of summer, but my big #edcamp weekend was well worth it.

When students have turned in work on Classroom, I open it all up right away. I don’t necessarily read it then, but I skim and preview. I like to do this through Classroom, by opening up each document but you can also preview it through the Classroom folder in Drive. I use CNTRL + click to open in a new tab and open 5-10 at once. Then, I scroll through with ALT + TAB to rotate the open tabs and close each one with CNTRL + W to close out each tab. In 5 minutes, I can skim an entire class set of work and at least know which students did not meet the requirements. And then, I return some of it.

By checking off a group of students in a class, you can return and provide private comments or e-mail feedback just for those students. I write something like: This work does not meet the requirements and cannot earn credit. Please revise and resubmit my tomorrow night or make an extra help appointment. Students who follow these directions will later submit work that is stronger, and I’m not wasting time responding to the work that isn’t ready.

Turn it In or Else!

If you follow the wisdom of the blank template assignment (see Part 1), you can see students’ work in progress whether they are turned in or not. However, I will only read work that is turned in. For me, reading work in progress to provide a summative response and feedback is akin to searching their binders to find the work the students forgot to turn in. I hold my students responsible for hitting that Turn it in button or Mark as done, as is applicable. This teaches consistency and responsibility, and gives them another indication that strong procedures matter. 

Providing Comments

I used to be a big fan of shorthand and abbreviation in responding to student work. I taught editing marks and had them practice using them in peer feedback. Technology gives me more ways to provide feedback, but drawing all over a Google Doc, and matching my handwritten symbols to electronic ones, isn’t always the most productive use of time. I’ve explored Chrome extensions like Permanent Clipboard to save canned comments but couldn’t get used to it.

The best advice I have for commenting on work is find a balance that makes sense for you. I’m an English teacher so I usually grade writing and comment a lot. What I do isn’t the end-all-be-all, but it does allow me to give more feedback than ever before and to do so faster and better. Find some screenshots of these three steps at the bottom of this post. 

1. In Text Comments. I open the Google Doc and insert comments in response to specific lines, words, paragraph, etc. These are like my editing marks and are usually specific and focused. Depending on the assignment or student, I will leave anywhere from 4-10 comments (or more). I’m not a fan of suggested edits, generally, but may start to use them a little more this year. I want to make sure the students are doing the work towards growth and revision, not me. 
2. Return Comments. I rarely comment on common trends across a class in individual’s work. Instead, I wait for my return comments. I take notes as I grade and find the big picture stuff that every student should consider, trying to keep it important and constructive, balancing the positive and negative. I then return the work to all of my students at once, but only have to write the comments once. I use this space for the summative and holistic comments, typically, and can also break them down into smaller groups of return batches.
3. Rubrics. This really comes in between 1 and 2, but I typically use Google Sheets Rubrics with Doctopus and Goobric to assign rubric-based grades to writing. I also provide summative comments for the individual here. Now my students have feedback in three different ways to help them understand the qualities of their work. Goobric and Doctopus deserve their own posts but you can find out so much with a quick Google search if you’re interested.

As I write this, I think ahead to my upcoming school year and wonder if I missed anything. Am I missing a best practice to make this all easier? Will the updates to Google Classroom change my practice? I would love to hear your feedback--comment away or reach out on Twitter.

Classroom learning should be student-centered from day one. I don't need to be talking at my students on the first day; I need to introduce them to the types of learning opportunities they will build for themselves throughout the school year. I need to facilitate and put my money where my mouth is. I like to think I have a pretty student centered classroom, but this year I want to jump into it on day one, like it's the most normal thing in the world. Students will be working with technology, at different paces, sometimes on different assignments, all towards standards and goals. I also want to introduce not only project-based but problem-based learning to make their growth more authentic and meaningful.

It's not enough for my students to connect with each other; it's time to share our challenges, successes, and learning with the peers, teachers, the community, and world. I want my class to be built on connections and collaborations, incorporating backchannelling, Twitter, Google Hangouts, and other social media on a regular basis. One of my goals is to have students regularly Tweeting about our learning to a class hashtag to share with the world. Technology opens up so many doors and opportunities to connect and learn; I want to embrace them all.

Students must create. I've written about that idea plenty, most recently in a guest post at FreeTech4Teachers.com here. I want my students to always produce something that documents learning. This will often be writing but has ranged from essays to podcasts to videos or other presentations. I want to find more ways for students to demonstrate skill and knowledge, and then to share it. This year, I plan to have students blog more and construct electronic portfolios to show their growth and reflect on new learning. Hopefully these products will help students leave my class and high school with work they are not only proud of, but that documents essential 21st century skills and experiences for their futures. 

We are a community of learners. Collaborating and interacting on Google Communities helps manage this camaraderie, but I want to place a new importance on the community. Students must be able to work together and live together. Jack from Lost said it, and it's a quote I come back to often: "If we can't live together, we're going to die alone." It's a bit dramatic, but I don't want my students to wait around for me to teach them, but to help foster their curiosity, creativity, and independence. "Every man for himself is not going to work," Jack says in the clip below. From asking each other before they ask me to creating a list of online classroom norms to a class hashtag, I want my students to actively collaborate as a community of learners to create the best learning experiences possible. 

I think I build strong relationships with my students. Now I want to do better with other stake holders: parents, guidance counselors, administration, etc. I want complete transparency and clear communication in my classroom. To that end, I am revamping my class webpage, english10.aschoenbart.com, to provide everyone with more information than ever before. I have plans in the works to use forms and add-ons to organize and automate communications based on data about student behavior and performance, so I am more actively involved in communication, more proactive in recognizing success and overcoming challenges, and using data to drive my instruction. Expect a blog post on this topic soon.

There's my 5 C's for 2015. I could list a dozen things I want to do better but I want to stay focused. Wish me luck. What shifts are you planning in your classroom or teaching? 

An easy one is this recipe: Blogger to Facebook. If I publish a new post on Blogger, automatically post it on my Facebook feed. For each recipe, I can see how many times it’s run to double check my work, can turn it on or off, or check the activity log as necessary. 

I like to think of it like a variation on app smashing, and with some trial-and-error and creativity, you can make a lot of cool things happen. Here are some easy recipes I use and why you might want to try them out, too.

Blogger to Facebook

I’m enjoying Blogging and want to grow my audience. An easy way to this is to promote my posts more on social media. This recipe will automatically share my Blogger posts on my Facebook stream. I can customize the post itself (title, text, link, etc.) and it does the rest. Find similar recipes to post to Twitter, Instagram, etc., or pretty much from any social media site to another.

Create Twitter Lists Around a Hashtag

One simple recipe is to create a Twitter list based on a hashtag. For example, I want to see who posts using the #edcampMVille to see what Twitter traffic is generated for our upcoming event. This recipe will add anyone who tweets with the hashtag to a Twitter list so I can see who is engaging with us on social media. There are similar recipes to favorite and retweet, too.

Twitter to Google Sheet

I love organizing data on Google sheets. In addition to creating a Twitter list in the example above, I can track users and Tweets based on a specific hashtag to a Google Sheet (and many other similar options--evernote, pocket, etc.). I wanted to reach anyone who Tweeted with #nyedchat to share information about #edcampMVille; this recipe allowed me to track those users so I knew who to reach out to and tag in my posts. With some creative work in Sheets and another IFTTT recipe (see the next bullet!), I was able to automatically Tweet at users to invite them pretty easily, raising awareness for our event. Apply this to any event, hashtag, or target audience you want to reach and you’re good to know.

GMail to Twitter

This one is really cool and involves my new favorite pasttime: app smashing. By combining this recipe with the Google Sheets add-on, Form Mule, I can automate my Tweeting based on certain conditions. For example, when someone adds an event to #EdTechCalNYNJ, I wanted to automatically thank them. 

To do this, I successfully smashed the recipe above with Form Mule. When someone adds to the calendar via a Google Form, Form Mule automatically sends a mail merge to a GMail account with the following subject line: 

Thanks <<Name>> <<Twitter Handle>> for adding <<Event Name>> in <<Location>> on <<Date>> to #EdTechCalNYNJ edtechcalnynj.com

Form Mule is triggered whenever the form is submitted and the <<Tags>> above are replaced with the actual information. 

Then, the #IFTTT recipe above does the rest. The recipe is programmed so that whenever my e-mail address sends an e-mail to a secondary address, then Tweet out the subject line. Voila! The key here is to have a secondary e-mail just for the recipe’s automatic Tweeting.

Thanks @apgovme for adding EdCamp_CNY in NY on 10/3/2015 to #EdTechCalNYNJ! http://t.co/JVOLXABsGi

— Adam Schoenbart (@MrSchoenbart) August 19, 2015

This last example is my favorite. Combining add-ons with #IFTTT leads to some really powerful results and a lot of fun customization on my end. I encourage you to give it a shot.


I’m going to follow up this post soon with a more advanced look on responsive Tweeting with #IFFTT, like the example above. How do you use #IFTTT?