(Sholl)iloquy

Focus for this week This week I focused on scaling back my interactive presentation. I felt like my first presentation was not worth the time I spent working on it. I probably could have found a more productive learning activity that required less work. This week, it took me around 30 minutes to do my presentation and I felt that it had a solid amount of content. My presentation is designed to be used in Present mode, and is something that I could use during instruction, my students could use as a study tool, and has potential to be an example for something they can create on their own. Below are some pictures of my checks and balances presentation: Checks and balances of the US federal government are usually taught with a visual aid because it can be a confusing process! This is the starting place on the presentation and students can choose which branches or directions they want to view first by clicking on the title or an arrow. This page is called the Clean Slate! page and c...

Interactive Slides Background This week I worked on creating an interactive resource using Google Slides. This was the first time I really created something interactive via Google Slides, so it took me a while to get everything set up. My first step was to mentally come up with a game plan on how I wanted my interactive slides to work. After I knew what I wanted, I created my slides and added the content (this week my topic was the three branches of US government). Once I had my content, I started to create links between my slides. One of my goals was that my users would be able to go back and forth between the necessary slides with ease. Below is an example: Users can click on "Lesson" to go straight to the lesson, "Review" to jump to the review, and "Next Class" to see what the topic of the next class will be. I also set my links up so that students can have a choice in the order that they want to go over the content.  Students can decide whi...

Choice Board Background This week I created my first Choice Board! I wanted the subject to be on something that I could potentially teach so I chose the Salem Witch Trials. I find the Salem Witch Trials fascinating and Halloween is almost  right around the corner so I thought this was a fitting subject to focus on. As of now, I would assign the Choice Board at the beginning of the unit so that they can start working on the activities as we go over the content. I might assign it later in the unit if my first group struggles with having it so early. The way I have my Choice Board set up is that I would make a copy of the Google Doc for each student on Google Classroom. I have three pieces of clip art that they will place over the three activities that they choose. Once they do that, they will submit the Google Doc back to me and then I will create assignments on Google Classroom for them to turn in their activities. What I struggled with Some of the activities are designed to s...

Getting my blog set up I’m a little embarrassed that as a digital native I have little to no experience with blogs. This is definitely going to be a learning experience for me, but I’m ready for it! The instructional video made setting up my blog fairly easy. I occasionally had to refer back to it, but the setup is user-friendly. In fact, what I struggled with the most was coming up with a name for my blog. I started out with generic ideas like Katie’s Corner, but most of what I came up with was already taken. Finally, I used a strategy from my Yearbook and Newspaper days and started brainstorming words that had to do with myself and blogging. Obviously I ended up blending my last name, Sholl, and the word soliloquy. I look forward to continue playing around with my blog and personalizing it. Uses in the classroom I’ve been thinking about how I might use blogs in my classroom. I could have my students keep a personal blog throughout the year and have them use it almost like ...