Email Ninja Trick: Add A Like Button

Some emails don't necessarily need a reply, but you want to let the sender know you read the email and will act accordingly or approve of the course of action. Most email platforms have send receipts, but they require the sender to set them up prior to sending, and still at best prove that you opened the email.

To solve this conundrum and clear my inbox, I took a page out of my social media habits and saved my own facebook-style "like button."

In the example above, I responded to one of my assistant principal's emails about make-up fire and tornado drills we'll be having next week.

How can I get my own? 
(PC/Mac)

1. Do a Google search for "facebook like button"
2. Save your favorite image by clicking on one and dragging it to the desktop
3. Rename it to something more descriptive (mine default-saved as "imgres")
4. Open any email reply
5. Drag your image from the desktop to your email text field.
6. Send.

(iPad/iPhone for GMail)

1. Do a Google search for "facebook like button"
2. Save your favorite image by touching it until the box pops up to "save image"
3. Rename it to something more descriptive (mine default-saved as "imgres")
4. Open any email reply
5. Click on the paperclip icon and "attach a photo"
6. Select the "like button" from your camera roll
7. Send.

It's a pretty quick process on a desktop/laptop, but you're probably better off just using an emoji on a phone or tablet. 

FacebookStories.com - Infographics Your Students Will Care About

Have you checked out your Facebook "Year in Review 2012" yet? If you're a blogger, you're probably  a pro at reflection, so maybe you did. What you may have skipped (because I very nearly did) were the "Facebook Trends."

What delightfully surprised me about the 2012 Trends was that it was a collection of culturally relevant infographics. (and even broken down by country. and analyzed.)

Background

I LOVE infographics. They're really just a 21st century repackaging of pie charts, line graphs, or histograms with words and associated images, but I love them because (good) ones are designed (instead of produced) and they're relevant. Pie charts live in boring budget proposals; line graphs on the ticker of Bloomberg TV or the Wall Street Journal. But infographics get shared on your Facebook timeline. Their pinned to your "Isn't That Clever" Pinterest board. They're so integral to the layout of USA Today, you probably didn't even notice.

To start off the year in AP Stats (and to ensure my students had appropriate degrees of tech proficiency before I unleashed wicked expectations upon them), I had everyone bring in infographics to share and then we discussed the ways graphs were represented and repackaged on them.

I think most of them just ended up doing a Google image search for "infographics," but here were the sites I suggested they try:

nerdgraphs.com
visual.ly
coolinfographics.com
Infographics - GOOD
flowingdata.com

The unintentional consequence of this assignment was that I also got to know my students' interest a little better through their infographic choices.

Here was my favorite; the controller pie charts opened up a discussion for me. Lost scaling opportunity in the bottom left corner about best-selling genres.

So What?

My Stats students did a good job grabbing infographics, and most of them took a clear interest to the assignment and made it meaningful, but what I like about Facebook Stories' Trends is that they're simply produced, yet relevant to their audience, and in an marketplace your students are frequenting.  Better than that, in the endless battle between what I want and what I can accomplish, these graphs represent to me an even more approachable example to have my students creating their own infographs. (When that finally happens.)

The one at right features songs that came up most in status updates. It's a pie chart.... but not really. Way to psych me out. I like these the slices were scaled by radial length rather than degrees because my eye tends to ignore tiny slices that have arrows pointed to them. (No offense, east coast, but this is kind of what I do when I look at maps of the US, too)

I mean, seriously. Can't you imagine this on a .PPT slide with the speaker saying, "As you can clearly see..."

There were a few that were slightly confusing, however, and strangely enough, looked very much like something I'd expect to see from a student who lazily wanted a easily scaled shape.

Bottom Line:

In my opinion, infographics are one of the least intimidating ways for students to begin publishing for the web and sharing on social media. Kids love poster projects - infographics are a digital extension of that (but they don't even HAVE to be digital). 

Infographics can introduce percentage problems, experimental design, discussions on statistical bias, geometric similarity, and even log scales in upper-level courses. Because they're all over the web and literally relevant to any interest, they're also convenient for enhancing engagement through choice and personalization.

Resources:

I went to a great infographic breakout session with +Kathy Schrock (@kathyschrock on twitter) at METC 2012. She's said it better than I can; here's her infographics page. If you're going to METC 2013 (after you see me) make sure you check out at least one of her sessions. 

Tip Tuesday: 5 Effective Ways to Get the Homework Monkey Off Your Back

File this one in the "admittedly a smidge more work, but with a big payoff" category, readers.

I'm speculating here, but I'm guessing unless you teach at some super competitive private school or only have AP/Honors super students, you've got more than your share of homework hassles. So you've probably tried one, several, or all of these tactics:

• smaller assignments
• leaving books at home/class set in the room
• only worksheets
• no homework - only classwork
• flipping the class - video note-taking at home, practice at school

I've found two things about the effectiveness of this strategies for my classroom - lots of students think they'll be effective, and none of them really ever are at motivating the homework-ne'er-doer to do his assignments. Haven't you heard some (all) of these?

"My book was in my locker and I had to catch the bus."
"I lost the worksheet."
"I had too much other homework to do."
"I didn't write down the page number."

Have I riled up enough frustration yet? :) Here's 5 strategies that I've found to legitimately give more of my students more opportunities to complete their practice (because sometimes they really do want to get it done but need opportunities that fit into super busy teen lifestyles)

1. Get a classroom social media account and tweet/share an update on the day and the page numbers for bookwork or any handouts.

I have a class Twitter account, Facebook page, and have previously used Edmodo. Different students like each one for different reasons, I guess, so I wish I could advise you to just pick one, but that would go against my experience. The best I can say is that you're safe with Twitter/Facebook, and you should use a third-party client like Hootsuite or TweetDeck to manage both networks simultaneously.

2. Use a Dropbox account to create a shared folder and give all of your students access to the folder. Drag any rubrics, worksheets, notes, or project outlines that you want to share with your students to the folder, save the stuff you want hidden in a different folder for that class.

3. Get a Google Voice number for students to text (to your email) whenever they get stuck on something. They're more likely to use it because they don't have to TALK to you, and its more convenient for you because you can fire off a response in between checking your friends' Facebook updates. You can also connect this number to the phone in your classroom - when parents use this number to call that line, you can send it to voicemail and then listen later while checking your email, at school OR at home. My students like this one a lot.

If your district is on Google Apps, this is especially convenient because they'll have automatic monitoring access. You can communicate knowing you're probably well within your district's policies. (But of course, you should still confirm that.)

4. Use a document camera to put up a shot on your projector or SMARTboard of the practice exercises or reading passage from the text book that students can quickly copy into their notebooks or snap a picture of with their mobile devices.

5. If your school has some form of a LMS (Learning Management System) in place, utilize it to post homework pages, notes, practice tests, or assignments. How often are you glad that companies and the government dump everything you need to know on the web? Can you imagine still limiting interaction with the DMV, IRS, shopping, or contacting your bank/utilities exclusively in person or by mail? Imagine now, that you've never known a world where the web wasn't the way we paid our bills, looked up information.

Extra Credit -
If you're feeling overwhelmed at the thought of converting everything you're currently doing by hand to  digital media that you have to put online and manage, have your students do it! Knowing that their notes will be seen by others will help your special helpers with summarizing and note-taking skills, and the students get more ownership of their classroom. I often hear kids say to each other, "Hey, text me that later," even without these procedures in place.

Personalizing the Ed Experience

Lu found her feet this morning.

You try to share some of your personal life with your students, but my life lives in social media, not on celluloid.  So, instead of being able to share a facebook picture with my classes, I have to jump through hoops and email/save/upload.  More difficult than it needs to be!

Facebook in the Classroom: Should I Heed the Warnings?

First off:  I WISH.  I think that using it as a networking tool COULD be worth exploring.  I understand from a liability (and time-wasting) perspective that the risks are probably too great to open up school use.  So we'll experiment with use on the other side of the firewall.

Last night I dipped my toe into the Facebook pool for use with my classes.  I set up a fan page for Mr. C Baker's Math Class and plan to use it as a communication tool for both students and parents and a holding place for notes, links, and resources.

My fears are not founded upon students finding incriminating photos of past transgressions (nor present).  I am not concerned with crossing any lines of professionalism in interacting with students online (because I do not believe I am).  I do not fear opening my classroom or teaching to criticism from the outside (because it brings accountability and transparency with it).  I have been a believer even since student teaching that if you are afraid or wary of observations and eyes in your classroom, then you probably know that there are deficiencies in some manner of your teaching (and need to be humble enough to address them).

So, then, the fear I do keep is in boundaries for myself.  As it is so natural for me to interact on Facebook for my personal social networking, I worry about being sucked in with the allure of building "fans," addressing students' and parents' questions, and monitoring my discussion board to see if students are using it.  What can I say; I'm a sucker for unique hits.  I think this is a healthy fear, however.  A fear that springs from self-awareness of my weaknesses and obsessions is a fear that keeps me in check.  It's a fear for improvement.

In the end, I'd say my Facebook fan page is really just an extention of having my own class website on freewebs with discussion board, or my class twitter account.  I know there are many educators (including the official NEA stance on the subject) that would criticize my decision; even some close to me.  I guess all I'd have to say to them, is that I reserve all rights to act now and ask for forgiveness later.  I think that has to be the nature of any educator acting as an early adopter of technologies.

We'll see how it goes!