Lissa Layman

Videos & Redesign

October 19, 2013 Lissa Layman

I’ve been incredibly busy with grad school and teaching French (yupp…that’s right. I’m teaching ‘temporarily’ teaching French again. I’m going into my 5th week starting tomorrow.) A few of my recent assignments were interesting so I thought I’d cross post them here.

For UKSTL EDL 661 with Jayson Richardson, we had to recommend 3 blogs for our classmates. I couldn’t pick only three so I recommended 4 in my first video using Jing. (If you have ideas for how to embed Jing videos in WordPress, let me know!)

For COETAIL course 3, there were 2 pieces to my final project. The first was to create a digital story. I decided to make a first draft of my video in order to become a GAFE Certified Trainer. Feel free to watch my video, read my post and leave me feedback so I can make it better!

Also for COETAIL, I had to revamp an existing presentation. Below is my final product. Check out the original and the handout I created on my COETAIL blog.

I’d love any and all constructive criticism to make these better! Thank you!

COETAIL, Course 3

This is the story of a girl

October 10, 2013 Lissa Layman

Last fall I did the training and took all the tests to become Google Apps Individually Qualified. I now need to complete the application to become a Google Apps Certified Trainer before December 4th. I made my video as a first draft of the one I will submit. Here are the specifications:

Submit a 2 minute video introduction about your background, role in education technology, and innovative approach to using Google Apps

I made my video using Jing and uploaded it to Screencast.
https://content.screencast.com/users/MmeLayman/folders/Jing/media/f4110cc2-2ba0-43b8-96ce-0cce977c478b/jingswfplayer.swf

My video is currently over 2 minutes. I’d love any input for how to make it better! Thank you!

Goodbye course 3…see you soon course 4!

Photo Credit: Earl – What I Saw 2.0 via Compfight cc

COETAIL, Course 3, Professional Development

A Redesign: Assessment & Student Learning

October 10, 2013 Lissa Layman

When I first saw this presentation, I knew exactly the PowerPoint I wanted to redesign. During orientation our middle and high school principals presented to the staff about assessment practices and how we can best support student learning. They had a lot of information to give us so, understandably, the presentation was very text heavy.

When I asked, both principals graciously accepted my request to redesign their presentation (both have wives who are COETAIL graduates – Christina & Karen). I do have to admit that I enlisted my COETAIL husband to collaborate with me in order to make this their PowerPoint more zen and less death. We left the text that we thought was most important (our mission is brand new) and got rid of the rest. When text was present, Jeff taught me about Droid Sans (to grab the reader’s attention) and Droid Serif (to avoid eye fatigue). We chose a simple color scheme and redesigned the hard to read graphic.

However I acknowledged that much of the text was essential…so I created a handout for staff. This could be shared in PDF format to avoid the waste of paper.

What do you think??

Because Jeff (my husband) has been ‘into’ presentation design for a couple years, I’m relatively satisfied with my presentations for professional development. I’d love any and all feedback on my PD presentations or this redesign. Thank you!

COETAIL, Course 3, Professional Development

Remixing Professional Development

October 7, 2013 Lissa Layman

Although I’m currently teaching three MYP French classes, my normal job as a technology integration coach involves more time in front of teachers than in the classroom with students. When I saw that this week’s topic was the remix culture, Scott McLeod came to mind. His copyright is one of the most impressive examples of open sharing that I’ve seen.

Creating professional development sessions and workshops for our staff and for conferences is part of my job. Quality PD takes a lot of research and time to put together: the perfect chance for some remixing. If the ideas and resources are already out there, why spend time recreating everything when I can, instead, spend time remixing?

I was recently asked to present at a conference in Kuwait in January. The theme of the conference is 21st century learning and teaching. Among other topics, they’re looking for one 90 minute session for administrators. Although I’m currently in the UKSTL program, I haven’t every created a session specifically for admin. I reached out to Scott and Jayson Richardson (one of my current profs) to see if they had any advice. Jayson pointed me towards Scott’s workshop resources and we brainstormed a little during a Hangout. Scott has also agreed to chat sometime. I’d like to remix previous workshops Scott has done with activities that I’m learning from Jayson in class. I’m really excited for the possibilities of this session!

A question for you
Are you a school admin? What overarching message do you think is important for school leaders (re: technology)? What do you think admin need most? Thank you!

COETAIL, Course 3

Qu’est-ce qu’on mange?

October 7, 2013 Lissa Layman

Visual resumés
My journey to better understanding visual literacy has been slowly progressing over the last couple of years. Mostly through discussions with Jeff. We both did a huge rework of our resumes before we applied to teach abroad. They were a hit at our Search fair (we got jobs!). I think my next rework is going to have to be another major one as I am uncomfortable making my resume any longer than 2 pages.

Infographics
When I started thinking about using an infographic in my French classes, I immediately went to Twitter to see if anyone in my PLN had something good. If I can take a couple seconds to outsource the work and not have to reinvent the wheel, I’m all for it. Karina came to my rescue and shared an amazing Pinterest board full of infographics…en français! (Merci à Gillian pour les réponses aussi!)

My class
In my MYP Phase 2 class, our current unit is about food (Qu’est-ce qu’on mange?). Our unit question is “How can cooking be good for my well-being and culture?” and our AOI is Health and Social Education.

My lesson
I found the infographic below on the blog ‘Autour de la gastronomie‘ which has numerous resources for French teachers. Although it would have to be altered for my students, I loved the layout and information! A few lesson ideas:

students choose a section of the graphic then discuss how/if food plays a similar role in their lives or culture (en français bien sur!).
in small groups students create survey questions for the school (using Google Forms). Results are tabulated and each group creates a part of the infographic (using easel.ly or similar). Surveys could also be shared on principal blogs for parents to take. Students could then compare and contrast (en français) the data from the two infographics.

COETAIL, Course 3

Visual Interpretation in MYP Language B

September 30, 2013 Lissa Layman

Another year as a Technology Coach, another year teaching French. I am once again in the MYP Language B classroom (grades 9 & 10; phases 1, 2 & 3) part time due to unforeseen circumstances. I am entering my 3rd week in the classroom and I’m expecting to be teaching a minimum of this week and next. While it has been an incredibly challenging few weeks, I’ve learned a lot about MYP assessment.

The four criterion that can be graded in Language B are oral communication, visual interpretation, reading comprehension and writing. The middle school French teacher and I have started planning our formative assessments for the next unit based on our summatives.

Phase 3 Unit 2: On fait la fête!
Unit Question: ‘How can I be organized?’
AOI: human ingenuity.
Assessment tasks: A- tell a friend about your birthday party, B- analyze & compare birthday party invitations, C- read a text about Mardi Gras & answer questions, D- write a letter to describe your birthday party

Our focus will be on organizing parties. Although the summatives will be about birthday parties, we want to include a variety of cultural events throughout the unit. My favorite ‘C’ from the US National Standards for Foreign Language is Culture!

Language B French Formative: It is July 14. You are standing on the streets of Paris. This is the image you see as you look up into the sky. In French, write a short paragraph describing the holiday you are celebrating. Then, write a dialogue between you and two friends that you might have while participating in the festivities.

Kuwait

Does your school use ID cards?

September 29, 2013September 29, 2013 Lissa Layman

Happy Sunday!

Our school will be obtaining ID cards for all staff and students in the coming weeks. The stated purpose is for security, printing and discounts (in the community). For security reasons, the thought is to have all teachers wearing visible IDs so staff members are easily differentiated from other adults. For students, the primary purpose will be printing for now but we have discussed students wearing them. As this is the first time we will have IDs at our school, we have some questions! We are particularly interested in how visible IDs would work in the lower elementary and certain classes (PE, art, etc). Please comment or email me…we’d love to have input from a variety of schools around the world!

1. Do all teachers wear IDs? If yes, how do they display them? How have staff reacted to this policy?

2. Do all students wear IDs? If yes, how do they display them? How have students reacted to this policy?

Thank you!

COETAIL, Course 3

My blog design

September 9, 2013 Lissa Layman

Creating my blog
As a perfectionist, I wanted to make sure that my COETAIL blog looked decent before I unveiled it to the world (and wrote my first post). I first chose a color palette that was appealing to me using Adobe’s Kuler. After picking my WordPress theme, I passed my palette on to my husband who created my header in Photoshop. I love that my header has a little bit of my personality in it! I then changed my professional blog so that the two looked nearly identical.

Another look
After reading this week’s articles, I took a closer look at my blog. Although it is appealing to me, I didn’t love the organization of my right side-bar widgets. I took Brandon Jones’ advice and did some moving around. I’ve tried to clean up the side-bar and make it a little less overwhelming. You can compare the screenshots below to what it is now. (On the left was the top section, on the right was the bottom section. Unfortunately I lost the middle section that contained a tag & category cloud).

My ideal blog layout…
Speaking of side-bars…there are some other things I’d like over there. Instead of a text link to my other blog, I’d really like to have icons for my other blogs, twitter, diigo and linkedin. I really like the look of icon links instead of text (thanks to Beth for sharing the article!). After reading the article from Slate, I would also like more control over the font of the page.

Guest Blogging
Before reading the week one material, I had written a rather lengthy guest blog post (I compiled a few posts I had written on my other blog). Although I wasn’t able to make it too much shorter, I did decide to break up the sections (similar to what I’m doing with this post).

What do YOU think?
I believe it is most important what my readers think. I want my blog to show my personality while still appealing to the readers. I would love if you completed the ‘Exercise to Test Visual Hierarchy‘ in the comments!

List the key information points that you are seeking.
Assign values (1-10) according to their importance.
Now, look at the actual design again.
Assign values (1-10) according to the actual visual importance as you see it in the live design.
Consider: Does the expected importance match up with the actual designed importance?

Thank you! 🙂

COETAIL, Kuwait, Professional Development, UKSTL

Kuwait: Year 2!

September 3, 2013 Lissa Layman

I cannot believe it’s already September! We had a great summer: spent quality time with lots of friends & family, traveled for a month in the US, and mostly disconnected. Now we’re back in Kuwait for year 2 (year 5 teaching) and school is already under way!

It was incredibly refreshing to disconnect from my PLN this summer. I didn’t blog, keep up with Twitter or read my RSS feeds. During the last 2.5 weeks back “home,” I’ve been trying to get used to the heat while getting ready to dive in full force this semester. Today starts COETAIL Course 3 and EDL 661 with UKSTL. I’ll be taking 12 graduate credits this semester and have already started to feel a bit overwhelmed. However, I’m incredibly ready to be challenged, fulfilled and rewarded. Looking at the outlines for all 4 courses has made me eager and excited. I can’t wait to start learning and growing professionally!

I plan to continue to reflect professionally and share resources on this blog. However with a total of 21 graduate credits while working full-time this year, I may not be posting regularly (not that I did before either!). I would, however, like to continue to grow my PLN and collaborate with educators around the world.

I’ve tried incredibly hard to come back to school this year with a positive, go-with-the-flow attitude. I’ve decided to make myself stand out in my position (as technology coach) by intentionally showing teachers that I care about how they’re doing and supporting them. The first week with new & returning staff was an amazing week of professional discussion and collaboration organized by the middle & high school principals. It set a great tone for the start of the school year. The entire 6-12 staff participated in several protocols (including Compass Points – I’m a north with tendencies towards east & west). I particularly liked the text-based protocols and the articles chosen. Our HS principal also shared a video with me that is worth slowint down and watching for 20 minutes: Celebrate What’s Right with the World. If only more human beings had this attitude…what a world it could be!

Happy September, happy school year and happy new beginnings!

1:1, Collaboration, iOS, Kuwait

Language B Final Exam Review

May 30, 2013November 30, 2016 Lissa Layman

When I brainstormed with the Language B department (Arabic & French) about how they could meaningfully integrate technology (SAMR prof development), they were eager to talk about the (quickly approaching) end of the year. Reviewing with students can be frustrating for both students and teachers. They wanted a way to put the responsibility of the review on their students while also engaging them. Although we came up with several ideas, they were most intrigued by Popplet (some of them had already seen it) and two of our French teachers (MYP & DP) gave it a try.

The teachers signed up for free Popplet accounts. For homework, the students signed up for accounts. Amel, the DP French teacher, created a popplet for each unit. She then created popples for grammar, vocabulary, and sub-topics. Once the structure was set, she invited students to the popplet. It was the students’ responsibility to fill in the popplet with grammer concepts, vocabulary words and sub-topics.

The middle school MYP teacher also used Popplet in a similar way with her students.

It was fun to hear the oohs and aahs from the students when I added a popple from the desktop and it showed up on their screens. The teachers liked that their students could collaborate and that each popple automatically included the creator’s name. Although only the creator can edit a popple, the teachers liked the comment function to help guide students. The ease of adding students to popplets was beneficial for the teachers. The ability to share links to popplets (on their class Edmodo pages) and create images was incredibly useful. The biggest negative? We’re an iPad school – the fully functional free website is flash-based and the app (with ability to collaborate) costs money. Also, you can only create a limited number of popplets (easily solved by saving the image when done and deleting the popplet).

Although this isn’t a “redefined” use of technology, the ability to simultaneously collaborate on a brainstorm with students gives it more oomph than “substitution.” It was a little taster for our teachers and hopefully they’ll be able to build on their experiences next year.