Data! Data!Data! and Presenting Playfully!

This post is twofold, a little about data and a little about a playful presentation about data.

We celebrate data, “Data Day!”, on June 11, this is a districtwide thing we got going on. Every school gets together as a staff and “celebrates” the data that we have gathered. I have nothing against data.  As a matter of fact, my team got a better understanding of how to use data to guide instruction this year. We used data to plan carousels(students travel from room to room to hit on a certain skill), focus on particular strategies, etc….

However,  I did have an issue with my new friend, data. In order to gain data, I had to assess my students, assess, assess, assess.  It became an endless round of assessing, and my students were sick of it! I can’t blame them. Formative tests, pre/post tests, DCAS, common assessments(district), universal screening… And then, guess who has to input the data if it is not on a scantron form?

That’s enough griping, on to the playful part! For Data Day, we have to “think outside the box” and highlight the data we are most proud of. I used Sliderocket  to “show off” our data. Below is the video I made with GoAnimate  and placed at the end of our presentation.  Sometimes you just have to have fun with these things or you will go crazy! LOL  Here’s something to think about next time you want to get your point across and have fun at the same time!

 

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GoAnimate Grabs Their Attention:Bringing a Math Problem to Life!

What would you rather do to grab your students’ attention? Write a word problem on the board or create a short video of the same word problem, using GoAnimate?  I choose GoAnimate! More and more, I have geared my Math lessons toward problem solving, and away from numbers on a page or a worksheet. I want my students to problem solve. When I watch them work to solve a “real world” problem, it makes me proud.

So, how did I get to match GoAnimate with problem solving? I was trying to think of a way to start a unit with a Math problem that introduced the unit, and grabbed their attention. I thought of GoAnimate, which I was familiar with, but hadn’t used in a while. It is very simple to use. They have tons of characters and templates that you can use. You can use your own voice or type in the words. It can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. You can use the FREE version, GoPlus, or GoAnimate4schools. I have a GoPlus account and a GoAnimate4schools account.

I love the fact that GoAnimate works with social media. You can embed, tweet, Facebook,  upload to Youtube, or download. Of course, some of these privileges only come with GoPlus. There is also a FREE and premium account when you are using Gonimate4schools. The premium account allows you to create accounts for your students, and moderate the accounts.  I’m going to plead with my principal to pay for that for my classroom. 🙂 I will definitely have my students create their own videos, which will be very interesting, not to mention educational, and lots of fun!

Give GoAnimate a try, and see if you can’t grab their attention!