Show What You Know

Asking students to show their work is a rite of passage for teachers. It's right up there with nagging kids to stop tapping their pencils. Boy, being a teacher is one big power trip, and it feels so good.

Anyways, let's get focused. Having your students demonstrate their understanding of a topic is easy if your students are using iPads. They have the ability to write on a number of whiteboard apps with their fingers and/or a stylus. If your students are forced to use a trackpad, it's another story. You know how difficult it is to sign your name using a trackpad on a computer. It's a ridiculously humbling experience. Asking a kid to work out math problems using a trackpad on a Chromebook is absolutely cruel. Look at this pathetic signature at the left. I'm a grown man with decent penmanship for crying out loud!
The fact that many of our schools are switching to Chromebooks is why I'm writing this post. Although some of our new Chromebooks have touch screens, many do not. Luckily for us, there is a solution! Simply create a screencast with the Screencastify extension. I know you're familiar with Screencastify because I wrote about it in May 2019. Before I forget, Screencastify kicked of 2020 with some pretty cool free version features that you need to be aware of.
Tech integration specialist, Jake Miller, created a lovely video asking students to spin it around, write it down, explain with sound. I bet you're dying to see what this means! Watch the following video to find out.

If you are one of the lucky ones with touch screen Chromebooks or iPads, another solution is FlipGrid. We already know that it provides students with a fabulous video response option, because I wrote about it in May 2019. That was a productive month, wasn't it? I'm sure you've read it, but here's a link just in case. FlipGrid now offers a whiteboard option, too. Check out these two videos for some FlipGrid enlightenment.

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