Classroom EdTech at Work: Diigo and Piktochart

WOW!  There is some awesome teaching and learning going on at Delphi Community High School! This week I was fortunate enough to be in 2 different classrooms for half a day each.  On Tuesday I was a guest presenter in Mrs. Amy Tonsoni's (@AmyTonsoni) classroom where I showed students how to download and use the Diigo Chrome extension.  Students were shown how to use the Chrome extension, where to find their annotations, and how to share their article.  Mrs. Tonsoni did a wonderful job of giving the students pointers on where they could use Diigo throughout the current school year.  I had a "great" idea for a card game as we went through working with Diigo, but as most days go for educators, the time went by too fast and we did not get to it.  Instead, the students were given the last 10 minutes of the period to look up an article that interested them, annotate it with highlighting and sticky notes, and then email it to Mrs. Tonsoni.  Below are 2 student examples of what Mrs. Tonsoni received in her email inbox.

Click on image to enlarge.

Click on image to enlarge.

The sharing option is phenomenal!  When a student shares their article with you, it gives the teacher a link to the article AND all the annotations and sticky notes in a neatly organized email.  It is pretty sweet!  I have to thank Mrs. Tonsoni for the opportunity to work with her and her students in her classroom.  It was a great day!

On Wednesday I was a technology resource for three of Mrs. Abby Wagler's classes.  In this case, Mrs. Wagler had her students do a close reading over an article about "Teen Driving" and write down six different statistics they took from the article.  On Wednesday, the students were going to start creating an infographic on these six statistics, along with three others they found on the internet.  After checking out different options, Mrs. Wagler decided to have her students create using the website Piktochart.  Piktochart is a fantastic website to have your students create numerous online presentations.  It has preset templates for presentations and infographics.  Or you can choose to have your students create their own from scratch!  

Mrs. Wagler is a self-described "non-techie".  However, she did a great job with presenting to the students on how to create their own infographic, as well as showing off her first one she created as a sample.  (She originally wanted me to show the students, but I figured she better get over her phobia earlier than later.  Ha!)  This lesson is one of my favorites I have observed in quite some time.  The students were very engaged in creating something that has meaning to them and looks professional.  The ability to share their infographics through the "SHARE" button made it so students could either email or upload their infographic to Mrs. Wagler's Google Classroom.  The sharing ability of Piktochart also saved a whole lot of paper and ink toner.  (The Earth thanks you, Mrs. Wagler.)  Below are some student samples for you to check out.  I firmly believe that the students did a tremendous job, especially since it was their first time!

Student Sample #1                         

Student Sample #2                          

Student Sample #3

How do you think you could use Diigo or Piktochart in your classes?  Need a brainstorm time?  I'm available and willing to help whenever you want someone to bounce an idea around with.

Social Studies, Chrome Extensions, and Google Cardboard

The last couple of Mondays I have had the opportunity to work with Mr. Brian Tonsoni's U.S. History and Economics classes.  Mr. Tonsoni reached out to me to help give his students some Chrome extensions that would help his students organize their thoughts and their research while working in his class this year.  For example, this year his U.S. History classes will be creating their own living History museum.  This is such an excellent way to get students to do some curating and creating in their classroom.  Students are creating their own learning; they are not just consuming it from the leader of the classroom.  

Now, back to the class experience.  I showed the students 4 different Chrome extensions to help them in their learning adventure for this year.  Those extensions are:  SnagIt, Diigo, Google URL shortener, and a fun one--the Panic Button.  

Each of these extensions have different functions.  SnagIt is used for taking snapshots or screen recordings of anything that is in your browser.  SnagIt also allows the user to annotate and draw arrows on the image they clipped.  It is wonderful for creating instructional recordings as well.

Diigo is an online bookmarking tool that allows users to either save an article to read later, highlight text, create sticky notes, and share with group members.  It an excellent resource for doing research on a particular topic.  If a group of students are working together and divvy up the research load, they can check out different online articles or blogs and then share them with their group members.  This is also very helpful for when students are doing research for their own projects or papers.

The Google URL shortener allows users to take any website and shorten the URL for sharing.  This is great and super useful for when a presenter wants to share their presentation to a group.  Instead of sharing the entire url, they can just share a shortened url by using the extension.

The last extension I showed was one of my favorites!  It is called the Panic Button.  In order for you to find out what it does, you will need to download it.  I hate to spoil the surprise!

The last item I showed the students was a fun little device called Google Cardboard.  It is the view finder for the 21st century.  You may remember the red ones from the 80s and 90s that had the little discs and the button on the side.  Google Cardboard is similar, except you use your smartphone and immerse yourself in augmented reality.  In the photos shown, students are using Cardboard to check out other cities from around the world such as Venice, Tokyo, London, and Paris.  In the picture on the right, you will see one of the students "standing" at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and looking up.  It is really quite entertaining and I believe it will only become more integrated into the 21st Century classroom.  Contact me if you would like what the students call "a trippy experience".  

I believe that Mr. Tonsoni is onto one of the most important new teaching trends that we, as teachers, need to recognize.  We are not the only source of knowledge for our students.  Mr. Tonsoni is off to a great start with relinquishing some of the power of learning in his classroom, and putting it in the hands of the students.