New WFR... again!

March 2-10, 2019, I was in Estes Park, Colorado taking a NOLS WFR course. I had planned to take this course this past fall when I applied to be a NOLS instructor.  This decision came after leading students with Billings Middle School backpacking in North Cascades. Unfortunately, NOLS had four times the number of applicants apply than they had space for, but I decided to continue with the WFR in order to work with a different organization this summer leading students into the wilderness (in interview phase with a few different outfitters; more on that later).  I applied to NOLS on a whim, but it wasn’t until I was not accepted that I realized just how much I wanted the position. Thus, here I am.

Twenty-six of us descended upon the sleepy wintertime community of Estes Park, eager to learn to care for people should tragedy strike in the form of diarrhea to an open pneumothorax. I stayed at the Adventure Hostel managed by Colorado Mountain School who also sponsored the WFR course. I highly recommend this outfitter for their hostel and their professionalism with their courses.  NOLS leaders Adam Baxter and Jake Wallace were incredibly knowledgeable, professional, and engaging.

I am in a liminal moment being between jobs but even considering a different path to working with youths. This course helped me be at peace with this as I met people of all ages in a similar place: searching for employment in a field of their passion.

Mt. Rainier, leaving Seattle

Downtown Denver, Colorado

Storm rolling into Estes Park, Colorado

Room at Hostel

Can you see the Canadian Geese in the sky? They were making a racket!

The homework

Surface hoar on the tracks, but not in the snow pack...

Just like being in the Delta, frozen eyelashes and all.

I had this meal for lunch and dinner for most of the ten days.

View from hostel window

Mine collapse patient

Or just moulage!

Estes Park Event Complex hosted our class

Long's peak on my final day.  A famous 14er in the area.

The graduates!

It was a great class, but I was ready to head back home!

Google Certified Educator Level 1

Last week, I earned my Google Certified Educator Level 1 Certification!  Anyone can take the assessments to become certified at Level 1 (basic uses of Google Suite), Level 2 (educational theory applied to Google Suite, Google Innovator (accepted into an International conference to pursue an educational task), or Google Trainer (lead Google training).

My new badge!

I have been using the Google Suite for almost a decade for personal use.  Three years ago, when I joined Juneau School District, I began using Google Suite for Education with students: Google Classroom, Google Docs, Good My Maps, Google Drawing, Google Forms, and more.  During my first year at JSD, I was accepted to participate in their Project CART program which was incredibly inspiring and supportive as I worked with colleagues to plan, implement, and debrief technology-based plans.  I also was awarded a cart of Chromebooks to keep in my classroom as part of Project CART; this was incredible because up to that point I was sharing a cart with my colleague across the hall and was on a fixed schedule to borrow carts.  Project CART was a turning point in my use of Google Suite for Education.

In addition, I took Catlin Tucker's Blended Learning course in addition to purchasing and reading her publications on my own time.  Over a summer, I read Alice Keeler's Google Classroom publications, too.

Billings Middle School is also a Google School and even I have a Chromebook this year rather than a Mac or PC.   After several years of frustration because some items would work on my computer as I demo'd a lesson, but then wouldn't work on student Chromebooks, or I couldn't tell students exactly what buttons to press because Chromebooks have slightly different keys, it is wonderful to have the same tool as students in order to walk them through different activities.

Just before Thanksgiving Break, I traveled to Buckley, Washington, where I participated in a Google Level 1 Bootcamp that reviewed essential skills for operating the Google Suite basics that would be reviewed on the exam.  This was put on by AppsEvents and was a fantastic review of Google tools.  And the best part was that my district covered the $250 fee and AppsEvents gave me a code to waive the fee, all $10 of it!

Earning a Level 1 Certification is just the beginning.  I hope to earn Level 2 Certification this spring.

My certificate!

Alaska Staff Development Network's "Blended Learning with Catlin Tucker" Fall 2016, Final Response.

Previously Submitted to ASDN

Lindsey Cassidy

EDUC 57127

Response and Application Paper

Implementing Catlin Tucker in the 9 & 10 ELA Classroom

I have recently relocated to Juneau, Alaska (from Kodiak, Alaska) and was lucky to find a .6 teaching position for one 9^th grade English class and two 10^th grade English class.  There are no requirements to be in an Honors class that I can find, so the students in my classes are the ones who have specifically chosen to not go on the Honors/AP track.  Therefore, my student make-up is students who are struggling readers, several ELL students, several students on IEPs due to reading skills and/or behavior, many with 504’s for anxiety and/or ADHD, strong readers who don’t want to put forth the effort in an advanced class, and students who are at grade-level reading ability and placed correctly. 

I learned an incredible amount during Catlin Tucker’s webinar.  Some of it I have already begun implementing, but much of it will be slowly added into the class as we continue our learning. 

One of the earliest points of conversation in class was the process for online discussions.  She shared ideas about how to set ground rules, examples to give students of “what to do” and “what not to do.”  Her use of the website Schoology and demonstrating its use was also incredibly helpful. 

I certainly plan on implementing Schoology with my students before winter break.  Unfortunately, because we created accounts as “students” with Catlin in class, I couldn’t also get a teacher account until Catlin either released us from the class or quit the class.  She responded to my email just the other day about de-enrolling me from the trial Schoology class so I can create a teacher account with my school email so that I can start getting students on the site.  Previous to this, in Kodiak where I taught for four years, the district was using Moodle as their LMS system that not only allowed me to upload documents, provide links, and assign activities, it also allowed me to create online discussions.  Since coming to Juneau, I’ve been learning about Google Apps for Education, particularly Google Classroom.  While it is a beneficial resource, it does not do online conversations as effectively as Moodle; Schoology is just what I was wanting and needing.  I look forward to using Catlin’s resources to set expectations and begin to use the site for these discussions.

Another resource Catlin shared I found intriguing was her approach teaching vocabulary.  I appreciate her tip to using vocabulary.com as well as the activities she does in class, particularly the one similar to the late night show host Jimmy Fallon’s skit.  I found the activities engaging and I’m certain students will, too.

Recently, my 10^th grade English students began reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and because I have just under fifty students in the classes, I started them using vocabulary.com with the new unit.  Students have only reviewed vocabulary for chapters one through six to this date, but with those twenty words, they have had an incredible amount of practice.  I also appreciate the leaderboard on the website that allows students to have a friendly competition with each other and their vocabulary.  Vocabulary.com offers new and different study practice options from the more commonly known site quizlet.com.

And finally, the other really appreciated resources Catlin shared with the class was the wealth of resources where teachers could find texts to share with students. She listed a variety of websites, some I had heard of like NewsELA and Diigo as well as others I had not including CommonLit and Smithsonian Teen Tribune.  One she did not mention that I have had great success with and is free, is ReadWorks.org. 

Allowing students to access information from texts is key to learning; NewsELA is a great resource that allows students to do this.  I have used NewsELA in the past, but I used it again quite recently after Catlin reminded me of its existence.  I was able to find a class text in NewsELA so that my students who were unable to access the information from the primary source and its 1330 Lexile score would be able to do so with a modified version.  All students were successful with the activity because of NewsELA.  I have used Diigo in my professional education—a professor required we locate resources and tag them—but I didn’t realize its full capacity for education until Catlin mentioned this.  I look forward to asking students to download the Diigo extension on their chrome books and asking them to annotate.  I have used ActivelyLearn to annotate, but it only allows a certain amount of documents uploaded a month with the free account and Diigo is always free.

Catlin gave so many great ideas that I had to purchase her text she plugged at the end of each class.  It has so much information that we didn’t cover in class as well as ideas discussed more in depth.  Again, I’m sure I’ll be using the rest of my year with my students to weave all of these activities in.  It’s been a very inspiring class!

JEDI Fall 2016 REPUBLISHED

This post was originally published on Juneau Education Association's JEDI blog on 11/6/16, found here: http://www.jedi.education/

Upon first hearing of Juneau Education Association’s teacher-led professional development class, JEDI, during JSD’s August 2016 new teacher in-service, I was hooked.  What intrigued me the most was the motivation of teacher professionals to lead a professional development course outside of district-funded activities and to focus on topics teachers are desiring more training on and skill development.  This self-directed learning not only benefits teachers, but it also benefits the district and, more importantly, our students.  As I asked other teachers about the JEDI class before it began, many told me they had taken it the year before, loved it, and encouraged me to take it.

Teachers leading their own Professional Development has seen a surge of social media coverage in the last few years. Betty Ray, Director of Programming and Innovation for the education site Edutopia, encourages teachers to use the internet to connect with other educators and learn.  She says that she sees “some amazing learning and professional development opportunities” (Ray 2011) available to teachers because of the accessibility the internet provides as well as the grassroots DIY PD organization it supports. A cursory Google search on the topic led me to myriad posts and blogs on the subject that contain further social media sites where teachers are connecting to learn from each other about topics they are professionally curious about.  Allison Tallman, an accomplished teacher who blogs for Scholastic, calls on teachers to “be accountable for our own learning by seeking out the information we want to know,” (Tallman 2016).  The JEDI course is just this: a DIY professional development designed for JSD educators’ interests.

At the first class, I was delighted to see many other JSD employees also jumped at the opportunity to participate in the JEDI class.  Educators from all educational levels, covering a variety of content areas, with a varying degree of technology abilities, and from new teachers to veteran teachers were in the room.  This was clearly an opportunity that appealed to many.  When you enter rooms with a turn-out like this, you get a distinct feeling that not only will you learn a considerable amount from the instructors, but equally from the discussions with your peers.

From the beginning of session one, the JEDI course challenged me to think and consider how I make information accessible to students, particularly with the introduction of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).  While the philosophy of making lessons and information accessible to every student is not a novel idea, UDL along with the associated website and resources was new to me and incredibly thought-provoking.  I appreciate new ideas that challenge me to be a better educator because there are always areas of our practice that we can always improve.  

As the sessions continued, the presenters gave us more and more to consider.  We read and discussed UDL guidelines; viewed, tested, and played with technological sites to augment learning in our own classrooms; heard from other teachers in the district about their successes with technology in their classrooms; learned from visiting presenters; and had time to discuss issues or ask burning questions related to topics that interested us.  Each session had time for discovery with new technological tools and thinking about how to implement new technologies to increase access to information and learning for all students.

The JEDI course instructors were key in the success of this class: Nathan Adams, James Scheufelt, and Loralie Heagy.  Their vast knowledge of UDL, technology, and educational pedagogy made this class incredibly worthwhile.  As teachers, we are busy people.  I’m thankful these three teachers made time in their schedules to organize and lead this course.

I feel incredibly fortunate to be working with coworkers who advocate for professional development that focuses on topics educators are interested in and create avenues to make that happen.  What an incredible level of professionalism and dedication.  I am glad I took this course (and for credit!) and I look forward to further JEDI course offerings.  

Resources

Ray, Betty. "Empowering Teachers with DIY." Edutopia. George Lucas Educational Foundation, 26 Jan. 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

Tallman, Allison. "Being Accountable for Our Own Learning: Seeking Out Professional Development." Edu@scholastic. Scholastic, 3 Oct. 2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

Blended Learning in Action: A Practical Guide Toward Sustainable Change by Catlin Tucker, A Review REPUBLISHED

This post was originally posted on Juneau Education Association's JEDI blog on 11/6/16, found here: http://www.jedi.education/

Alaska Staff Development Network (ASDN) recently offered a webinar course with blended learning guru, Catlin Tucker.  If the term “blended learning” or the name Catlin Tucker are unfamiliar to you, you’re not alone; I was not familiar with either until I took this recent class.  But now that I am familiar, I have immersed myself in both.  Blended learning is essentially blending online lessons with traditional lessons in the classroom, but Catlin Tucker presented organizational tools, websites, protocols, and more to help teachers do this most effectively in a way that could immediately be woven into the classroom.  Most of the information she shared can also be found in her recently co-authored text, Blended Learning in Action: A Practical Guide Toward Sustainable Change.  I purchased the book early-on in the course and was able to follow along during the webinar through the book and gain a deeper understanding and see more examples than a 90-minute course allows for.  This text proves to be an incredible resource.

This 13-chapter resource is divided into four parts. Part one is to convince you to switch to a blended learning model; I began the course as a believer. Part two covers the practical information about hardware and curriculum; I learned a vast amount regarding different websites, systems, and online resources to include in my classroom. Part three dives in and explores different ways to embed blended learning in the classroom; as someone who has been using technology in the classroom for a while, I found this to be the most beneficial for me. And part four is a single chapter that discusses personalizing blended learning to fit our students, teaching styles, and unique situations.  

Within the text, each chapter has been systematically laid out in an order that allows an educator to progress through the book and build upon earlier ideas.  Within each chapter, Catlin and co-authors have made the text visually appealing.  Visuals are used to explain nearly every idea, important details are bulleted, and a neutral color palette is applied.  In addition to the visuals, each chapter begins with an epigraph that sets the tone and ends with suggested book study questions which I found valuable as an individual reading and processing this text.  

Even without the text, I’m certain educators have gained an incredible amount from attending Ms. Tucker’s webinars.  She is seamless in her transition of presenting information and asking participants to try new activities online to brainstorm ideas between participants.  She modeled blended learning techniques and provided resources in each webinar.  But as an educator who has focused on building a blended learning classroom for the past several years, I wanted that hard-copy resource to return to in order to refine my classroom teaching even after the webinar had ended.

After several years of doing blended learning, not realizing it had a name, I still felt I was able to gain much from her webinar and even more from her text.  I look forward to referring to the text as the school year progresses and continually implementing new techniques to increase the effectiveness of my practice in a blended learning classroom.

Resource

Tucker, Catlin R., Tiffany Wycoff, and Jason T. Green. Blended Learning in Action: A Practical Guide toward Sustainable Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2017. Print.
Lindsey Cassidy

EDpuzzle.com in the 9th Grade English Classroom: A Review of Implementation REPUBLISHED

Originally posted on Juneau Education Association's JEDI blog on 11/1/16 here: http://www.jedi.education/

Many topics for discussion and websites presented during JEA’s Fall 2016 JEDI course have been new and exciting for me as an educator.  One such website struck me as a tool I could immediately use in my class the following week: EDpuzzle.  David Kapuler of Techlearning.com describes EDpuzzle as “a site that allows users to select a video and customize it by editing, cropping, recording audio, and adding questions to make an engaging presentation or lesson,” (Kapuler 2014).  

I didn’t have a video in mind, but I knew I wanted to mix it up in my classroom in the way we were experiencing reading; I wanted to record my voice reading our class novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, so students could follow along in the novel.  I was very excited I could also embed comprehension and discussion questions into EDpuzzle so students (and teacher) could monitor comprehension during reading.

I started with Screencast-o-matic.com (a free website that records either your screen or uses your camera to record you concurrently with audio) to record myself reading the chapters aloud.  Rather than record my face while I was reading, I found an image of the cover online and used it as the image of my recording.  Essentially, I made a podcast.  Screencast-o-matic was incredibly user-friendly, though techlearning.com has yet to review the site.

After I recorded my chapters, I uploaded them to EDpuzzle.  This process went very quickly.  Once they were uploaded, I was able to modify the video.  I inserted an “Audio Note” at the beginning of the recorded chapter and introduced the assignment.  Throughout the chapter, I inserted questions pertaining to the reading.  An added bonus here is that students can re-listen to the section as many times as they’d like, and the video will not allow them to move on until they’ve attempted to respond to the question.  You can even supply an answer or other feedback to appear once students respond.  At the end of each video, I inserted further “Audio Notes” to give students further directions on what they should do next.

The day of reckoning for EDpuzzle was the day my students came to class and began listening to the recordings.  I was able to link EDpuzzle to my Google Classroom so students could easily locate the recordings.  I had imported my Google Classroom into EDpuzzle beforehand, so creating an EDpuzzle account for each student amounted to simply pressing “Connect with Google Account.”  Many students worked independently; some students shared headphones and listened and answered together.  I was able to follow along on EDpuzzle to see students’ answers to questions in real-time as well as identify how far along they were in the recording.  EDpuzzle even allows teachers to grade the student responses on the site, should one wish to do so, by marking each question correct or incorrect and/or a typed response.  These comments went immediately to the student to view after they finished the video. I appreciated this feature.

The exit ticket for the day asked students to reflect on the activity and to tell me their thoughts about the program, particularly if we should do it again or scrap it. Students’ responses were very positive:

·     “I thought edpuzzle was fun and helpful” -DH

·     “I loved using edpuzzle because I got to do it at my own pace and in my own space without reading aloud.” -SJ

·     “I liked this activity, I found I focused better with this program…” -SP

·     “I think it was ok.  And we could do it again.” -CY

·     “I like using edpuzzle because we can read it in our own pace and go back to listen to it again if you don’t understand the questions.” -MR

(*Student responses edited for major spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors)

Clearly, EDpuzzle was an effective and positive experience for students, and using EDpuzzle in the classroom again is a request students are making.  I appreciated how user-friendly the website was not only for me in uploading and modifying the recordings, but in getting all of my students access to the videos as well.  The fact that Google Classroom and EDpuzzle partner is icing on the cake.  

Source

Kapuler, David. "Product Review: EDpuzzle." Classroom Technology News. New Bay Media, LLC, 29 May 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

-Lindsey Cassidy

JDHS 9 & 10 English

Originally posted in the Prince William Sound's RCAC "The Observer" Fall 2015

Expedition reshapes Kodiak educator’s feelings about Prince William Sound

By Lindsey Cassidy
Kodiak Middle School Teacher

The name Prince William Sound causes ominous memories of my childhood in Kodiak to reverberate in my brain. For many years, the name was synonymous with dirty words such as “oil spill,” “toxins,” and “Exxon Valdez.”

I was 5 years old and living in Kodiak on March 24, 1989. My memory does not know a time before the spill; the Exxon Valdez oil spill has always been an event my community suffered from and is still rebuilding from.

During the summer of 1989, weeks after the spill, my family camped on neighboring Woody Island. When my younger sister and I returned from the tide pools, oil covered our clothes and hands. The oil did more than just soil clothing: it oiled our communities, ecosystems, lands, seas, and our lives. Kodiak fishermen and women had families to feed and bills to pay, but Exxon took even longer to respond effectively to the disaster in Kodiak than its initial delayed response to the spill in the Sound. I rode on my father’s shoulders during the protest march held in Kodiak shortly after the spill as a public demonstration against Exxon’s ineffective response to the disaster. My parents had saved for their dream house and suddenly found themselves wondering if it would be just a dream. For me, these events were inseparably linked to the name Prince William Sound.

After graduating from Kodiak High School, I left the island for college and later, rural teaching experience. I returned to Kodiak in 2012 to teach English and seek outdoor adventures. When an Alaska Geographic course was advertised to educate teachers on the culture, communities, history, and geography of the area via kayak camping, I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about this intriguing landscape of dichotomies that, in my mind, was Prince William Sound.

Day one, hour one, minute one in Prince William Sound, I was in love with the land and seascape. I began redefining the Sound into a place of resplendent waters and mountains. Instructors Tim Lydon from the U.S. Forest Service and Betsi Oliver from Alaska Geographic shared their knowledge and passion for this unique part of Alaska and kayaking its waters. Discussions focused on experiential education and place-based education; Prince William Sound is ideal for both of these approaches to education. Not one of the eight educators, myself included, left the area without considering how to connect our students to the beauty of Prince William Sound and foster a sense of stewardship.

Even though Kodiak is some distance away from the Sound and it took me until my third decade to visit the area, these two places are bound together through culture and history: The Alutiiq culture calls both Kodiak and Prince William Sound “home,” and the Exxon Valdez oil spill demonstrated that Kodiak is simply downstream from the Sound.

My takeaway from my week is to identify how I can link this place to my Kodiak Island students, how I can help students perceive its relativity to Kodiak so that they’re not waiting until their third decade to visit the turquoise waters and glacier-scoured peaks. To protect Prince William Sound from another devastating spill, and in effect all areas downstream, it is essential our students connect to the land as stewards. We need economic prosperity, but we also need healthy land and seas for sustainable economies, especially for our fishing towns. As a middle school English teacher, I am looking forward to refocusing my instruction and inviting students to engage with our local environment and culture through reading and writing. I look forward to fostering stewardship in coastal Alaska to keep tragedies like Exxon Valdez oil spill from being part of other childhoods. Places like Prince William Sound should be known for their beauty and significance, not for a tragedy caused by humans.

Editor’s note: Since 2013 the council has co-sponsored an Alaska Geographic and Chugach National Forest led teacher expedition in Prince William Sound. Participating Alaska teachers travel by sea kayak focused on place-based learning. Along with nature study, the history of Exxon Valdez oil spill is one of the primary themes of the course, with excerpts from “The Spill” read each night. Teachers develop lessons for their students based on their experience in the Sound.

Link to original post: http://www.pwsrcac.org/observer/expedition-reshapes-kodiak-educators-feelings-about-prince-william-sound/

My images from the trip:

Vimeo link for video of the trip: 

https://vimeo.com/131904061