On May 3, 2016, I had the honor of being invited to the White House for the annual celebration of the National Teacher of the Year, the State Teachers of the Year, and Great Educators from Across the Country. I was one of 300 or so of the “great educators” invited. As you can imagine, it was an amazing and humbling experience. Check out more about the event in the Sway embedded below or click HERE to view it in a new window.
Reader’s Workshop – The Sway Way!
Posted onAt Wissahickon Middle School, we have been using Sway in a variety of ways for demostrations of learning, teacher presentations, and communication, collaboration and project-based learning. Another great way that our teachers and students are using Sway is through reading portfolios. Read on to find out how Language Arts teacher Chad Towarnicki and his students have used Sway to not only keep track of the books they have read, but to use stunning graphics, videos, and text to highlight their “big reads”.
During the third marking period our eighth grade students conduct a large scale Reading Workshop/Genre Study. This year, with Office 365 available to each student, we were able to use Sway as a singular portfolio housing for the variety of assignments that the students produce over a period of ten weeks. From the standpoint of the educator, students were able to generate several formal written assessments of varying length, multi-media formatted creative projects, and a formal log of book reviews all in one spot. From the student perspective, it was a single large-scale project where they could infuse whatever theme format they chose, creatively displaying their work while flexing their tech-savvy muscles.
The beauty of Sway was that formatting options work in sets of three, so students have enough wiggle room to manipulate the visuals when loading in different assignments, but there aren’t so many options that they get overwhelmed. In the end the students remained invested in the reading workshop for the long-term, due in part to the visually appealing one-stop-presentation of Sway.
Check out this Sway to view seven student examples from this project. Very cool!
Determined Dianne
Posted onCheck out my new website on health & fitness coaching. Am I crazy? No, I'm determined! #ddd https://t.co/dsn1sA4Pq1 #beachbody
— Dianne Krause (@diannekrause) March 12, 2016
Wiss21 Technology Showcase
Posted onCheck out this article about our Wiss21 Technology Showcase! https://t.co/Uy3PRA4Q9K #ddd #wisslearns
— Dianne Krause (@diannekrause) February 24, 2016
Project Communication and Collaboration with Sway
Posted onI had the honor of being a guest blogger once again on the Microsoft in Education blog. This time I wrote about how the students and staff of Wissahickon Middle School are using Sway for project communication and collaboration. As of today, the post was not only posted on the Microsoft in Education blog, but also their “Firehouse” blog, and today, the Microsoft in UK blog. In addition, I’m feeling the social media love for the post as it has circulated around the Twitter and Facebook circles.
Check it out below!
#MIEExpert @diannekrause shares how #sway is a go-to tool for collaboration & #PBL: https://t.co/ifmPEZIk6X pic.twitter.com/oUUJmqnrhe
— Microsoft Education (@Microsoft_EDU) February 17, 2016