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Teachable Moments with OneNote & Office Lens

2/15/2015

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My String Orchestra class didn't go exactly as planned this week, and it's all OneNote's fault. On Tuesday we were supposed to continue in our method book, working on playing in the key of F Major. We were going to get to the next page and play one of my favorite songs, Waltzing Matilda! Alas, it did not happen thanks to that cape-wearing purple program called OneNote, and her little sidekick Office Lens.

It started when a couple of my violins came into class, talking about their new roles in the school play. They play the "music kids" and have to perform a song on stage during the performance. They handed me a copy of the song, and a conversation started. "The song is way too easy" was heard, as well as "what are those letters on top of the notes?" 

Boom! That was it. That was all I needed. "Lesson's over kids, it's time for a teachable moment!"   <-- I didn't actually say that ;-)

My 8th graders received a heavy dose of music theory instruction last year from me, and what a better way to start off this year's new theory season than with:

1) A review of last year's theory instruction.
2) Opportunities for critical thinking and application.
3) The creation of a new assignment/project for my students.
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The song. It looks easy, so can we do more with it?
It took me less than 60 seconds to set it up. I pulled out my Lumia phone and snapped a picture of the song my violin student had in her hand using the Office Lens app. Two things then automatically happened behind the scenes. Office Lens saved that picture straight to my OneNote notebook on my Surface Pro 3, and it saved the picture as a PDF file into a designated folder in my OneDrive. Within 60 seconds of snapping the picture, I have the song plus some music staff paper up on my whiteboard-wall using OneNote. Then the magic started. 

I tackled the letters first, explaining how they represented Major and minor chords that went with the melody. I could tell some of my 8th graders were a little rusty, so we reviewed intervals and triads, which was fine since it helped with explaining the A7 chord. After that we tore up the song, analyzing every bit that the class time allowed. By the end of class, my OneNote page looked like this:
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Song analysis made easy :-)
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My classroom OneNote whiteboard
By the end of class, my two violin actors & the rest of the class received a new challenge from me. "If the original melody is to easy and boring for you to play, then write a harmony line to accompany it! Every bit of information needed to write one is already listed on the page." I offered extra credit for trying, and the coveted "Student of the Month" award for the best arrangement. My challenge was accepted :-)

The teachable moment was great. My 8th graders applied knowledge they had previously learned, I was able to introduce some new concepts, and my 7th graders were involved. This couldn't have happened without the help of my daily tech tools:

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Working on my Master's Project at Compania in South Gate
Surface Pro 3 - I love this machine! I project my screen onto my classroom wall by wirelessly connecting my Surface to the projector with its built-in Miracast functionality. This enables all my students to see my "whiteboard" aka computer screen. It also allows me to freely walk around my room with my Surface, enabling me to use my proximity for classroom management purposes, engagement with particular students, and to use my classroom piano for reference, all without losing immediate access to my whiteboard. Using the pen and OneNote as my classroom whiteboard, I have unlimited whiteboard space and can annotate on PDF documents and pictures. The best part is when I hand my Surface and its pen to students and give them tasks to complete. The "Wow!" factor sets in and my students are completely engaged. 
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Just another lesson using OneNote :-)
OneNote - ….is awesome because of how adaptable it is to various educational situations and settings.    In my classroom, it's my whiteboard, my overhead projector, my document camera, and my lesson planner, all nicely packed into one sleek program. I'm not limited by space constraints, I don’t need messy markers that always get lost, and I don't need to worry about poorly lit documents. OneNote has become the visual canvas of my classroom instruction. 
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Screenshot of Office Lens in action
Office Lens - OneNote's little sidekick is a must for OneNote users. It's ability to capture images and save immediately into OneNote is simple, easy, and quick. For example, I use it to capture and display student's classwork for reference, analysis, and immediate formative assessment. The process is fast and seamless, and is great for those "teachable moments." Office Lens' continued development has introduced some great features lately. Not only can I quickly save an image of something to OneNote, but Office Lens will also translate the image and save as a Word doc, PowerPoint slide, or PDF file. This is great if I want to save, edit and use a document I receive at a meeting or conference. 

This trio of software and hardware has changed my daily pedagogical routines. I'm able to present more material to my students quickly in an effortless manner. As a teacher, I experience the "teachable moments" every day I go to work. Now, using OneNote, Office Lens, and my Surface Pro 3, I can easily turn a teachable moment into a visual interactive lesson for my students. 
Disclaimer: I am the proud owner of a Surface Pro 1, however the fine folks at the Cerritos Microsoft Store have been kind enough to loan me a Pro 3 to use. It has been wonderful using it, and I thank them greatly!
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Cake & Pie & Sway

2/3/2015

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I've been using Sway more frequently as a go-to tool in my classroom. As my multimedia students create digital artifacts, aka "their assignments," I'm taking advantage of the opportunities to incorporate some school-wide goals.

Backstory: Some of the teachers at my school (me included) are currently involved in a research study. A byproduct of the study involves our school focusing on our students' use of academic vocabulary (hello CCSS!), in particular 10 words that the teacher/participants chose last spring. 

Me being the music teacher that I am, my pedagogy and lesson planning mindset isn't exactly focused on getting my students to write in the English language. However, because of my school's academic vocabulary focus, I've been on a quest this year to step outside my comfort zone, brainstorm, and create some authentic and meaningful writing activities for my students. 

Back to the multimedia kids. I've been doing my best to teach them (this is my second year), and they've been creating stuff for me using the programs we have access to in our computer lab. Lately, after assignments have been turned in,  the next task I ask of them is to critique each others work. This is for various reasons.

  • Our school-wide 10 academic vocabulary words include Analyze, Evaluate, and Critique.
  • They're writing(!) using tier 2 and tier 3 academic vocabulary.
  • They're typing! <--- 21st century digital skillz :-)
  • Blooming like crazy! "Analyze each others work applying the design concepts I've taught you. Tell me how they successfully applied the concepts, and what they can do to improve their final product." 

I'm keeping my multimedia class paper-free. We're saving trees, and also the printers in my classroom NEVER EVER WORK. So, after my students have turned in their assignments, I need a method to share their work with each other.  A tool that will let me easily put their work on display, and is easily accessible for them to get to. 

Enter Sway. 

Sway has been exactly what I need time and time again. It's still a beta, but it works, and its been working great so far. Using Sway I'm able to consolidate, organize, and present various mediums of media using the web as my canvas. A canvas that I can put out on the internet for anyone to see and interact with. It has all the typical features of uploading graphics, inputting text, and embedding YouTube videos, but lately they've been adding some seriously cool stuff. Take a look.
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My students recently had to create a picture that expressed this year's Education Celebration theme, "College and Career Ready, Set, Go." After they submitted their work, I was able to quickly create this Sway and share it with them, so they could complete their critiques. Cake and Pie. 

A couple things you'll notice about the Sway above this text. First, it's embedded into my blog post because Sway gives me the iframe to do so. You can even get it yourself if you hover your mouse over to the top right corner. Second, I embedded an active excel chart that displays the results of my students' voting. Think about that for a second....

My students vote for their favorite on the linked critique form. I created the form using the online Excel app in the Office Online suite. Using the same Excel file on my computer (thank you OneDrive!), I was able to  create some formulas to tally the results and show them visually with a quick chart. Here's the real treat, Sway & OneDrive not only allows me to embed the excel file, but I get to chose what part(s) of the excel file. For instance, my neat little voting results chart :-)

That is some serious awesomeness. All of this I was able to do with my Surface Pro 3 on loan from the Microsoft Store (Thank you MS!). This machine is an absolute dream. I'm using an i5 with 8 gigs of RAM, and it handles everything I throw at it. Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier Pro, ZebraZapps.....running at the same time! 

I think I'm only scratching the #surface with the Sway/OneDrive collaboration too. Recently I gave Sway a real stress test, and although it took me some time, I was able to discover some very cool features, which I will talk about next time......

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How OneNote is changing my pedagogical instruction, Part 2

12/24/2014

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Over time, the information I've been required to post on my classroom whiteboard has evolved from a Learning Objective, to the Learning Objective + Classwork and Homework agenda, to a Learning Target (students will Know X and Understand Y by Doing Z) + the Classwork and Homework agenda. It's a lot of information. Don't get me wrong, it's totally appropriate and necessary for students' learning, but there's an issue. I teach five completely different classes, so  getting all that information on display for all the students is a challenge. I have a few options for displaying information on my un-centered, small, single whiteboard.

1) Write the learning targets and agendas for every class on the board. Drawbacks: Tiny writing, students can't see what I've written, no blank space on the board to use during instruction.

2) Only display one class at a time. Drawbacks: Some students still can't see, writing for every class is keeping me from supervising/managing my incoming and outgoing students during the passing period. Remember, I'm dealing with expensive instruments, cases, chairs, and music stands.

3) Install some more whiteboards in my room. Tried that, district took them down :-(

4) Give up and just not write it on the board.  <--Not an option!
OneNote is awesomeUsing OneNote to display my daily agenda
Over the years I would bounce around between option 1 and 2. Students from one side of the classroom would have to get out of their seat and walk over so they could copy down the agenda in their planner. One year I did install some cheap office-store whiteboards, but those eventually disappeared from my wall courtesy of the district maintenance crew. It wasn't until I discovered OneNote on my Surface Pro that I finally found a solution. At the time, I was connecting my Surface to my classroom projector to display instructional content, and began to use OneNote at school to take notes at my work meetings. OneNote's organizational structure (Notebooks -> Sections -> Pages) makes it incredibly easy to create and stay organized. I quickly figured out that within my "Work" notebook I could create and designate a section for each of my classes. Within each class section, I could create and use a page for each daily agenda and learning target of the day. Boom! Now instead of using my not-so-strategically-placed-in-the-classroom whiteboard, I just connect my Surface Pro to the strategically-placed classroom projector, open OneNote, go to the relevant class page, and viola! Now all my students can see the classwork, homework, and learning target for the day. Switching between each class agenda takes seconds, giving me back the time I need to monitor the students coming and going, setting up, and needing my assistance.

Creating a new agenda is super easy. OneNote automatically provides the date and time for when a page is created, which helps me keep track of the day and plan the information to be posted for my students. Just like in MS word, I'm able to create tables within OneNote's whitespace.  I use the table function to format my agenda info for easy reading and understanding. I never delete my agenda pages, and here's why. By scrolling through the previously created class pages, I'm able to quickly check the agendas from past school days. This helps me stay on top of what we're learning, what's been assigned, what I'm collecting, and what's due soon. Using the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-A (select all), Ctrl-C (copy), and Ctrl-P (paste), I can quickly create a new daily agenda and learning target page with a consistent style and format in a matter of seconds. This new method and routine is much faster and easier than writing it in a lesson plan book, and then again on my semi-useful classroom whiteboard. I also don't have to worry about students being unable to read my handwriting as well ;-)

In my music room, my Surface Pro is continuously connected to my classroom projector wirelessly via its built-in Miracast wireless display connection. Now I can be standing at my classroom door with my Surface, not only monitoring my students, but also changing the agenda for my next class. Using OneNote makes the task fast and simple, and it keeps me organized(!).


But wait, there's more!
I now have a second classroom on the other side of campus where I teach my multimedia students. The room is a generic computer lab for teachers to sign up and use, so I don't personalize it or leave any equipment there. Does that stop me from using OneNote to show the daily agenda? Nope! All my OneNote notebooks are available for me online, so I can get to them from any internet connected device. The computer lab's projector is connected to a generic teacher workstation, which either mirrors or extends it display. Using the computer's web browser, all I have to do is:
1) Login to Office.com
2) Click on the OneNote icon
3) Open my Work notebook
4) Click on the class
5) Click on the page showing the daily agenda
6) Done!
PictureIn another classroom? Not a problem!
I can even make edits from my Surface Pro, which then immediately reflect on the projector screen. The edits are synced in real time to the cloud version of OneNote (the browser version I use to display the agenda in the computer class), and the edits take merely seconds to reflect on the teacher workstation.

OneNote is free to download, and can be installed on practically every device that you can connect to a projector.  Teacher workstation, check! iPad, check! iPhone, check! Windows phone, check! Android tablet/phone, check! Thanks to my Miracast dongle, I can even use my Nokia 1520 to wirelessly connect and display the agenda if I need to. Using OneNote combined with my Surface Pro solved an issue I've been dealing with for years. It's incredibly simple, and enabled me to be a much more effective and organized teacher for my students.
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How OneNote is changing my pedagogical instruction....Part 1

11/25/2014

1 Comment

 
Two things about me:

1. I've always been a BYOD teacher. When I stepped into my classroom for the first time eleven years ago and saw the dinosaur computer sitting on my desk, I knew I'd have to supply my own hardware if I wanted to get anything done electronically. I first bought a Dell XPS laptop for work/life, which over the years eventually turned into a Samsung laptop. This was replaced two years ago by my current device, a Surface Pro (generation 1).

2. I've known about OneNote for years. It was either a free download or was automatically bundled with MS Office back in the day (can't remember which). I would always install it, open it up, look around, wonder what it was for, and then close it and forget about it for the next few months before I opened it up again. It wasn't until I was using my Surface Pro and THE PEN(!) it came with when OneNote became the most important program on my computer.

I cannot stress just how awesome it is using a digitizer pen with a Surface. Immediately I discovered the modern UI version of OneNote and started using it keep track of everything. I made to-do lists, took pictures of important documents with the built-in camera, and wrote in it! By now you've probably heard of research stating that people remember and understand better when they write their notes as opposed to typing them. This is totally true for me. Also gone were the days of going to a meeting, writing on the handouts, and then promptly losing them amidst the sea of clutter on my desk/podium. Now I could write down my ideas using OneNote, and always be able to find them when I needed them. I created notebooks in OneNote for my job, my master's program at CSULB, as well as for my own personal organization. No longer do I have to print out online receipts and confirmations. Now I can just "print to OneNote" and viola!, there is my printout in my notebook, saved forever. Sorry HP, I haven't bought ink in two years.

Some backstory: My music classroom is actually a converted PE room. By converted I mean it has a rug, an off-centered music staff whiteboard, and shelves for instruments. The biggest challenge I've had over the years is finding a way to display my instructional materials/content to my students. I have my whiteboard, but it's on one side of the classroom. This creates poor viewing angles for anyone on the other side, along with my percussion kids in the back of the room. Trying to explain anything visually using the whiteboard, like how eighth notes work in music, feels kind of ridiculous knowing that a bunch of students practically can't see what I am doing. Over the years I tried using an overhead projector, as well as a regular projector, but those couldn't ever work well in my room. Since the projector screen was behind me, I had to stick a big cart in the middle of my ensemble's first row. I hated this. It took up two chair spaces, and blocked the vision of the students sitting behind it. I hated my classroom. For years I tried to find a solution. When I finally got my Surface a couple years ago, that's when everything changed. It dawned on me one day. OneNote is a whiteboard. A BIG whiteboard. I moved my projector behind my podium so it pointed at the rear wall of the classroom. I hooked up my Surface, opened OneNote, and BOOM! Huge whiteboard in my room that everyone can see. This was it, the answer to my problem. Everything became so much easier. I could use my Surface to draw whatever I needed my students to see. Music symbols? No problem. Music staff? No problem. Visual representations of the duration of notes and rests? No problem. Visual anything? No problem. I was now able to type up and easily show my agenda for each of my five different classes. Since everyday is a new page in each class section of my OneNote notebook, I now have a history of what I do when I have to change instruction on the fly and put something up on my MegaBoard to help my students understand a concept. Just plain awesome.

Overtime, I have discovered how to use OneNote more and more effectively in my classroom instruction. At first it was used to solve a problem, now it's a part of my pedagogical instruction. Coupled with MS Office apps, my Nokia 1520, Office Lens, my Surface Pro, and a miracast adaptor on my projector, OneNote is simply the best application tool for my classroom instruction and professional development....and I'm just a music teacher :-)
More to come on that later. In the meantime, enjoy some pictures.
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Agenda for my band class. Now everyone can see!
Agenda for a class in which 8th graders have school issued iPads. Hey look! A huge QR code for them to scan!
Screenshot: Agenda, QR code, and me explaining the duration and counting of dotted quarter notes. The ability to zoom in/out and pan around effortlessly is very intuitive and helpful. 
Screenshot: Agenda, picture of a poorly glued broken bridge (used as an example to reinforce my rule of "Bring it to me! Don't try to fix it!"), Music score of a current song we're working on, so we can work on tough rhythm sections together as a whole group, and me explaining how a dotted eighth-sixteenth combo works.
Screenshot: Just a snippet of the notes for my Master's project.
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