How can I balance screen time with non-screen time?

While we have lots of Chromebooks in rooms throughout my school right now, next year we get to go 1:1 with all students carrying their own Chromebook. I’m excited--and not just at the prospect of no longer having to make sure the CBs are all plugged in at the end of the day :)

However, students sometimes share that they feel like they’re on a screen all day long. I try to keep this tidbit in mind when planning, particularly when I’m thinking about how I’m applying the SAMR model in my classroom. If I’m hitting only the Substitution level, is it really necessary to put the kids in front of their screens? Or will a different mode of expression (posters, handwritten annotations, discussions) help kids understand in the same way and alleviate some of that extra “screen time”?

I don’t always feel confident in my decisions to opt out of screen time or stick with it for a given activity, but here are a few times where I’ve recently felt that the use of (or lack of) technology was the best decision for my students:

Script Annotations: Better by hand

My freshmen are currently working on a speaking and comprehension assessment in which they record themselves reading an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet. They’re focusing on conveying a clear tone in their speaking and practicing smooth fluency.

Here’s one example where a combination of technology and handwriting proves best. Students need to annotate their scripts for “actor’s notes”: speaking notes to help them make connections between the character’s motive and feelings and how to convey the tone clearly in their speaking. I know there are apps that allow students to annotate texts online; to be honest, when it comes to very individualized quick notes or reflections woven within a text, I find those apps to be too cumbersome. If I’m able to make paper copies for students to annotate, that’s where I find they do the best work.

To do these annotations well, students can’t rush through the reading; rather, they need to take time to understand the context of the scene, the character’s motives and feelings, the relationship between characters in the scene, any and all words they don’t 100% know. That’s where a processing document on Classroom comes into play.

This student is annotating his text by hand but using Dictionary.com to help with meanings and pronunciations of words he doesn’t know. 

This student is beginning her annotations by identifying all the words she doesn’t know and will need to investigate further. 

Poster Walks: A great "live" activity

Can you do virtual gallery walks? Absolutely! I don’t discount those at all. However, sometimes a live get-up-and-go walk around the room to add ideas to posters helps get the blood flowing and allows for a convenient reminder of student thinking that can be hung in a classroom throughout a unit.

Before reading The Odyssey this year, students gathered context surrounding the story: its time period, Ancient Greece, the Trojan War, Greek Mythology. After gathering the context, they came to class to share their ideas on three big posters: “Facts,” “Visuals,” and “Questions.” We asked students to walk around the room to add at least one idea to each poster. After they finished, we hung them up and asked everyone to point out interesting ideas they noticed on the posters. Funny visuals and interesting questions led to helpful discussions and clarifications before getting into the text.

Amazing Apps & Tools: Yay, technology!

My sophomores are currently engaged in the “Risk Olympics,” a yearly competition we hold to kick off our risk unit. As the unit progresses, each student will craft an individual “risk” with the purpose of improving him/herself as a person, and then we write reflective narratives about the experience.

The “Risk Olympics” preps kids to step out of their comfort zones. In the past, they’ve formed teams, and I’ve facilitated the competition by collecting photos and videos (to prove they did their “risks”) in a Google folder, calculation point totals by hand.

This year, we’re using an AMAZING website to organize the competition and track scores. I’m super thankful to have the technology to make the logistics of the competition less of a headache and more interactive for the students!

Goosechase organizes the “missions” cleanly and easily!

Students and I can all see the Leaderboard, keeping live track of the competition as students complete “missions.”

Data Collection: Yes, please, technology!

My quick formative check-ins have become so much more meaningful with Google Forms. Here, I did a quick check-in with my sophomores a few days before a big paper was due. I wanted to observe overall trends in what we still needed to review more as a class and to identify individual students who needed more one-on-one support in the closing days.

Because Google Forms loves visual learners, you can see the results to many of the objective questions through bar graphs or pie charts:

Overall, students were feeling pretty okay about their close reads (with some stragglers). However, the confidence levels on conclusion paragraphs were a tad lower--I knew I needed to work with the class more on that skill.

Then, I can also see individual responses for each student, particularly for the open-ended question at the end. The form provides a safe place for students to quickly let me know if they need to talk more one-on-one or need to let me know something.