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Community Building Ideas to Start the Year in the Middle School Classroom

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Colorado Convention Center, Bluebird Ballroom Lobby, Table 11

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Presenters

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Middle School Technology Teacher
Willets Road School
@ereale23
ISTE Certified Educator
Liz Reale is a middle school Technology teacher and former technology coach. Over the past 12 years, she's worked in Brooklyn, Taiwan, and Long Island. She's found community in her networking groups as a Google Trainer and Apple Distinguished Educator. She's an avid traveler and volleyball enthusiast.

Session description

Looking for new ways to engage your middle school students and build class community at the beginning of the school year? Students love games, leaderboards, and making videos and animations. Join me to gain ideas for how to incorporate digital games and celebrate your students in a culminating project.

Purpose & objective

Educators will learn new ways to engage their students in community building activities at the beginning of the school year to create a positive class environment. Both digital and analog games are incorporated to increase student motivation and foster communication skills through active teamwork. Games include the use of a variety of tools like Blooket, Flip, Jamboard, Goosechase EDU, Canva BINGO and old-fashioned mechanical buzzers. In the culminating project, students design animations and videos using the artificial intelligence features in either Canva or Adobe Express to celebrate their favorite things and goals for the year. They build digital nametags using generative AI in Adobe Express or text to image in Canva. They design videos in Adobe Express using generative AI and recording a video from their recorded audio. Students work asynchronously through a project website, checklist, rubric, and tutorial videos. There is a lot of student choice baked into the activities throughout this unit to improve student accountability. The rubric is a single-point rubric designed to provide better feedback and reflection for their projects.

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Outline

There will be an overview of the process of how I created these activities, tips for the tech tools that I used, and the activities themselves. Activities shared will include a Goosecahse EDU scavenger hunt, app smashing with Flip and Blooket to create student trivia, app smashing with Canva and Jamboard for a session or "Love it or Leave it", Canva BINGO, old school game show using mechanical buzzers, and the culminating project where students created digital nametags in either Canva or Adobe Express as well as animated videos in Adobe Express. I will also share tips on creating with artificial intelligence in Canva and Adobe Express (60 minutes). Student examples of their culminating projects (animated videos and digital nametags) will be shared (15 minutes). Educators will have access to a plethora of resources that they can use in their classroom to incorporate games and community building activities. This includes a curated playbook of gamification and game-based learning strategies for any classroom and the project website, checklist, and rubric (15 minutes).

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Supporting research

How to Use Gameplay to Enhance Classroom Learning: https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-use-gameplay-enhance-classroom-learning/

Using Gamification to Ignite Student Learning: https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-gamification-ignite-student-learning/

Columbia CTL - Community Building in the Classroom: https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/community-building/

Building Community Before the First Day of Middle School and Beyond: https://www.edutopia.org/article/building-community-middle-school/

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Session specifications

Topic:
Communication & collaboration
Grade level:
6-8
Skill level:
Beginner
Audience:
Coaches, Teachers
Attendee devices:
Devices useful
Attendee device specification:
Smartphone: Android, iOS, Windows
Laptop: Chromebook, Mac, PC
Tablet: Android, iOS, Windows
Participant accounts, software and other materials:
Canva, Adobe Express, Blooket, Jamboard, Google Sites, Google Docs, GooseChase EDU, Flip
Subject area:
STEM/STEAM
ISTE Standards:
For Educators:
Designer
  • Use technology to create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.
For Students:
Creative Communicator
  • Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
  • Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.