On February 14th, my Tech Tip Tuesday was all about Office Mix. I was so inspired from the STAT Conference that I had to share this tech tool with my staff. I had overwhelming interest at this Tech Tip Tuesday due to the previous engagement my staff had with Office Mix through my Twitter chat presentation. Office Mix is quite the buzz around the “The Lane”! It has now become a great way for our teachers to flip lessons and/or use it for reteach moments. Teachers also appreciate the accountability piece through checking the analytics. The following are some ways we are using Office Mix at Church Lane Elementary.  
 
"Students listened to me notice and note/think aloud about two pieces of text in order to determine how problem and solution leads to theme. Then, they watched two short video clips (one from Land Before Time and another from Rudy) to analyze how the problems and solutions in each video clip showed the theme of friendship in different ways. They were using the digital sticky notes to monitor the videos so they could perform their written response as their assessment."
​– Mr. Miller, 4th grade

​“I have used Office Mix as a flipped learning tool for my accelerated learners as well as an instruction and reteach tool for all learners. I first used Office Mix by embedding video clips, adding anchor charts, and including guided questions for students to use when they were not meeting with the teacher in small group. After seeing the impact on my students, I decided to use Office Mix a little differently by embedding all students’ “menu of activities” and including organizers, links, and videos differentiated for each groups’ needs. Once they met in small group, they continued working through their menu by completing the activities either listed on or embedded in the power point. The students love the accountability of following the PowerPointt without the teacher’s help, and I love the accountability of the students being able to answer their own questions, especially the “what I am I supposed to do” question because it is all laid out for them.”
​ –Ms. Mueller, 5th grade

 “I used Office Mix with PowerPoint to make a lesson on finding and using text evidence to support the moral in a fable. My class had practiced this skill the previous day. In Office Mix, I recorded my slides or used my document camera to record a video of myself explaining directions while pointing to the text that students would be working with. With the slides that I recorded, I went over our objective, expectations, and the activity. Throughout the various slides, I would tell my students to pause and do something in real life and then come back to the Mix when they had completed the task. By doing the lesson this way, I was able to pull a small group of students who I noticed the day before had a good bit of difficulty with the objective of the lesson. We did the same lesson that I had put into Office Mix, but with me scaffolding everything a bit more. My students who I knew were ready to tackle the task more independently, but still with a little teacher help, were able to navigate through the Office Mix with a partner. The ability to record my voice and the documents my students would need and adding in pauses for students to complete chunks of work, was very successful. I effectively had a whole group lesson going while meeting the needs of each of my unique learners. Office Mix is an exciting tool that I plan to use for many more lessons and many different skills!”
​–Mrs. Wurzbacher, 2nd grade

“It can be difficult to plan and execute effective instruction when you have a classroom with such diverse needs. Officemix has allowed me to meet the needs of all of my learners. I have used Officemix as a flipped learning tool during my math workshops. Officemix has allowed me to deliver content to my accelerated group who I do not get to meet with right away. Through Officemix I have used screen recording to show my accelerated group different tech tools and websites to access during a lesson. Slide recording has also allowed me to record how to solve problems by using the inking tool. It also allowed me to upload videos to further my student’s understanding of a topic or skill. Overall, Officemix has given me a pathway to accelerate or modify instruction for my students through a flipped learning experience."
​ –Ms. Listman, 3rd grade

​"As the STAT teacher, I get the chance to assist teachers in a lot of their lesson/activity creating. It has been a great help taking some of the time and stress off the teacher’s shoulders. I have used Office Mix to record stories and create direction slides for teachers to use with their class. Teachers can easily take these slides and import them into their presentation or place the link onto the lesson tiles. Students also get a kick out of hearing my voice!"
​–Ms. Whorton, STAT teacher

My Lighthouse journey reached new heights when I combined flipped learning, formative assessment, and small group instruction to move students towards a summative assessment on identifying direct objects.  Yes, the lesson took time to plan, but once in the classroom, activities flowed seamlessly and students’ reflections noted how “awesome” and “helpful” they found the aforementioned methods in helping them meet the lesson’s objective.  The night prior to this lesson, students watched an Office Mix I created reviewing subjects, verbs, and prepositional phrases and introducing direct objects.  Students’ learning took place in the individual space, so students were ready to apply direct objects the next day.  When students entered the classroom the next day, they engaged in a Kahoot so I could formatively assess who was ready to move on and who still needed my help with direct objects.  Kahoot then made it quick and easy to group students; I downloaded the results and created groups in the time it took students to put away their devices.  As the period progressed, students’ who grasped the grammar concepts followed step-by-step instructions in small groups and applied the “ask three before me” procedure to complete their task in labeling sentences and then composing their own sentences that included direct objects.  While some students worked in small groups, I was able to target students who were struggling with identifying direct objects.  Eventually all students met at the end of the lesson and were summatively assessed on the same objective, but their methods of reaching that goal differed.  As one student stated, “I liked that the people who knew what they were doing weren’t bored waiting for the others to catch up!”   

Submitted by Ali Lederer
1st Grade Teacher, Joppa View Elementary
This post originally appeared in Creative Educator

As a first grade teacher at a “Lighthouse” school in Baltimore County, I work with young students who each have their own digital learning device. My colleagues and I are also working to create models of digital, personalized, and blended learning for students using these new tools. 

As I continue to research and study 21st century learning both at school and in my graduate program at Loyola University, I keep hearing about the popular “flipped learning” classroom model. Flipped learning happens when the teacher delivers a lesson to students via a screencast or video assigned as homework, allowing in-class time to be spent reinforcing or applying the skill that was learned.

Can you flip an elementary classroom?
As I started searching for ideas, I found it very difficult to find flipped lesson examples for elementary students. However, I thought this seemed like a fascinating idea and I was eager to find a way to incorporate this teaching method into my classroom in a way that was appropriate for my students. 

My main concern with attempting this type of lesson is the fact that my students are only six years old. Most of my first graders have little to no computer time at home in the evenings. I did not feel that I could rely on a video or screencast to effectively teach my first-grade students the foundational skills so crucial at this stage. I realized that the traditional flipped method was not going to work with my class. 

My solution to this problem was to try an “in-class flip” instead.

A huge amount of class time in primary grades is spent modeling an activity and giving directions. I realized that if I could deliver the modeling and instructions through a 5 minute screencast, I would have more time to give individualized attention to my students. Instead of me repeating the instruction, students who needed to hear the directions or see the modeling again could simply replay the video.

The “in-class flip”
For our first in-class flip, I chose to have my students create a lesson in Wixie to teach their kindergarten tech buddies about the sounds of the letter /i/. We had already spent two weeks learning about the long and short sounds of this letter. 

I wanted my first graders to apply what they had learned by teaching it to a younger student. Not only would this add meaning and purpose to my students’ learning, it would introduce the kindergartners to the wonderful world of Wixie. 

I decided to have my students create a 3-page Wixie project as the basis for their lesson for their kindergarten buddies. Students would work on one page of their Wixie lesson per day for three days. On the fourth day, the students would use their project to teach a younger student about both the letter /i/ and how to use Wixie. 

Normally, I would present this lesson with an ActivInspire flipchart to introduce the project and review the letter sounds. This time, I prepared the same flipchart and used Screencast-O-Matic to capture my voice explaining the directions on the flipchart and modeling how to use Wixie to build the first page of their lesson. 

On day one, the only instruction I gave to my students was where they could access the screencast. My students quickly gathered their devices and headphones and found a comfy spot to work in the classroom. They watched the screencast and then seamlessly began creating their Wixie projects. 

There was little to no confusion about directions or expectations. If a student was unclear or forgot the directions, they simply referred back to the video to listen again. Having the students working independently allowed me to begin pulling small groups with no interruptions.

Dividing this lesson into smaller parts helped in several ways. It allowed my students enough time to focus and put effort into each page of their lesson. It also allowed me to reflect on the experience of the flipped method and make changes to improve the following day. 

After day one, I realized that I actually had extra time to spend with students, even in my short Phonics block. So in addition to recording a screencast for day two, I was able to also prepare differentiated mini-lessons for small group time! 

A few of my students missed some of the requirements for the first page of their project, so I created a checklist for students to use to keep track of their progress and make sure they included everything that was expected.