Students & Teachers Expand Boundaries Together

Rockets Help Desk and several other RMHS students had the opportunity to present to the Expanding the Boundaries of Teaching and Learning cohort.  This group of forward-thinking teachers from throughout our district enthusiastically worked with Reading students on the philosophy and workflow behind a paperless classroom.


The presentation started with a teacher perspective on the philosophy behind a paperless classroom.  The most important points made were that a paperless environment gives kids more ownership in their learning and makes the learning more transparent for students, teachers, and parents.

Then the students talked about the workflow:

• Access - Julia discussed how students can access readings, video clips, and other resources through teacher-created QR codes instead of paper handouts. Also, the resources are saved in the QR reader's history on her device, so they are never lost.
• Record - Tessa explained how she records her learning in a cloud-based note-taking app called Evernote.  All her notes are automatically saved and dated, so they don't get lost and it is nearly impossible to be disorganized.
• Analyze - Megan showed how she uses Skitch to analyze and annotate political cartoons, graphs, and art.  These annotated images can be saved right in Evernote.
• Collaborate - Melanie let teachers get a peak at her expansive use of Google Drive to share ideas and learning with her classmates.  She also showed how Drive can make it easier to co-author presentations and essays.  Also, teachers can give students more personalized feedback using the comment and discussion features.
• Create - Christina shared that she likes to create impressive evidence of her learning by making high quality videos with apps like Animoto.
• Demonstrate Learning - Kyle talked about submitted proof of learning via a blog instead of by taking a test. He mentioned that he thinks its easier to remember information he's written about than it is when he's memorized for a test.  He also appreciates the way a blog creates a record of his progress in a class over time.

Throughout the presentation, students and teachers had a backchannel conversation using TodaysMeet.  Students answered teacher questions and added links to additional resources to enrich the conversation.  For many of the teachers present, it was their first experience with backchannel.

For the second half of our time together, teachers and students sat down in small groups. They brainstormed how to integrate this new mindset in their classrooms at all age levels and in all school buildings around the district.

Megan shows high school and middle school teachers how
to annotate images with Skitch.

Melanie and Julia show elementary and middle school teachers
 how to appsmash with Paper by 53 and Padlet.

Christina shows elementary school teachers how to
create a video with Animoto.

Kyle shows middle and elementary teachers how to use
Timeline by RWT with students.

The students left the afternoon proud of the way they shared their ideas about learning with some of their teachers, past and present.  One elementary school teacher tweeted later last night.

@KerryHawk02 thanks for a great presentation at #ebtl2 good luck at masscue.
— Carina Becker (@carinabecker6) October 20, 2014

Then, she turned around and tried TodaysMeet to backchannel with her students right away today!

@KerryHawk02 I just piloted today's meet with my fifth graders during a math lesson and it was amazing!! Thanks for sharing!!
— Carina Becker (@carinabecker6) October 21, 2014

We are looking forward to meeting with some of the cohort teachers and their students in the coming weeks and months.  We want to build our relationship with schools throughout the district so that we can be a service for all students and teachers looking to expand their boundaries.

First Demo Slam!

On October 16th, Rockets Help Desk was invited to participate in a Demo Slam with Burlington High School Help Desk and others from our GEG Hangout on Air earlier this month. A Demo Slam is when you present how to use an application, website, or any other basic tutorial. Demo Slams take place between multiple parties in order to find the most entertaining and informative way to convey a tutorial and teach a broad audience without boring them. They can have more specified rules too! In this case the teachers involved created a rule list for what might have been the first ever solely student run Demo Slam.

Teachers used a Google Doc to communicate and plan the Demo Slam,

The Demo Slam started at 10am but since classes do not break until 10:35, Megan and I entered a  little bit later. We spent the first few minutes of the period preparing something informative and fun to present. After a while, we both decided to show an app called ChatterPix. This app can be used to create a 60 second video making a photo talk. Here is one of a dog speaking Spanish.

Megan and I did a demo on ChatterPix. Here we are showing a talking tissue box.

After we demo slammed, we talked a bit about our blog and some of the things the Rockets Help Desk is planning to do next year. Overall it was an exciting experience and helped immensely with learning more about tutorials in an exciting medium. Hopefully we can do it again and if we get the chance, I definitely would like to have more prep time so we could not only demo the app but also show other samples students had made and how it can be integrated into classroom. Below is the edited version of  the Google Hangout we did to present the demos. I hope to see some of these lovely faces at the MassCUE conference next week.

Embedding Images & Videos in Blogger

Embedding media on your blog post can be very successful to both your grade or just the overall look. It is very simple to embed media and also allows you to give more insight into your work. Make sure to cite any resources you used and avoid copyright infringement!

Reading Public Library Databases

Our school library has some great databases and resources on their Edline page but the Reading Public Library also has sundry resources that may be used for different purposes. RPL has a page dedicated to Teen Homework Help, which has loads of Resources that are easy to use and access as long as you are a Reading resident with a library card, a video tutorial of how to use these resources is available below.

Three of the resources that are shown above are World History in Context, EBSCO ebooks, and
mango languages. All these resources are accessible and easy to use for different purposes. World History in Context is a great resource for finding background information on a topic, primary sources, and links to other articles.


 EBSCO ebooks can help you find books available in the public domain. It's a search engine just like Google or Yahoo!, except you're searching for books. Books can be viewed by chapter and gives a list of important quotes from the book and a brief synopsis.


 Mango Languages is a login website that allows you to access over 60 languages, which can be a great tool for practicing languages that can feel like an adversary. It also allows you to culturally explore the language and the country from which it originates, a wonderful resource for going above and beyond in your foreign language class or among your peers.

Connecting Students with a Help Desks Hangout

Rockets Help Desk was invited by Jennifer Scheffer from Burlington High School to participate in a Google Hangout on Air panel discussion about how schools around New England are leveraging student genius with student tech teams.  It is all part of Connected Educator Month with the Massachusetts Google Educators Group.




We learned a lot about how different tech team programs are designed based on the needs in their particular school and district.  While we were the least experienced help desk on the panel, we felt like we both contributed to and learned a lot from the experience.

Read about what other help desks gained from the experience and learn more about their programs at their websites:

• Burlington High School Help Desk - Jennifer Scheffer
• Lynnfield High School Student Helpdesk - Janice Alpert and Jenn Judkins
• Groton-Dunstable Regional High School Tech Task Force - Audra Kaplan
• Hamilton-Wenham Help Desk - Eric Tracy
• Cape Elizabeth School Library Learning Commons E-Team - Jonathan Werner

I know for sure that some members of my own educator Professional Learning Network from around the country watched the Hangout live on YouTube: Scott Capro from New Jersey, Tammy Neil from Florida, Sarah Thomas from Washington D.C., and Jessica Raleigh from Colorado.   Some even showed it in their classes in the hopes that their students will want to start of their own help desks.  Scott sent me this quick picture he took as he watched us on his laptop from his classroom.

Rockets Help Desk was in a GEG Hangout on Air this morning! So proud of them! Thx @jlscheffer #thankateenager pic.twitter.com/5mvibrKaxq
— Kerry Gallagher (@KerryHawk02) October 1, 2014

Those of us that were on the panel are looking forward to help desk students meeting later this month at MassCUE, and doing another Hangout on Air within the next two weeks to exchange more ideas!

Educreations Tutorial

Tired of making yet another PowerPoint Presentation? Are you looking for a new, fun way of making projects? Educreations allows you to create projects or presentations that end up in a video format, rather than just a bunch of slides. It can be accessed through an online browser, or downloaded as an app on mobile devices. Here is a video tutorial on the basics of Educreations.

Below is a picture of the app version of Educreations. Making an account on Educreations is a great thing to do because it allows you to save your creations as well as share them with others. You can also search for other people's creations and save your favorites. 

Once you begin a new project, there are many different tools you can use to make it. Tools include the pen, which comes with a variety of colors, and the eraser which allows you to erase any unwanted writing. You can also add text, pictures, and even record audio. When recording audio, Educreations also captures what you do on the screen, so when you finish your project it plays like a video. 

Educreations can be used to make projects for any subject, such as History or Science. 

Here is a link to a History project made with Educreations:

French Revolution of 1830 

Here is a link to a Chemistry demonstration made with Educreations: 

How to Read a Periodic Table/ Element

Once you know your way around Educreations, it can be used as a valuable tool to make projects or presentations.