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Enhance Learning with Pear Deck

/ Mrs. Waneta Hebert / 6 Comments

As an educator and a student of educational technology, I’m always on the lookout for new tools that increase student learning and student engagement. I strive to authentically teach my curriculum in ways that students have fun at least some of the time and that students will remember after they leave my classroom. It’s not always an easy task to accomplish, but I like to think I work hard at it.

A couple of months ago, I stumbled on a tweet from Alice Keeler that linked to her blog, Teacher Tech with Alice Keeler, specifically a post about a new Google Slides add-on that purports to increase student engagement and give every single student a voice. A common theme in this blog, and in my teaching, is making lessons more student-centered and engaging all students in learning. So, I was understandably intrigued. I spent an afternoon exploring the add-on, which led me to the full resource, called Pear Deck.

I am now 100% a Pear Deck supporter for the following reasons:

  1. It’s simple.
  2. It projects onto the student’s devices.
  3. Every student answers every question.
  4. The dashboard shows me all responses and gives me control from anywhere.

Continue reading →

Fall2017 Part 2: Technology, Research, and Community Education

/ Mrs. Waneta Hebert / 3 Comments

Ah, hello again, friends and followers.

If any of you made it through the monster reflection post from last week about my LDT seminar class this semester, I’m sure you are just dying to hear how my other two classes went. Well, I live to please.

I can now officially say that I have finally submitted all of the assignments for all of my classes, and boy was that a huge sigh of relief. I will also say that in that three days since I submitted my last assignment, I created instructions for the math and English teachers on my campus to access their universal screener data and enter into Eduphoria (the system we use to manage data), wrote lesson plans, entered quiz grades from Schoology (my LMS BFF) into the gradebook, entered my own screener data and a coworker’s, put together an amazing lesson using Pear Deck to go over a test that my students bombed, acted as the middle man between a Pear Deck representative and my principal to get Pear Deck for my campus, and my Sim family just had triplet girls. So, in summary, being finished with my classes in no way means that I’m not busy anymore. I am very ready for winter break.

But, I digress. Continue reading →

Existentially STAAR-Crossed

/ Mrs. Waneta Hebert / Leave a comment

Welcome to STAAR Season 2017! For those of us teaching courses with EOCs (end-of-course exams administered by the state), this is the most stress-filled, anxiety-ridden, headache-inducing time of year, and that’s not just my allergies speaking (hello, Spring!).

A little background for any readers not in or from Texas: STAAR stands for State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. High schoolers take English I, English II, Biology, Algebra I, and US History. They must pass all five tests in order to graduate, and they can retest every time it’s offered (December, March, and in the summer) until they pass it. Every state has their own version of the STAAR test, and as with everything else in education, those tests are constantly changing. Even the STAAR made a significant change this year, removing the short answer response (SAR) questions from the test (which is a whole debate in itself!). Continue reading →

No One Will Notice If I Nap During My Conference Period, Right?

/ Mrs. Waneta Hebert / 3 Comments

Let’s talk about a little thing I like to call “Teacher Tired.”

As we wave goodbye to February today and say hello to STAAR testing season, I’ve fallen into the slump of being perpetually Teacher Tired. Teacher Tired is a very unique experience (although I do imagine that nurses probably have their own version of it that is admittedly most likely worse).

Teacher Tired is a state nowhere close to sleepy, well beyond exhausted, and quite often mixed with sleep deprivation silliness.

Teacher Tired is the feeling of being beaten by 130 freshmen with questions that could have been answered if they’d just read the directions and knowing you still have an unbelievable amount of work to do when they’re gone.

Teacher Tired is staying up until 11 (an ungodly hour for me) finalizing the station rotation for class and waking up at 5am already exhausted and still somehow putting every ounce your coffee-induced energy into those stations. Continue reading →