Interactive Classes: What eWorkbooks Mean for #EngagingScreenagers
Interactive Classes: What eWorkbooks Mean for #EngagingScreenagers
This morning, I was lucky to visit this Hong Kong headquarters of Google and talk with Suan Yeo, our “Google Education Evangelist” for the APAC region.
I am often asked if I work for Google, and the answer is, “No.”
Have I been paid to support teachers, trainers, and entrepreneurs to use them, “Yes, but not much.”
Actually, I have paid my own way to several Google summits to speak about using eWorkbooks in the classroom, as they are FREE, easy to use, and instantly create blended classrooms.
I write this blog and share the word about eWorkbooks because this innocent little use of a FREE app opens the world to learners in the classroom into learning for life.
By creating eWorkbooks you can create own version of an interactive learning system that can link your learners to the outside world.
- How to Create eWorkbooks
- Open your Google Drive
- Click [NEW] > more > Form
- Name your form (Class/lesson name?)
- (Optional: I like to click [Settings] > Collect email addresses > Response receipts > Always
- Insert your slides as pictures (save your slides as PNG files for this)
- Insert any questions, review questions, discussion questions, checking for understanding questions, exercise debrief questions, case study questions, video debrief questions, etc.
- Insert any links to search, to view an example, to videos, discuss topics, to curate examples, etc.
- Save your eWorkbook in your Google Classroom, your teaching website, or anywhere easy for the students to access with their mobile devices. (Often LMS’s are not good unless they have been highly modified to be mobile friendly.)
Learners not in the classroom
With eWorkbooks, we often encourage learners to leave the classroom to curate examples from around the school, submit them in the eWorkbook, and come back to class to share and debrief.
Your learners don’t even have to be in the classroom, as they can be most anywhere in the world if you use an audio/video app like Hangouts, Zoom, or Skype.
Learners interact
Learners can interact with teachers and classmates, use a variety of links, curate examples, watch videos, and see their results and scores.
eWorkbooks have conveniences
While eWorkbooks have brought learners conveniences like Google to their fingertips, interactive features and other media apps in real time, eWorkbooks don’t limit what a student can access to inside the classroom or textbook.
No need to pull out your laptop when you can check your learning the same way you check who is calling, and that is a first step to making learning a habit for life.
Since their introduction into the classroom, we have seen student engagement increase and student scores explode.
As eWorkbooks begin to penetrate classrooms, over the next few days we will take a closer look at how eWorkbookswill impact classroom learning.
Engagement background before eWorkbooks
As a trainer and university lecturer in the USA, I had great success in my training and classrooms by engaging my learners in ways I had learned from my Dale Carnegie Instructor Training. (optimal engagement)
After earning my Doctoral Degree researching engaging instruction in adult education and training and development, I started a training business in Hong Kong.
But something was wrong, I was struggling in this new culture (I’ve a cattle rancher’s son from Colorado, USA) to find ways to inspire and motivate my students in Hong Kong.
In the classroom, I preferred having students engage in learning activities instead of lecturing.
I struggled through trying several paper worksheets and workbooks to guide students, but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. (junk engagement)
When the smart phone with the ability to search the internet came along, I could see my students were curating (searching, finding, collecting, commenting, changing, and sharing.)
I thought, “Why not do that for learning?”, so I started asking them to answer questions, interact with information and classmates, and go find examples of the learning content using their mobile devices.
eWorkbook development and success
I began searching for possibilities and I struggled testing several apps, until we created best practices using eWorkbooks, and after testing them, began to use eWorkbooks full time in class.
Then we used eWorkbooks (Google Forms with the training slides as well as interactive questions, curating links and tasks, example images and videos, etc.
Students [Engaging Screenagers] completed eWorkbooks using their mobile devices) as they were learning interactively.
Students used eWorkbooks to while I lead the discussion and guided them, and after they submitted their answers, they would get their responses sent to their inbox so they could review their learning Moments of Growth. (optimal engagement)
Because the students’ responses from eWorkbooks go right into a spreadsheet in real-time, as the teacher I can monitor what students are doing to give them guidance in the moment, as well as track their learning develop over time.
Because the students’ responses from eWorkbooks go right into a spreadsheet in real-time, as the teacher I can monitor what students are doing to give them guidance in the moment, as well as track their learning develop over time.
Isn’t it time we support our Engaging Screenagers with real-time, interactive tools they already know how to use?
Won’t we be giving them the gift of learning so they will continue learning for life?
Wouldn’t it be a shame if educators had these free, powerful, and effective tools but didn’t use them because they don’t like change?
Give learners eWorkbooks so they will learn for life.
Remember, come join tomorrow to see more Improving Your Engagement with Screenagers and others inspirational experiences and ideas for Optimal Engagement in the ScreenAge.
Remember to engage tomorrow.
Following with you.
Keep it simple.
All the Best, Warren
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