The Best Laid Plans. . .

My freshmen have been working on short stories for a few weeks, reading and analyzing a story and then writing their own fictional narratives.

Today I wanted to go back and review the short story elements and give a short quiz to assess how much my students had really learned the elements after discussing them in context rather than just as vocabulary terms. I created the quiz in Canvas and planned on using Socrative for whole-class review.  I quickly realized Socrative was not going to cooperate for some reason.  The room login page was black and half the students didn't get the response box when I opened a question.  After a couple minutes of trying to figure out the problem, I had to switch gears.

I told them to close Socrative and open Doodle Buddy or any other app that gave them a blank whiteboard to write on.  I then did the same review activity using the iPads like individual whiteboards.  As we reviewed, I overheard a student tell his neighbor, "This is fun. I'm glad she didn't just give up on reviewing when the app didn't work."

I think this part of why iPads are working so well for me and my students.  I am willing to try anything and I have realized that with technology, the best laid plans may not work in the middle of class.  I have to be willing to stop and say, "This is not working, let's try something else."

This doesn't just apply to the use of technology.  Too many teachers stick to their plans no matter what is happening in class.  Half the class can be asleep or completely lost and they just plow ahead because they "have too much material to cover."  I don't even know what that means.  What does "covering material" mean to a student?