Continuous formation

This builds on my earlier post ( link here ). After my session at the OAME Conference ( link to Presentation ), a few folks asked me how I had put this together, so I'm going to give a brief run-down here. You're always welcome to ask me for more information, of course, if I've been too brief. I used Microsoft PowerApps -- it's a quick-and-dirty way to make an app that uses your existing data and then you can muck around with the data, add more and then store it somewhere else. What's nice is that the Apps are universal -- they work on the laptop, iPad, iPhone & Android phones. There's a web app version so they will work on a Chromebook too! PowerApps are meant for quick development and refinement and for most users and applications in schools it's free . If you're not an Office365 school, or if your school blocks you from using PowerApps, you can sign up for your own Office365 just as a faculty member! ( link here ) It gives you acces...

I kinda run on some basic principles when using IT -- it's gotta be free, increase teacher efficacy (modulo some smal learning curve), reduce time spent, it's got to digitize content and I have to be able to to work with the data to find meaning. So every other year we get inspected by the Ministry of Education and her most recent feedback has been that we need a way to record evidence of observations and conversations in our classes -- and provide a structure for how they are included in the grades of our students.  Now we have read Growing Success ( link to PDF ), the guide to assessment & evaluation in our province and we thought we were doing really well with discussions, debates, Harkness, one-on-one conversations, videorecordings, student screencasts, Flipgrids, well, you name it. But NO.  She wanted evidence of incidental noticings, conversations-in-passing -- those ephemeral interactions with students that build up our gut-instincts of what a student knows a...