Techquity Notes Catcher - Xander Collins

Eric Cross (Twitter: @sdteaching) 7th Grade Science Teacher at Albert Einstein Academy Middle
School, hosts the Techquity: Culturally Responsive Teaching in the 21st Century Classroom
webinar as part of the K-12 Online Teaching Academy facilitated by San Jose State University. The
Techquity webinar addresses how technology can be used effectively to increase engagement, build
community during distance learning, and provides practical tools for upgrading your digital cultural
competency.

Use the Techquity Notes Catcher below as you watch the webinar to document EACH pedagogical
strategies and technology tools that can be used to enhance engagement and build community
during distance learning.

Pedagogical Strategies: describe the activity and Technology Tools: include the name of the tool, a
the learning goal achieved from this learning description of what the tool can do, and any tips Eric
opportunity (2 points) shares. (2 points)

- Establishing early relationship building - Google Form

- This can include using surveys, phone calls,
emails, and communication via tech. to learn
more about who your students are and who
they are in the classroom.
- The learning goal this can achieve would be
having a glimpse into the life of your students
before you even meet them. To learn about
their needs and establish good relationships
between them and their parents.
- Ensuring your websites/online tools are
mobile friendly
- Creating and managing online resources
that can be accessed, and accessed easily,
by any platform. This can ensure that parents
and students alike are able to quickly/easily
interact with your content and are never
overwhelmed.
- A lot of parents primarily use their
smartphones when interacting with school
resources/your resources. By having a
simplistic design you can be ready for any
and all things involving parents/students
communicating through your content.
- Utilizing both asynchronous and
synchronous learning in the classroom
- Having access to and utilizing tools on the
web we can create learning environments
that are accessible both in and out of class.
Using both we can help eliminate confusion in
the classroom and outside the classroom.
- A learning goal this accomplishes is the goal
to ensure every single student can succeed in
your class, whether they are physically in it or
- A google app that can be used to create
surveys, questionnaires, forms, etc. involving
information gathering quickly.
- We can use google forms to look at students
through a lens of service.
- We can create forms (feedback forms) to
identify early in the school semester who our
students are.
- We can determine the amount of tech.
students have access to, what their home life
is like, what makes them smile. Very useful
for jumpstarting building a relationship with
your students.
- By gathering soft data on students we can
know how to better interact with them and
what needs they may have to be successful
emotionally, socially, and academically in the
classroom.
- Google Voice
- A google app that can be used for
communication by closely mimicking a cell
phone.
- Gives you a free number that you can give
out to parents that isn’t your personal.
- Parents can be vital to a student's learning,
by having access to communicating with
parents you are able to gather even more
information on the students.
- I can use it to create relations/allies with
parents immediately and early on. I can share
positive things that have happened with their
kids in my class.
- Photos and Videos
 outside it.
- Using various methods to keep
engagement up in an online setting
- By using tools we can create classroom
environments even when online. By having
better video, audio, etc. we can bring
engagement to a classroom that is in the
cloud. This works equally as well for pre-
recorded lessons to substitutes and students
alike in which they are fully able to interact
with my content even when I’m not there.
- This accomplishes the goal of giving
students the most resources possible for
them to succeed.
- Saving recorded lectures/lessons can help
your students when they want to revisit
something they are struggling with and even
help students online that aren’t necessarily
your own.
- Creating access to translations in real
time
- It’s important to provide students with
access to visible translations of lessons in
real time to better equip them for any
classwork/comprehension. By utilizing apps
like google slides/powerpoint they have a built
in translator for your voice. Giving captions to
your videos and further comprehension to
students.
- This accomplishes the goal of bringing
equity to a classroom in which there is more
than one native language actively being used.
- Humanizing our students through telling
our stories
- Using tools like Storycorps you can have a
student go through an interview process of
telling their story and hearing someone else's
story. This forces us to humanize people we
are interacting with.
- The goal of this is to help students build
communication skills and self-actualize their
story. It’s a moment to be heard and for
relationships to be built stronger with deeper
connections.
- Creating a secret post board
- Creating an optional project students can
contribute to. In which they can anonymously
donate a story/secret they have and have it
hung up on the board.
- This creates a safe space for students to tell
secrets that might be burdening them and
- This can involve any app that allows
photographs and videos to be taken. Google
photos is a great one for teachers with
unlimited space.
- By taking photos/videos of your students
you can bring your students to their parents
while they are at school and busy with
learning.
- Very impactful for parents to see what their
students are doing and knowing they are
being active in their education. This can help
create more positive interactions between the
student, the parents, and the teacher to better
prepare students for when class can take
negative tolls.
- Canvas, Google Classroom, Schoology
- I compiled these because even though they
are different they are tools being used in the
same way.
- Apps/websites utilized for asynchronous
learning. Each can be used to supply learners
to content/assignments/aid outside of the
classroom. This could include turning in
assignments, direct connections to
notes/videos/course content, and the
syllabus/calendar of upcoming turn ins.
- Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams
- I compiled these because even though they
are different they are tools being used in the
same way.
- Apps/websites utilized for synchronous
learning. Each can be used to directly
connect to a learner during class time. This
allows for students to take part in class even
if it isn’t possible in person.
- Can be recorded and posted for students
who are confused. Helps eliminate students
not having the resources to complete
classwork on their own.
- Snaplens
- An app from snapchat that lets you use
filters to change your physical appearance.
- A fun way to keep attention and
engagement.
- Video Instruction
- Filming lessons before a class time using
different video apps/websites to present
content in.
- By doing this you can ensure an activity has
everything you want in it and can edit it to be
more fun to keep students engaged.
 allow for other students to connect to each
other. Building community among students
who all are going through life together.
- Having students participate in a Human
Library
- Students choose a human book in regards
to a stereotype they have been labeled as or
interacted with. Then everyone gets together
in a safe space to speak on these stereotypes
and their experiences. Being able to ask
questions/have opportunities to have
conversations that might not be normally had
outside of the classroom.
- This accomplishes the goal of removing
stigmas, creating empathy, listening to each
other, and having the opportunity to ask
questions.
- Creating VR tours in Google Tour Creator
to tell stories
- Have students create a VR tour of
something they are passionate about, their
homes, their interests, etc. This can help
share their story.
- This accomplishes the goal of connecting
students and humanizing their peers to better
understand each other.
- Creating identity slides
- Have students each create a slide with their
name and full of visuals that represent them.
Pool all these together into a master
slideshow and play it in the classroom/at the
school during open nights, etc.
- This helps us better understand students
and can even encourage growing their tech.
skills by participating and creating a visual
slide about their identity.
- Video Cameras, Microphones, and Digital
Tablets
- These are all tools you can purchase to
enhance your classroom. Allowing for a better
video feed of the teacher, clearer projection
and voice capturing, and quicker annotations
to already made lessons.
- This can also enhance engagement
because you are clearly seen,
understandable, and interacting with the
lessons first hand.
- Doc Cameras
- A second camera that can display work real
time on paper, etc.
- This can be simply another tablet/phone that
is also in the online meeting recording the
work you’re doing. One you can switch to and
do real time work in front of students (similar
to a white board in class).
- Screencasting lessons
- A tool to videotape your lessons and publish
them elsewhere (either online, in your canvas
pages/google classrooms, etc).
- This is extremely useful in promoting self
direction, freeing you up to help students
individually, and timing lessons to students
attention levels.
- Can be sent to parents as well to help
learners at home.
- Google Slides/Powerpoint
- These are presentation websites for slides
and lessons.
- Very practical for creating lessons and
taking students through those lessons in any
direction you want to go.
- Google Slides is free and Powerpoint is free
for public school teachers.
- Google Slides can real time translate on
screen your words. Powerpoint can do the
same thing except in many languages.
- Talking Points
- A third party text app that allows you to text
parents that translates your texts for whatever
language they need. It helps eliminate the
language barrier to families and parents who
want to be up to date in their students'
education.
- Remind, Bloomz, WhatApp
- Texting apps that can help ensure safety of
 communication between students, parents,
and teachers.
- This eliminates the possibility of a
student/parent changing phone numbers and
being left out of text threads/messages
regarding learning.

- Thrively
- A website that students can use which asks
a bunch of questions and creates a strength
assessment, goals, and aspirations of your
students.
- Very useful to gain soft data about students
and their strengths that can hone in on these
attributes.
- Very useful to validate students in their
strengths.

- Storycorps
- A website that puts students in an
interviewer position listening to stories and a
portion where they are telling their own story.
- This can help humanize students to each
other and to you. A key part in relationship
building is being human together and
recognizing we are both people.

- Postsecret
- A method of sharing a secret anonymously
with the class/school. Students can turn in a
google slide or story anonymously.
- Isn’t forced and can opt out. It can build a
community of sharing stories and connecting
to the other students in the class.
- Can help express secrets that are making
students feel tense. As well as helping
students connect to other students with
similar experiences.

- Human Library
- Everyone creates a “book” about them that
focuses on stereotypes they identify with or
want to know more about. Then everyone
gets together and discusses what these
stereotypes are and can safely ask questions
about them.

- Google Tour Creator

- An app that allows using google street view
images to create a VR tour of whatever they
want. This can be going to the pyramids, a
tour of their hometown, their top colleges, etc.
- Further encourages storytelling in the
classroom and hearing other students'
stories.
After you have watched the webinar, choose one of the tools described and search for a tutorial to learn
more about it - include a link to your tutorial in the space below. Then reflect on how you would build an
activity using this tool to foster engagement or community building in your future classroom. Describe that
learning activity below. (1 point)

Thrively
Thrively Tutorial for Teachers

I would love to use Thrively in the classroom. The activity I have in mind would be having all of my students
interact with Thrively and taking the assessment themselves connected to my class. After every student
takes the assessment I would have a sharing portion of the activity. Getting my students into groups of two in
which each student would have a turn explaining their page and telling their story of strengths and what that
means to them. The other student not sharing would be asked only to listen and wait for their own turn to
share after their partner does. This could help humanize students and one another in reflecting that everyone
has their own strengths. To add onto this I would want to have a portion of time or even a class where the
students sign up to have that same process with me. In which every student would be able to share their
story of strengths to me first hand and I could do the same right back. Building connections with my students
and observing how they are interpreting their own data, not just how I am. I believe this would be a great way
to interact with all my students individually and assess their strengths not just from what I think but from what
they think as well. Allowing for the students to humanize me and vice versa.