Mrs. Cordova Gives Lessons a Facelift a Ving Success Story

Ving helps Mrs. Cordova revamp the way she organizes and delivers classroom information to her students.

Even after 11 years of teaching, you may think that summers for Mrs. Cordova, High School Oceanography Teacher at Boardman Local Schools, are spent relaxing — not so. She often spends her summers revamping lesson plans that didn’t quite work like she expected.

“I often spend a lot of time in the summer trying to tweak my lessons. When I saw Ving at a tech conference I immediately thought of a lesson that fit with the technology and I ran with it,” said Cordova.

What she saw was what we hope most teachers see, the chance to improve their already awesome educational material with a new delivery method and valuable tracking. One lesson in particular was troubling her… it included maps, videos, and current news. The traditional methods of sharing all of this information with her students were proving cumbersome and disconnected.

“Ving allowed me to put them [videos, maps, links] in a logical order with a question set immediately following. The reason I liked the Ving approach so much was because it brought all these components together into one place that made sense for the students.”

She goes on to say that many students in her classroom are tech savvy, so this new delivery method got them more engaged in the project and allowed them to use their devices in the classroom.

Often the thought of students using their own devices can be overwhelming to a teacher but Cordova found it very easy and fun for everyone.

“It worked out all right with students using their own devices. Walking around the classroom, I saw that they were staying on task. They could easily access the assignment as homework too. They couldn’t say ‘I lost the paper.’ There was no excuse for them to not finish the assignment.”

Every Ving comes with robust tracking that is beneficial for her as a teacher.

“It was really nice to say, ‘Hey guys, I can see that this is only 20% done. Remember it is due on Friday!’ And they also want to check in and make sure it was 100% done because they know I am watching."

Advice For Teachers Wondering About Ving

For teachers that are still wondering about using Ving in the classroom, here is some advice directly from one teacher to another:

“If you are sold on Google Classroom and you are loving that then you can use it with Ving too.”
“Just jump in and try it. It is very user friendly. I just sat down one afternoon and I didn’t have any instructions. I was able to figure out how to attach a link, a video, and make a question set. I had all my instructional materials ready beforehand, so organizing it into a Ving took me about an hour, which was very reasonable.”
“When you have a topic that is multi -faceted and has all different components from a variety of resources that need to be put into one lesson — Ving is the tool for that.”
“The key in education is not just to create an awesome lesson but to also deliver it the best possible manner.”
“One of the best things about Ving is that if you have a problem the Ving support team is right there to help!”