Thursday, October 18, 2018

Hour of Code is coming!!!

Hour of Code


Hour of Code is coming Dec. 3rd-9th.  Have you registered yet?  Click on the link www.Code.org and learn about this year's theme:  "What will you create? "

While the Hour of Code is in December, you can prepare in advance. There are one-hour activities for beginners and intermediates at all grade levels, and exciting new ones coming! Reach beyond your classroom. Host a school assembly, a parents coding night, or an activity in your community. 

Post on Twitter #hourofcode


Friday, April 27, 2018

Storyweaver

Storyweaver

Storyweaver is just that!  An interactive website that guides your students through the story development process.  The translator feature allows you to choose a story from their library and translate it in over 20 languages.  This is a wonderful resource for ELL students. You can download, print, and even read their stories offline. Students can create their own story by choosing a premade template, selecting from their library of images or their own, and then publish it in minutes.  Once they publish a story, they can go to the dashboard and view the number of reads. This is a great motivator when students see their stories being read by others. All tools and resources are free.

Friday, April 20, 2018

Mercury Reader Extension- Remove the Fluff!

Removing all the “fluff” from a website is an easy fix, especially if you want to save it as a PDF and have students annotate, comment, or highlight within the text.  Just add Mercury Reader, a Google Chrome Extension from the Chrome Web Store. The Mercury Reader extension for Chrome removes ads and distractions, leaving only text and images for a clean and consistent reading view on every site.  It’s lightning fast and ready to convert. Just select Print (you won’t actually print), then choose Open PDF in preview, Save to your desktop, then you can upload the file to Google Drive and open it with Google Docs. Ready to Annotate!!
This is a great way to use Newsela or DOGO News!
See the difference below using an online article from the NY Times.
BEFORE

AFTER
using Mercury Reader, the article is clean, without ads, photos, videos, etc.  You can copy and paste it right into Google Docs.

Friday, April 13, 2018

Google Drawing Templates

Google Drawing Templates
I just came across a great post from Matt Miller, Ditch That Textbook.  He has shared several Google Drawing Templates that are great time-savers in the classroom and easily shared with your students.  Click on the links below, make a copy to save to your Google Drive, and you’re ready!






Monday, March 26, 2018

DOGO News Great Resource!


DOGONews is a great website with current event news articles, books, and movies on science, sports, and more.  Most articles have colorful photos and occasional videos to go with them. They have the read-aloud feature and there is an integrated dictionary with challenging words and maps for geographical content.  Assignments can be made through Google Classroom and students can join easily to your class through their Google Account.

IKnowIt Interactive Math Website

IKnowIt is a great interactive math website for students in K-5.  It is very user friendly and easy to set up. Check it out because it’s totally free until Aug. 1, 2018.  They haven’t said what the subscription cost will be so take advantage of it now.

Students can work at their own pace/level and teachers can differentiate assignments to meet specific needs.  All assignments are aligned with Common Core and build math comprehension and fluency. There are cute characters and great animation to keep students engaged and motivated.

SAS Flash Cards

A free app from SAS Curriculum Pathways.  You can easily create, share, and learn flashcards with this app.  There are pre-made flash cards that you can download and play in multi subject areas, create new flash cards with a variety of question formats, and share your flash cards with others.  Create a free account to store your flash cards and use anytime.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Johnnie's Math Page



I recently came across Johnnie’s Math Page searching for math review sites.  This site has a lot to offer with tons of interactive games, searchable by Topic and Grade Level.  There are also short math videos on various concepts like multiplication, fractions, and counting with number lines.

Friday, March 16, 2018

SeeSaw HyperDoc

Check out this great SeeSaw HyperDoc created by Donna Wells.  If you are new to SeeSaw or just need some fresh ideas, this HyperDoc is what you need!  Thanks Donna for sharing!

Friday, February 2, 2018

Edpuzzle PD with CEUs

02/02/2018
Most of you are familiar with EdPuzzle.  It’s a great site
for adding questions to full videos, segments, and short clips.  
It will also grade the questions for you.  

Recently, EdPuzzle has introduced online
professional development with 12 different modules.
 Each module is centered around a different
aspect of EdPuzzle.  Some examples are:  
EdPuzzle Coach, EdPuzzle Flipped, Planning,
Big Goals, and 20th Century Learning.  
Each module takes between 30-90 minutes
for completion.  After completing, you’ll receive
CEUs for that module.  This is a great way to earn
CEUs in Technology if you need them for certification.  
You can also learn at your own pace and work from home.  

Friday, January 26, 2018

Formative or GoFormative

Formative or GoFormative (name to search for in Google)
is a free assessment tool that lets you create questions
for students in the form of multiple choice, true/false,
short answer, and draw (show your work).  You can
add additional content to the questions in form of
images, texts, YouTube videos, and
whiteboard doodles.  From the teacher side,
you are able to see real-time
answers and leave real-time feedback as
comments or grades.  There are
2 options for delivering the assessment, you can
create a class and add
your students, or simply choose Guest Students
and it will create a code
for students to join by.  
Students enter the code here:  http://goformative.com/join  
There are step by step videos to help you create
basic to creative assessments
within the site.  The Free version gives 20
uploads per month of documents/PDFs which is
usually plenty, live student responses,
and it returns scores and gives feedback.  
The premium version is $12 per month for a teacher
and it offers unlimited uploads/exports,
advanced question type, student progress reporting,
and a few otherfeatures.  However, the free version
really works well for those wanting
another assessment option.
Here is a great article from “Ditch that TextBook”
on Formative with 20 creative ideas
for using it in your classroom: