Need a way to engage your students and motivate them to learn. Use try using games to woo them into learning by incorporating technology in the classroom.
Expand students' views of the world with these eleven ways to use technology in the classroom. Share your ed tech ideas on the forums at ReallyGoodTeachers!
We've been burning the midnight oil on a project that's super close to our hearts, and we're thrilled to finally share it with you. Over the past few weeks, we've been meticulously curating a comprehensive infographic that features an array of fantastic educational websites. This isn't just a random list, mind you. We've built upon the groundwork laid by our widely-shared Ultimate EdTech Chart , which we released a few months back.
Need a way to engage your students and motivate them to learn. Use try using games to woo them into learning by incorporating technology in the classroom.
HINT: It's all about the LEARNING! These are tried-and-true tips that I believe can make a big difference for you and your students.
There are so many fun and engaging apps you can use in the classroom to enhance your students’ learning! The only downside to having so many tools available
Check out these 14 useful infographic examples for education to improve your teaching skills and become a better person and educator.
Podcasts in the classroom are so fun and engaging! Have you jumped on the podcast train yet?! I have a great system for using podcasts in the classroom...
In this post, you will find 27 Formative Assessment Tools for Your Classroom! Formative assessment is such an essential part of the learning process and student success, and many digital tools can help support this process.This list has a wide variety of features and options to help you solidify your formative assessment strategies! Many of the tools below are great for both formative and summative assessments.
To better prepare students for their future careers, using technology in the classroom is essential.
Choice is the unspoken 5th "C" of digital learning. It fits right alongside Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creativity, and Communication.
Happy …JULY?! Is that right? Is the summer really flying by that quickly?! ? As it normally does, our summer vacation is racing toward the finish line, but I’m finding myself more energized and rejuvenated for the new school year than I was at this time last summer. Thank GOODNESS! I really think the combination ... Read More about 5 AI Tools To Try
Explore some uses of Wakelet via this edition of Twitter Takeaways. Learn more about how to use Wakelet, as well as embedding in OneNote and more.
Teaching digital citizenship and keeping students in the classroom safe online (and off of course!) is a priority for teachers when using iPads, Google Apps, and other devices & websites in the classroom. While even the best laid digital citizenship plans can lay the foundation, teachers need to continue revisiting topics and guiding students all year. I'm sharing some tips and lesson ideas plus I've teamed up with my Tech with Us Community to bring you more must-read ideas for teaching digital citizenship linked at the end. Here are some things I advise any teacher looking to integrate technology into
We all know and love Kahoot, right? If you do not know about Kahoot then we have a few blog posts with tips and ideas to get you up to sp...
Three AI teacher assistants, a curated collection of math activities, a website-building curriculum, a site for helping students change the world, and more.
Vocabulary and exercises - ESL worksheets
Wondering how to use Gamification in education? Check this complete gamification guide for teachers and engage and motivate your students.
Cut out the cards, students pick the card and should give their opinion on the statements written on it. This activity can also be used for distance learning (you need to display the cards to students). Hope you find it useful! - ESL worksheets
Here is a list of 10 Critical Thinking Apps that you can use with your students in class, no matter what subject you’re teaching.
Happy Sunday, all! I hope you’ve had a great weekend and are ready to tackle the week ahead. I’m making a point today to get my mind right, if you will, to focus on having a positive week because last week was … well, let’s just say it was a doozy. Do you ever have ... Read More about Using Blooket in the Classroom
Students have to watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Ypz9TDMTE and complete exercise A with the necessary information. Some words already have the first letter. Then they answer some questions about themselves. Finally they will have to identify the free time activities shown in the different pictures. Hope you like it. - ESL worksheets
Veteran educator Jennifer Gonzalez shares a 7-step framework that can help hesitant or frustrated teachers add more digital prowess to their teaching practice.
In this post, you will find 27 Formative Assessment Tools for Your Classroom! Formative assessment is such an essential part of the learning process and student success, and many digital tools can help support this process.This list has a wide variety of features and options to help you solidify your formative assessment strategies! Many of the tools below are great for both formative and summative assessments.
Padlet is one of my favorite collaborative web tools to use with students that I have used for years. I love how versatile it is and how one can access a Padlet wall on laptops, Chromebooks, iPads and Android devices! If you are not familiar with Padlet then click HERE. This week I helped a 5th grade class incorporate technology into their novel study groups. The teacher wanted to use Padlet for each team to gather ideas and brainstorm the events that they read about each day. I mentioned how anyone can MAKE a background for a Padlet wall to help students organize their digital sticky notes. She was so excited about this possibility! I whipped up these graphic organizers for the teacher to choose from each week and I wanted to share them with YOU: Click the image to download We ended up making four different Padlet walls--one for each novel study group. Thank goodness for the remake feature that allowed us to quickly and easily make four different walls! Press the button once and BOOM the new board pops up in your dashboard. Once the students worked together on their individual devices to add their ideas to the graphic organizer, the teacher printed the wall, deleted the post-its and uploaded a different graphic organizer for the next assignment. That way she didn't have to keep recreating 4 different walls each time. Honestly, creating a wall takes NO time and she may have spent more time deleting the post-its. However, this worked for her because she didn't have to print out different QR Codes to get to the new Padlet walls (for those who were using iPads) and didn't have to post new urls in her Google Classroom. Note: We learned the hard way. The sticky notes will appear in different locations on the graphic organizers IF the students use different devices but work on the same board. Therefore, we had one group use iPads while the other three groups used their Chromebooks. Here is a quick video tutorial I created to show how you can upload these graphic organizers to be the background of a Padlet wall: Note: As I indicate in the video, you will most likely need to expand your browser window so the graphic organizer doesn't appear cut off. I created these graphic organizers in PowerPoint and saved them as a jpeg. I did have to play with the formatting a bit. After a little trial and error, I finally had the size that fit perfectly on the Padlet wall. Give it a try! Other ideas for customized Padlet wall activities include: Having students label a diagram (parts of a cell, parts of a plant, layers of the Earth, maps, etc.) Digital Board Game Sorts (words, shapes, math sentences, etc.) Exit Cards Graphing Other Padlet Resources: Ditch That Textbook's 20 Ways to Use Padlet in Class 35 Ideas for Using Padlet in the Classroom Mrs. Treichler's Wikispace-Padlet What are some other ways we could customize Padlet activities for our students? Leave your ideas in the comments! UPDATE: Since this post was written, Padlet has had a major facelift! If you are having trouble moving your sticky notes, go to the three dotted icon in the upper right hand corner and click Change Format. Select the green Canvas option. This will allow you to move the stickies anywhere on your screen. If the graphic organizers are not fitting to your screen then you can try zooming out of your browser or dragging the corner of your browser until it comes through. Several people have contacted me about this issue and I have passed on the information to Padlet and hoping to hear back soon!
Love podcasts? Check out this post in the form of a podcast episode on The Classroom Commute Podcast :
Use technology daily warm ups as a way to inject some tech into your classroom every day. If you are using technology regularly in the classroom or are a technology teacher with a cart or a lab, check out how these technology daily warm ups can build classroom community, augment your digital citizenship discussions, and help students practice coding, design thinking, get energized, and more! Time is the biggest roadblock to having meaningful discussions about technology with students, even though technology is a huge part of students' lives in and outside of the classroom. If you are a classroom teacher
Technology in the classroom constantly changes and so are the classroom tech tools that we use every day with our students. Sometimes it is just hard to stay with it when everything is changing right? Putting these classroom tech tools to work in your classroom goes hand in hand with building a 21st-century learning environment.
To better prepare students for their future careers, using technology in the classroom is essential.
More and more teachers are hopping on the "paperless classroom train" and it's no surprise that they are seeing amazing success. Their students are more
Artificial intelligence is growing by leaps and bounds. It's no longer science fiction anymore! Lots of AI tools can serve as our own personal
Use technology daily warm ups as a way to inject some tech into your classroom every day. If you are using technology regularly in the classroom or are a technology teacher with a cart or a lab, check out how these technology daily warm ups can build classroom community, augment your digital citizenship discussions, and help students practice coding, design thinking, get energized, and more! Time is the biggest roadblock to having meaningful discussions about technology with students, even though technology is a huge part of students' lives in and outside of the classroom. If you are a classroom teacher
This is the third year that our district has been implementing a Digital 1:1 with students. Third graders here have laptops that they use in the classroom and take home each night. Classroom management and a consistent routine are key features needed in all classrooms, but it is especially important when you add devices. I use two tools on a regular basis that have proven to be tried and true for me! First of all, I use Symbaloo Edu to organize all of the websites for my students. Don't know about that one? Pop over to my blogpost during a Tricks & Treats Bloghop at 3rd Grade Pad to read how I use it. Secondly, I use Padlet WITH my Symbaloo. What is Padlet? Padlet is a Web 2.0 tool that allows the user to create a space, much like a bulletin board, to stick website links, pdf & word files, and there is a web camera option (that I've never used!). It is a perfect tool to share a variety of sources in one cohesive location. Before I show you how to make one, let me share the ways Padlet is used in my classroom, keeping in mind that my goal is to share links and files in one location for my students. Weekly Reading Padlet If you will notice in the screenshot above, I have a button that is labeled Reading Street with the name of the Unit and Week of study. This is a quick link to get to my Padlet page. As you can see on this Padlet, I have my Spelling HW for the week, a copy of the heading for the Spelling Sort homework, Grammar homework for Monday and Wednesday, Family Times Newsletter, and the Unit Spelling List. My parents quickly appreciate the routine in format. Students are able to work ahead on their homework and see the week in one location. This is a paper AND a time saver for me. My kids do homework in folders, so there are no worksheets to print. If you will recall from my Symbaloo post, a whole year of tabs of these Padlets are waiting for the school year. I created them each week LAST year. I am reusing them each week THIS year. I may change it up a bit, but I have the bones ready to build! Final Project Padlet I also create Padlets for my kids to submit their final projects. These start as a blank slate for kids to submit their work when they are ready. For example, last year my kids created PowerPoints of American Symbols. Rather than save them on a thumb drive, line up at my computer to submit them (which I've done....NIGHTMARE and a time suck!), kids add a tab on the Padlet themselves. This would also work with the all important writing that we want our kids to do!!! The beauty is that: 1. The projects are in one location and can present to the class on the Promethian board. 2. Kids can look at each other's projects outside of class. 3. I can sit at my computer to grade with my rubric. No paper to take home!! Once we are done with the projects, I can remove the Padlet link. Learning Pad I have one blank Padlet that I leave available to my kids. I use the blank one for Exit Slips. Sometimes, I just don't want to spend the time preparing formative assessments. I can display a task card from the topic we are teaching on my Document Camera. Students will answer on the Learning Pad. They will: Create a spot Enter their class number in the top portion Enter their final answer in the bottom portion. (Oh! Lightbulb going off! They could take a picture of their white board work and submit that!!) I have also used my learning pad as a place for kids to submit their stories or creations to share with their classmates. Last year, I had a student share a 500 slide PowerPoint that she created. She was dabbling with the idea of tapping on the next slide quickly to create motion. I would have never known of her interest if I hadn't given them this creative spot. She started teaching other kids how to create them on our inside recess days after that! My Learning Pad has also been a place where I can leave videos from Educreations for my kids. Sometimes I teach something that I KNOW they are going to be a little fuzzy about when they get home. This gives a "taste" of me at home, and parents can give the added support in knowing how "Mrs. Watson" does it! Below is a screenshot from the fall. And look what I found? A message from one of my babies from last year who moved away! How sweet is that! Themed Padlets Sometimes we have a short unit when I want all the materials my kids will need in one place. We always do a Bird Research project to prepare for one of our field trips. This particular year, we decided to narrow the choices to Alabama birds. They began with one of the sites listed. Extra sites were also on the page. By putting the pre-approved sites on the Padlet, it saved class research time. (And wasted time popping from site to site and not getting very much done). It really helps to keep the kids focused on the task. There is also a document that they can use to ensure that they are following the rubric. I also created a collection of Math Games for my kids. My rule for getting free time for "math games" is that it HAS to come from my page. It makes it pretty easy to let my kids have 5-10 minutes of free time, if I know that I have set the parameters. Setting Up Your Padlet It is pretty straight forward setting up your Padlet page. However, you can view this video to view a quick tutorial! That's it for me! I'd love to hear how YOU use Padlet in the classroom! Comments make me smile!
Find out how to use Blooket - an online game platform perfect for review, practice & formative assessment - in the classroom.
You don’t have to teach technology to use technology in your teaching! Teachers can integrate technology into any unit of study.
Teachers everywhere are using Google Forms in the classroom for making self-graded assessments. But Google Forms can be used for so much more!
Technology tools for teachers can not only help to make classroom life easier but even help you save a little money when it comes to classroom supplies!
Virtual reality offers the opportunity to step into places, roles, and experiences that were previously impossible!
More and more teachers are hopping on the "paperless classroom train" and it's no surprise that they are seeing amazing success. Their students are more
Grab a free set of large printable Chromebook keyboard keys and learn ideas for using them in the classroom. Plus check out this huge printable Chromebook Keyboard Bulletin Board set perfect for a hallway or computer lab display for teachers using Google Classroom. Printing & Assembling Keyboards I created a set of printable keyboard keys that can be used in a bunch of fun ways I'll detail in this post. First, grab the free set in my free resource library (or sign up at the end of this post), which includes the letters A-Z in both upper and lower case.
Choice is the unspoken 5th "C" of digital learning. It fits right alongside Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creativity, and Communication.
Using Nearpod in the Elementary Classroom: the who, what, when, where and why of using this digital tool that is both web-based and a app!
Need a way to engage your students and motivate them to learn. Use try using games to woo them into learning by incorporating technology in the classroom.
