Here is another week’s bounty of great blog posts!
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The Best Sites For Learning About Daylight Saving Time | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
Check out my New York Times Learning Network interactive for English Language Learners on Daylight Savings Time. Students identify word meanings, explain the context clues they used to determine them, and then respond to an informational writing pro…
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21 Things You Should Do To Students – Smart Classroom Management
1. Create a classroom they look forward to. 3. Be consistently kind to them.
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Free Technology for Teachers: An Easy Way to Create Your Own Captioned Flipped Video Lessons
Two weeks ago I published a video about how to use the automatic captioning feature in Google Slides. A lot of people have asked if there is a way to download the captions that are automatically generated when you speak while presenting your slides.
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Top 6 Reasons Why Students Prefer Digital Content – e-Learning Infographics
The latest study released by McGraw – Hill Education in partnership with Hanover Research has 3000 students voice their digital preferences in college education. The infographic shows research on why students prefer digital reading over print.
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Format Tables in Google Docs
Last week Google added new ruler and margin tools to Google Docs. The new ruler that appears on the left edge of your screen can be used to format the vertical spacing of tables that you insert into Google Documents.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Your Life in Comics – 100 Writing Prompts from Make Beliefs Comix
Make Beliefs Comix is a nice service on which students can create their own comics. But there is more to Make Beliefs Comix than just comic creation tools. Make Beliefs Comix offers free ebooks containing many writing prompts for students.
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Free Technology for Teachers: GeoGreeting – Send Messages Using Google Earth Imagery
Years ago I wrote about a service called GeoGreeting. This morning I got an email that reminded me of the service so I decided to see if it still works. Sure enough GeoGreeting still works as well as ever.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Scrible Helps Students Organize and Use Research
Scrible is a service that helps students organize their online and offline research findings. That is done through the Scrible’s website and Chrome extension. Scrible’s Google Docs add-on helps students use their research in their papers.
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The study itself is behind a paywall (there are other ways to access it), and you can read a summary here under the title Why relationships – not money – are the key to improving schools.
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Having the “same” text written for different levels of English comprehension can be a life-saver for a multi-level class of English Language Learners or for a teacher with a mainstream class that includes some students that are facing other challeng…
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As part of a school trip to Romania, you and your class decide to create your own side trip: Visit the Castle Poenari, where Vlad the Impaler lived–the same man who inspired Bram Stoker to write the novel Dracula.
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How do your students keep their work organized? And are you able to give feedback to students in real time? When I first started teaching in the classroom, I remember collecting student’s notebooks at the end of the day and flipping through them to …
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Google Classroom: Step One – Organize Your Topics – Teacher Tech
The new Google Classroom interface allows you to organize your assignments into topics. However, new topics are added at the bottom. It can be incredibly tedious to move a topic up from the bottom to the top.
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My favorite book of all time is Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler. Truly a life changing experience for me to read it. While the title says Math, it is really a book about teaching. Every educator should read it. To say the least, I am a huge fan o…
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Hiding Easter Egg Items: 10-25 Vlog – Classroom Powerups
Hello! Join me as I hide some of my physical Easter Eggs through my school building. I began this last year and wasn’t planning on continuing this year but several current students had heard about the game and began asking when I would be hiding car…
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Map of Indigenous Canada Accompanies People’s Atlas – The Map Room
The map accompanying the Indigenous People’s Atlas of Canada is a map of Indigenous Canada: as iPolitics’s Anna Desmarais reports, “Dotting the map are the names of Indigenous languages, including Cree and Dene, and the geographical location where e…
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Find and Modify Halloween Games in Kahoot
Halloween is only seven days away. If you’re an elementary school teacher, you might be planning to do some trick o’ treating safety reviews with your students. Playing Kahoot games is a fun way to review almost anything including Halloween safety.
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Flippity is a site that offers great Google Sheets templates that you can use to make flashcards, timelines, and games. The latest game template added to Flippity is a scavenger hunt template.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Kids Health in the Classroom – Guides & Resources for K-12
Kids Health in the Classroom is a great place to find lesson plans, videos, and games for teaching personal health topics to students of all ages.
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The neuroscience of play, games, and learning (and why Fortnite might not be so bad) @coolcatteacher
Dr Dave Neale is a researcher in the psychology of play and learning at the Centre for Play, Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) at The University of Cambridge. Today he talks about the neuroscience of play, games, and learning in the classr…
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Fitoons Healthy Eating and Exercising App for Kids – Class Tech Tips
My friends at Avokiddo made a big announcement today! They just released Fitoons, a new educational app with the goal of helping kids eat healthy and exercise each day. Fitoons can help students develop healthy eating habits and discover ways to add…
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Before educators can help students get to the learning, we must first ensure we help students feel good about themselves.
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8 Tips for Carving an Amazing Pumpkin From the “Pumpkin Guru” – GeekDad
You may remembering seeing Jon Neill on the Food Network’s “Halloween Wars” or sculpting squash in a Snickers ad or carving pumpkins on Nickelodeon or the Hallmark Channel, but you most certainly have seen his work as one of the most recognized pump…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Two New Ways for Kids to Create Stories on WriteReader
WriteReader is one of my favorite tools for elementary school students to use to create multimedia stories. The outstanding feature of the service is the option for teachers to write corrections directly beneath a students’ original writing in their…
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Guest Blogger: Kathleen Offenholley – Quick Games for Any Subject | CUNY Games Network
This week’s guest blogger is the CGN Steering Committee’s own Kathleen Offenholley, Associate Professor of Mathematics at BMCC (Borough of Manhattan Community College). Her post offers ideas of quick games for any subject using the elements of rando…
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Media minds need new ways to inform people about climate change | Watching Our Water Ways
The headline on Margaret Sullivan’s column captures the urgency of the moment: “The planet is on a fast path to destruction. The media must cover this like it’s the only story that matters.” Margaret writes about media issues for the Washington Post.
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When students look back on their most important teachers, the social aspects of their education are often what they recall.
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Gaming The Classroom – The Art And Science Of GBL: Game Based Learning – e-Learning Infographics
Over 60% of learners say leader boards and competition would motivate them. 80% of learners would be more productive if learning was more game-like. 97% of teachers use digital games created for educational use.
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Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: Taking Off and Landing in Dense Fog: A Miracle of Technolgy
On Sunday, I flew out of Sea-Tac on a flight that took off around 8 AM. The region was covered in dense fog and the horizontal visibility at Sea-Tac Airport was reported at .12 miles (630 ft) at 1453 UTC (7:53 AM)–see below for hourly reports.
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November 11th Is Veterans Day – Here Are Related Resources | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
November 11th is Veterans Day (recognized as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day in Great Britain and in other countries to specifically remember those who fought in World War I). I’ve just updated The Best Websites To Learn About Veterans Day.
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Free Technology for Teachers: ClassTools SMS Generator – Text Messages Between Historical Figures
Last week I wrote about three ways that students can create social media profiles for historical and literary characters. Writing that post reminded me of the Classtools Fake SMS Generator.
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Free Technology for Teachers: PicLits – Using Pictures to Inspire Creative Writing
PicLits is an excellent site for finding creative writing prompts. PicLits aims to provide inspiration for writing short stories. PicLits tries to reach this goal by providing users with images upon which they can build their writing.
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Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Zap Zap Math
Zap Zap Math is an excellent new mobile (iOS/Android) app for Math grades K-6th. ZZM focuses on a lot different topics such as: addition/subtraction, multiplication, geometry, and more. All of this is done in a fun game based learning environment.
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Control Alt Achieve: Make Mondrian Art with Google Sheets
Although you might not recognize the name, you most likely will recognize the look. Mondrian Art is an abstract form of art that uses a creative layout of squares and rectangles, often filled in with primary colors.
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Sacrificing Character Ally Cards: Strategic Classroom Thinking – Classroom Powerups
As part of my Battle Mechanics: Skirmishes system students can earn “Enthralled Allies”. These are historic character cards and up to this point I had a vague notion that these would have an impact in my class game but wasn’t exactly sure how. I hop…
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The Adventure Blog: Video: Hiking Boots vs. Trail Runners –– Which is Best for You?
I get asked all the time whether I prefer trail running shoes or hiking boots when heading out for the trail. It turns out, the answer to that question isn’t easy, as it depends on the trail, the length of the trip, the terrain and weather condition…
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Making a Plan for Student Engagement with Tech-Friendly Strategies – Class Tech Tips
What does student engagement truly look like? And are we making it a priority when entering classrooms and leading lessons? As an educator who now spends time in other teachers’ classrooms, I think about this topic often.
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As geeky as “content moderation” sounds, we’re hearing about it more and more these days – in podcasts, at conferences, in books and in hearings. People all over the U.S.
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The Nerdy Teacher: The Dog Days of Fall for Teachers #EdChat
The Fall part of the school year can be tough on teachers for many reasons.
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A Lever and a Place to Stand: Escape to Flippity.net
I’ve written several times about the amazing free tools at Flippity.net. In fact, when I am looking for a way to get people interested in spreadsheets, I almost always use Flippity because once people see the variety of the tools, and how easy it is…
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Video: “The History of Trick or Treating” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay I’m adding this new video from Reading Through History to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween:
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Environmental volunteers needed in Kitsap County | Watching Our Water Ways
I thought I would offer a quick note on some volunteer opportunities in Kitsap County, based on an email from WSU Kitsap County Extension.
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A Principal’s Reflections: Meaningful Learning Begins and Ends with the Opportunities We Create
Learning hasn’t really changed, but the conditions that impact and influence it has.
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What Are the Best Ways to Use Leveled Texts? | Cult of Pedagogy
This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. A few weeks ago, a teacher named Isabelle O’Kane sent me a direct message on Twitt…
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