Here are more great blog posts from this past week:
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African Elephant – Change Over Time |
This activity was created for an evolution unit in an intro biology class (1 semester class) where I wanted to include a little bit of ecology and conservation science.
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How To Handle Students Who Question Your Classroom Management – Smart Classroom Management
It can feel, depending on their tone of voice, disrespectful. It can feel as if they’re trying to put you on the spot. Or make you squirm.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Kids US Atlas – Learn About Animals of the United States
Kids US Atlas is an iPad app that features an interactive map of the United States. On the interactive map you will find twenty-five animals that are indigenous to the United States. Tap on the animals to read about them, to hear about them, and to …
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Make Videos Autoplay in Google Slides
Earlier this week I received an email from a reader who wanted to know if it was possible to make videos automatically play in Google Slides. It is possible to do that if you set the video properties to automatically play when slides advance.
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Free Technology for Teachers: DIY Emojis
Emoji Builder is a fun little site for making your own emojis. To design your own emoji on Emoji Builder you simply pick a base face then add on eyes, mouth, and accessories from menus on the site. When you’re done designing your emoji you can downl…
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Fun Apps for Designing and Printing Characters to Tell Stories
Years ago I learned about the Foldify iPad app from one of my students who had used to create characters and buildings that he printed on thick paper then folded into shape.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Math is Visual – Videos Demonstrations and Illustrations
Math is Visual is a website that features videos and images that are designed to help students understand mathematics concepts. There’s more to the site than just some videos and pictures. With every video you will find written directions for using …
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Free Technology for Teachers: Introduction to Using Google Expeditions in Your Classroom
Google Expeditions is one of my favorite virtual reality apps for students and teachers. The app provides hundreds of virtual reality experiences for students. There are VR experiences that can be used in social studies, science, and art classes.
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However, in 2018 the shirt was kelly green which drew me in, as green is my favourite colour. I read the price tag and learned that “the shirt” is a student initiative and the proceeds go back into student activities and assistance. At $18 USD it wa…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Reminder – Empty Your Google Drive Trash Bin
People who use Google Drive through a G Suite for Education account don’t have to worry about running out of storage space as G Suite for Education provides unlimited storage.
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Respect difficult problems | Seth’s Blog
They’re difficult because they resist simple solutions. Glib answers and over-simplication have been tried before, and failed. People have tried all of the obvious solutions. They haven’t worked. That’s why we’ve resorted to calling them difficult p…
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10 Teacher-Tested Strategies to Engage Reluctant Writers – John Spencer
A few years ago, my son opened a Google Document and started typing. I asked him about it and his eyes lit up as he described the shared story he was writing with classmates. This was the first day of summer break but he was choosing to write for fu…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Try Pexels Videos to Find Green Screen Backgrounds
Making green screen videos can be a fun way for students to share what they’ve learned through research about a place or event. And it’s a great way for kids to make their own weather forecast and newscast videos.
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Geometric Constructions as puzzles – The Reflective Educator
Geometric constructions are amongst my favourite things to teach in Geometry. Why? I see each geometric construction as a puzzle to be solved and I love watching children solve puzzles and share their solutions to those puzzles.
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Free Technology for Teachers: WWF Free Rivers – An Interactive, Augmented Reality Story About Rivers
WWF Free Rivers is a free augmented reality iPad app produced by the World Wildlife Foundation. The app uses augmented reality to present a story about rivers. In the app students learn about the importance of free-flowing rivers in world.
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Mo Physics Mo Problems: The Fast & The FabLaburios
Fighting the Inertia of a Traditional Classroom
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Free Technology for Teachers: A Couple of Thoughts About Flipgrid Stickers
A couple of weeks ago I was at a conference to present on the topic of formative assessment. Flipgrid was one of the tools that I mentioned in my presentation. After my presentation a nice woman asked me for my thoughts about the stickers and drawin…
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Gamification – Integrating Game Mechanics into Your Teaching | CoreyRayJones
Have you earned Gold status using the Starbucks app? Are you one of the 100 million monthly active users on Waze? Do you have a Fitbit or work towards closing your rings on your Apple Watch? Have you tried to learn a language using an app like Duoli…
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Free Technology for Teachers: An Update on FormRecycler – And How to Use It
This morning I received a question from a viewer of my YouTube channel. The question was about the Google Forms add-on called FormRecycler. The viewer was attempting to use the add-on but was repeatedly getting the following error message, “Error: R…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Try Flipgrid as an Alternative to a Classroom YouTube Channel
Whenever I lead a workshop or webinar about classroom video projects I always talk about the importance of respectfully sharing students’ videos online. That often leads into discussions about YouTube privacy settings and alternatives to using YouTu…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Wonderscope – An Interactive Story App for Kids
Wonderscope is an iPad app that uses augmented reality featuring stories that students interact with through voice and touch. Students position animations and interact with story animations by moving their iPads and reading the lines that appear on …
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Bridge the Gap: The NCCE ISTE Educator Certification – NCCE’s Tech Savvy Teacher Blog
“The geography of our organization now depends on where you’re standing,” says Dr. Heidi Rogers. Technology bridges the gap that geography makes wide. When teaching and learning span the world, how do you plan and assess success? That’s where the IS…
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The Guide to Google Drive Sharing
Kasey Bell is an award-winning digital learning consultant, speaker and blogger with a passion for technology and learning. Kasey offers engaging staff development for all levels of educators, specializing in training, presentations, keynote speakin…
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Simplify Technology with Limits : zen habits
It’s designed to do that: tech companies are motivated to keep our attention in their apps, their websites, their devices.
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Free Technology for Teachers: A Searchable Index of G Suite Updates
If you want to keep up with every update that Google makes to G Suite for Education, take a look at the What’s New in G Suite? searchable index. What’s New in G Suite? is a table of recent updates and changes to all of the core G Suite products. You…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Free Math Lesson Plans from NASA
Space Math is a NASA website containing space-themed math lessons for students in elementary school through high school. You can search for lessons according to grade level or mathematics topic. The bulk of the materials seem to be PDFs of direction…
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7 things our kids should be learning in history class. Or not. | History Tech
In a couple weeks, me and 18 other social studies teachers, district level curriculum coordinators, state education consultants, and other assorted interested individuals will get together to rewrite the state’s social studies standards. Rewrite is …
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Free Technology for Teachers: Speakd – Listen to Your Google Docs
Speakd is a free Google Docs add-on that will read your documents aloud. When you have Speakd installed in Google Docs you can open the add-on and press play at any time to hear your document read aloud.
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Top Chef: Create a Fun Gamified PD “Event” for Your Teachers
Allison Starling has an awesome idea for teacher professional development! She creates two “PD Events” at different times during the year and creates a game to encourage learning at her school. I loved this idea so much that I’m using it at my schoo…
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Control Alt Achieve: Learning Music, Art, Science, Math and more with Chrome Music Lab
When I used to teach middle school math, one unit I always loved to do each year was my “Music and Math” unit. We explored lots of connections between music and math, while learning about fractions, exponents, prime factorization, and more.
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Free Technology for Teachers: A Fun App for Learning About Money
Money Math Duel is an iPad app and Android app designed to help students learn to count currency. The app is unique in that it allows two students to use it at the same time. Students place the iPad between them and each has his or her own end of th…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Getting Started with G Suite – Mysteries Solved with This New eBook
This is a guest post from Avra Robinson (@AvraRachel), Director of Online Learning for EdTechTeacher.
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Free Technology for Teachers: PBS Kids ScratchJr – Scratch With a PBS Twist
PBS Kids ScratchJr is a PBS Kids-themed version of the popular ScratchJr app. PBS Kids ScratchJr is available as a free iPad app and as a free Android app. The app is designed to help five to eight year old students learn basic programming concepts …
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Why Engagement is Crucial to Empowerment but Empowerment is Still the Goal – The Principal of Change
I have written about engagement and empowerment often in the last few years, and it is something that I am passionate about in education.
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A Principal’s Reflections: The Skinny on Hashtags
Upon getting on Twitter in 2009, I was not only baffled about how to use the social media site but also about all the symbols associated with it. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to using these in any messages whether long or short. One of them…
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Reclaiming Handwriting – Pernille Ripp
Every year it seems as if spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have become a little harder for students to master. Despite the great lessons they have had before.
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If you’re an innovative educator you might be wondering which device is best to set up your smart home or classroom.
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