Check out these great blog posts from this past week:
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Women Who Dared to Discover: 16 Women Scientists You Should Know | A Mighty Girl
For centuries, women have made important contributions to the sciences, but in many cases, it took far too long for their discoveries to be recognized — if they were acknowledged at all.
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Why Is a Negative Times a Negative Positive? – The Reflective Educator
There are different possible answers to this question, depending on the standard of proof one needs and the background knowledge one brings to the question. Try solving each of these problems, paying attention to the previous set of problems as you …
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Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Unminus
Unminus is a nice little site for finding royalty free music for your projects. Best of all, users can search from different categories such as: happy, chilled, grimy, and more… Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo’s blog for the tip.
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5 Steps to Regain Control of Your Classroom with Linda Kardamis
Is your classroom out of control? Are you struggling to teach but student behavior is getting in the way? Today, classroom management expert, Linda Kardamis gives us a place to start. Get Credit! Some schools, districts, and organizations allow cred…
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Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: EDpuzzle Update
EDpuzzle the world’s most popular site to flip a classroom/lesson to make a video “their” own, has just released an update to their video editor. The new video editor now has a new modern look that makes it look more polished and sleeker.
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Introducing…’How Learning Happens’ | chronotope
Almost two years ago, I was asked by Professor Paul Kirschner to write a book with him.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Watch2Gether – Host Live Online Discussion About Shared Videos
Watch2Gether is a service for sharing videos that I’ve used off and on since 2011. When I first started using it you could share YouTube videos and host live chats about those videos on the same page.
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A Quick Way To Calm Your Class, Build Rapport, And End Bullying – Smart Classroom Management
With a single statement, spoken at the beginning of the day or class period, you can send a wave of calmness throughout your classroom. It takes just a few seconds, but you’ll see, and even feel, the difference immediately.
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Adding Constraints to Add Fun – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert
It may sound counter-intuitive, but in my experience, adding constraints to activities can make them not only more fun – but can help generate very creative solutions to problems.
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Schedule, Host, and Customize Google Hangouts Meet Events
Last night I published Tips and Tools for Teaching Remotely. This morning I had an email from someone who read that and wanted to know if I had any tutorials on using Google Hangouts Meet. I didn’t so I quickly made the following set of screenshots …
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5 Steps to a Podcast Using Soundtrap – Teacher Tech
Go to http://soundtrap.com and login. One thing that makes Soundtrap so awesome is that it is collaborative! Choose to “Enter studio” or “Start a collaboration.
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Cliff Mass Weather Blog: Weather Radar Shows Spring Bird Migration
Every day I have been checking the weather radar for signs of the northward migration of our feathered friends, and Wednesday night I finally saw it. Ornithologists and those tracking the seasonal migration of birds have used weather radar for decad…
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How to Use Emojis with Students – Class Tech Tips
Do you use emojis in your classroom? I had so much fun teaming up with the folks at Book Creator to put together a new and totally free resource all about how to use emojis with students. If you’ve been a bit curious about whether emojis have an edu…
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Are You a Tough Grader or a ‘Tough Grader?’ | All Things Assessment
The caricature of the tough grader is familiar to most; the teacher who only doles out As or top marks to the truly elite performances. They often begin grading a stack of papers with the idea of holding back the As early on, in case someone deeper …
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Warming ocean conditions fuel viruses among species in the Salish Sea | Puget Sound Institute
As officials struggle to track and contain the outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19, ecologists say widespread impacts from viruses and other pathogens are also a growing threat to the species of the Salish Sea ecosystem.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Tips and Tools for Teaching Remotely
Over the last week I’ve received a bunch of emails and Tweets from people looking for my suggestions on tools and tactics for teaching online if schools are closed due to COVID-19. I’m going to start this post with some tips for giving online instru…
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Scholar gamers learn skills in virtual battle – News – The Ottawa Herald – Ottawa, KS
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A Guide to NPC Diversity in RPGs – GeekMom
Games reflect life. Life reflects games. The world of gaming is filled with players who want to see themselves represented, to feel included and welcomed just as they are.
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Steve Hargadon: Teaching Students How to Win at the Game of School
Outside of family, the high school experience is the number one influence on a young adult’s success or failure in college, and then in the work world. And guess what: there actually are secrets to school success. Secrets that most students don’t kn…
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GTP Designer Talk #5 – Owen Gottlieb | Gaming the Past
Owen Gottlieb, RIT MAGIC Spell Studios, (Lost and Found; Lost and Found Order in the Court: The Party Game)
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Quillionz is a neat service that uses AI to automatically generate questions from documents that you provide. Enter a block of text of at least 300 words up to 3,000 words and Quillionz will create quiz questions based on the key elements of that te…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Gribrouillon – Freehand Drawing on Online Maps
For many years I’ve recommended Scribble Maps as a no-account-required alternative to Google’s My Maps. Scribble Maps lets create freehand drawings on digital maps. Today, thanks to Maps Mania, I learned about another tool for making freehand drawin…
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The United Nations has designated March 22nd as World Water Day. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Teaching & Learning About World Water Day.
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Two Good Interactives Showing Ancient Human Migration | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
One is the Human Odyssey Map from the California Academy of Sciences (pictured above). The other is the Map of Human Migration from National Geographic.
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Research: Evolution of life cycle of parasitic worm that takes over ‘zombie ants’
It could be the plot of a B-horror movie: microscopic parasitic worms invade the brains of ants, and use mind control to make the “zombies ants” do their bidding.
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For my game, you play as the blue dot. In this universe, dots eat each other to grow, but can’t eat dots bigger than themselves.
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3 Quick Ways to Capture Student Learning – Class Tech Tips
How do you capture student learning? This question can go in lots of directions. We know that students can snap a picture of their work. And we know that kids can capture their learning by recording their voice or typing a response.
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High-Frequency Vocabulary for the New SAT
Spring is testing season. Students sit through lengthy state-mandated tests, and many high school students are preparing to take the SAT. It can be an exhausting and stressful time for them. Years ago, I recorded a collection of 30+ SAT vocabulary v…
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How to Program (and Use) Google App Scripts with Alice Keeler @coolcatteacher
If you’re using the Google Suite for Education, Google App Scripts can save you time. Alice Keeler talks about how she programs Google App scripts, some add ons she’s made, and some you can use to help improve what you’re doing in your classroom!
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Social-emotional development is better than raising test scores study finds
We hear the phrase “failing schools” a lot but what really defines a failing school? Generally, we look at test scores.
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Can DNA editing save endangered species? | Science News for Students
Kiwis and other native birds in New Zealand are in trouble. In the 19th century, European traders and immigrants introduced many foreign rats, stoats and other animals to the South Pacific island nation.
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But some days you don’t just walk away smarter . . . you walk away SMARTER. Today was one of those days. And I know that I just posted something a few days ago about the new cool Smithsonian Open Access tool.
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Free Technology for Teachers: An Easy Way to Create Your Own Online Jigsaw Puzzles
Jigsaw Explorer is a free site that hosts tons of online jigsaw puzzles. It also offers a free tool for creating your own online jigsaw puzzles.
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Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: 15 Sites for Keyboarding/Typing
Keyboarding or Typing is one the first and most vital skills for students to learn for technology literacy. This skill is the building block for using a computer and one that starts as early KDG if not sooner.
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Free Technology for Teachers: The Tower of Epiphany – A New “Think Like a Coder” Lesson
A month ago I wrote about how much my freshmen computer science students are enjoying TED-Ed’s Think Like a Coder series. The latest installment in the series was published last week and my students watched it on Friday morning. They enjoyed it as m…
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A Principal’s Reflections: Assessing the Value of Interactive Whiteboards (IWB’s)
Long gone are the days where the overhead projector reigned supreme in the classroom. I still vividly remember venturing to the local office supply store to get my transparencies made for my lessons.
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Are Your Diversity Strategies Missing the Mark? Nine Ways to Get it Right | Cult of Pedagogy
For most of my life, I’ve found myself in the role of the OBF, the One Black Friend in an otherwise white circle of people.
