Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Check out these blog posts from this past week:

• Messenger Kids: Pros and Cons of the Facebook Communication App for Parents and Teachers

  If you’re in North America, this wouldn’t be news to you but in Australia and many other countries worldwide, Facebook’s Messenger Kids has just been launched. I’ve been exploring Messenger Kids over the last few days and have found some pros and co…

• What is the importance of learning through play in education?

  Psychologist Abraham Maslow knew the importance of play all too well in his research, and as an educator, you’ve likely heard it before, too. But what’s the hard evidence, and how can you incorporate meaningful play into your curricula?

• 12 Practical Tips for Remote Learning During School Closures – SULS057 | Shake Up Learning

  I’ve put together 12 practical tips for remote learning during school closures.  … I wish I could do this for you. I wish I could take this burden off of the many teachers who are in a panic right now. Take comfort in the fact that we are all in t…

• Flipgrid | Minecraft COVID-19 Challenges

• Using Flipgrid in the Classroom | The Infused Classroom

  First, think about how you want to collaborate with Flipgrid. Then, go to Grid Pals at the top right of your dashboard and look for another teacher that wants to collaborate. You can look at grade and interest level too. Then reach out and let the c…

• Add Audio & Video Instructions to Help Students Navigate Work While Learning Remotely |

  When teachers introduce tasks or assignments in the classroom, they often provide both text and verbal directions. They have the luxury of holding up papers or projecting online assignments to show students exactly what to do.

• Educational Technology Guy: Vernier Software & Technology Offers Free Remote Learning Resources for STEM

  To keep students engaged in STEM learning during school closures, Vernier Software & Technology is offering a robust collection of free remote learning solutions for teachers and students.

• 3 Apps That Energize Learning | Ask a Tech Teacher

  Let’s face it. Teachers juggle an exhausting schedule of parent conferences, administrative tasks, and specialized student needs.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Prom, Dances, School Celebrations: Ideas When #RemoteLearning

  How do you have a prom or other school celebrations in a time of social distancing? Students, staff, and families across the nation are getting innovative. Ideas from across the nation You can check out what some students are doing in the stories be…

• Classroom Games and Tech – Ed-Tech to Engage and Inspire: Inspiring students when school is closed: Game Design Club for middle school

  In Michigan our students will be out of school from March 13 through the end of summer. In an effort to inspire students to create and learn during this time, I revisited my idea of running a virtual game design club. Here’s how I’ve started and a l…

• How To Work From Home Without Getting Stressed-Out – Smart Classroom Management

  As most of you know, I only teach in the afternoons. I work from home in the mornings and then head to school after lunch. It’s been my schedule for the past six years—ever since SCM became too large to maintain while teaching full time. It wasn’t a…

• A Day in the Life of Distance Teaching | Stories From School

  Disclaimer: What follows is not a complaint. It is documentation. I know many have it worse: I recognize that I am beyond lucky to still be employed and receiving a paycheck. But this site is about “where practice meets policy.” What follows is wher…

• Warm-water ‘blobs’ significantly diminish salmon, other fish populations, study says | Puget Sound Institute

  It’s no secret that salmon and other Northwest fish populations are expected to shrink as a result of a warming Pacific Ocean. But a new study suggests that the resulting decline in commercial fishing by 2050 could be twice as great as previously es…

• Three Useful Videos For Students About The Coronavirus | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Abhi_Jacob / Pixabay I’m adding these three videos to A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS:

• New TED-Ed Video & Lesson: “What happens if you cut down all of a city’s trees?” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Free-Photos / Pixabay I’m adding this new TED-Ed lesson and video toThe Best Sites To Learn About Trees:

• Encouraging Student Engagement in Remote Learning – Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo – Education Week Teacher

  Teacher David Sherrin discusses ideas on how to motivate students in distance teaching and learning and shares some online resources he has created for his classes.

• allthingsassessment.info

  Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the age-old philosophical question that raises a variety of responses regarding what we see and what we perceive:  “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” D…

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Reverse the Mirroring Effect in Zoom

  In my recent article titled What’s On My Desktop I mentioned using a small physical whiteboard during live lessons delivered via Zoom or Google Meet. Since then a few people have emailed to ask how I am able to make the writing on the whiteboard not…

• BiomeViewer

  This interactive module explores biomes, climate, biodiversity, and human impacts around the globe and at different times.

• 6 Steps for Genius Hour – Integrating Technology & Genius Hour: My Journey as a Teacher & Learner

  Implementing Genius Hour in your classroom? Here are the 6 steps that Denise Krebs and I have laid out in the NEW 2nd edition of The Genius Hour Guidebook! We hope this helps as you implement this amazing passion/inquiry based learning in your class…

• Self Assessment of Genius Hour Traits – Integrating Technology & Genius Hour: My Journey as a Teacher & Learner

  Hi everyone! I just wanted to quickly share a new resource that Denise Krebs and I put together. This is the new rubric that we are using for Genius Hour. We hope you like it and find it useful to use with your students!

• Here’s How Some Districts Are Requiring (Or NOT Requiring) Teachers To Take Attendance | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  It prompted me to ask teachers on social media what they are required to do. I thought readers might be interested in some of their responses: I believe it’s more of a count of who is active in the class.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Graduation 2020 – Ideas When #RemoteLearning

  Graduation in 2020 will be unlike any graduation before it. While the thought of losing the traditional pomp and circumstance is difficult, there are some innovative options available. Minecraft! Elementary school students in Japan created a Minecra…

• Free Technology for Teachers: By Request – How to Create a Timed Quiz in Google Classroom

  I’m taking a digital portfolio approach to assessment in our remote learning environment and using EDpuzzle for little comprehension checks. But my approach to assessment isn’t the only one you might take.

• Free Nonfiction Articles for Kids and Reading at Home Tips – Class Tech Tips

  Are you looking for resources to recommend to families, or use with your own young children? Earlier this year, I featured PebbleGo on my site and lots of ways to use their reading platform in the classroom.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Google Meet Gets a Grid View and Higher Quality Video Sharing

  One of the things that many people like about Zoom is the ability to see all participants in a call in a grid on your screen. (It makes me feel like I’m in the opening scene of The Brady Bunch). Now Google is going to offer that ability as a native …

• Top EdTech Update Differentiated Instruction Online Learning Content for Wed.Apr 22, 2020

  Online Teaching Reflection: Day 15 Cycles of Learning Now that the COVID-19 Hackathon I have been facilitating in my engineering courses is coming to a close (see initial ideas here and final proposals here to be posted on Monday, 4/27), I have been…

• Backgrounds For Zoom and Google Meet – Teacher Created Tips

  Our Travel The Map background.As we all adjust to remote education, you’re probably looking for different ways to spice up your visual teaching space. Or maybe you’re just looking to hide the ever-growing pile of laundry and occasional toddler runni…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Google Sites Templates & Banners

  Years ago Google Sites had a gallery of templates that you could pick from when you were starting to build a website. When the new (current) version of Google Sites was launched in 2016 the template gallery was removed. Today, Google brought back th…

• Teacher – Tyto Online

  tags:games gbl educational

• Teach from Home

• Search-Icon

  In the world’s first history book, Herodotus recounts how the ancient Lydians faced a prolonged period of food scarcity. Months passed without relief and despair set in, spurring the desperate Lydians to implement an unusual solution.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Enable Google Sites Collaboration Through Google Classroom

  After watching my video about Google Sites in my recent Practical Ed Tech newsletter a reader emailed to ask me for ideas for the best way to share Google Sites with her students so that they can all work on the same site.

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Few Overlooked Ways to Customize Google Sites

  In a recent article about using digital portfolios for assessment I mentioned using Google Sites and Blogger. Neither of those tools are known for being aesthetically outstanding. In fact, I’d say they’re very plain at best.

• Six Strategic Pen-and-Paper Games (from a Strange and Bottomless Mind) – Math with Bad Drawings

  This year, I’m writing a book about mathematical games.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Gallery AR – Augmented Reality Art on Your Walls

  Gallery AR is a free iPad app and free iPhone app that anyone can use to view classic works of art in augmented reality. The app features art work that was digitized by The Art Institute of Chicago. Gallery AR digitally displays works of art on your…

• Use Explore Explain Apply to plan remote learning lessons

  The Explore Explain Apply framework allows for multiple opportunities for students to receive feedback and to create checkpoints throughout the lesson. With a student task in each section teachers can provide valuable feedback for students before th…

• 6 Super Parent and Teacher Resources to Promote Social Emotional Learning at Home

  Children need social and emotional learning skills to cope. But how do we integrate SEL into remote lesson plans? In this post, I’ll share how we can help students volunteer from home. Volunteering opportunities are one of the easiest ways to make S…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Top 10 Sites for creating a Digital Portfolio

  With the end of the school year coming and schools being closed due to the pandemic a digital portfolio is a great way for students and educators to showcase their work.

• Key Skill: Self-Directed Learning | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog

  As I am part of many virtual conversations with educators from around the world, reading through my Twitter feed and reading blog post after blog post, I am hyper aware of this global documentation of a unique “new-ways-of-learning” remote teaching …

• Showcase Student Work on Your Digital Fridge – Mari Venturino

  I miss my kids. A lot. One thing I miss a ton is their creativity. Whenever we have a less-structured minute in class, such as when some students finish an assignment early, many students choose to draw. They love the Sketchbook iPad app.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Add Answer Feedback to Quizzes in Google Forms & How Students See It

  Over the weekend I received an email from a reader who wanted to know what his students saw when feedback was added to quizzes created with Google Forms. That is exactly what I demonstrate in the following new video.

• Welcome to Recycle City | Recycle City | U.S. EPA

• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: 10 #RemoteLearning Ideas…No #Edtech Required

  Remote Learning… What the we as the the collective group of educators need to realize is that no matter how well we plan lessons and learning in virtual environments it just won’t be enough for our most vulnerable learners.

• 3 Strategies for Personalizing Feedback Online |

  Feedback is one of the most powerful tools teachers have in their “teaching toolbelts” for guiding learners toward mastery. Without feedback, students do not have a clear sense of what they are doing well, what they need to focus on, and what they c…

• COVID-19 #Coronavirus Infographic Data Pack — Cool Infographics

  COVID-19 (aka Coronavirus) has obviously been a hot topic recently, especially within the media. But how dangerous is this new virus?

• Classcraft’s Guide to Remote Education – Classcraft Blog

  Remote education is a growing trend in today’s educational landscape, whether it’s because of coronavirus-related shutdowns or not.

• Teach from Home

  To give any of the suggestions a try, sign in with your G Suite for Education account. If you don’t have one already, your school can sign up here for our free suite of tools. We’re in this together. Join the #teachfromhome discussion on Twitter.

• harlowe:display [Twine Wiki]

• Alaskan Robot Nerd

• Jigsaw Easter Eggs version 1.0 – Classroom Powerups

  A conversation during a recent #XPLAP chat (Tuesdays at 10pm EST) focused on hiding digital Easter Eggs. One of the side conversations made me think about the a card trick that was shared a few months ago.

• The Easiest Classroom Daily Agenda EVER – Technology Pursuit

• Quiz: Can You Spot the Fake News Story? | Channel One News

• A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus | Teaching Tolerance

  “Relationships and well-being can take priority over assignment and behavioral compliance.”

  • Establishing a routine and maintaining clear communication are crucial.
  • Relationships and well-being can take priority over assignment and behavioral compliance.
  • Reach out, provide space and encourage students to connect with them or another trusted adult or counselor to talk about their safety concerns.
  • Help students plan some virtual playdates to distract them from their worries.
  • Make time to ask students about something fun they are doing right now.
  • Promote self-awareness by having students review a feelings chart and share how they are feeling.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Check out these great posts from this past week:

• Robocraft

  Happy Birthday to Us Those of you that have been with us for sometime will know that today in 2013, … Gun for Glory Think you’re a great Robocraft player? Can you make it to Protonium League along…

• Free Technology for Teachers: EZCheck.me – A Convenient Way to Take Attendance for Large Classes

  EZCheck.me is a new service that could be helpful whenever we return to having classes in-person instead of virtually. EZCheck.me is a system that lets students check themselves in for your class. With the EZCheck.

• The Smart Zoom Online Classroom Management Plan – Smart Classroom Management

  The Smart Zoom Online Classroom Management Plan is a simple way for you to effectively manage student behavior while teaching online Zoom meetings and lessons. It works for all elementary, middle, and high school teachers and is compatible with the …

• A Lever and a Place to Stand: Adding a Little of Me(me) to my Quizizz!

  I have blogged about Quizizz many times. I love this tool for all the reasons articulated in these blog posts. One of the first things participants comment about (or laugh at) is the memes that show up after questions are answered.

• How To Create an Online Easter Egg with Google Draw and Sites – Classroom Powerups

  With my High School Classes I use Google Sites as a primary Class Website. I made a quick Google Site to demonstrate a Google Sites Easter Egg. Can you find the Egg on my Easter Egg Example Website? Did I get you?

• Research in the time of the coronavirus | Puget Sound Institute

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: One Great Thing #RemoteLearning

  During the first virtual Google Educator Meetup, I hosted a session called: One Great Thing. In it, educators shared one great thing that has happened during this time of remote teaching and learning.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Fact Fragment Frenzy – An App to Practice Identifying Facts

  Yesterday, I shared Common Craft’s new video about facts and opinions. In looking for some related resources I came across a blog post that I wrote a few years ago about a free iPad and Android app from Read Write Think. The app is called Fact Fragm…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Kids Can Learn About National Parks on a Virtual Road Trip With Nature Cat

  PBS Kids Nature Cat collection offers a bunch of great activities that elementary school students can do at home with or without direct involvement of parents. One of the activities that kids can probably do on their own is the Nature Cat Road Trip.

• Choose Your Own Learning – 5 Opportunities for Learning as We Continue Emergency Remote Teaching – Pernille Ripp

  Note: Yes, you may adapt this to fit your own needs, please just make a copy because these are my original documents. Please give credit and also do not adapt it to sell it online or in any way benefit financially beyond your salary as an educator.

• Esports: The Athletics Of Remote Living • Teched Up Teacher

  Most schools have been closed for a month now thanks to the Coronavirus. And, as most schools look destined to be closed for the remainder of the school year, finding ways to connect with students is more important than ever.

• Micro-credentials That Support Distance Learning

• Free Technology for Teachers: Facts v. Opinions – A New Common Craft Lesson

  Now more than ever our students are getting bombarded with information and opinions in all forms of media. Therefore, it’s more important than ever that we help them recognize the differences between facts and opinions.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Create Self-selected Review Guides With Google Forms

  Last week I published a video about using Google Forms to create a tech help site. The concepts featured in that video can also be applied to any subject that you teach. The basic framework remains the same, you just change the content that is added…

• Digital Citizenship for Class Video Chats – Mari Venturino

  With the shift to online learning, students and teachers are learning an entirely new skillset. Classroom norms and expectations are changing.

• Virtual Library Activities: 1 – Josh Stumpenhorst

  Like many educators, I am doing my best to adjust to working remotely. To be 100% clear, I don’t like it. I miss interacting with the kids. Nothing I am doing from home will ever replace or come close to replicating what I was able to while in my sc…

• 5 Ways to Boost Attendance in Virtual Class Meetings – John Spencer

  A few things that have worked for me at the university level that I’ve seen work at the secondary level as well: 1. Invite specific students with a personal email. Say something like, “I could really use your participation tomorrow.

• All Your Zoom Classes are Belong to Us – The K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center

  The unprecedented large-scale closure of school buildings due to the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a rush to online learning solutions.

• Mo Physics Mo Problems: That’s a Bingo: Rethinking Assessment in Virtual Learning

  Using Bingo As a Model for Student Choice in Assessment.

• Coping in coronavirus: Lessons in mental health from climate activism | Earth Day

  • Forced inside, many people are alone
  • Unsurprisingly, coronavirus is taking a toll on our mental health, fostering emotions of fear, loneliness and anxiety, all fueled by an uncertain future.
  • “Psychological health in times of crisis is like a wrestling match,” writes New York Times columnist David Brooks. “The situation throws stressors at you. The question is whether your coping mechanisms are strong enough to overcome them.”
  • These stressors, however, are nothing new to individuals who have been fighting another global crisis: climate change. And though the emotions spurred by a pandemic may be new to many, activists have been using coping mechanisms for years to deal with the anxiety, depression and despair of our existential climate crisis.
  • two in three Americans are at least “somewhat worried” about climate change, up 10 percentage points over the past five years
  • Taking action in the face of a seemingly powerless situation, however, can fight these feelings. Last year the Independent spoke to teachers and psychiatrists, reporting that climate activism reduces mental health symptoms among young people.
  • There is energy in those emotions – fear, rage, despair – and [youth are] capturing that energy, harnessing it and redirecting it into empowering actions.
  • action means striking for climate, forming organizations and demanding change from leaders
  • Despite their similarities, however, coronavirus and climate change are not the same crisis. For one, the coronavirus offers a clear enemy — the COVID-19 virus — whereas in climate change the enemy is us, specifically all our carbon-emitting activities.
  • The coronavirus also has a clear solution: staying indoors and avoiding people to reduce transmission and minimize the spread of the virus. The solution is relatively straightforward, albeit utterly disruptive to human life and interaction at a global scale. Conversely, climate change requires a complete restructuring of our economy, as well as countless other transformations across energy, transportation, agriculture and politics — oh, and of course lifestyle.
  • You could pick up a new hobby, like art, or read a book or connect with others. And you can redirect the energy from your emotions into something productive for the planet, as Van Susteren suggests.
  • “Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something,” she said. There is no silver-bullet solution to climate change, but we can “offer our individual actions, all counting collectively.”
  • Individual action is what the environmental movement was built on. It’s what inspired the first Earth Day, when 20 million individuals took to the streets to demand greater protections for our planet. This first Earth Day in 1970 sparked the modern environmental movement, and individuals remain as important as ever.
  • You can also partake in digital striking or citizen science. And on April 22 — the 50th anniversary of Earth Day — participate in EARTHRISE, the largest online mobilization to protect our planet.

• The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning | EDUCAUSE

• This is not online or distance learning – A.J. JULIANI

• Increase Engagement in Video Conferencing Sessions with Mentimeter |

  Last night I had the opportunity to be a guest lecturer for students in the credential program at UC Riverside. As I was planning my presentation, I knew I wanted to engage the group attending my lecture.

• 10 live video streams for students – Ditch That Textbook

  Live streams can be a great way to connect students to people, places and events. The best news is that many of them are available for free! These live streams can be a great way to augment your face-to-face blended learning or add a new element to …

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Coronavirus Comic Diary

  storytelling, project based learning, reinforcing vocabulary, and more, just recently released a site for creating comic diaries during the Coronavirus pandemic.

• Control Alt Achieve: 3 Ways to See Your Students when Presenting in Google Meet

  One of the great features of Google Meet is the ability to share your screen with your students or other meeting participants. This allows you to present a slideshow, navigate a website, work out a math problem, show a video, or provide any sort of …

• How to Make PBL a Reality in a Distance Learning Environment – John Spencer

  If you think about your most powerful learning experiences, there’s a good chance at least one of these experiences involved a project. This is where you learned how to research, how to ideate, how to work with others, how to engage in productive st…

• 31 Days of ARVRinEDU Recap

  When I started the month, I had no idea how much our country and the world was going to change as COVID-19 continues to grow. Many times, I wondered about the importance of immersive technology when we were all facing a global pandemic.

• Four Ways to Help Students Feel Intrinsically Motivated to Do Distance Learning – Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo – Education Week Teacher

  Find breaking news, analysis, and opinion on K-12 education issues affecting school and district leaders, teachers, policymakers, and ed-tech professionals.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Use Google Hangouts Meet in Google Classroom

  Last week Google introduced a new way to incorporate Google Meet (AKA Google Hangouts Meet) into Google Classroom. The old method still works as well. In fact, I had already scheduled some meetings with the old method so that’s what I used with my s…

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Post Videos in Google Sites so Everyone Can See Them

  Last week someone emailed me asking why her students couldn’t see the videos that she was posting on Google Sites. This isn’t an uncommon problem. The issue almost always is found with the settings on the video itself and not on Google Sites.

• 6 Ideas for Creating a Remote Community of Learners – KATIE MARTIN

  As we move to remote learning much attention has been paid to teachers connecting with students, which is extremely valuable and important. In addition to teacher and student connection, peer collaboration is important for learning and social-emotio…

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Tech-Infused Lessons and Activities for Spring Break Fun

  · 4 #EdTech Blogs to Bookmark · 9 Must Read Blogs for Innovative Teachers · 10 Digital Citizenship Bloggers to Follow · 10 Education blogs worth following – eSchool News · 11 Ed Tech Bloggers to Follow · 20 Best Blogs in Instructional Technology · 2…

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Support English Language Learners & families with free @MicrosoftEdu translation tools for #RemoteLearning

  Microsoft has free tools (in 65+ languages) to communicate to English Language Learners and their family members that speak languages other than English.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

More great blog posts from this past week, lots of resources:

• Free Technology for Teachers: Screencastify Submit Looks Promising – Easy Way for Students to Make Videos

  Thanks to John Padula this morning I learned about a new Screencastify feature called Screencastify Submit. This feature is currently in beta and you have to apply to get access to it, but it does look promising. I’ve applied and I hope to get acces…

• How To Make Teaching (And Learning) Online Easier And Less Stressful – Smart Classroom Management

  The pressure of teaching online can be overwhelming and even more stressful than being in the classroom. There is so much to learn. So much to research and figure out. So many decisions to make.

• 10 Essential Online Learning Best Practices to Help Teachers Move Online

  Teachers are moving from face to face classrooms to online classrooms quickly. Top online course designers who have also taught face to face tell us how. I had so many people ask for the video. Here is the video and infographic to help you. Advancem…

• www.facinghistory.org

• Control Alt Achieve: Whiteboard Tools for Google Hangouts Meet

  When you are in a video conference like Google Hangouts Meet, a valuable tool to have is a digital interactive whiteboard.

• Teach with Magic – Assignments (CYOA)

  Below you will find links to and descriptions of all the assignments we use for Choose Your Own Adventure. Click on the individual assignment links to get the full instructions and printable worksheets.

• SearchReSearch: Using Google Trends to find COVID data

  In a recent article for the New York Times, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz published a fascinating story (Google Searches Can Help Us Find Emerging Covid-19 Outbreaks) about using Google Trends to find coronavirus outbreaks in other countries, as well as …

• Editors Offer Suggestions to Teachers Who Want to Write a Book – Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo – Education Week Teacher

  Find breaking news, analysis, and opinion on K-12 education issues affecting school and district leaders, teachers, policymakers, and ed-tech professionals.

• A proposal for what post-coronavirus schools should do (instead of what they used to do) – The Washington Post

  April 8, 2020 at 1:53 PM EDTWhat will schooling look like when the buildings finally reopen (whenever that may be) and authorities have determined it is safe for children and adults to resume their lives beyond their own homes? Will things simply pi…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Create Online Art Galleries With Wakelet, Padlet, and Google Sites

  In last week’s episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I answered a question from a reader who was looking for a way for students to be able to submit examples of their artwork and have them displayed in a public gallery.

• Schools Matter: Please consider reading, signing, and sharing SaveIDEA.org today!

  Betsy DeVos is trying to use the current crises to impose IDEA waivers, robbing students with disabilities of their right to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE).

• View Activity on Student Work | 50 Things Book

  After assigning a template to students, have they worked on it? From Google Drive single click on the file and press D for details. Click over on the Activities tab to see when it was worked on.

• Mari’s Favorite Chrome Extensions – Mari Venturino

  Productivity is a mindset. It’s not a thing we do, it’s how we think. And, what works for one person does not work for another. Sometimes, one productivity tool works for one area of life, but not for another.

• Steve Hargadon: Day 4 of the Learning Revolution Online Daily Education Conference

  Welcome to day four of the  2020 Learning Revolution  daily online conference, Thursday, April 9th. Today’s sessions are below. Log in…

• Keep The Score: an online scoreboard and leaderboard app

  Keep track of games you play with an online scoreboard. Share the scoreboard with other people Scrabble scores, Jeopardy, arguments won, trivia games, family feuds, quizzes, Quirkle, team goals. Get creative!

• Learning From Home with Book Creator Webinar Series – Class Tech Tips

  This spring I’m excited to partner with the folks at Book Creator for a special webinar series. Throughout the months of April and May I’m hosting seven webinars to share strategies for using Book Creator.

• Steve Hargadon: Day 3 of the Learning Revolution Online Daily Education Conference

  Welcome to day three of the  2020 Learning Revolution  daily online conference, Wednesday, April 8th. Today’s sessions are below. Log in…

• My Amazing Movie Poster: Free Project Plan to Teach Graphic Design to Teach Graphic Design

  Students can be filmmakers in this fun, engaging project that teaches graphic design, photography, the prototyping process and more. I’ve created the unit plan, lesson plan, and rubrics for this project-based learning experience that brings together…

• Gamification In Banking And Financial Services – e-Learning Infographics

  What banks and financial institutions do to understand and motivate customers and employees? Do you know what are the problems caused by the lack of engagement in finances? Once there’s a lack of trust and engagement, customers don’t consume product…

• John Thompson: Beware the Virtual Charter Scam! | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  John Thompson writes here about yet another virtual charter scam, this one in Oklahoma.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Free Webinar Tomorrow – Strategies for Remote Instructional Technology Support – Take 2!

  Yesterday afternoon I hosted a webinar titled Three Strategies for Remote Instructional Technology Support. The software that I used to host the webinar did not work as planned and practiced. And the recording did not come out well either.

• Send a Work Summary | 50 Things Book

  What work has a student completed? This can be answered on the Individual Student Page. You get there by going to the People tab and clicking on a student’s name. This will show you that students summary of work. In the top right hand corner of the …

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Use Google Forms With Students Who Don’t Have Email Addresses

  This afternoon someone Tweeted at me at to ask how elementary school students who don’t have active email addresses can view the results of quizzes that they take in Google Forms. There are three ways that that can be accomplished. I made a new vide…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Video Puppet Turns Your PowerPoint Presentations Into Narrated Videos

  Video Puppet is a new tool that you can use to quickly turn your PowerPoint presentations into narrated videos. If you have less than twenty slides in your presentation you don’t even need to create an account on the site to turn your slides into a …

• April 12th Is “International Day of Human Space Flight” – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  The United Nations has declared April 12th to be the International Day of Human Space Flight. You might be interested in: The Best Sites To Learn About The Apollo 11 Moon Landing The Best Si…

• ‘Water 100 Project’ seeks to enlist region’s tech industry | Puget Sound Institute

  Few cities in the world can rival Seattle’s combination of money and brain power. It’s a town where the world’s two richest men live within walking distance.

• Free Printable Games – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert

  Hi all. In this crazy time, I thought I would share a few games that I have made over the last couple of years to either entertain myself or the kids! They are all very simple but might help kill a few hours. Any feedback on them would be also great…

• A complete list of what to do — and not do — for everyone teaching kids at home during the coronavirus crisis – The Washington Post

  With most of the world’s schools shut because of the coronavirus crisis, you can now find a lot of advice on the Internet about the best ways to carry out distance learning at home, where more than 1.5 billion students are now supposed to be getting…

• Control Alt Achieve: How to Keep Students from Joining or Rejoining a Google Meet without You

  Google Hangouts Meet is a great tool for teachers to connect with students in a video conference, for instruction, questions, presentations, and more.

• Control Alt Achieve: How to Keep Students from Starting or Recording a Meet

  Google Hangouts Meet is a great tool for remote teaching and learning, but understandably schools may want to limit how students can use this tool. Certainly there are many other apps that students can use to connect with friends, and that is wonder…

• Mo Physics Mo Problems: Student Portfolios: You’ve Got Time for That

  Give students the time to use Google Sites to create portfolios for assessment and reflection

• Screens kids use, Part 2: Research turning a corner – NetFamilyNews.org

  This subject – at this writing, about 3 weeks after I p0sted Part 1 – almost seems like that of a previous era, with all we’ve experienced since then (see this in The Atlantic from history professor Rebecca Spang).

• Free Technology for Teachers: Five Search Tools Students Often Overlook

  In our new remote teaching and learning environments students may find themselves having to look things up online more than ever before.

• Math Has Prepared Me Poorly for This Pandemic – dy/dan

  Here are two representations of the horror of this pandemic. First, a graph of coronavirus deaths in Italy.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Ways to Make Whiteboard Videos on Your Chromebook

  Last week I published a video on how to make a simple video on a Chromebook without installing any extensions or apps. That video was fairly popular and it prompted some follow-up questions from readers and viewers who wanted my recommendations for …

• Steve Hargadon: Day 2 of the Learning Revolution online daily education conference

  Welcome to day 2 of the  2020 Learning Revolution  daily online conference, Tuesday, April 7th. Today’s sessions are below. Log into Lea…

• 20 Maths Games For Young Children: Free eBook – Kathleen Morris | Primary Tech | Resources to help teachers with technology in the classroom

  This remote teaching/homeschool business is tough for everyone, isn’t it? Teachers are scrambling to provide a remote learning curriculum with little preparation or warning. Meanwhile, parents are adjusting to isolation, working from home, and homes…

• Health and Wellness Choice Boards for Teachers and Students |

  On Saturday, I wrote a blog sharing an offline choice board teachers can use to blend offline activities into their online classes. On Twitter, Barbara McInnes suggested teachers add a wellness activity to their offline choice boards.

• four-core-priorities-for-trauma-informed-distance-learning

  Trauma-informed teaching cannot be simplified to cookie-cutter practices. Take this example: a teacher worked with a student to develop a silent signal that he could use when he needed extra breaks during class.

• Doing more than just treading water . . . three success stories | History Tech

  Resist. Accept. Embrace. We can resist the changes that are happening in our schools. We can accept them. Or we can embrace them.

• Steve Hargadon: The 2020 Learning Revolution daily online conference starts today!

  Teaching Visual Literacy Through Fake News with Dr. Lesley S. J.

• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: 4 Communication Tips For #RemoteLearning Educators

  Feedback is one of the best ways to support student learning. According to John Hattie , Feedback has an effect size of .64 and is often …

• Novel HyperDocs: 25 ready to use units for your class – Ditch That Textbook

  This post is written by Karly Moura, a teacher on special assignment (TOSA) and Computer Science teacher in Mount Diablo USD in Concord, California. Karly is also part of team Ditchbook, enjoying her role as content and social media manager.

• Google Meet Nickname | 50 Things Book

  In the new Google Meet it is important that when video chatting with students that you use a nickname in the meeting. There is no pre-setup required. Choose your nickname and put the nickname after the g.

• Renaming an Attachment | 50 Things Book

  When you upload anything to Google Classroom it does NOT upload to Google Classroom. Instead, it uploads to Google Drive. When I take a screenshot it typically saves as the date, not helpful for kids knowing what it is. While I should rename it befo…

• Random Dice Roll with Google Sheets – Classroom Powerups

  Jon David Groff (@JonDavidGroff), part of the #GameMyClass crew, asked about random dice roll sites the other day on Twitter. It got me thinking of the random number generator on Excel and Google Sheets. A dice roll is really nothing more than a ran…

• Online learning – this is what works

• 10 Ways to Teach Collaboration | Mike Kaechele

  So you’ve gotten to know your students and created “perfect” groups based on my grouping post.

• A Principal’s Reflections: 10 Remote Learning Practices to Avoid

  Educators, schools, and districts have earnestly rolled out remote learning plans to support students and fill in gaps as a result of extended closures.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Lots of great blog posts from last week to help teachers deal with quarantine teaching!

• The Circle is Broken: Forced Distance Learning and the Magic Circle – Classroom Powerups

  I have started of several gamification talks telling the story of my then 7 year old son getting into a fight before he got home on day. He was punched, kicked, and knocked down and all of this took place in front of a teacher… and the kid that knoc…

• Offline Choice Boards: How Are You Integrating Offline Learning into Your Online Class? |

  Schools in California will not reopen this year. Teachers are scrambling to move their offline courses online to ensure that students continue learning for the remainder of the school year.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Now You Can Use Flipgrid to Make Screencast Videos

  On Wednesday afternoon Flipgrid announced the launch of a new recording feature for teachers and students. You can now create screencast videos within Flipgrid. The feature is kind of hidden so I made a screencast video to show you where Flipgrid’s …

• Time to spare? Why not conduct some real online research to advance science | Puget Sound Institute

  If you are looking for something constructive to do in this stay-at-home period of our lives, I might suggest joining a team of scientists conducting real online research.

• Document Handling from a Phone or Chromebook | Science, Education, and Science Education

  Hints to make your learning opportunities easier: Here’s a link to how to take a picture with your chromebook camera. How to insert a picture from your camera right into a Google doc: In the doc, click the INSERT menu and then IMAGE and then CAMERA.

• 10 Free Classroom Activities for Your Distant Learning Classroom – John Spencer

  In my last article, I wrote about using a vintage innovation approach to create meaningful distance learning lessons. Being creative often means designing these activities and projects from scratch. However, creativity doesn’t always work this way.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Use PDFs in Google Classroom

  On Thursday afternoon a reader asked me about using PDFs in Google Classroom. She was having a little trouble with students not being able to access the PDFs she was trying to share.

• Control Alt Achieve: How to Create Self-Grading Quizzes in Google Classroom

  Google Forms is a fantastic tools for making self-grading assessment for students. Google Classroom is a wonderful way to assign and collect work from students. Wouldn’t it be great to put these two great tools together?

• CREY

• Kind Words in Uncertain Times – Games For Change

• Video games: A prescription for solace during coronavirus pandemic

• Epidemic Simulation on Scratch

• With the right standards, video games can boost science proficiency

• How robots could help hospitals manage coronavirus chaos

• Working From Home Tips For Teachers – The Edublogger

  The statistics around school closures due to COVID-19/Coronavirus are nothing short of staggering. In mid-February, China was the only country in the world with school closures.

• Observation vs. Inference: A learning adventure – Mari Venturino

  Over spring break, I have been doing a lot of relaxing AND a lot of fun work. For me, creating and planning is fun, so I don’t always mind it when I’m on a break. That being said, I constantly check in with myself to see if this is something I want …

• Grace is Greater Than Grades | Shake Up Learning

• The Power Of Visuals In Online Learning – e-Learning Infographics

  The human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text. In fact, it takes only 13 milliseconds for the brain to process an image. Visuals are more likely to be stored in our long-term memory, leading to better retention. According to a stud…

• Mo Physics Mo Problems: Student Paced Flashcard Factory for Distance Learning

  Run flashcard factory as student paced.

• 5 Tips for Teaching Online

  As teachers embrace their new roles as designers, instructors, and facilitators of online learning, many are grappling the details associated with teaching remotely.

• This 300,000-year-old skull may be from an African ‘ghost’ population | Science News

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Wide Open School from @CommonSenseEd

  · 4 #EdTech Blogs to Bookmark · 9 Must Read Blogs for Innovative Teachers · 10 Digital Citizenship Bloggers to Follow · 10 Education blogs worth following – eSchool News · 11 Ed Tech Bloggers to Follow · 20 Best Blogs in Instructional Technology · 2…

• Teachable Moment Episode 16: Curating Web Resources for your students with Wakelet – NCCE’s Tech Savvy Teacher Blog

  Mike is currently the Instructional Program Director for the Montana Digital Academy, Montana’s state virtual school.

• We are in the Midst of Making History | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog

  Are you aware that we are in the middle of making history? It is March of 2020. We are living through a pandemic of global scale. The COVID-19 virus has put citizens in social distancing, physical isolation, and quarantine.

• Connecting Remotely – Ideas for Reaching students Individually from home – Meredith Akers

  As we all try to wrap our minds around teaching and learning remotely, a major concern is how to continue to connect individually with each and every student (or staff member if you are a school leader) when we are physically so far apart.

• 10 Trauma Informed Principles for Educators During the Coronavirus with Dr. Eric Rossen

  Students experiencing the coronavirus crisis are experiencing trauma. So are teachers and parents. In today’s show, learn the ten principles (and a bonus) to help us encourage and help others as we work through this crisis together.

• The Nerdy Teacher: Day One Remote Learning Expectations #EdChat #covidEDU

  Tomorrow University Liggett School will start our Remote Learning Adventure. I spent my Spring Break with our Admin team to create a system that will allow teachers and students to connect in synchronous and asynchronous ways.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Learn to Make Remote Content Accessible to Those with Disabilities

  Rushing to create online curriculum and activities? That content must be made accessible. If you are taking screenshots or pictures of documents that you share or post online, it’s probably not accessible.

• Control Alt Achieve: See Everyone with the Google Meet Grid View Extension

  Google Hangouts Meet is a great video conference tool for connecting people… but what about when there are a lot of people in the meeting? Normally when you are in a Google Meet video conference, you can only show at most 4 people at a time.

• How to Teach Students Effective Learning in an Online Classroom

  How I teach students to be effective learners in an online classroom. This episode is an audio version of my presentation to students about how to be effective learners in an online classroom. Get Credit! Some schools, districts, and organizations a…

• Mo Physics Mo Problems: Standards Presentations Using Flipgrid

  Using Flipgrid as a Platform for students to present evidence of mastery

• Tips to Deter Zoom-bombers (general audience) – Google Docs

• image-creation-tools

• Free Technology for Teachers: C-SPAN Classroom Offers New Lessons on the Economic Impact of COVID-19

  C-SPAN Classroom is a free resource that anyone who teaches U.S. History or civics should have bookmarked. I’ve written about many of their great resources and programs over the years including their annual student video contest and annual summer wo…

• How Do We Do Common Formative Assessments in a School of Singletons? | All Things Assessment

  When schools define themselves as professional learning communities, one of the hallmarks of that work is to work with a collaborative team with whom teachers learn together. Determining how to organize singletons, then, in a PLC school is an import…

• no-internet-remote-learning

• Distance Learning: A Gently Curated Collection of Resources for Teachers | Cult of Pedagogy

  Disclaimer 1: This post was written in the Spring of 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak, so a lot of the information here is discussed through the lens of distance learning launched by a global pandemic.

• 3 Strategies to Engage Students Remotely with StudySync Using Google Classroom |

  English teachers using StudySync have a wealth of online resources they can use to keep students learning remotely.

• 8-interactive-google-slides-activities-for-classroom-excitement

• 10 Essential Online Learning Best Practices – Free Webinar

  We took our school from a physical school on a Friday to a distance learning campus by Monday. We didn’t miss a day – not yet. And the learning continues. I was asked today if I’m sharing and certainly, I am. However, I want to share and talk more a…

• with-schools-closed-kids-with-disabilities-are-more-vulnerable-than-ever

  Updated at 9:31 a.m. ET With school closed, Marla Murasko begins her morning getting her 14-year-old son, Jacob, dressed and ready for the day. They have a daily check-in: How are you doing? How are you feeling? Next, they consult the colorful, hour…

• All-purpose enzymes boost CRISPR’s powers

  Newly developed enzymes allow the CRISPR–Cas9 genome-editing system to target a huge range of mutations in human cells — an advance that could lead to the development of CRISPR-based treatments for human disease.

• How to Teach Students to Manage Themselves | Mike Kaechele

  One reason why a large subset of students struggle in school is that they lack organization. These are the kids who do their homework but never turn it in. It is probably “lost” somewhere in their backpack.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Remote Meeting Tips

  In 2017 MarketWatch predicted 50% of the workforce would be working remotely by now. They were wrong. An unforeseen pandemic has made remote working an essential component for much of today’s workforce. Many, who had not worked this way previously, …

• A Principal’s Reflections: In Times of Crisis Self-Care is More Important Than Ever

  The majority of us did not see the COVID-19 pandemic coming. Up until this point, our lives were dominated by both professional and personal routines.

• The Differentiator

  Depth and Complexity adapted from The Flip Book by Sandra N. Kaplan, Bette Gould & Victoria Siegel. Content Imperatives adapted from The Flip Book, Too by Sandra Kaplan & Bette Gould. Adapted from David Chung and The Flip Book, Too by Sandra N. Kapl…

• When Non-Disabled People Get Accommodations, Who Benefits? Things to Think About as We Work Remotely – FAKEQUITY

  Settle in folx, this is a long post, filled with a lot of important information. Read it, then file it so you can refer back to the tips in it as needed over the next few weeks of COVID19 stay-at-home mandates continue. Many people across the countr…

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.