Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Great blog posts from last week:

• Using games for win-win learning – Oxford University Press

  Like many people around the world, I recently took time off at the end of December and the New Year to relax at home. A common feature of any holiday season, alongside eating large meals and seeing family and old friends, is playing games.

• Reimagining School after COVID | Facing History and Ourselves

  Since the coronavirus pandemic began over a year ago, students have had to navigate upheavals in their education and new ways of learning.

• My Lesson Plans for Teaching the American Revolution – History Gal

  I thought it might be helpful to share how I plan out my American Revolution unit.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Catchy Words – A Fun Augmented Reality App for Spelling Practice

  My daughters recently became very interested in a PBS Kids show called Word World. In each episode of the show the characters build a new word. As I was watching Word World with them this morning I was reminded of a fun augmented reality app called …

• How to Use VLookup in the Classroom – Classroom Powerups

  When it comes to Google Sheets I am an Enthuiastic Amatuer but I have been hacking away at spreadsheets long enough to pick up a few tricks and one of my favorite is the “VLookup”.

• Teaching the Fall of Rome – History Gal

  How do you teach the fall of Rome? When I first began teaching, I lectured about all the events and issues that led to the fall of Rome and then gave my students a mini-research project about the different groups of people that were involved in the …

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Math and Map Challenge

  This evening while recording Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions & Share Cool Stuff I was reminded of a neat math and map challenge activity from Mathigon. Here’s what I wrote about it last year. Mathigon’s map coloring challenge is to use as few colors…

• The OER Project Offers The Same Social Studies Texts In Different Lexile Levels – For Free! | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Project Score is from the OER Project. It provides a lot of Social Studies prompts with scaffolded instruction and a free automating assessment tool for the student-written essays.

• End of Year Lesson Ideas for Social Studies – History Gal

  Are you struggling to figure out what to do during the last few weeks of school in your social studies or history class? Don’t stress! Here are some of my favorites:

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Short Lessons About Algorithms That I Used This Week

  This week in my Computer Science Principles course we’re talking about algorithms.

• He invented calculus, but you could smoke him at Monopoly. – Math with Bad Drawings

  When it comes to Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), I do a lot of gushing. I gushed in my book on calculus. I gushed in a three-part series of interviews with the podcast Infinitely Irrational. I even gushed in a personality quiz for Ars Technica.

• Grading for Equity: Activities to Establish Common Goals – i ❤ edu

  As our school site continues on our journey of evaluating our grading practices (see my previous blog post for more details), I am excited to share more interactive resources that can be used for professional development at your site! In the previous…

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Make a Backup Copy of Your Blog

  Last Friday evening a portion of the blogging community got a bit nervous when Blogger (Google’s blogging platform) started throwing up lots of error messages. In some cases people reported having blog posts completely disappear.

• On Counting Down the Days…Again – Pernille Ripp

  An older post from 2017 that still rings true today. I will not do a countdown for many reasons, even if I know how many days I have left.

• The Nerdy Teacher: Teach Creativity with Adobe and Khan Academy

  I am very excited to share with you the FREE online course that Adobe has created in partnership with Khan Academy. As the school year winds down, this self-paced course is something I would recommend to all educators looking to improve their practi…

• 2020 Emerging Technology Top 10 List | CompTIA

  Each year, the CompTIA Emerging Technology Community unveils the annual Emerging Technology Top 10 list.

• Relive all the great Microsoft sessions from NCCE 2021 from your home! – NCCE’s Tech Savvy Teacher Blog

  Did you attend NCCE’s 2021 virtual conference? Now is a great time to go back and revisit all of the great sessions including all of the outstanding content from our Exclusive Tier 1 Sponsor: Microsoft!

• How to Make a Boss Fight Assessment – Classroom Powerups

  An Assessment is simply a way to determine what a student knows/doesn’t know or the level of skill with a certain ability. In education we often conflate assessment with test but those words, while similar, do not mean the same thing.

• Blended Learning: Designing with Balance in Mind – Dr. Catlin Tucker

  I am concerned about the impact that the imbalances in education have on teacher engagement and job satisfaction. I know firsthand the toll that the imbalances caused by traditional workflows in education can have on a teacher. Those unrealistic wor…

• Getting Started with Content Curation in the Classroom – John Spencer

  Content curation is a vital part of the creative process. In this blog post and podcast, we explore why curation matters and how we can help students learn how to engage in the curation process. Just click on the audio below to listen to this Creati…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Dotstorming Now Supports Video and PDF Uploads

  Dotstorming is a collaborative brainstorming tool that I’ve used and written about for half of a decade or more. One of its key features is the option to have participants in a brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas submitted during the…

• Capital & Main: Eli Broad Wanted to Destroy Public Education | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Upon his death recently, Eli Broad received many laudatory obituaries, describing his philanthropic contributions to the arts and medical research. He even built an art museum in Los Angeles, named for himself. Modesty was not one of his virtues.

• Dueck: Self-Assessment Gives Students a ‘Key to the School’

  We empower students when we engage them in their own assessment.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Brainstormer – A Collaborative Brainstorming and Voting Tool

  Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the “what do we do now?” problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormer solves that problem by letting members of the brainstormi…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Fling the Teacher! – A Fun Review Game

  Fling the Teacher lets students fling or slingshot their teachers across the screen for up to sixty seconds after they correctly answer fifteen consecutive multiple choice questions. Try it for yourself with this demo game.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Good Ways to Make Online Word Games

  As we get toward the end of the school year many of us will be looking for some fun activities for our students to do to review key terms and concepts of the last year or semester. I shared a handful of ideas for doing that in this week’s Practical …

• iCivics Unveils New – And BIG – Primary Sources Site | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  I have earlier noted that it LOOKS LIKE ICIVICS WANTS TO BE THE ONE-STOP SHOP FOR SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS. And that continues to be the case. Today, they unveiled their Exploring Primary Sources website.

• Futuclass

  Still have questions? Each study module is extensively tested until 70% of students who complete it significantly improve their knowledge of the topic.

• Why is “Critical Race Theory” Controversial and What Is it? | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  In several states, the Governor and Legislature have denounced “critical race theory” and even (in Idaho and some other states) banned it from their schools.

• Just a moment…

• Professor Game Podcast Appearance! – Classroom Powerups

  Mr. Powley is a 14 year teaching veteran and is currently the dual enrollment American History teacher at the #1 ranked high school in South Carolina. For the last several years he has transformed his classroom based on the principles of game inspir…

• www.ascd.org

• ‘Extinct Fossil Fish’ Dating Back 420 Million Years Found Alive in Madagascar

  A group of South African shark hunters have unwittingly rediscovered a population of fish predating dinosaurs that many in the scientific community believed to be extinct.

• Exporting in 3D – MEE

  Watch this video to see a demonstration of 3D exporting in Education Edition in action! Build (or locate) an object you would like to export from Minecraft.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Tackling the Status Quo

  We often hear about companies who are either unwilling or afraid to change and ultimately pay the price. Blockbuster is one that often comes to mind, but many others have become victims of the status quo. Robert Brodo shared this in relation to Koda…

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are this past week’s selection of great blog posts:

• As more students return to in-person learning, some prefer distance learning | KOMO

  Despite high COVID-19 case numbers, Governor Inslee is paving the way to get more students back to in-person learning. However, some students are thriving with distance learning and are able to finish a year’s course work in half the time. Students …

• Run-A-Lap Activities: Work as Punishment – Classroom Powerups

  A few weeks ago I was accidentally eavesdropping on a few co-ed student-athletes talking before class started. They were not being quiet and they were mostly comparing practice regiments in their respective sports. One was a football player and the …

• Leave TIMESTAMPED Comments in Flipgrid (Teacher/Student Feedback + Student Self-Critiques) – YouTube

• Milky Way’s mass mostly made up of dark matter, new research into the galaxy reveals » LiveScience

  Photo: Astronomers used data from the Gaia telescope, which maps stars in the Milky Way. (Supplied: European Space Agency) Astronomers have actually come up with one of the most precise measurements of the galaxy’s mass yet — and as it ends up, it’s…

• Why you still need to wear a mask after getting COVID-19 vaccine – ABC News

  As the promise of a COVID-19 vaccine is fulfilled amid the rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the need to continue wearing masks, washing your hands and maintaining social distancing remains mission critical to protecting lives.

• Eight Teaching Concerns I Have Going Into 2021 | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  In July, I wrote a column for The Washington Post headlined Teacher: Eight concerns about school this fall that are robbing me of sleep. And, boy, was I “spot-on” with those concerns as the fall semester unfolded.

• Learn to Code with Grasshopper – A Free Self-Paced App

  New to coding? Not sure where to start? The Grasshopper app, available on Apple’s App Store and on Google Play, teaches JavaScript through self-paced lessons and practice.

• New video focuses on salmon lifestyles in an ongoing series called “Tales of the Sound” | Puget Sound Institute

  For newcomers to the Puget Sound region — or anyone who wishes to learn about salmon — check out the new video by my friend and former colleague Josh Farley of the Kitsap Sun. Like many print journalists who have expanded into multimedia, Josh becam…

• This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How It’s Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years |Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine

  The interactive tool enables users to home in on a specific location and visualize how it has evolved between the Cryogenian Period and the present Some 240 million years ago, the patch of land that would one day become the National Mall was part of…

• How the Pandemic changed my teaching? – Not Another History Teacher

  It’s hard to believe that we’re wrapping up 2020. As much as I would love to bash 2020, I have a lot to be thankful for and I am a glass-half-full person! Due to the pandemic, I am so thankful for all the family time we got.

• #UNGRADING – home

  However, if you want to join our month-end Zoom sessions, we will use the email that you provide to send you the specific Zoom meeting details. In short, we want to know the you are actually you so we can prevent any “zoombombing”!

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Crossword Puzzles With Google Sheets

  My grandmother was a middle school and high school language arts teacher for decades. She loved crossword puzzles. I know that many other teachers still like to use them in one way or another too.

• Find the Right Tool to Inspire Your Learners – Teacher Reboot Camp

  The good news is there are thousands of digital tools and apps (many free) to support teachers, students and families. The bad news is there are thousands of digital tools. Teachers need to quickly find the right tool to meet their students’ needs a…

• Edutopia – rethinking-homework-year-and-beyond

  I used to pride myself on my high expectations, including my firm commitment to accountability for regular homework completion among my students. But the trauma of Covid-19 has prompted me to both reflect and adapt.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Quickly Create a Transcript of a Google Meet Meeting

  CaptionSaver Pro for Google Meet is a free Chrome extension that anyone can use to save a transcript of what is said during a Google Meet meeting.

• Know Your Why!: Google Drawings Meme Generator and More Google Drawing Activities

  Creative Communicator – Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.

• Where Did Bats Come From? |Science | Smithsonian Magazine

  Paleontologists seek the ancestors that could explain how bats became the only flying mammals. Listen carefully on a quiet summer night and you might hear them. Even if you don’t see a bat’s frantically fluttering form, you might catch its high-pitc…

• every-kid-is-motivated-action-oriented-ideas-to-revive-students-curiosity

  If there’s one concern about distance learning that educators have during these times, it’s that students are having difficulty being motivated.

• Video-game industry revenues exceed sports, film combined in 2020 – Business Insider

  The coronavirus pandemic killed over 1.7 million people worldwide, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization, and countries around the world remain in various forms of lockdown.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Remake and Reuse a Padlet Wall

  Padlet has been one of my go-to multimedia tools for more than a decade. I’ve used it for everything from discussion prompts and backchannels to digital portfolios and image galleries. This week a reader sent me a question about reusing Padlet walls.

• SimParkingLot: Challenges of Game Based Learning – Classroom Powerups

  At times I feel like I’m on the verge of handing over my gamified teacher card. This is one of those times. I am an advocate of thinking of classroom design through the lens of game design. It forces the teacher to center the student experience and …

• New research shows video games improve literacy | GamesIndustry.biz

  A new study by the UK’s National Literacy Trust linked video games to improved literacy, creativity, positive communication, empathy and mental wellbeing in young people. According to this survey, 79% of young people who play video games also read m…

• Miguel Cardona, Ed.D.

  Who is Miguel Cardona? Miguel Cardona, Ed.D. is president-elect Biden’s nominee to run the Department of Education. He’s currently the education commissioner of Connecticut. Prior to that role, he was an assistant superintendent, elementary principa…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Future Me – A Good End of 2020 Activity

  The end of the year is near and, if my scrolls through social media are an indicator, many of people are ready to put 2020 in the rearview mirror. Before kissing 2020 goodbye consider taking a few moments to write out what you want to accomplish in …

• Free Technology for Teachers: Get the Wiggles Out With Sworkit Kids

  Sworkit Kids is a free app that I’ve been using and recommending for a few years. It provides prompts for one to five minute physical activities that kids can do in their classrooms or at home relatively small spaces.

• Biden Picks Connecticut Commissioner Miguel Cardonas as Secretary of Education | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  President-Elect Joe Biden selected Dr. Miguel Cardona, Commissioner of Education in Connecticut, to be his administration’s Secretary of Education.

• Many Uses for Pear Deck

  Pear Deck is a tool I have been using in my classroom for over 5 years now. It is consistently the #1 tool my students say helps their learning in our classroom. So, I’d just like to give a brief overview of the different ways we deploy Pear Deck fo…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Vintage Travel Posters and Google Earth

  The Library of Congress offers thousands of historical images and maps that students can download and reuse for free. Most of the images and maps are found in these digital collections.

• Free Technology for Teachers: My Two Go-to Places for Free Sound Effects and Music

  Some of my students are currently using the MIT App Inventor to create their own Android apps. It’s a great way for students learn some programming concepts and have a working app at the end. I figured that some other teachers would like to know how…

• EdTech Tools That Are Saving Me

  With the holiday break only a few hours away, I decided that I should probably get one post in before the end of the year. I haven’t posted in a while because I haven’t really had the energy too. It’s not that I haven’t had things to share.

• WA Green Schools: At-Home Certification | Science for All

  Washington Green Schools is a non-profit organization working to empower students to become environmental leaders by certifying their schools and conserving resources. During the pandemic Washington Green Schools has added the option for students to…

• Seven Rules of Zoom Meeting Etiquette From the Pros – WSJ

  No more dogs, chips or ‘lurkers’—as video-conferencing becomes a fixture in working life, it’s time to shed the rookie moves

• 5 evidence-based ways teachers can help struggling students

  New South Wales recently introduced a draft Student Behaviour Strategy.

• How the Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Works – The New York Times

  The German company BioNTech partnered with Pfizer to develop and test a coronavirus vaccine known as BNT162b2. A clinical trial demonstrated that the vaccine has an efficacy rate of 95 percent in preventing Covid-19.

• The Why, How, and What of Blended Learning – Dr. Catlin Tucker

  The events of the last nine months have launched the phrase “blended learning” into the mainstream.

• Another Helpful Science Resource for Teachers and Students | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  The 3M Young Scientist Lab is another great website we are adding to our science distance teaching and learning resources. It provides teachers with tons of educational resources to get their students motivated and engaged in science learning in cla…

• The Hardest Part About Learning Hard Things | Scott H Young

  I’ve been recording a lot of podcast interviews for my upcoming book, Ultralearning. One of the recurring themes I’ve noticed in our conversations is that how people feel about learning is the overwhelming cause of the results they experience.

• Why No One Reads Your Classroom Newsletter

  As the parent of three elementary students, I get a lot of classroom newsletters. And every time I get one, I fully intend to read it. I know how important it is to keep track of school activities, to know what my kids are learning, and to support t…

• Five Ways to Lie with Charts

  Want to spin your data? Here’s how.

• The Tests Are Lousy, So How Could the Scores Be Meaningful? – Alfie Kohn

  Way before Waze, I listened to traffic reports on my car radio whenever I had to drive to the airport.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Challenges Create Opportunities

  “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine I love working with educators.

• Now Is the Time to Redefine Learning — Not Recreate Traditional School Online | EdSurge News

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are more great blog posts from last week:

• Count Up Checkboxes in Google Sheets – Teacher Tech

  My favorite part of Google Sheets is inserting checkboxes! WICKED USEFUL FOR TEACHERS! My daughter is helping me with my YouTube thumbnails (check out her handiwork and subscribe to my channel

• Control Alt Achieve: How Your Students can use Google Drawings to Create Greeting Cards

  Google Apps has loads of awesome tools, but one thing that often gets mentioned as missing is a desktop publishing app. If you want to create brochures, newsletters, flyers, greeting cards, and such, there really isn’t a dedicated desktop publishing…

• Roll Up Whiteboard with Marker | Whitey Board Company – Writeyboard

  repositionable whiteboard + marker

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Search for Matching & Similar Documents Submitted in Google Classroom

  Earlier this week a reader asked me if there was a way to quickly scan across all of the documents his students submit in Google Classroom to check for elements of copying between students.

• How To Make Your Online Lessons Irresistible To Students – Smart Classroom Management

  Although the school year is quickly coming to a close, chances are that Zoom and other live video platforms will continue to play a role next school year. This isn’t good news.

• THE CIRCLE

  ORDER OF RANKS

• Cliff Mass Weather Blog: What is the difference between partly sunny and partly cloudy?

  Twice today I was asked about the difference between partly cloudy and partly sunny. And that inquiry is one of the most frequent I get, for reasons I do not understand. OK…let’s settle this for once and for all.

• Google Arts and Culture needs to be in your teacher tool belt | History Tech

  I’ve seen it so many times. And you probably do it every day, without even realizing it.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Foster Connection and Interaction in Webinars

  Some new to conducting online webinars may feel a void in this environment. Unlike teaching face-to-face you can’t read the room the same way. It may be difficult to pick up on non-verbal cues. You can’t walk over to someone and look over their shou…

• The #1 Most Requested Desmos Feature Right Now, and What We Could Do Instead – dy/dan

  When schools started closing months ago, we heard two loud requests from teachers in our community. They wanted: Those sounded like unambiguously good ideas, whether schools were closed or not. Good pedagogy. Good technology. Good math. We made both.

• Live from NCCE Archive: “Google Tour Creator: Embed VR Into YOUR Lessons!” – NCCE’s Tech Savvy Teacher Blog

  Thanks to all that attended Live from NCCE on Thursday, May 14, 2020, on “Google Tour Creator: Embed VR Into YOUR Lessons!” with special guest Paul Zimmerman! Below is an archive of that live event.

• Earth’s Ever-Changing Surface | Lesson Plan | PBS LearningMedia

• Activities to keep preschoolers learning during a pandemic – CNN

  Three weeks into our extended coronavirus spring break at home, my husband wanted to discuss what we should be teaching our 4-year-old son. Masada Siegel is journalist and a crisis communications consultant.

• Home | The Ron Clark Academy

• MTG Cardsmith: A Magic: The Gathering Custom Card Maker

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Quickly Create a Slideshow With Google Photos and Slides

  Earlier this week someone sent me a question on Twitter seeking information about an add-on that lets you import batches of photos into Google Slides and have those photos automatically placed onto individual slides. The add-on that I’ve used for th…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Tactiq – Record the Captions in Google Meet

  Tactiq is a new Google Chrome extension that lets you record the captions generated by the automatic captioning tool in Google Meet. You can use it to record and save all captions or select just some captions to save.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Pixabay Offers Free Music to Use and Reuse

  Pixabay is one of the resources that I frequently include in my recommendations for sources of images and video clips to use in slideshow and video projects. This morning I got a notice from Pixabay informing me of Pixabay’s audio collection.

• literacyworldwide.org

• Creating a BITMOJI Class Photo by Greers Fantastic Fourth | TpT

  I created this fun class picture when I heard we wouldn’t be coming together as a class anymore. I asked all parents to create and send me their students BITMOJI and then created this class picture.

• Kids Are So Over Zoom. Here’s What To Do About It. | HuffPost Life

  In the past month, my 5-year-old has gone from being excited about video calls for school and virtual “play dates” to basically hating it all. Sometimes he’s into it — like yesterday, when he was totally engrossed in a 30-minute math class with his …

• Free Technology for Teachers: Move Items from One Google Account to Another

  It’s that time of year again when some teachers will be leaving one school district for another. With that move comes the need to move your digital resources as well as your physical resources.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Certify’em Adds Two Helpful Features for Sending Certificates When Students Complete Google Forms Quizzes

  Certify’em is a Google Forms add-on that I’ve been using and recommending for a few years. Certify’em makes it easy to automatically send certificates to students when they get a minimum score on a quiz conducted with Google Forms.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Virtual Bitmoji Classroom Help

  Have you created your Bitmoji classroom yet? If you have not and you want to, then you’re in the right place. Here you’ll find an article and two videos that outline the process. I’ll also share how you can check out Bitmoji classrooms on social med…

• Awesome teacher summer: PD bingo choice board – Ditch That Textbook

  Summer is a great time to learn what YOU want to learn. This PD bingo choice board gives you LOTS of options! ​Summer is a time for rejuvenation and relaxation. It’s a time to focus on our lives outside of education and recharge.

• Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch: Differentiation strategies to support learners

  This article originally appeared in the Discovery Education blog “Kathy Schrock’s Katch of the Month” in May 2018 and is re-posted here with permission. _______________________ Differentiation of instruction for all students in your classroom is som…

• Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch: Creating with Discovery Education

  For the past few years, I have focused my energies on supporting teachers who are creating assessments, both formative and summative, which target student’s higher order thinking skills.

• Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch: Thinking processes and STEM

  The hundreds of quality STEM-related videos and materials in the Discovery Education online collection make it easy to find content to use for your lessons and units. However, take time for students to develop a solid thinking process before startin…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Litehouse

  Litehouse is an innovative new site for creating stunningly beautiful digital stories. Litehouse incorporates a easy-to-use story editor that lets users add: text, audio, images, maps, are more to create a dynamic story.

• At age 6, he and his classmates fled Mount St. Helens. 40 years later this reporter recalls that day | NW News Network

• Naraview

  Naraview

• Free Technology for Teachers: Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics

  In last week’s episode of Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff Rushton shared a neat site called Naraview. Those who stayed on for the “overtime” of the webinar got a detailed overview of the service from one of its designers.

• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: 5 End of the Year #RemoteLearning Celebration Ideas

  This school year has been anything but normal. Many educators have settled into a grove of creating the best learning experiences they can for their students while still providing some meaning during distance learning.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Circly

  *Circly’s collaboration features make it an ideal tool for “remote learning” while schools are closed down due to the virus. Students can even use it to do group projects from home.

• End of the Year Project: What Are YOU Curious About? |

  The last couple of months have been exhausting on a lot of levels as teachers and students shift to online learning. I would venture to guess that everyone is ready for a much-deserved summer break.

• Seven Teacher-Tested Ways to Find Renewal During Distance Learning – John Spencer

  Last week, I created the following goofy video as a reminder about the differences between teaching in-person and teaching from home: While this video is a little goofy, it points to a reality that teaching from home is vastly different from teachin…

• 40 years later, Mt. St. Helens looms as a marvel and threat – Los Angeles Times

  By Seattle Bureau Chief TOUTLE, Wash. — On the morning of May 18, 1980, an earthquake shook Mt. St. Helens and the mountain’s north face collapsed in one of the largest debris avalanches ever recorded.

• Ask an Astronomer — on Video

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Convert a PDF Into a Google Document

  On Friday during Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff someone asked if there is a tool that I would recommend for converting a PDF into a Google Doc. Fortunately, you can do that without having to use any third-party tools.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Which Video Conferencing Platform is Right for Your School?

  · 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…

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

  This is the time of year when many of us are looking for fun ways to conduct end-of-year review sessions with our students. Playing Kahoot quiz games is one of the most popular means of doing that.

• A Principal’s Reflections: 8 Key Focus Areas for Developing a Re-Entry Plan

  The COVID19 pandemic has radically disrupted both society and education as we know it. The chances of many things going back to the way they were are slim. I can say with confidence that a mentality of TTWWADI (that’s the way we’ve always done it) w…

• What if students had a choice in their daily class schedule? – Practice What You Teach

  Typically, in May, as the current school year winds down, I start to make plans for the following year.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are some amazing blog posts from last week:

• Use the SAME Google Form to Poll – Teacher Tech

  During a live session with students there are several options for how you poll students. A quick and dirty is to reuse the same Google Form repeatedly. After submitting the Form there is a link that says “Submit another response.

• Edutopia

  This flexibility to make their own hours is also giving students a chance to exercise, take breaks, or even be bored, all of which research shows is beneficial.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: An Innovative Vision for the Future of Schools

  The Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidance on reopening of schools will require innovative thinking to re-imagine how schools may open in the upcoming school year and beyond. The key will be agility and flexibility. That’s because we’ve learned t…

• How To Increase Student Online Participation By 50 Percent – Smart Classroom Management

  It’s been a tough go, this online learning. Many students are checked out.

• 118 Best Digital Tools for Educators images in 2020 | Educational technology, Education, Media literacy

• Game-Based Learning Design Competition – Legends of Learning

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Share Audio and Video in Google Classroom Without YouTube or SoundCloud

  Earlier this week I had a reader ask me for advice on sharing videos in Google Classroom with her students without having to use YouTube. My suggestion was to simply upload the videos to Google Classroom as either announcements or as assignments.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Ten Ways to Use Wakelet

  One of the reasons that Wakelet has become popular in schools in the last couple of years is that it can be used for a wide range of activities. It’s also popular because it can be used in a wide range of grade levels and subject areas.

• Snowman Army as Live Streamed on MakeCode Mixer channel | We Code MakeCode

  This video was live streamed on Wednesday, April 29, 2020 on MakeCode’s Mixer channel https://ift.tt/3cCJbFl. We will live stream a MakeCode show every Wednesday at noon Pacific for the next several Wednesdays. Our shows include MakeCode for Minecra…

• https://equitymaps.com

• Webjets.io – The new way to collect, organize and share anything

• PALMS Backchannel Chat | The new alternative to Todaysmeet

• 2 new papers spell a turning point for digital safety & citizenship: Part 2 – NetFamilyNews.org

  The timing struck me. Though it seems all of life is at an inflection point now, in the middle of a pandemic, two new papers that represent a pivotal moment for digital safety and citizenship education are published almost at the same time.

• How to Make a Movie – Learn about film

• How To Make A Slideshow Video With Photos And Music – The Edublogger

  Slideshow style videos can be a powerful way to bring together the best of your school experiences and share with others. Millions of school and college students will be graduating in the coming months. Given the current pandemic, many graduation ce…

• How You Can Use E-Sports and Gaming to Engage Students in Campus Life | Presence

• How Esports Can Support Equity • Teched Up Teacher

• Five Quick Distance Learning Activities For Teachers In A Pinch • Teched Up Teacher

• How Do I Learn Best – Setting Students Up For Learning Success Beyond Our Classroom – Pernille Ripp

  I never planned on teaching through a global pandemic. I doubt anyone did.

• How Esports Can Support Equity • Teched Up Teacher

  This was an article I originally wrote for Tech & Learning magazine. They’re a great resource for teachers looking to keep up on the latest edtech and ideas. Check them out!

• Free Technology for Teachers: An Important Setting for Using Audio and Video in Google Slides

  Last fall Google finally added an option to insert audio files into Google Slides without the need for any third-party add-ons. While it wasn’t as good as some people hoped it would be, it was still great news for Google Slides users. There are some…

• Video: “What the 1918 flu pandemic can teach us” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  rottonara / Pixabay I’m adding this video to A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS:

• The Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Add Background Music to Screencastify Videos

  Last week I published an article about how to extract the audio from your videos. A related question that I got from a reader was about how to add background music to Screencastify videos.

• Free Technology for Teachers: The Geometry of Castles – A Math Lesson in Google Earth

  In the web browser version of Google Earth there is a section called Voyager. Within the Voyager section you’ll find lots of pre-made tours, quizzes, and activities. One of those activities is called The Geometry of Castles.

• 30+ FREE PowerPoint education templates + how to make them

  Templates are productivity boosters. They can help us get more done in less time. They’re also great lesson design frameworks. They help us craft a path for students to take their thinking — or for them to guide their creating.

• The Building Blocks of an Online Lesson |

  Even though teaching online may feel like a different animal than teaching face-to-face, there are many similarities in terms of the building blocks of a lesson. The tools teachers use to engage students online are indeed different.

• Super Basic: Create a Minecraft Lesson – Teacher Tech

  Engagement matters for making a lesson memorable. While nothing is engaging for 100% of students, we do know that Minecraft is very engaging for many students. Heck, I personally spend hours playing Minecraft and lose all track of time.

• Learning at Home with Minecraft

• why-grading-policies-for-equity-matter-more-than-ever

  Every other day, a McKinney-Vento program coordinator with San Leandro Unified School District travels to the marina on the district’s eastern boundary. There, she drops off meals, hygiene kits and school supplies to families who are sheltering in t…

• “Science Instruction in the Age of the Coronavirus” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Science Instruction in the Age of the Coronavirus is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Four science educators share their experiences adapting to online instruction, including through collaborative learning and the use of onli…

• Vocabulary Connections with Padlet – Technology Pursuit

  When learning new vocabulary, it’s important for students to link that vocabulary to something that they already know. That’s why the ubiquitous Frayer Model includes a square for students to provide or draw examples.

• Classroom Games and Tech – Ed-Tech to Engage and Inspire: Game Designer Interview and Original Digital Games Activity

  This is part of a series of posts about the Game Design Club I am running for middle schoolers while school is closed.

• Flash Feedback: How to Provide More Meaningful Feedback in Less Time | 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. My study of feedback began in earnest on a sunny afternoon during my third year of…

• Accountability to What’s Important in Education – George Couros

  In this post, I was able to share some thoughts on a tweet by Weston Kieschnickin the post below.  You can also check the expanded ideas on my podcast, as well as YouTube. Later this week, I will post a conversation I had with Weston on this topic a…

• Just how contagious is COVID-19? This chart puts it in perspective. | Popular Science

  Demystifying the epidemiology terms that help us understand new diseases like COVID-19.

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Check out these amazing posts from last week:

• 7 Key Characteristics Of Better Learning Feedback

  On May 26, 2015, Grant Wiggins passed away. Grant was tremendously influential on TeachThought’s approach to education, and we were lucky enough for him to contribute his content to our site. Occasionally, we are going to go back and re-share his mo…

• Grace is Greater Than Grades | Shake Up Learning

  In the midst of the coronavirus chaos, the anxiety, the fears, and the extra time at home, I would like to come back to an idea that Jennifer Pearson shared on a special BONUS episode of the Shake Up Learning Show–grace.

• 4 Must-Have Google Classroom Skills for Teachers | Shake Up Learning

  Google Classroom is quite a robust platform for teachers and students to communicate, collaborate, and manage assignments digitally. Google is continually updating and giving us new features that make it an even more powerful tool.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Ten Ideas for Building Virtual Tours With Google’s Tour Creator

  Google’s VR Tour Creator makes it possible for anyone who has a Google account and a computer to create their own virtual reality tours to view and share in Google Expeditions.

• How To Avoid Parent Complaints About Online Learning – Smart Classroom Management

  Online learning increases the possibility of receiving complaints from parents—because they’re now able to see everything their child sees. They can judge and dissect every lesson and assignment as it’s given.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Ways to Convert Video into Audio

  Earlier this week I had a colleague ask me how she could extract the audio from a video that she had made. Some video editing tools, including iMovie and WeVideo, have an option to export just the audio from your video projects.

• Control Alt Achieve: You can take it with you! Transfer your Gmail and Drive with Google Takeout for Schools

  Change is a part of life: Maybe you are a high school senior or a college student and you are graduating. Or perhaps you are a student who is moving to a new school. You might be a teacher who is taking a job at a new school district.

• Climate Science Assessment Tasks | Science for All

  The Phenomenal Assessment site features three assessment tasks created for the Climate Science Proviso which has provided climate science education funding in Washington state. You will find an elementary task, a middle school task and a high school…

• Young artists show creativity in a plea to reduce harmful trash in the ocean | Puget Sound Institute

  Student artists from across the country are calling attention to the hazards of human trash that washes into the ocean, killing sea creatures large and small.

• Control Alt Achieve: Remote Learning & Pear Deck Webinar

  For those not familiar, Pear Deck is an awesome add-on for Google Slides that allows you to add interactive elements to your slideshows.When you run the slideshow through the Pear Deck add-on the students can join the presentation with a code and fo…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Use Whiteboards in Google Meet Without Screensharing

  On Monday I published a blog post about a new online whiteboard tool called Whiteboard Fi.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Blur Faces and Objects in Your Videos

  One of the topics that I frequently receive questions about is privacy when posting videos online. One option is to post your videos as unlisted or private videos on YouTube or Vimeo. Another option is to blur faces and objects in your videos.

• How to Teach Social-Emotional Learning When Students Aren’t in School – Education Week

  Tens of millions of students are dealing with massive upheaval to their educations and daily lives with their schools shuttered indefinitely to thwart the spread of the coronavirus.

• 7 Important Questions Before Implementing Digital Portfolios – George Couros

  Digital portfolios have been something that I have been work on for over ten years, and I am very passionate about not only the product it can create but, more importantly, the process. Having a space to share my learning and reflections has been po…

• 4 Ways to Craft Choice Menus in Distance Learning Classes – John Spencer

  I have three kids ranging from older elementary to high school. Each one of them is handling distance learning differently. My daughter, who is also the youngest, initially felt overwhelmed at the list of assignments that popped up each Monday and t…

• Learning math through story: Examples from one teacher’s classroom – Ditch That Textbook

  ​This post is written by Mandi Tolen a math teacher from Missouri. You can connect with her on Twitter @MandiTolenEDU and check out her blog infinitelyteaching.

• Storytelling: Bringing the power of stories to your teaching – Ditch That Textbook

  Great stories have a natural structure and flow. There are several great frameworks we can use when we teach — and when students create with their learning. The three-act structure is a common story arc used in books, theater, TV and even jokes.

• Climate Clock | Human Impact Lab

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Quickly Map and Connect Spreadsheet Data

  Earlier today a reader emailed me with a great question about Google Maps. She wanted to map a set of addresses and then quickly determine the shortest route between all of those places.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Complete Sentence Requirements in Google Forms

  This afternoon I held an informal webinar for a small group of people who were interested in learning some G Suite tips and tricks. Response validation in Google Forms was one of the things that I showed toward the end of that webinar.

• Climate Clock | Science for All

  I’m assuming you are coming to grips with a global pandemic and the introduction of murder hornets. So there is no better time to add on by sharing the Climate Clock. This site features a real-time clock that displays the total global warming to dat…

• Online PD: How to Support Home-Based Science Learning | Science for All

  The STEM Teaching Tools team/site recently hosted a Zoom professional development session titled- ClimeTime Professional Learning Session: How to Support Home-Based Science Learning During School Closures…it’s a catchy title to be sure.

• It’s Time For Mastery Learning • Teched Up Teacher

  Once upon a time, I was terrified that I wouldn’t pass my drivers test. I wasn’t good at parallel parking to begin with, but as I waited for my instructor to pick me up I realized that I had been practicing on the wrong side of the road.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Loom – Create Screencasts on Your iPad

  Loom is a good screencasting that I’ve written about a handful of times over the last couple of years. Amongst it’s many features, Loom offers a Chrome extension that makes it easy to respond to an email with a video.

• Control Alt Achieve: Adding Audio to Pear Deck Google Slides Activities

  Also, if you would like to learn more, I am excited to be offering a free 1-hour webinar on “Remote Learning and Pear Deck” where I will go over the fundamentals of Pear Deck for asynchronous learning, share best practices, highlight favorite featur…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: DOGOnews

  DOGOnews is an excellent site for creating Reading assignments for grades K-8 that can then be integrated into Google Classroom. This is done through 1000s of curated educated articles in a wide variety of subjects (i.e. Science, History, Current Ev…

• 7 Strategies Designed to Increase Student Engagement in Synchronous Online Discussions Using Video Conferencing |

  One of the primary roles that a teacher plays in an online class is the facilitation of learning. Facilitation is the teacher’s ability to clearly communicate learning objectives and support learners as they make progress toward those objectives.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Free Webinar – A Framework for Using Educational Technology

  Whenever I’m a guest on a podcast I always asked some variation on the question, “how do you decide what to write about?” The answer is simple, I try to look at new technology through the framework of discovery, discussion, and demonstration.

• seven-distance-learning-priorities-to-consider-before-reopening-schools

  When U.S. schools initially closed in March, distance learning emerged as a way to keep kids learning. Classroom teachers scrambled to learn how to put lessons online and tens of thousands of Chromebooks and other devices were distributed in a matte…

• Free Wordle (Word Cloud) Generators – Featuring A New Tool

• Students as Content Creators in Minecraft | AltspaceVR

  PRESENTATION: Minecraft has become an amazing tool for use in education. It allows us to leverage student expertise while meeting our learning outcomes.

• The Power of Class Rituals | Mike Kaechele

  The Covid 19 pandemic has turned the world upside down, changing life as we know in ways never dreamed possible. The only comparison that I have is dystopian or disaster movies. In all of the craziness that is now life, we need to find patterns to s…

• A Principal’s Reflections: Protecting Kids During and After Remote Learning

  With more and more schools either extending school closures or completely shutting down for the remainder of the academic year, a focus on remote learning will continue into the foreseeable future.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Reasonable strategies for the future of schooling in unreasonable times

  The Center for Disease Control (CDC) put out hard to swallow guidance about the reopening of schools. Unless there are some big changes in our educational system, we will not be able to incorporate this guidance into our schools.

• Traits of a Successful Online Teacher |

  Last week, I had the good fortune of stumbling onto John Savery’s article titled “BE VOCAL: Characteristics of Successful Online Instructors” in which he talks about the unique challenges facing teachers who are working with students in the online e…

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Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

You have got to see the great blog posts shared here:

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Tools for Collecting Stories from Students and Parents

  Earlier this week I hosted a webinar about using online tools to build communities. One of the topics within that webinar was collecting and publishing stories from students and their parents. To that end, there were three tools that I recommended. …

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Restore Files in Google Drive

  Twice this afternoon I had people ask me about restoring files that were deleted from either Google Classroom or from Google Drive. If you’ve accidentally deleted a file or folder in your Google Drive, there is a good chance that you can get it back.

• Alliance for Climate Education on Instagram: “Meet Anisa, an ACE Fellow and climate organizer with @earth_uprising in Tampa, Florida. Anisa believes talking about #climatechange with…”

• Minecraft COVID-19 Design Challenges – NASEF | High School Esports Clubs

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Videos

  Many of us are making more videos than ever before as a way to deliver instruction and or to simply keep our students updated about school. With time and practice you might become adept at using the editing functions in your favorite video software.

• Fortnite Lessons: V-Bucks and Weaponized Social Fun – Classroom Powerups

  My wife and I finally broke down allowed my sons to download and play Fortnite. The major reason for this was that online gaming seemed to be a great way for our two older boys (10 and 7) to play with their friends. Boy has this been true.

• Differentiation for Parents | Stories From School

  I remember the days when class was still held in a building, and my biggest concern was figuring out how to differentiate my math lesson to meet the needs of my students.  However, in our new reality of distance learning, I am learning to differenti…

• Software Library: MS-DOS Games : Free Software : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive

• Kerbal Space Program – Create and Manage Your Own Space Program

• World Climate Simulation – Climate Interactive

• Educators | Quandary

• Free Resources for COVID-19 Remote Learning Support – TeacherVision

  We’re writing to you knowing that all of our communities and schools are being impacted, one way or the other, by COVID-19. This is an unprecedented challenge with more questions than answers.

• PBL for Remote Learning Overview | PBLWorks

  How can we provide students with the safety net that school offers, while also using this opportunity to change the way we think about school?  We’re exploring the possibilities.

• Google Classroom Rubric Click the Title – Teacher Tech

  I want LESS mouse clicks and LESS mouse dragging. I was feeling really annoyed that to read the rubric description I made for a category I had to click all the way over to the right. But there is a shortcut! Under the rubric the category titles are …

• Screen time use sparks discussion over how much is too much

  Students love their screen time, especially those who have a passion for video games. Days can quickly blur into nights and vice-versa when children or teens get wrapped up in a Minecraft build, try to destroy a League of Legends nexus, or just repl…

• Google Classroom: Make Your OWN Grades – Teacher Tech

  Which Gradebook Defines Your Classroom? I have been loathing this update since the first day that Google Classroom came out. The gradebook. Now it is here and it is available to everyone and it is terrible.

• Control Alt Achieve: Annotate PDF’s Together in Google Meet with Kami

  When in a Google Meet video conference with a student, a colleague, or any other participant, sometimes you may need to work on a PDF together.

• Video: How to Run Properly — The Adventure Blog

  If you’re looking to improve your fitness and add exercise to your routine, taking up running is one of the best options. It is easy to get started, it burns a lot of a calories, and it is great for the heart and lungs.

• The Balance: Distance Learning–Mini-episode #2 |

  The Balance is now available on Spotify! It has been six weeks since California ordered residents to shelter in place. I have not left my home for anything other than the occasional trip to the grocery store.

• How To Reopen Closed Schools Amid Coronavirus : NPR

  Three-quarters of U.S. states have now officially closed their schools for the rest of the academic year. While remote learning continues, summer is a question mark, and attention is already starting to turn to next fall.

• The Importance and Impact of Greetings in Virtual Hallways – George Couros

  The statement above from the Edutopia video on “Making Connections with Greetings at the Door” is one that truly resonated. How powerful is that statement?

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create a Green Screen Video Without a Green Screen

  If you have ever wanted to make a green video but didn’t have access to iMovie and couldn’t make the investment in other video editing software, this new video is for you. In the following video I demonstrate how you can use Zoom and Adobe Spark tog…

• Free Technology for Teachers: National Parks Games and Challenges – Try Virtual National Parks Bingo

  I love the National Parks service that we have here in the U.S. One of the things I’m looking forward to doing with my kids when they’re a little older is to help them explore some of the places in National Parks and National Forests that I’ve enjoy…

• Free Technology for Teachers: USGS Find a Feature Challenges – Outdoor Learning Opportunities

  Last week I wrote about the Learning from Home resources available from the USGS. While it’s not specifically a part of the Learning from Home resources, USGS offers another selection of activities that can be used for “at home” learning. Those acti…

• Four New Online Learning Games | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  The Webby Awards just announced their nominees for this year. Passport To Mars is from Scholastic, and puts you in the position of being an astronaut traveling to….Mars.

• Classroom Games and Tech – Ed-Tech to Engage and Inspire: How to be a game designer – Tip #1

  I recently wrote about the virtual game design club I’m running for students in grades 5 – 8. I’ll regularly post my resources so you can do the same or a similar program with your students. This week I posted the following video to teach them a goo…

• Empowering Students in Distance Learning Environments – John Spencer

  Student engagement can be a real challenge in this sudden shift toward distance learning. But one way to improve engagement is by empowering students. In this article, we explore how to improve equity and access and how to shift toward student owner…

• Add Audio Recordings to your Slides

• Political Studies through Minecraft – Christy’s Houseful of Chaos

  I have reopened my Minecraft server in light of the Covid-19 restrictions and the need to have extra online social activities for children. I host events a couple of times a week on Minecraft and Zoom, and the children play on the server whenever th…

• COVID19 Learn at Home: Content Creation Tools – YouTube

• A list of online activities and resources for teachers planning remote learning for their students

• Cliff Mass Weather Blog: Is Atmospheric CO2 Declining from the Covid Economic Collapse?

  I have had a number of people ask me: with CO2 emissions collapsing from the economic downturn, are CO2 levels no longer going up or declining? In fact, a brief search on the web reveals some headlines that seem to be suggesting this: The bottom lin…

• How to make the classic Canada’s Wonderland funnel cake at home – Canada’s Wonderland

  I bet everyone’s having some really serious cravings right about now. The aisles at the grocery store for chips, candy, ice cream and cookies never saw it so good. I’ll tell you though, it’s the things I can’t get that I’m craving the most. Like a C…

• Microns and Masks – Yummy Math

  How big is one coronavirus? How big is a micron? How well do these masks protect against the virus? What can you observe about the size of particles mentioned? Why are we wearing masks? For members we have an editable Word docx of the activity and s…

• 100 Driving Questions and 25 Final Products Related to Covid-19 Pandemic | Mike Kaechele

  Disclaimer: This post assumes that you are already doing responsible online teaching: checking the social and emotional state of your students, giving meaningful feedback but NOT grading their work, and not overwhelming them with too much work.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator:

  Innovative educators know how important it is to provide inclusive, accessible learning environments for their students. While, many have figured this out in the classroom, when teaching and learning remotely, it’s a little different.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Remote Learning Teaching Tips

  There is so much pressure on teachers as more and more schools close for the academic year as a result of COVID19. With little to no training or preparation, they have stepped up to keep learning going. It hasn’t been easy for them to say the least.

• Everything You Need to Know About Building a Great Screencast Video | 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. Early in March, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a domino effect of school closures.

• Schedule – NarraScope

  NarraScope 2020 will take place online from May 28 to June 4, 2020. All times shown are US Eastern time.

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

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.

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are some great blog posts:

• How To Get Your Students To Show Up For Online Learning – Smart Classroom Management

  Forgive me if I ramble or am way off base with my article today. I’m learning just like you. But I do have some thoughts.

• Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Does it Work? The Most Meaningless Question to Ask about Online Education

  Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. ? Voltaire One of the most frequently and persistently asked questions about online education is “does it work” or “is it effective.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Free K-8 #RemoteLearning Curriculum from @TeachingMatters

  Teaching Matters gives us another week of remote learning materials. Get a weeks worth of student-facing home learning resources aligned to the NYC schools’ remote learning curriculum. It’s also available in Google Classroom.

• Making a Game of It

• How long can the virus that causes COVID-19 live on surfaces? | Hub

• “Doing School” In The Time of Coronavirus – Practical Theory

  A lot of folks have reached out asking me to write about what learned about moving online when you can’t be in your building because of what happened to SLA in the fall.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Quickly Turn Any Document or Webpage Into a Practice Quiz

  On Tuesday I wrote about the new version of Knowt that will let you import any of your Google Docs, Word docs, or any public webpage into a notebook. Once in your notebook it just takes one more click to have a practice quiz created for you.

• Using RAMP to keep kids learning during lockdown – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert

  This week Motivait published a blog I wrote all about using RAMP to help managers keep employees engage and motivated during these odd times of forced home working. (Click here as you may find it really useful if you run any teams!)

• Free Technology for Teachers: Anchor Offers a New Way to Remotely Record Podcasts With a Group

  Anchor is the service that I have been using since last August to produce my weekly Practical Ed Tech Podcast. I use Anchor because Anchor makes it incredibly easier to record, edit, and publish my podcast to all of the major podcast networks at onc…

• Classroom Games and Tech – Ed-Tech to Engage and Inspire: Creating Simple Google Sites to Keep in Touch With Students

  When schools were closed in Michigan some elementary teachers in my district wanted to keep in touch with students using a website. I made these two short videos to help them get started. They are meant for beginners. Also, please understand they we…

• Mo Physics Mo Problems: 3 Tools for Virtual Learning

  Resources for 3 tools to help support virtual learning

• Free Technology for Teachers: Free Course – A Teacher’s Guide to Creating Common Craft Style Videos

  For more than a dozen years Common Craft videos have been used by teachers to help students understand topics including digital citizenship, personal finance, and many big technology concepts.

• Where’s the Silver Lining for Education? | My Island View

  With the cloud of the Corona Virus hanging over us and growing by the hour, it is difficult to see any silver lining. Health and safety are our greatest concerns. The stakes are high and the consequences may be fatal to too many.

• Taking Distance Learning Away from the Screen – John Spencer

  In education, we often use a metaphor  of content delivery. We use terms like “deliver a lesson.” We ask, “did the students get it?” But the last week and a half has proven that teachers are not merely content delivery machines.

• Stay-at-Home Mad Libs! – Mari Venturino

  My goal for my blog over the next few weeks is to share out as many resources that will keep education light, fun, and easy on everyone involved. Mad Libs is one of my favorite classroom activities. It’s a goofy review activity that sneaks in parts …

• A Principal’s Reflections

• Holding Class on Zoom? Beware of These Hacks, Hijinks and Hazards | EdSurge News

• Free SEL Resources

  The Team at SiLAS has put together some free Social Animations, SEL Lessons and Parent Sheets. If you are a school district, teacher or parent, and would like a Free SiLAS account until the end of this school year, please fill out the google form at…

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Practical Advice for the Remote Teachers & Families

  The most important thing to know about remote learning is that it is not simply doing school at home. It’s different. Throw the bell schedule out! Instead: The teacher posts assignments with support materials like instructions and videos. Students f…

• A Principal’s Reflections: Tips for Engaging Families in Remote Learning

  Throughout my #remotelearning series, I have tried to provide practical ideas and strategies that can be used now. One aspect that needs more attention, at least in my opinion, is how we can assist parents throughout this ordeal.

• slow-internet-tips

• iorad – the tutorial builder

  This new app is confusing. Can I get a quick 10 mins? Got a deadline and a line of users ahead of you. Next week?

• Cooped Up With Kids During COVID-19 – Teacher Created Tips

  These are uncertain and unprecedented times. You’re doing your best to adhere to all the rules and regulations. You’re following all the safety and health precautions. You’re staying home and hunkering down. You’re also about to lose your mind.

• 7 virtual resources and a few NARA distance learning suggestions | History Tech

  The new normal is fast becoming the normal normal. But it’s always nice to hear what others are doing and using. And I love Jenifer Hitchcock’s suggestions about structuring our normal normal distance learning instruction.

• The Do’s & Don’ts of a Quick Switch to Remote Learning – Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo – Education Week Teacher

  Optimized Mobile Web Page for EdWeek developed by Mobiletech

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Remote Presenting Guidance

  Presenting through online platforms requires unique skills. Presenters need to be able to multitask and know how to troubleshoot in the moment. Below are some best practices to keep in mind while presenting remotely. Roles Roles can be combined depe…

• Day 25: Reality Composer

  The Reality Composer app was released by Apple last September as an augmented reality creation tool. The app is available to create on an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook.

• MIT Full STEAM Ahead – Sharing MIT STEAM Learning with the World

  Each week we will provide a “package” for K-12 teachers and learners. The package will be a thematic set of videos, resources and online/offline activities for different grades.

• google-forms-magic-with-pre-filled-links

• Free Technology for Teachers: Two Ways to Find Free Ebooks to Download

  Every day I’m hearing from teachers who can’t get back into their classrooms because their school buildings are completely closed. My own school building has very limited access and only by administrative approval right now.

• Free Technology for Teachers: An Option for Making Sure Students Know They Have Google Classroom Assignments

  Yesterday afternoon a friend texted me to ask if there was a way to check to see if students have looked at announcements or assignments in Google Classroom. Unfortunately, there isn’t a “read receipt” type of feature built into Google Classroom.

• Control Alt Achieve: Video Series: How to Use Google Hangouts Meet

  Google Hangouts Meet is an easy but powerful tool for video conferencing. With Meet you can connect with other people using any device including a PC, Mac, Chromebook, smart phone, or tablet.

• 4 Ideas to Consider for Online Learning – George Couros

  Not only have educators been inundated with information on COVID-19, but they have had to retool, refocus, and rethink completely how they are going to connect with and teach their students.

• Ask Science How | Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

  All Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., including the National Zoo, and in New York City are temporarily closed to support the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19. We are not announcing a re-opening date at this time and will provide updat…

• Search-Icon

  Schools across the nation are closing in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19 and in the scramble to provide at-home learning, a major problem has risen to the forefront: millions of American students don’t have reliable access to the internet.

• Day 23: 3D AR Maps Mapbox

• Next Generation Assessment: Increasing Student Voice and Choice | All Things Assessment

  The vital position education holds in the future of a society is rarely debated. However, the nature of this position is a constant source of discourse.

• Free Technology for Teachers: WriteReader Templates Can Help Students Start the Writing Process

  WriteReader is a great tool for creating multimedia stories that I’ve featured a half dozen times or more over the years. The last time I wrote about it they had just added some new page styles. Last week WriteReader unveiled a new feature that I th…

• An Appeal to Educators and Scholars of Color: Please Sign This Statement! | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Kevin Kumashiro, leader of a Deans for Justice and Equity, has written an appeal addressed to Educators and Scholars of Color. It invites their endorsement of a statement opposing failed “reforms” that have stigmatized and harmed children of color a…

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• Free Technology for Teachers: A Solution to Zoom “Not Responding” on Windows 10

  On Friday morning I started having problems with every Zoom meeting that I tried to launch or join on my Windows 10 computer resulting in the annoying “application not responding” message. I didn’t have the same problem on my Mac.

• Day 24: LightUp

• 7 Interesting Ways To Use Instagram In Classroom – e-Learning Infographics

  Share works of students, their creative arts, and let other students and families see them. Create a school community and make it a private account for your school only if you don’t want others to see your shares. Let students share photos related t…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Knowt Will Turn Your Notes and Favorite Webpages Into Quizzes for You

  Knowt is a great service for turning notes and documents into practice quizzes. When I wrote about last summer you could only use notes that you either wrote in Knowt itself or imported from Google Drive. I gave it another look this morning and saw …

• This Time is Our Opportunity | All Things Assessment

  There is an English proverb, “necessity is the mother of invention,” that fits in education today as teachers are forced to become digitally innovative in the face of immediate, and possibly an extended, period of need during the COVID-19 lockdown. …

• Free Technology for Teachers: An Overview of How Students View and Return Assignments in Google Classroom

  Over the last week I’ve spent a lot of time helping some of my colleagues get up and running with Google Classroom. One of the things that they’ve asked about is what a student sees when he or she receives an assignment in Google Classroom.

• A Principal’s Reflections: 8 Non-Digital Remote Learning Ideas

  Before our eyes, we are watching districts and schools valiantly roll out remote learning plans to support all students during extended closures. Equally as important have been the many innovative ways to make food available to our most disadvantage…

• Coronavirus Chronicles 002 – American International School of Guangzhou | @mcleod | Dangerously Irrelevant

  I am talking with schools to see how they’re responding in the wake of this global pandemic. I invite you to join me for the Coronavirus Chronicles, a series of 10-minute check-ins with educators all over. Episode 002 is below.

• My Latest BAM! Radio Show is On Teaching Online In The Face Of School Closures | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Maslow Before Bloom’s: Clarifying Our Priorities As Teaching Goes Online is the topic of my latest ten-minute BAM! Radio Show. Lorie Barber, Cathleen Beachboard, Amy Roediger and David Sherrin join me in the discussion, and they have all also contri…

• How to Set Up Virtual Office Hours with Google Meet – Classroom Powerups

  I have many thoughts about this new “eLearning” model we have had suddenly thrust upon us. I absolutely DO NOT see this as any sort of opportunity. We are making the best of a terrible Coronavirus situation.

• We’re Only Getting Out of This Together – dy/dan

  Desmos closed its San Francisco office on March 9, about a week before the surrounding county issued a “shelter-in-place” warning.

• Getting Started with Google Forms – Mari Venturino

  My most popular blog post is my Daily Check-in with Google Forms post, which includes a force-copy template of my daily check-in Form.

• Social Distance Learning, or So You Want to Record Your Lectures, huh? – Classroom Powerups

  I have been Recording and “Flipping” my lectures in some variation for almost a decade. This is all completely anecdotal but I have developed a few guiding principles. These principles come from my limited data in student completion, testing data, a…

• I’m Releasing a Free Audio Book for Middle Grade Students – John Spencer

  Before getting started, I just want to point out that teachers have been amazing over the last few weeks. I’ve watched entire districts mobilize to provide online and long-distance instruction while also providing a safe way for kids to get breakfas…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Timixi

  Timixi is an excellent site for finding or creating timelines w/ lots of robust features. For example. a user can create a timeline by adding a detailed description w/ images, switch between a detailed view and general overview, and much much more.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Hatch

  Hatch is a wonderful educational iOS app that combines game based learning w/ studying/reading/homework to help increase a student’s love of learning. The way this works is once Hatch is launched a student selects between 5 – 120 min to read/study/h…

• 3 Ways to Use Video Conferencing with Students Learning Remotely |

  Thank goodness for Zoom and Google Hangouts! During this time of social isolation and remote learning, these video conferencing tools are lifesavers. They make it possible for teachers to maintain a human connection with their students and guide the…

• Resources for Supporting Science Learning During School Closures | Science for All

  Our friends at STEM Teaching Tools have organized some resources from Council of School Science Supervisors (CSSS) to support families with science learning while practicing social distancing at home.

• Video: How to See Germs Spread | Science for All

  This video by Mark Rober (Check out some of Mark’s other science videos) is nicely done and could be pushed out to students as part of some online science learning.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Free K-8 #RemoteLearning Curriculum from @TeachingMatters

  Launching remote learning? Get a weeks worth of student-facing home learning resources aligned to the NYC schools’ remote learning curriculum. More coming…next week. Visit the Teaching Matters Site to download the curriculum for your grade and sub…

• Day 22: Adobe Aero

• A Principal’s Reflections: Creating Interactive Lessons Through App Smashing

  Remote learning has been thrust upon school districts. The result has been disruptive change like we have never seen before. In a previous post, I shared some broader ideas to help navigate these uncharted waters.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Two Collections of Hands-on Science Lessons Students Can Do At Home

  Online lessons and virtual meetings with students and parents can be good, but at a certain point students are going to want to do more than just look at their screens and answer questions.

• CHECK OFF Student Participation – Teacher Tech

  You’ve asked students to complete several things digitally. Digital, unlike paper, can be completed at different times. This can make it challenging to keep track of what students have and have not done. Google Sheets can help with keeping track.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are great posts from this past week:

• Day 21: Gadgeteer – AR

• Choose Your Own Adventure – 4 Learning Options As We Go Virtual/Online – Pernille Ripp

  Note: Yes, you may adapt this to fit your own needs, but 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.

• 6 Distance Learning Tips for Teachers – History Gal

  For most of us, this is unprecedented. We’ve had temporary closures for the flu and the stomach bug, snow days, ice days, wind days, hurricane days, tornadoes, and fires, but I have never seen entire states and nations close down schools for an unde…

• Google Classroom Bootcamp Duo Demo: Student and Teacher Views @coolcatteacher

  As so many of us schools are having to move quickly to Google Classroom, Alice Keeler sat down with me recently to do what we’re calling a “duo demo.

• SearchReSearch: The 6 things you need to know about videoconferences from home…

  I thought I’d write a few posts about things we should know to make it through this time. This is the first of my special quarantine posts!

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Television as #RemoteLearning Tool During School Closures

  Television can provide a great way for everyone to learn. It is especially useful as a learning tool, when using laptops may not be the best option.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Supervisors: What Not to Do to Teachers New to #RemoteLearning

  Districts across the globe are moving to remote learning during these unprecedented times in our world’s history. Innovative educators are jumping on board, embracing the challenge, and even enthusiastic about discovering some new and better ways of…

• Day 19: Hacking MERGE – AR

• How to Convert PowerPoints to Google Slides – History Gal

  I’ve been getting many questions about converting PowerPoints to Google Slides so I want to share how easy it is. If you’d like a video to walk you through the process instead of text, head over to my History Gal store and watch this free 5 minute l…

• A Principal’s Reflections: Special Education (SPED) and Remote Learning

  In a previous post, I shared some ideas as well as strategies that districts could embrace to establish a realistic remote learning plan taking into consideration both digital and non-digital pathways.

• CBC Radio

  The creator of Pandemic says the collaborative nature of the board game could offer lessons in fighting the global COVID-19 outbreak. Pandemic was released as a board game in 2008, and later turned into a video game.

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Google Classroom Tips for Teachers – Things You Might Have Overlooked or Forgotten

  Like I’m sure many of you are, I’m getting lots of requests from colleagues and readers for help with Google Classroom. I have a bunch of short tutorials here on my YouTube channel.

• The New Normal of School: A few suggestions, a few resources, a few tools. You can do this | History Tech

  It’s been less than a week. It doesn’t seem like it. But think back to last week. I was looking forward to watching the Big 12 basketball tournament and already had a tentative NCAA bracket filled out. You were relaxing on your spring break or looki…

• Keep Calm and Read On

  Hello there dear blog readers and my Twitter / Instagram family and friends. Here’s a kind of mirrored post that I put out on my Daring School Library blog for my kids, parents, and community.

• Sewer operators worry that toilet paper shortage will lead to more nasty clogs | Puget Sound Institute

  With a multitude of people scrambling to buy toilet paper, and some going without, sewer utility officials across the country are worried about the possible repercussions of the TP shortage — such as clogged sewer lines.

• School Closure Check-in with Google Forms – Mari Venturino

  School closure is stressful! This first week at home, I switch between worrying about my students and all of the what-if’s, and relaxing and enjoying time at home. My brain can’t figure out if I’m working or on break. I’ve been doing a little bit of…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: 15 Tools for Self Paced Learning

  “Self-paced instruction or learning is any kind of instruction that proceeds based on learner response. The content itself can be curriculum, corporate training, technical tutorials, or any other subject that does not require the immediate response …

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Start #RemoteLearning with #GoogleClassroom

  Teachers everywhere are preparing for or engaging in remote learning. Google Classroom has become the go-to place to launch this work.

• Day 20: Storyfab – AR

• Combating Social Isolation When Learning Remotely |

  As teachers move classes online and utilize online tools and resources to engage students in remote learning, it’s essential to add social elements to our online courses. This has a couple of powerful benefits.

• Enter the 3M Young Scientist Challenge to Win $25,000 #ad – Kleinspiration

  Kids have a natural sense of curiosity and with the right incentive, getting them excited about science should be fairly easy. Science activities are a great exercise for the brain while also helping kids build the essential problem-solving skills w…

• About the Challenge | Young Scientist Lab

  The Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge is the nation’s premier science competition for grades 5-8.

• COVID-19 Information & Resources – Google

  Join creators in their kitchens to chop, sauté, and cook up a feast with these videos made to accompany you during your own meal prep.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Ways to Share Docs in Google Classroom – When to Use Each

  As you might guess, I’m getting flooded with requests for help with all kinds of things related to online teaching and learning. I’m doing my best to respond to all of them although I am placing priority on the requests from my colleagues at my scho…

• Control Alt Achieve: Video Series: How to Use Google Classroom

  Google Classroom is a powerful tool that allows teachers and students to create assignments, turn in work, grade assignments, share resources, have class discussions, and much more. Classroom is constantly improving with new features.

• #remotelearning as an Opportunity to… | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog

  Remote learning is an opportunity for many things. The list I published on my last post caught the attention of many. Here is the list as an image to download and share.

• GimKit: Up Your Student Engagement – Maneuvering the Middle

• Some of our activities that are good for at-home learning – Yummy Math

  We’ve got hundreds of great activities that demonstrate how math happens all around us.  Let your student choose an activity that interests him/her and enjoy the discoveries.

• Day 18: Coding Club – AR

• How to Create Engaging Videos with a Favorite Combo – Class Tech Tips

  Do you like to combine the very best of your favorite apps? I know I do! The year has been off to a great start, including lots of time in classrooms working with students and teachers.

• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: Simple Ideas To Reduce Anxiety During #Covid19

  This is the first in a series of videos I want to do while many of us are facing an unprecedented time of isolation. If you have an idea for something you want me to talk about, academic or not, let me know on Twitter, @web20classroom.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Free Historical Coloring Pages

  If you’re looking for an offline activity that you can recommend to parents for their students to do at home, take a look at the New York Academy of Medicine’s Color Our Collections website. The site contains contributions from more than one hundred…

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Annotated Screen Capture Images

  This morning I got an email from a reader who was looking for a screen capture tool that included tools for drawing straight lines, arrows, boxes, and generally making screen captures look a little more professional. One of the tools that I recommen…

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Contact Groups in Gmail

  Yesterday I shared the time-saving tip of scheduling emails in Gmail. Today, I have another time-saving Gmail tip.

• Is Summer School In All Of Our Futures? | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Today, two pieces have appeared discussing the possibility of expanded summer school (and the federal government paying for it) this year in an attempt to recover from school closures.

• Control Alt Achieve: Screencastify for Remote Teaching

  With the COVID-19 situation, many schools around the world are out of session, with students learning from home and educators teaching remotely. There are so many wonderful resources being shared for schools to use during this time.

• Social Distancing: This is Not a Snow Day – Ariadne Labs – Medium

• #RemoteLearning Ideas with and for Younger Learners | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog

  When preparing for remote learning, the “little ones”, Pre-K through 2nd grade deserve our special attention. In the best case scenario, our young learners will already have had opportunities to practice the use of the devices they will be using at …

• #Winning: Anticipating Errors as Preventative Instruction | All Things Assessment

  I was recently working with a team to develop common formative assessments, and they were having some difficulty generating appropriate questions and tasks for the standards being addressed in this particular unit of study.

• Digital Learning Resources for Middle School Science – Mari Venturino

  On Friday, we received the official announcement that our school district will be closed as a preventative measure to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Our district is considering the closure as a weeklong extension of spring break with the intention o…

• Parenting (in RL) during a pandemic – NetFamilyNews.org

  This is no time for perfectionist parenting, digital or otherwise, right?! With so many of us working from home with kids, endless news about Covid-19, volatile global markets and social distancing, we’re all in social-emotional survival mode. This …

• 10 Tips For Parents Teaching Young Children At Home – Kathleen Morris | Primary Tech | Resources to help teachers with technology in the classroom

  I’m in the unique situation of having spent a lot of the last 10 months homeschooling. Not by choice, but because my 6 year old daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia last year. Millions of parents worldwide are being thrown into the world of homesch…

• Day-17-Identific-3D-ID – AR

• 10 Powerful Ways To Use Instagram For Promoting Your School – e-Learning Infographics

  The new generation of parents and students are active on Instagram. Learn how to reach them. Create a unique and simple hashtag that can be used by everyone while posting the photos. This hashtag will become your brand identity so create it thoughtf…

• Free Technology for Teachers: The Cincinnati Zoo Launches Daily Virtual Zoo Visits

  The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is closed to the public right now and thousands (millions?) of kids are home from school right now too. That’s why the zoo has announced that they’re hosting daily “Home Safaris” beginning today at 3pm ET. These…

• Day-16-Kais-Clan – AR

• Math Resources for Parents during School Closures | Patty Papers

  For parents now faced with school closures are looking for ways to support their own students at home, here is a list of resources that may help: http://bit.

• The Nerdy Teacher: Why and How You Should Implement #PBL in your Virtual Classroom

  I have written many posts on Project Based Learning and have recently written a book about using it in the classroom. None of them cover the value of a PBL during a nationwide shutdown of schools to prevent the spread of disease.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Socrates Free for Rest of the Year

  Many schools are now realizing they do not have the tools in place so kids can continue to learn while schools are closed. Socrates personalized learning for the students so they are progressing automatically, and provides teachers with tools to mon…

• Day-14-Explore-Interactive – AR

• Picture Books Read Aloud Videos for Lesson Use – Pernille Ripp

  I am at our public library right now and it is deserted. Wisconsin was ordered to close their schools this coming week as more and more cases of Covid-19 pile up. The world is upside down. As we prepare to switch to online learning, I have been thin…

• Cliff Mass Weather Blog: Washington State Leadership in Dealing With Coronavirus

  Washington State has immense resources to apply to the coronavirus crisis. One of the leading university medical centers in the world. Major biotech firms and a huge foundation dedicated to health science (Gates Foundation) The world’s leading logis…

• Day-15-Face-Replaced – AR

• A Principal’s Reflections: Choice Boards 101: Strategies to Ensure Classroom, Professional, and Virtual Learning Success

  As of late, I have been working with quite a few districts on personalization through a variety of blended learning strategies. My experience in this area began over three years ago, thanks to having the opportunity to coach teachers and administrat…

• How long should schools close during coronavirus pandemic? Here’s exactly what the CDC says. – The Washington Post

  How long is the federal government advising schools to stay closed to help curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus that has become a global pandemic? It isn’t giving a definitive answer.

• Kick the IDK Bucket: How to Rid Your Classroom of “I Don’t Know” | 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. We have all experienced it: Your lesson is rockin’ and you pause to check for unde…

• Classroom Games and Tech – Ed-Tech to Engage and Inspire: Recording Online Lessons With Screencastify

  I compiled a brief document to help my teachers use Screencastify for screen recording. It’s my tool of choice for making quick screen recordings and video lessons, because it’s easy to use and it saves directly to Google Drive.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Video Lessons Without Making Your Own Recordings

  In the latest episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I mentioned that EDpuzzle recently updated their user interface and that I was going to make a video about it.

• 10 Books to Read During a Pandemic – GeekMom

  We are in the middle of a pandemic with the coronavirus (COVID-19), and it’s stressing out a lot of people. During this time, it might be helpful to pick up a happy book to escape with.

• Washington State: All Standardized Tests Canceled for Students for Spring 2020 | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  As of March 13, state assessments are canceled statewide for the remainder of the 2020 school year.

• Our COVID-19 Reality: What Shows Would You Recommend? | Living Avivaloca

  Yesterday, I posted a list of ten play-based learning activities that could help support kindergarten learning at home during our extended Break. While there are only 10 ideas in the list, each idea is full of other suggestions, so these 10 are like…

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