Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

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

• Free Technology for Teachers: Why We Say “OK” – And Other Lessons on the Origins of Words

  A few days ago Vox published a short video that explains the origins of “OK” and how it came to be something that we say, read, and click everyday.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Find Free Photos by Searching on Every Stock Photo

  Regular readers of this blog probably know that my go-to places for free images are Photos for Class, Pixabay, and Unsplash. But those aren’t the only places that you can find free images to use multimedia projects.

• Schools Matter: Blockchain: Welcome to Your Permanent Record

  I realize my Blockchain video presents an abundance of information that may be difficult to absorb all at once. For that reason, I’ve pulled together images from the video and accompanying text into a slideshare that people can review at their own p…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Two Ways to Use Google Sheets to Create Reading Logs

  Google Forms and Google Sheets are my go-to tools when I need to collect and organize data. One of the things that I often help teachers do with data in Google Forms and Sheets is create progress trackers or reading logs. There are two ways that you…

• What’s In Our Reader’s Notebook – Pernille Ripp

  A frequent question I get while speaking to other educators is what does your reader’s notebook look like?  I usually don’t have a good answer because much like for many others it is a work in progress, every single year.

• Why we should focus on our beliefs as well as our practices – Reading By Example

  I was at the front of the school during dismissal, holding the door open for the students leaving. One 3rd grader stopped, looked at me, and asked, “Did you go to college?” “Yes, I did,” I responded. He thought for a moment, then shared quietly, “I …

• Uncovering The Virtual Reality Secrets Of The Empire | David Mullich

  I’ve been a fan of location-based entertainment ever since I was a child ho bought a book at Disneyland on the making of The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction and dreamed about becoming an Imagineer, one of the creators of Disney theme parks.

• Hurricane Florence: A Link Roundup – The Map Room

  The Washington Post has maps tracking Hurricane Florence’s forecasted path and its potential impact. Researcher Eira Tansey compiled data from several NOAA sources—hurricane track forecasting, potential storm surge flooding and long-duration hazards…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Voicepods – Automatically Turn Text Into Voice Recordings

  Voicepods is a neat service that will create voice recordings based on the text that you write. Voicepods offers eight voices in which you can have your text read-aloud.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Bookmark It – A Tool for Adding Bookmarks to a Video’s Timeline

  Bookmark It is a free Chrome extension that can solve a problem many people face when trying to show students just a specific part of a video. That problem is having to scroll along the timeline of a YouTube video to find the spot that you want to s…

• Technology Beyond the Tools | My Island View

  I recently read a blog post about how teachers will never be replaced by technology. The author stated that technology was just a “tool for learning”. This had to be among literally hundreds, if not thousands, of similar posts and comments that I ha…

• SearchReSearch: Answer: Can you be a Fermi estimator?

  Fermi Estimation needs both kinds of knowledge–along with a bit of practice in figuring out how to go from point A to point B. Let’s practice with a true Fermi estimation! 1. Can you estimate how tall Enrico Fermi was? In this example, I give you a…

• ‘It’s Like Amazon, But for Preschool’

  A year ago, the richest man in the world asked Twitter for suggestions on how he should spend his money. And today, Jeff Bezos unveiled a few more details about his plans – other than funding space travel, that is.

• Beyond Test Scores and Retention of Information – The Principal of Change

  There are two terms that I have seen thrown around which mean a lot more than how they are being used; learning and achievement. The reason these two come to mind is due to their direct connection to one another in the context of education.

• Superhero Cards and Relationship Journeys – Classroom Powerups

  I am currently on a Hurri-cation 2018. I have evacuated my eastern South Carolina home in Pawley’s Island and have found refuge with family in the upstate due to Hurricane Forence.

• Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: Hurricane Florence: Stunningly Good Track Forecasts, Problems with Intensity

  Hurricane Florence is has recently made landfall near Wilmington, North Carolina as a category one storm with sustained winds of approximately 85 mph (see latest radar image below). It is now weakening rapidly.

• Learning the Wrong Lessons from Video Games – dy/dan

  In the early 20th century, Karl Groos claimed in The Play of Man that “the joy in being a cause” is fundamental to all forms of play. One hundred years later, Phil Daro would connect Groos’s theory of play to video gaming:

• Seven Reasons to Pilot Genius Hour Projects – John Spencer

  Genius Hour (or 20% Time) projects begin with a simple idea: give students a dedicated period of time to pursue their passions, interests, and questions in a creative way. In this blog post and podcast, we explore the benefits of doing Genius Hour p…

• 10 Tips for Teachers Using the Station Rotation Model |

  Teachers are already blowing up my Twitter feed with awesome photos taken during their first few station rotation lessons! It’s exciting to see so many teachers trying this blended learning model and creating opportunities for small group instructio…

• The Adventure Blog: Researchers Create Most Detailed Map of Antarctica Ever

  Even in the 21st century, much of Antarctica remains unvisited by man, with the frozen continent largely unexplored. Sure, there are expeditions to the South Pole every austral summer, but most stick to the same trident and true routes, rarely varyi…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Two Interactive Copies of the Constitution for Constitution Day

  Next Monday is Constitution Day in the United States. By law all schools that receive federal funds have to offer some instruction on on the Constitution.

• Using Book Creator in Middle School – Class Tech Tips

  Middle school students have stories to tell. From narrative writing in the English Language Arts classroom to daily reflections in the math classroom, students can use Book Creator to capture the story of their learning.

• hyperdocs tips and making learning addictive

• “I want students to own their own learning” | Mike Kaechele

  What do educators even mean when they say, “I want students to own their learning” in our school? Think about the context of that statement for a moment. In our highly standardized curriculum and over-tested classroom environments, this statement is…

• Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: Battle of the Models: The Old Versus the New U.S. Global Weather Forecasting Model

  Early next year, the U.S. will move to new global model. The new model (FV-3) was developed at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamical Lab (GFDL) in Princeton and will replace the old Global Forecast System (GFS) model that has been around forever.

• Six New Videos Related To 9/11 | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  WikiImages / Pixabay I’m adding these six new videos to The Best Sites To Help Teach About 9/11:

• Schools Matter: St. Hope Charter School Students Have Had Enough

  St. Hope Charter Schools, Inc. is a small charter school chain owned by Kevin Johnson and his wife, Michelle Rhee.

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Free iPad Apps for Making Videos in Elementary School

  In the next weeks I’ll be spending quite a bit of time working in elementary school classrooms that are equipped with iPads. One of the things that I’ll be doing is helping teachers help their students make short videos. These are some of the apps t…

• Sharing Adobe Spark Creations with Google Slides – Class Tech Tips

  When it comes to sharing student work, there are lots of ways to establish a workflow in your classroom.

• Five Proven Benefits of Play

  Play is, by definition, intrinsically motivated. People and many animals do it just because. But apparently parents and teachers these days need more of a nudge than that to make the space for play. So here are some of the research findings that app…

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Become a Mystery Skype Master!

  In a post earlier today I shared an explanation of the Mystery Skype game and some places to find partners to play the game. But if you’re not sure how to get started, Microsoft offers a detailed overview in the form of Become a Mystery Skype Master.

• Free Technology for Teachers: What is Mystery Skype?

  Last week I reTweeted someone’s request to find a partner for a Mystery Skype activity. That generated some new connections, but it also generated a few questions from people who wanted to know what Mystery Skype is and what it entails.

• Student Blogs In The Middle School And High School Classroom – The Edublogger

  A few weeks ago, we brought you the story of grade two teacher Becky Versteeg. She told us how she sets up student blogs with a new cohort of students. Blogging offers many benefits for students from the early years of schooling right up to adult le…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Edventure Builder

  Edventure Builder is an innovative new site that is perfect for sparking student’s creativity by providing a online platform for creating: scavenger hunts, interactive stories, or choose your own adventures.

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Good Site for Vocabulary Lists and Practice Activities

  Vocabulary.com is an excellent vocabulary study service offering thousands of vocabulary practice lists and activities for students in elementary school through graduate school.

• Free Technology for Teachers: The Online Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States

  The Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond hosts the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. This online atlas contains more than 700 historical maps of the United States. The maps within the atlas are arranged into ei…

• A Lever and a Place to Stand: Digital Interactive Notebooks, Part 2: Adding to your Students’ Collection

  My last post demonstrated a way to use Google Slides and Drawings to make a digital interactive notebook.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Funny Face Picture Prompts Spice Up Class Photos

  For most of us we have just two options when it comes to group photos. Say cheese is the standard. Okay, be silly, is next. Second grade teacher Shira Moskivitz has figured out a way to make boring class or staff photos a thing of the past.

• The Balance Between Struggling and Developing Strengths – The Principal of Change

  I thought about this quote a lot this past week in connection to education as I listened to a powerful student speech where they encouraged their teachers not to have them conform into a specific “box” but help them bring out their talents while fin…

• Social Emotional Learning Resources | Inside the classroom, outside the box!

• Note-taking: A Research Roundup | Cult of Pedagogy

  Let’s talk about note-taking. Every day, in classrooms all over the world, students are taking notes. I have my own half-baked ideas about what makes one approach better than another, and I’m sure you do too.

• Class Introductions with Flipgrid – Mari Venturino

  One of the biggest lessons I learned in EDS 250, one of the first education courses I took as part of my Masters/Credential program, was the value of names. Our professor, Dr. Luz Chung, read us a poem called “T-shirt” from a selection called My Nam…

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are another bunch of amazing blog posts from this past week:

• How To Become A Better Teacher? | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  The New York Times Magazine this week is the “Education Issue,” with several articles that are well worth reading. I’d start with Sara Mosle’s Can Good Teaching Be Taught?

• A Fun Game and Mission to Teach Students About Giving Good Instructions – Teacher Reboot Camp

  I recently took on a new position teaching 400+ elementary students Computer and Technology. After the first few weeks of going over procedures and an introduction to computers, I noticed my students were getting restless.

• A Fun Way To Teach Students How Not To Behave – Smart Classroom Management

  One of the most effective classroom management strategies is teaching students how not to behave. The way it works is simple.

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Parent’s Guide to Instagram – Including a Glossary and Discussion Questions

  Instagram recently released published a fairly comprehensive guide for parents.

• Classroom PowerUp VLOG – Classroom Powerups

  I love writing on this Blog. It is a great way to reflect on my classroom practice and hopefully inspire others with some awesome engagement tools. But I am branching out to the world of video and launching a weekly VLOG which can be found on my You…

• Wisconsin Science and STEM Education: How Are Some Districts Connecting Standards-Based Grading to NGSS/WSS? (Part 2 of series)

  Grades 9-12 1. Explains the structure and function of systems. 2. Uses mathematics to support explanations and draw conclusions. 3. Applies scientific knowledge to investigate how humans impact environmental/ global systems. 4. Clarifies and organiz…

• Wisconsin Science and STEM Education: Why Do Standards-Based Grading? (Part 1 of series)

  When I taught eighth grade in California, our administration started talking about implementing standards-based grading. I was skeptical to say the least! I could not imagine how I would manage that type of scoring for 120+ students.

• A Principal’s Reflections: The Purpose of Content

  When I think back to my days as a learner, the content seemed to be at the forefront of every class. Whether it was disseminated during a lecture in college, through direct instruction in K-12, or at times consumed from a textbook or encyclopedia, i…

• K-5 Interactive Science Lessons on iPad – Class Tech Tips

  Do your science lessons inspire students to explore the world around them? If you are interested in bringing interactive science lessons to your classroom, here’s an iPad app you’ll want to check out! Tappity is an interactive app for iOS to help cu…

• Tabletop Audio – Ambiences and Music for Tabletop Role Playing Games

  Original, 10 minute ambiences and music for your games and stories.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Add a Materials Section to Google Classroom

  Last night I shared the news that Google has added the option for teachers to add materials like digital handouts to the Classwork section in Google Classroom. Judging by the emails and Tweets I’ve already seen, this is going to be a popular feature.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Add a Classwork Section to Older Google Classroom Classes

  Last night Google released two new features for Google Classroom. The first was the option to add materials into the Classwork section of your Google Classroom classes without making assignments. The second was the option to update your older Google…

• 15 must have resources for teaching digital citizenship

• Free PBS Site Explores Nature Through Games & Real-World Activities – Tech Learning

  Pros: Hands-on investigations help kids explore the world around them and build scientific understanding. Cons: Alignment to the Next Generation of Science Standards leaves a bit to be desired.

• 2018-19 Items: Unit 1 Cards – Classroom Powerups

  For the 2018-19 School Year I am completely revamping my Power Card Items. This year I am tying the Item cards into my narrative.

• 10 ways to generate great lesson ideas

• Free Technology for Teachers: ReadWorks Now Integrates With Google Classroom

  ReadWorks is a free service that provides standards-aligned reading lesson plans for K-12 classrooms. In addition to lesson plans ReadWorks offers a huge libray of fiction and non-fiction literature that you can search according to topic and grade l…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Two New Google Classroom Features That Everyone Has Been Asking For!

  The new version of Google Classroom just got a little bit better. Ten minutes ago I got an email from my contact at Google about informing me that the new version of Google Classroom now has a dedicated “materials” section within the new Classwork s…

• How to transform your library into a real learning community – Hack Learning

  Is your school library mostly a place to store books? Is it empty and silent? What if you could transform your library into a dynamic learning hub? Award-winning school librarians Kristina Holzweiss and Stony Evans are on a mission to incorporate li…

• 3 Questions to Promote Innovative Leadership in Education – The Principal of Change

  I received an email from a teacher the other day that was quite frustrated.

• Stuff I Have Been Wrong About |

  Shocking, but sometimes I am wrong. Part of the job of the Superintendent, as I have described it, is to be looking around the corner at what is coming next.

• Gamification And Microlearning: A Dynamite Combination – eLearning Industry

  We, at EI Design, have been offering learning and performance support solutions for over 16 years. Over these years,

• Google Classroom: Quickly Add Video Directions – Teacher Tech

  The most influential element in a classroom: the teacher. You work hard to build relationships and students like you. Putting your face into your digital assignments makes a personal connection with students, even when they are using a computer.

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Multimedia Projects for Social Studies Classes

  If you teach social studies and you’re looking for a new project to engage your students this year, I have some suggestions for you. All of the following ideas can be modified for use in elementary school, middle school, or high school settings.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: 30 Sites and Apps for Digital Storytelling

  For my Pinterest board on Digital Storytelling click here.

• iPad users – Minecraft: Education Edition now available – NCCE’s Tech Savvy Teacher Blog

  Welcome back teachers! We are excited to share stories, resources, and videos with you again this year! For the readers of this blog that are using iPads in your classroom, Microsoft released some big news just in time for the start of school! Minec…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Good Options for Digitizing Your Students’ Physical Work

  Whether it’s a model made for a science fair or a paper on which a student successfully solved a complex math problem, there are times when we want to save a copy of physical work to use in digital portfolios.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Find & Read Old Newspapers Through the Google Newspaper Archive

  Yesterday’s blog post about the Chronicling America collection of digitized newspapers prompted Daniel Bassill to ask me about options for newspapers printed after 1963. My suggestion was to try the Google Newspaper Archive.

• You want kids to have skills. Read Inquire Write can help. | History Tech

  Last week, I got the chance to work with about 25 teachers and educators from around the state as we started the process of revising our state social studies standards. Long time readers will recall a similar process from seven years ago.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Fiete Math Climber

  Fiete Math Climber is a fun iOS game to help students w/ basic Math skills (i.e. addition, subtraction, etc.). The concept to FMC is simple as a student solves an equation and their character jumps up on the ladder collecting coins. If a player gets…

• Free Technology for Teachers: 18 Great Cartoons That Teach Cyber Safety Lessons

  Planet Nutshell is a video production company that produces short, animated videos to explain products, services, and concepts. Within their education section you will find videos addressing topics in mathematics, physics, climate science, and cyber…

• The Perfect Pairing: Virtual Field Trips and Scavenger Hunts |

  “Mrs. Tucker, why don’t we go on more field trips?” Every year students ask me this question. There are a couple of answers. In an effort to expose my students to more experiences, I’ve embraced virtual tours and field trips.

• A Slightly Embarrassing Look into my Classroom: Narrative Example and Plickers – Classroom Powerups

  Every so often our Curriculum Coordinator, Ms McCoy, comes in to view my classroom. When she does she often brings her iPad and records things she finds interesting.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Twine – Write Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Stories

  Twine is an open-source program for writing choose your own adventure stories. You can use Twine online or you can download the software for Mac or Windows. I used Twine online to create a short story.

• Real teaching means real learning: Zombies and number talks….

  Recently, during a walk I was playing The Walking Dead: The Zombies, and an awesome mathematical experience occurred. I smiled, and replied “How would we do that?” As she grabbed for her phone, I asked her to humor me and try it mentally….

• KQED

  Really. In a reversal of fortune that seems lifted from fantasy, the once stigmatized refuge of the antisocial is now the new social, and it has returned from exile with a vengeance.

• ditchthattextbook.com

• How many questions should you have on a summative assessment? | All Things Assessment

  I love using Twitter as a way to communicate thinking in a markedly different way than when using blogs, articles, and books. By limiting the number of characters, Twitter forces us to be succinct in our thinking.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Collaboratively Create Documents on Canva

  Last week Clint Heitz asked me for a suggestion for tools that students can use to make magazines online. He has used Lucid Press and was looking for other options to try. There were two tools that I suggested. One suggestion was to try Book Creator…

• A Lever and a Place to Stand: Using Google Slides & Drawings to Make Interactive Notebooks

  If you were using interactive notebooks in the spring of 2017, you probably remember the Great Glue Shortage. Somehow that spring making slime exploded onto the scene and glue was hard to come by.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Badaboom

  Badaboom is a new “game based” learning tool that I just found out about from the amazing educator and friend, Naomi Harm. Badaboom bills itself as an alternative to Kahoot, where educators can make quizzes/games and then have students answer them i…

• How Data Privacy Lessons in Alternative Reality Games Can Help Kids In Real Life | MindShift | KQED News

• classtechtips.com

  I grew up in a family where the Beatles were on constant rotation. It was the default soundtrack for many family car rides. Even today The Beatles Channel on Sirius XM is definitely in my Top 10 stations. It’s Channel 18, in case you’d like to add i…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Chronicling America – An Archive of 2,600+ Digitized Newspapers

  Chronicling America is a great resource provided by the Library of Congress. On Chronicling America you can find more than 2,600 digitized copies of newspapers printed in the United States between 1789 and 1963.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Use Yo Teach! to Create a Classroom Backchannel

  On Friday I wrote an overview of a new backchannel tool called Yo Teach! It’s a great alternative to the much-loved, but now gone, TodaysMeet. To help more people get started on Yo Teach! I made the tutorial video that is embedded below.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: #BacktoSchool List No No #1 – Graphing Calculators

  It is not unusual for costly graphing calculators to be a part of back-to-school lists. The arguments go something like this. We need students to have a separate non-computer graphing calculator to know they really know how to use a graphing calcula…

• Back To School with Bitmoji

  I swear to you dear reader, I am NOT a paid spokesperson for Bitmoji! In fact, they haven’t even answered, commented, acknowledged, or even liked ANY of my Tweets or Instagram where I’ve mentioned them. I am just a total fangirl. A lonely little neg…

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: The Real Way to Avoid Hearing from the Same 26 Facebook Friends

  Innovative educators are generally good fact checkers and don’t fall for chain social posts like the one making its rounds about seeing the same 26 people on Facebook. They know to verify and even a quick search on The Google will help you find out …

• Free Technology for Teachers: Poetry 180 – A Poem for Every Day of the School Year

  Poetry 180 is a Library of Congress project that was created when Billy Collins was the U.S. Poet Laureate. The purpose of the project is to provide high school teachers with poems for their students to read or hear throughout the school year.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are great resources and blogs from this past week:

• Examples — Pear Deck

  tags:samples google-slides activities lessons pear-deck peardeck googleslides ready-made

• Thinking in a White Room: Using Conversations as Evidence of Learning

  (This happened last year and the name of my student has been changed.) George drops by my class every morning. “Hi Miss!” he shouts. He tells me about his girlfriend, and asks for breath mints because he got rushed out of the house and didn’t have t…

• How To Avoid Labeling Difficult Students – Smart Classroom Management

  Difficult students feel different from their classmates. As if, they don’t quite fit in.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: EDpuzzle

  EDpuzzle the world’s leading tool for “flipping” a classroom or lesson has been hard at work w/ new features and updates to make it easier and even better for teacher to integrate in their classroom.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: YO Teach!

  YO Teach is a fantastic new site for creating a backchannel chat that I just found out about from the amazing Richard Byrne. YO Teach is a very user-friendly tool to use to create a backchannel chat by simply creating a room and then setting a passw…

• A Lever and a Place to Stand: Tracking Progress with Google Sheets

  My friend Andreas is a Spreadsheet Jedi. So when I saw this post of his where he created a progress tracking to-do list, I immediately wanted to try it. Since I am a new AP Chemistry teacher, using Andreas’ system to track progress in AP Chemistry s…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Short Lessons About the Origins of Labor Day

  This weekend, Labor Day weekend, is the unofficial end of summer. After this weekend nearly all students and teachers will be back in school. If you’re already back in school, you and your students are probably looking forward to the three day weeke…

• Blended Learning Strategies and Resources

• Free Technology for Teachers: Yo Teach! – A Great Alternative to TodaysMeet

  Since TodaysMeet was shuttered in June I have fielded lots of emails and Tweets from teachers looking for alternatives to it. I have been suggesting Backchannel Chat and GoSoapBox, but as of this morning I have a new alternative to TodaysMeet that I…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Another Small, Convenient Update to Google Sites and Google Forms

  Earlier today I shared the news of the new option to add buttons to Google Sites. This afternoon Google announced another small update to Google Sites that is based on a small update to Google Forms.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Google Sites Has a New Design Component

  The “new” version of Google Sites (it has been out for two years) has a new design component that you can use to make navigation of your site a little bit easier for visitors. As Google announced yesterday, you can now add buttons to the pages of yo…

• International Dot Day 2018: Your Guide To Getting Involved – The Edublogger

  International Dot Day is coming up on, around, or during the week of September 15-ish. Every year, millions of students and educators connect on International Dot Day to celebrate creativity, courage, and collaboration.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create an eBook on Book Creator

  On Tuesday I shared five ideas for making ebooks with your students. Book Creator is a great tool for making those ebooks. With Book Creator your students can make ebooks that include text, images, audio recordings, videos, and even maps.

• 10 tips for great classroom video calls

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Quickly Add Page Numbers to Long Google Documents

  Since Sunday evening when I published the 2018-19 Practical Ed Tech Handbook I have had a couple of people ask how I added the page numbers to it and kept them straight in Google Docs. The answer is found in a simple, but often overlooked function i…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Anchor Adds New Ways to Craft Podcasts

  In the last year Anchor.fm has become my go-to recommendation for easily creating podcasts with students. The web version of Anchor.fm lets you record, edit, and publish podcasts in a matter of minutes. The Anchor mobile apps are even easier to use.

• Old School Doesn’t Work | My Island View

  If a doctor, who is faced with a patient exhibiting multiple symptoms of an unknown disease, were to address each of the symptoms rather than addressing the disease itself, he/she might find the outcome for that patient to be disastrous in the long …

• Blended Learning: Designing a Whole Group Rotation with StudySync |

  The term “blended learning” is an umbrella that encompasses many different models that combine active, engaged learning online with active, engage learning offline.

• Diverging Plots: My current story – Classroom Powerups

  In my first year gamifying a student suggested that the students actions during a unit should have an impact on the game narrative. This was a fantastic idea but seems very overwhelming – even now. Imagine 95 independent and concurrent stories in on…

• The Best Advice For Student Founders, From Student Founders

• Energy and Calm: Brain Breaks and Focused-Attention Practices | Edutopia

• Free Technology for Teachers: View Upcoming Google Classroom Assignments in Google Docs

  A new little side panel option recently appeared in my Google Docs. In fact, it appeared while I was in the middle of a workshop in which I was showcasing some Google Docs add-ons. The new side panel in Google Docs provides quick access to Google Ca…

• Free Technology for Teachers: A New Way to Add Google Keep Notes to Google Documents

  Last year Google added the option to insert your Google Keep notes into your Google Documents. That feature made it easy for students who use Google Keep to bookmark resources while conducting research to then insert those bookmarked resources into …

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Ideas for Making Multimedia eBooks With Students

  For many years Book Creator was my go-to recommendation for teachers who wanted to have their students create multimedia ebooks on iPads. So when the folks at Book Creator launched an online version to use Google Chrome I quickly added it to my list…

• Analyzing Teamwork with Google Forms – Mari Venturino

  A few weeks ago, I blogged about Saving Sam, one of my favorite teamwork challenges. It’s one of the activities my kids talk about all year! And, it’s how we begin our discussion to build our teamwork foundation for the year.

• 25 Things You Didn’t Know Google Slides Could Do | Shake Up Learning

  I talk about the wonders of Google Slides CONSTANTLY and frequently refer to it as the Swiss Army Knife of G Suite. It can do all kinds of things! In this post, I will show you 25 Things You Didn’t Know Google Slides Could Do. The more I learn about…

• Control Alt Achieve: Multiple Correct Answers in Google Form Quizzes

  One of the most popular uses for Google Forms is creating online assessments for students. It is a quick, easy, and powerful way to create auto-grading quizzes. As with all Google tools, new features are continually being added, making Forms even mo…

• What do you want school to be? [VIDEO] | @mcleod | Dangerously Irrelevant

  A wonderful video from the Early Learning Alliance. Some of my favorite quotes include: I want school to do no harm. I don’t want my kids coming home less interested in their world than when they left. [YES!!] I wish I felt like I had somewhere to g…

• Profile Of A Modern Learner In 2018 Infographic – e-Learning Infographics

  Learning is the #1 reason why people want to join organizations. And they give just 7 seconds to decide if it’s for them or not.

• 5 ways to use adobe spark video in your classroom

• Welcome To Fair Haven Innovates • Teched Up Teacher

  What a wild summer. I took a break from blogging because my summer has been jammed packed. I started out by going to ISTE in Chicago. After I got back, I went on my honeymoon in St. Lucia. Then, it was back to Chicago for the amazing Our Voice Acade…

• About ‘Momo’ & dealing with viral media scares – NetFamilyNews.org | NetFamilyNews.org

  There’s no rhyme or reason to these things. They start in different parts of the world, but they don’t always take off in regions where they started.

• Are your equity efforts aimed at test scores or life readiness? | @mcleod | Dangerously Irrelevant

  I have an assignment for you.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Get Your Copy of the 2018-19 Practical Ed Tech Handbook

  Last night subscribers to the Practical Ed Tech Newsletter were sent copies of the 2018-19 Practical Ed Tech Handbook. This annual publication is a free, 36 page PDF that highlights my favorite educational technology sites and apps. The Practical Ed…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Worddio

  Worddio is a free mobile (iOS/Android) app for for learning a new language. Worddio has over 30 libraries of languages w/ over 8000 words spoken by native speakers to help students learn.

• Free Technology for Teachers: G Suite and Chrome Accessibility

  Accessibility options for G Suite for Education services and Google’s Chrome browser have improved in the last couple of years. If you use these services with students who need improved accessibility options, the G Suite user guide to accessibility …

• Five Practices for Building Positive Relationships With Students – Education Week Teacher

• Effectiveness of student incentive programs depends on design | Education Dive

• Why incentives don’t work in education—or the business world | Opensource.com

• Seven Reasons to Rethink Educational Incentives | EdSurge News

• Control Alt Achieve: Learn your New Students’ Faces, Names, and More with Google Slides

  One of the first things every teacher wants to do each year is memorize their students faces and names. This makes a personal connection to each of your students and helps them feel welcome and valued in your class.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Use Reflection Signs to Sum Up & Celebrate Learning

  Looking for a time efficient and effective way for classes to reflect upon what they’ve learned that works for introverts and extroverts alike. Then you might want to try this fun reflection sign technique.

• Deeper Class Discussions with the TQE Method | Cult of Pedagogy

  So much of the learning we do comes from texts: articles, textbooks, novels, and all kinds of online publications. Sometimes, those texts come in less traditional forms; in fact, our use of the word “text” has broadened over time to include things l…

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are some more great posts from this past week:

• Board Game Icebreaker: Relationship Onboarding – Classroom Powerups

  Wednesday was the first day of the 2018-19 school year and all of those half-baked plans and ideas are finally getting BETA tested.

• “Best” Lists Of The Week: Classroom Management | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Tips on What to Include in Digital Portfolios

  During the course ​​of ​​the ​​school​ ​year ​​our​ ​students will ​​create ​​some ​​fantastic ​​digital artifacts.

• 25 Attention Grabbing Tips for the Classroom

  Upcoming SlideShare Loading in …5 × 25 Attention Grabbing Tips for the Classroom 1. 25 Attention-Grabbing Tips for the Classroom from the Edutopia Community 2.

• Great Rebuke To “Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can’t, Teach” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Who hasn’t heard the age-old insult to educators: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”? Adam Grant writes a great rebuke to that saying in The New York Times today in his column, Those Who Can Do, Can’t Teach.

• Microscope Introduction – “e” Lab |

  This lab is similar to the “e” lab used with freshman biology, but designed for students in the vocational track.  It has less reading and more detailed steps for using the microscope as well as a larger font and bigger spacing.

• Why Consistency Is Everything The First Two Weeks Of The School Year – Smart Classroom Management

  The first two weeks of the school year is the honeymoon period. Students are eager and wanting to please.

• Ranking Quests: A Narrative Based Voluntary Leader Board – Classroom Powerups

  tags:gamification quests narrative rank

• The Scott Pilgrimage Project: Global Culture, Psychogeography and Gaming the City — OnEducation Podcast

  tags:class create game arg ar gbl

• How Games Can Be a Centerpiece for Student-Driven… | PBS Education

  tags:game gbl games gaming learn learning student

• Reacting to the Past | Reacting to the Past

  tags:history game gbl simulation past games gaming learn learning react reacting rttp

• (PDF) Stories, Games, & Learning Through Play The Affordances Of Game Narrative For Education

  tags:stories games gaming play learn learning gbl

• Anders Tychsen – Google Scholar Citations

  tags:games gaming gbl research

• GooseChase – Scavenger Hunts for the Masses

• “Linkage Bingo” to summarise and connect key factors | Tarr’s Toolbox

  This whole-class game is a great way firstly to summarise issues of cause or effect, and then (most importantly and most challengingly) to link them together in a meaningful way prior to students producing a written essay.

• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: Back To Basics: Device Tips For #BackToSchool

  When I was a Director of Instructional Technology it was always a fun day when we could deliver brand new devices to a school. The students and teachers were always excited and ready for the new possibilities ahead. Then after a few weeks frustratio…

• Free Technology for Teachers: New Artifact Collections Added to DocsTeach

  DocsTeach is one of my go-to recommendations for anyone who teaches U.S. History at a middle school or high school level. The site offers a dozen tools that you can use to create interactive history lessons based on primary and secondary sources.

• Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: Northwest Wildfires: Are We Seeing a “New Normal” Due to Climate Change or and “Old Normal”?

  Some of the news media, politicians, and environmental advocacy groups have claimed that the smoke hitting western Washington during the past two summers are a “new normal.

• 7 ninja google keep tricks for teachers and students

• After Accelerated Reader – Pernille Ripp

  One of the questions, I am asked the most often is, “What do you do if you don’t have Accelerated Reader?” Or insert whatever computer program here.  It is a question filled with emotion, after all, change is hard, and for some kids, AR and programs…

• Not using DocsTeach!? We need to talk. | History Tech

  Okay. I know some of you are using DocsTeach. And why not?

• Learning with digital games

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Google Slides Editing Tips

  Google Slides has come a long way since its early days as a bare-bones slideshow tool. Today, it is packed with features. Some of those features are obvious and others are hidden away in menus that are frequently ignored.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create a Bibliography With MyBib

  Earlier this week I learned about a new bibliography creation tool called MyBib. MyBib is an open source project.

• Middle School Writing Rubrics |

  In my book Blended Learning in Grades 4-12, I shared the following middle school writing rubrics with my readers.

• The Nerdy Teacher: Applied Robotics for Middle School from @WonderWorkshop #MakerEd

  I’ve seen my students play with Dash and Dot as well as the Cue from Wonder Workshop over the past school year. They had so much fun working with the Sketch Kit and learning to code to create art. They loved it so much, they featured it on their new…

• The Adventure Blog: Video: Ancient Scotland

  Shot over a seven month period, this short video takes us on a breathtaking journey across Scotland, from as far north as Muckle Flugga at the very top of Shetland to Britain’s highest sea stacks near St Kilda, some 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrid…

• ditchthattextbook.com

• Free Technology for Teachers: Kahoot Adds New Features for Teachers

  Kahoot has just announced a feature that teachers have requested for a long time. You can now upload a spreadsheet of questions to create a game in Kahoot. To do this you have to use Kahoot’s spreadsheet template.

• The 2018-19 Game Manual – Classroom Powerups

  Lets Face it… No one reads the video game manual. We all just jump right in and start playing and learn the rules and physics of the game that way. Still, most games still come with at least some sort of a quick start guide and most major games have…

• 3 Phrases I Have Been Rethinking – The Principal of Change

  Inspired by my good friend Tony Sinanis and his post, “5 Phrases I’m Letting Go,” I decided to think about three phrases that I am removing trying to rethink in my work in both education and leadership.  Here are expressions I have been thinking abo…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Five Chrome Extensions for Teachers and Students

  Extensions for Google Chrome can do all kinds of helpful things for you and your students. This is the time of year when teachers who have Chromebooks for the first time ask me what they should add in addition to the standard things that their IT st…

• Join a Game

• #ARVRinEDU Summer Recap | ARVRinEDU | Jaime Donally | Professional Development

  WOW! This summer has flown by with many #ARVRinEDU happenings. To catch up with the community, I’ve listed some resources below that were shared in the #ARVRinEDU chat, conferences and district presentations. Don’t miss the codes that will score you…

• Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: Another Surge of Wildfire Smoke Hits Puget Sound: The Worst on Record

  Folks were surprised how quickly the air quality deteriorated Sunday afternoon, rapidly going from moderate air quality to unhealthy conditions with a profound loss of visibility.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Code Kingdom: Treasure

  Code Kingdom: Treasure is an excellent free iOS app to introduce coding/programming to young students. The way this works is a user drags-n-drops code (i.e. Scratch) to have their character/troll maneuver around a board and collect an item or treasu…

• Zapitalism – Best Business Simulation Games Math Financial Game

  tags:economics game gbl games gaming learning edtech

• 5 digital tools to save time in the classroom

• The Nerdy Teacher: What would your letter say? #EdChat

  I took some time to reflect on my first few years of teaching and was thinking about the advice I would give myself. Here is the letter I would write to First Year Nick. You do not realize it now, but you are in a for a world class butt-kicking.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Code Karts

  Code Karts is a fun iOS game designed for kids 4 on up to introduce them to programming and coding. This is done by using pre-coding logic to program a car through a racetrack to finish a race.

• Amusing Monday: Finding new ways to ride a bike across the water | Watching Our Water Ways

  When a man rides a bicycle across the River Thames in London, people stop and stare — and that’s exactly what 35-year-old Dhruv Boruah wants them to do, as he picks up trash floating on the river. His message is about plastic pollution.

• Free Technology for Teachers: MyBib – A Free Citation Generator

  MyBib is a free, open source citation generator that rivals similar services that charge a subscription fee. MyBib can create citations and bibliographies in a wide range of styles including the popular MLA, APA, Chicago, IEEE, and Harvard styles.

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Back-to-School Tech Tips for Teachers

  The new school year has now started for almost everyone. And if it hasn’t started in your area, it will be starting soon. In the last few days before school starts take some time to make sure that your tech is in order just like the rest of your cla…

• Free Technology for Teachers: What To Do When Your Classroom Technology Fails

  In my previous post I highlighted five things that you can do to make sure that your classroom technology is ready for the new school year. But even if you do all of those things, there will still be times when things don’t go as expected.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Actively Learn

  Actively Learn is a site I’ve blogged about in the past that is ideal for increasing reading comprehension or adding “depth” to any text. AL reminds me a lot of EDpuzzle but instead of “making a video your own” it is “making reading material your ow…

• A Principal’s Reflections: The Case for Coaching Leaders

  Growing up as a child I played numerous sports recreationally and in high school. Upon entering high school I was not the best athlete by any means, but football was one sport where I excelled more than others, and this led to some time playing in c…

• 3 Ways to Build the “Energy” in Your Schools – The Principal of Change

  The Environment is about the space(s) around us and the “stuff” that is needed to serve students learners. The Experience is about what we design for learning and what we empower others to create for themselves.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Some more great blog posts from this past week:

• Free Technology for Teachers: Check It Out – CheckItOut for Google Forms is Back!

  CheckItOut is a Google Forms Add-on that makes it easy to keep track of the things that you let kids borrow from your classroom. It’s an Add-on that I recommended for a couple of years until this past spring when it, like a bunch of other Add-ons, s…

• 3 Things You Must Do On The First Day Of School – Smart Classroom Management

  The tendency is to rush. To try and cover every policy and procedure.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create a Comment Bank in Google Classroom

  Google Classroom got a bunch of new features this summer. One of those is a new option to create a comment bank to use when commenting on your students’ work.

• Daily Exit Tickets with Google Forms – Mari Venturino

  Around my school, I have a reputation as the techy one. My friends look at me, and know I’m about to say something like, “we need to make a Google Doc!” Somehow, within this reputation, there is a misconception that I already know everything, and I …

• Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, WA | Official Website

  Skip to Main Content Wildfire Smoke Wildfire season is here and with it comes the potential for smoky air. Read More > We’re Hiring Check out our current job openings for available positions.

• My 3 Student Expectations This Year For My Digital Heroes and a Free Handout! – Teacher Reboot Camp

  I recently finished two weeks of intense teacher training. I enjoyed what my district coach had to say when it came to classroom rules. She only has one expectation, which is be respectful and that covers pretty much everything when you think about …

• Control Alt Achieve: What to do About the Missing “About” Page in Google Classroom?

  Recently Google rolled out some great updates for Google Classroom. You can see my earlier post for all the details here: 9 Updates for Google Classroom (and 3 more to come) As awesome as these updates are, we did end up losing one feature in the pr…

• 10 ways to use flipgrids newest features in the classroom

• Carbon Monoxide from the California Wildfires – The Map Room

  Carbon monoxide released into the atmosphere by the California wildfires is drifting across North America in concentrations sufficient to turn up on the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Ways to Display YouTube in Class Without “Related” Content

  One of the questions that I’m frequently asked at the beginning of the school year goes something like this, “do you know how I can download videos from YouTube?” I do know how to do that, but I won’t teach you how to do that because it is a violati…

• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: Supporting Writing In Every Classroom With ThinkCERCA

  Just as literacy is a part of every classroom at every grade level, writing is a powerful component of the curriculum. Writing is generative in nature and helps students uncover thoughts bubbling in their heads that haven’t reached the surface yet.

• Tip of the Week: Six sweet social studies activities for back to school | History Tech

  I spent a few days in Texas last week leading some conversation around the ideas of online civic literacy, fake news, and the power of the 1st Amendment and enjoyed every minute. This week? They’re jumping into the deep end of the pool with kids. So…

• Mrs. Willyerd’s Virtual Classroom: Should I Teach the Scientific Method?

  The topic of teaching the scientific method is a controversial subject among science teachers. The old scientific method teaches students that science is linear. Many text books use this simplified method of explaining the six main steps.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: ClassDojo Portfolios

  ClassDojo the widely used (free) tool for behavior management and communication for education now offers digital portfolios. ClassDojo Portfolios is a great and safe way for students to share digital stories, projects, classwork, etc.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create a Backchannel Chat

  For most of the last decade I recommended using TodaysMeet to create backchannel chats. In June TodaysMeet shut down. Since then I have been using Backchannel Chat to create backchannel chat rooms.

• Power Up Blended Learning: A Professional Learning Infrastructure to Support Sustainable Change |

  The days and weeks leading up to a new school year are exciting. Teachers return energized, refreshed and ready to tackle another year.

• 7th Grade Reading Challenge – Pernille Ripp

  So much of the work we do in room 235D comes down to students discovering new facets of their reading identity.  Whether it means the books they like to read, when they read, or even if they read, all of the work that comes with being a reader is pa…

• “Your Life In Another Country” Is A Simple, But Useful, Comparison Tool | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Comparing the demographics of different countries is something I do a lot of in Geography class, and there are several tools that help make that easier for students (see The Best Tools For Comparing Demographics Of Different Countries – I think Nati…

• Lessons from the “Bad” Kids – Pernille Ripp

  “I think of the children who make trouble at school as miner’s canaries.

• Learning with ‘e’s: State of play

  tags:game games play playing fun learning learn gbl

• factitious

  tags:fake news fakenews fake_news fake news fake-news

• 10 Ways to Make Google Classroom Assignments Better

• Be Internet Awesome – Slides

  tags:digital citizenship digital-citizenship pear deck peardeck slides lessons interactive gsuiteedu edtech

• Free Technology for Teachers: Your Next Read – Webs of Book Recommendations

  Your Next Read is a site that provides you with a web of book recommendations based on the authors and books you already like. Here’s how it works; type in the title of a book you like or author you like and Your Next Read will provide you with a we…

• On Tier 1 and 2 and 3 – Pernille Ripp

  For years, I couldn’t understand why my own students weren’t growing as readers.  Why the same names showed up at our data meetings as kids who were failing to progress.  Why some kids made the yearly growth and others sat stagnantly.

• Valerie Strauss: “Arne Duncan Never Learns” | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Valerie Strauss read Arne Duncan’s book. There is nothing Duncan did or said during his seven years as Secretary of Education that moved us beyond the stale and failed ideas in George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind. In education, W.

• Building a culture of agency… – What Ed Said

  It’s exciting to see so many teachers relinquishing control and empowering their students. Stephanie in Singapore had kids do their own set up on the first day of school and the inspirational folk of Studio 5 at ISHCMC have broken yet more moulds.

• Video: “How NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Will Touch the Sun” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  I’m a high school teacher in Sacramento, CA.

• Five Ways to Boost Metacognition In the Classroom – John Spencer

  We live in an era where robotics and artificial intelligence will replace many of our current jobs. Global connectivity will continue to allow companies to outsource labor to other countries. Our students will likely change jobs every five to seven …

• 10 Ways to Start Shifting Your Classroom Practice

  She decided to try giving students time in class to read whatever they wanted. There were no expectations other than that students learn something and share it with the class. There would be no grades because it didn’t make sense to compare projects…

• Control Alt Achieve: New Pear Deck Critical Thinking Templates for Google Slides

  Pear Deck is an awesome add-on for Google Slides that lets you add interactive elements to your presentations including multiple choice, text entry, numeric entry, drawing, and draggable activities. Now Pear Deck has added a whole new set of slide t…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Oodlu

  Oodlu is a excellent new (beta) site/app for creating games that I just found out about from Larry Ferlazzo’s blog. The way this works is that an educator signs up for a free account on Oodlu and then add questions to already created games.

• Check Out the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Set and Scoring Stage in Stunning 360 VR | StarWars.com

  Sit alongside the orchestra as John Williams conducts. Look around the Crait trenches as cameras roll. Check out the strange beings on the Canto Bight set. Thanks to a special new video, it’s like you’re there — inside the making of Star Wars: The L…

• Control Alt Achieve: 9 Updates for Google Classroom (and 3 more to come)

  When Google Classroom launched in 2014 it was immediately a valuable tool to save educators time and increase connection with students. Since then Google has continued to make updates to Classroom, bringing new features and improvements.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Toss the Smartboard. Here’s The Best #BacktoSchool Teaching Tool: @ClassroomScreen

  ClassroomScreen which I will be using at all future learning events. ClassroomScreen basically allows me to ditch my former toolbox of presentation tools as it combines them into one nice, simple place. Just visit classroomscreen.

• A Reminder for Those Tough Moments with Students – The Principal of Change

  Early in my teaching career, I remember many nights where I would come home and cry. Non-stop crying.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here is another week of amazing blog posts!

• Saving Sam! — A Team Building Activity – Mari Venturino

  Confession: I struggle to teach teamwork well. Teamwork is one of those things that are essential for students to learn, especially in science. I could blame it on never having PD or solid instruction on how to teach teamwork, but I don’t think that…

• Warranted Water Worry!

• Tom’s Digital Breakouts – Science

• Two Types of #Gamification « Karl Kapp

• 8 Game Elements to Make Learning More Intriguing

• 10 Best Practices for Implementing Gamification

• Getting Started With Gamification

• The Role of Learning Management Systems in Middle Schools

• Describing Words – Find Adjectives to Describe Things

• Google Maps | Smarty Pins

  tags:map maps mapping Google game gbl google maps

• Kick Off the School Year Right with These 14 Back to School Tips and Tons of Resources! – Teacher Reboot Camp

  I’m excited to announce I’ve taken on a new position as the Technology and Computer teacher at a STEM charter school in Houston, Texas. Yesterday, I met some of my 650 elementary students and their parents.

• A Lever and a Place to Stand: Anchor, Aweigh!

  Podcasting is an area that I would like to explore this year. I’m not sure I want to podcast (maybe, though), but I know a lot of people who regularly listen to podcasts and that is not a medium I have tapped into much so far.

• Classroom Games and Tech: Authentic Audience and Authentic Engagement – Interactive Stories Using Free Google Apps

  I already wrote a lot this summer about the most exciting, creative project I’ve been involved with in a long time. I worked with some students to create a story one short piece at a time.

• New Edition of Star Trek: Stellar Cartography – The Map Room

  A new edition of Star Trek: Stellar Cartography is coming out in October, TrekCore reports. Like The Lands of Ice and Fire, it’s a collection of folded maps—10 of them, 12″×36″ in size—rather than a bound atlas.

• Fostering a Culture of Innovation! Students who S.A.I.L! – Teacher Reboot Camp

  Yesterday, I presented a new keynote for the NJAIS Innovation Symposium, The Keys to Fostering a Culture of Innovation! Students who S.A.I.L. The purpose was to help teachers facilitate and inspire student innovation.

• A Game on Rails: the Utility of a Preset Path – Classroom Powerups

  I would classify most of my classroom as an “Open World”. Outside of a few required tests and minor activities my students are generally free to explore different elements of the main quest, various side quests, and ranking challenges in their own w…

• Gamblification – don’t gamble with your people unless you are sure! – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert

  I often hear people talking about adding elements of chance to an experience to make it more interesting. For instance, adding a random reward for doing a certain task in a system.

• Digital Storytelling Lesson Ideas with Book Creator – Class Tech Tips

  Digital storytelling is more than stories that start with “once upon a time.” It’s all about using multimedia to capture the story of students’ learning. Book Creator is a powerful tool for digital storytelling lesson integration.

• California: How a Charter School Will Harm One Small Public School | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  California is a state where charters have gone wild. Rick Hennessy, the part time superintendent of the small Twain Harte School district responds to parents who want to secede to create their own charter school that their action will damage the edu…

• Infographic On Gamification In eLearning: 6 Examples – e-Learning Infographics

  Gamification is the integration of gaming elements in eLearning to create a highly effective and immersive learning experience. Here’s an infographic illustrating 6 examples of Gamification in eLearning to engage learners in a better way.

• 10 Easy Ways to Create an Awesome School District Culture – The Principal of Change

  In the past, I have written about some simple ideas that can help improve the culture in both the classroom and school setting.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Math and Sorcery

  Math and Sorcery is a new free iOS app that is quickly becoming one of my favorite educational games for my iPhone/iPad. Math and Sorcery uses a familiar RPG gaming element to reinforce basic Math skills (i.e. addition, subtraction, etc.).

• KQED

  Can you take me back to the original inspiration for the book? My first full-time teaching job was at a black college, Tougaloo College in Mississippi.

• Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: California Wildfires: Is Global Warming Producing a New Normal? Part 1: Are CA Wildfires Becoming More Frequent?

  With major fires burning in California, the media is abuzz with stories suggesting or stating that global warming is the key driver of these big burns. Some media reports state that the number of California fires and the annual burn area are increas…

• The Adventures of Library Girl: A Back To School Challenge

  Yesterday, I stopped at Starbucks on my way home and had a conversation with a barista named Ryan. I’ve replayed it about a hundred times since walking out of the coffee shop with my latte. I doubt I’ll ever forget it. Ryan: “Those glasses are amazi…

• Real or Fake? Factitious is breakthrough tool for assessing student online literacy | History Tech

  Real or fake? Biased or unbiased?

• The Reality of Finding a Path to Success – The Principal of Change

  Two districts, same area, province, or state. Understand, these places often have very similar constraints. Budgets, mandated curriculum, tests, etc.  One finds a way to make it work, and the other identifies all the ways it won’t.

• Game Mechanics Vs. Game Features | David Mullich

  One of my Game Production students recently asked me to explain to him the difference between a game mechanic and a game feature.

• Getting to Know You Survey – Mari Venturino

  Back to school is always an exciting time! I love preparing my classroom for my new students, thinking about how to best meet their needs, and anticipating the fun we’re going to have. I loosely plan out what skills I want to hit, but I don’t lesson…

• Google Classroom: Record Video Straight to Classroom – Teacher Tech

  This is a game changer, from your mobile device you can record video straight to Google Classroom. On your mobile, create an assignment and tap on the paper clip icon at the top. The last option for attachments is “Record Video.

• Back to School with G Suite: 6 Activities for the Classroom | Shake Up Learning

  Around the U.S., teachers are gearing up for back to school–gathering ideas, planning lessons, and getting their classrooms ready for learning. Google tools can help you kick off the school year, get organized, and have some fun.

• 5 Steps to Sharing a Copy of a Google Form – Teacher Tech

  Sharing Google Forms is tricky. You do not want to make your data you collect in your Google Form visible to others. You can not get a view only link from the Form directly and changing your Google Form to allow others to edit is dangerous. Google F…

• Global Problem Solvers: The Series Videos for Students – Class Tech Tips

  Is your classroom full of global problem solvers? There is a new video series designed especially for middle and high school students that addresses this important topic.

• 1st Day Student Survey with Google Forms |

  On the first day of school, my students complete a detailed student survey. It is designed to collect basic information and help me get to know my new students. The more I know about them, the easier it is for me to design and facilitate learning op…

• An Introduction to Hydroponics – Blog About Infographics and Data Visualization – Cool Infographics

  Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soils. An Introduction to Hydroponics infographic goes over the benefits of using the technique, and a couple of different methods you could use.

• Questions to Assess our Classroom Library Before Back-to-School – Pernille Ripp

  I have been spending some time in my classroom these last few weeks. Getting ready,  getting excited.  At the end of last school year, I moved all of our bookshelves, rearranged the furniture, and tried to update this little space that hopefully bec…

• Growing a Classroom Library? Add these books! – History Gal

  Lately, I’ve been daydreaming about creating a social studies classroom library.

• Cece Loves Science | Science for All

  OVERVIEW: My daughter Cece is 8 years old and the other day we were walking through a Barnes & Noble (yes they still have those!) and we saw a display for a picture book titled Cece Loves Science. She saw the display and said, “I DO love science!”

• Classroom Games and Tech: New ebook – Epic Interactive Comic Projects – And how you can get a free copy

  I just put my latest ebook up on Teachers Pay Teachers. It’s called Epic Interactive Comic Projects Using Free Google Apps. I’m really excited about sharing it with the world! It’s at an introductory price of $2.

• Control Alt Achieve: Google Tools for English Language Learners

  Google Docs translate add-on Instead of translating an entire document, sometimes you may just need to translate a phrase or sentence. For those occasions you can use the Google Translate add-on for Docs.

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Free Presidential Timeline Poster for Your Classroom

  For the last few years C-SPAN Classroom has offered a free poster depicting a timeline of American presidents. That offer is back for the 2018-19 school year.

• My Class: Student Blogging Made Easy! – The Edublogger

  Do you have student blogs or are you thinking about setting up student blogs in the future? Maybe you have a class blog but would like students to publish their own posts? My Class is a management tool that brings a class blog and all your student b…

• New National Geographic Video: “Supervolcanoes 101” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  I’m a high school teacher in Sacramento, CA.

• Drawdown | Science for All

  OVERVIEW: In the state of Washington we are committed to engaging K-12 students in learning about climate science and climate change.

• Students Should Be Creative from Day One – John Spencer

  When I was a middle school student, I dreaded the first week of school. Teachers would walk us, line-by-line, through the syllabus and handbook and we would practice the classroom procedures. It was as if school started a week before the learning st…

• 3 Challenges for the Future of Education – The Principal of Change

  I was recently sent an email and asked to identify some of the challenges I see for the future of learning in education.  These are things that I have noticed through my travels and after countless conversations with educators, and things that I hav…

• A Principal’s Reflections: TTWWADI – A Culture Killer

  In some cases, change has been hard to implement at scale or at all for that matter. Sometimes we are blinded by perceived success as is the case for many high performing school districts that have high test scores.

• Build a Collaborative Classroom with Microsoft Teams | Cult of Pedagogy

  This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.

• Michael Hynes: The Mental Health Crisis in K-12 and the Disappearance of Play and Recess | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Michael Hynes is a visionary superintendent in the Patchogue-Medford public schools on Long Island in New York. He has written and spoken frequently about the importance of a healthy environment for children to learn and grow.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are some great blog posts from last week:

• Do This Before Your Students Open a Textbook! – History Gal

  Have you ever done things a certain way for years and then had a revelation that you’ve been doing it wrong? Well, this happened to me a few years ago. I’ve always liked to assign reading homework to my high school students so they’d be prepared for…

• Easy Ways to Upgrade an Assignment from 1900 to 2017 – Teacher Tech

  I recently blogged about a student’s homework assignment that was 36 DOK 1 math problems. I looked up math homework from 1900 and it was pretty much IDENTICAL! So what are some easy things we can do to teach like it is 2017 and not 1900? 1.

• 5 Google Search Tips – Teacher Tech

  We all search, here are 5 tips for using Google Search. After doing a search options for filtering the search are offered. By default “All” types of results are shown. Consider clicking on “News” to filter down to news stories about the topic.

• DIY Pop-O-Matic! – Classroom Powerups

  The South Carolina Council on the Social Studies (SCCSS) has accepted my proposal to present the Dreadsheets Strike Back! I would really like to allow the attendees to play a version of my Boss Fights model but that would require those in the audien…

• Janus and the Future of Teachers Unions – Have You Heard

 

• Case Study: Using A Class Blog In The High School English Classroom – The Edublogger

  This is a guest post by high school English teacher Howie Jakeway. Howie is Head of Learning Area, English and Languages, at St Stephen’s School in Western Australia.

• How to Use Chromebooks for Powerful Creation in School

  Avrith and Clark focused on two powerful tech tools to bring creation to Chromebook classrooms, encouraging teachers to think beyond the obvious uses for these tools. “When people see Book Creator they see a place where kids can write a story,” Clar…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: CoderZ

  CoderZ using an innovative approach to teach STEM by programming/coding 3D virtual robots. It does this via web browser making it easy to use on any devices and incorporates: coding, math, physics, and engineering.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Scratch 3.0 and a New Creative Computing Curriculum Guide

  Earlier this summer I shared the news that Scratch 3.0 would be available in a beta form in August. August is still a couple of hours away, but Scratch 3.0 is actually available now. I just went to the Scratch 3.0 beta site and it is live. You can t…

• Skin in the Game – Classroom Powerups

  Last night I just could not fall asleep. There are many reasons. My mind was racing because school is starting back up soon. I was not actually tired because I was stuck inside all day sue the weather. I’m also a cliche and cant sleep without my,wif…

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Short Guide to Getting Started With Google Drive

  Six years ago I published a short PDF that contained directions for getting started using Google Drive. I still get requests for that document even though it is outdated. This evening I’m happy to share that I have put together an updated guide to g…

• “Crio” Is Going To Become A Favorite Online Tool Of Many Teachers | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  I have previously blogged about SAS Curriculum Pathways many times (forty times, in fact). I use it in all my classes and, particularly, in my Social Science courses.  It’s on more “Best” lists than you can shake a stick at….

• A Lever and a Place to Stand: Follow the Leader[board]?

  It started simply enough. I saw a product that I thought was awesome. But expensive. Expensive enough that I wouldn’t just buy one, awesome enough that I really wanted one. But then there was a contest and I could win one. And who doesn’t want to wi…

• The Nerdy Teacher: Exploring Project Based Learning – Podcast

  This episode also has a mother and daughter from my school who share their experiences with PBL and why think it is an important aspect of overall student learning. Also joining this episode is John Larmer, the Editor-in-Chief of the Buck Institute …

• Free Technology for Teachers: 7 Ways to Make Animated GIFs

  Whiteboard-style videos and Common Craft-style videos can be a great for helping students understand big concepts in short, easy-to-follow videos. But for smaller concepts, an animated GIF can do the trick. In the last few months I’ve come across a …

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: 5 Steps to Making It With Students

  · 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…

• A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing | 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. “Those who tell the stories rule the world.

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