Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are more amazing blog posts from this past week:

• Gaming takes over everything

  Hollywood and Big Tech are both turning to gaming for new ideas.

• 10 Outdated Teaching Techniques – Teacher Tech

  The goal of education today is to … probably not everyone would agree on how to finish that sentence. The original goals of public education should have shifted since the society that existed at the time has dramatically changed. Every year educatio…

• Inside the new middle school math crisis

  ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. — It was a Thursday morning in November, a few minutes into Ruby Voss’ and Amber Benson’s eighth grade math class at Northside Middle School just outside Roanoke, a city of roughly 100,000 in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

• New school year shows continued signs of academic rebounding

  Post-pandemic academic achievement is showing encouraging signs of improvement, although not evenly across school years, according to NWEA, a nonprofit, research and educational services organization serving K-12 students.

• Learning needs joy and civility

  Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on innovative ways to engage students, digital resources, and online and hybrid learning strategies related to post-pandemic teaching.

• Beyond Land Acknowledgment: A Guide – Native Governance Center

  Native Governance Center held an event on moving beyond land acknowledgment on August 25, 2021.

• What are the benefits of esports? Let’s start counting

  Higher attendance, deeper engagement and better mental health are just three of the benefits of esports to students. So, do you want to know how some early adopters of esports—also known as scholastic gaming—launched one of the first high school pro…

• 6 tips to help start an elementary esports program in your school

  Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on innovative ways to engage students, digital resources, and online and hybrid learning strategies related to post-pandemic teaching.

• 18 Best Holiday Movies for Kids and Family | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  When the eternally optimistic Poppy, queen of the Trolls, learns that the Bergens no longer have any holidays on their calendar, she enlists the help of Branch and the rest of the gang on a delightfully quirky mission to fix something that the Berge…

• Stanford faculty weigh in on ChatGPT’s shake-up in education | Stanford Graduate School of Education

  The recent release of ChatGPT — a new natural language processor that can write essays, spit out a Haiku, and even produce computer code — has prompted more questions about what this means for the future of society than even it can answer, despite e…

• 7 Unique New Year’s Traditions from Around the World | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  He then smashes the pomegranate either in front of the door or against the door, and he makes a wish that the juicy, bounteous ruby-like segments of the fruit flood the home with good health and happiness — and as many joys as the pomegranate has ar…

• Computer science classes have an equity issue–some NYC educators are trying to change that

  This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. Computer science teacher Shanua Newton-Rodriguez is hoping to lead by example.

• Insightful data is called information | Seth’s Blog

  Data is everywhere around us, and most of it is simply noise. The purpose of information is to inform, to help us change our minds. Information has a point of view, it’s useful. It turns data into actionable truth.

• 5 Quick Classroom Activities With Comics – Class Tech Tips

  Graphic novels and comics are a fun and engaging way to incorporate reading and visual literacy into your next classroom activity. But what exactly are graphic novels? How can you actually use comics in your classroom? There are lots of ways to use …

• Kansas: Former Legislator Who Sponsored “In God We Trust“ Bill Convicted of Fraud | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  During the Trump administration, Congress appropriated billions of dollars for COVID relief, mostly to help small businesses survive by paying their employees. The main relief was the Payroll Protection Program, which dispersed nearly $800 billion.

• My Top 10 Science Picture Books of 2022 | Science for All

  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have a deep love of all things picture books. I used picture books as an elementary teacher to teach multiple content areas and I’ve continued to use picture books in my work with preservice and inservice teach…

• Robots x Humans – Dagan.Blog

• encouraging-independent-learning

  “I can’t learn from my current teacher! They don’t teach like you.” Earlier in my career, past students would come back to my class to share this sentiment with me, and initially this brought me a sense of pride.

• pbl-maintaining-student-engagement

  Taking students’ interests into account when designing project-based learning helps ensure that they stay engaged throughout the unit.

• Does AI writing threaten academic integrity? | PlagiarismCheck.org

  ChatGPT’s release stirred the internet community in general and educators in particular. Actually, the technology behind it, GPT-3, isn’t brand new. But the fact of how easily it empowers a chatbot to answer and write like a human is astounding.

• 5 ways to create a stellar online elementary learning program

  Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on innovative ways to engage students, digital resources, and online and hybrid learning strategies related to post-pandemic teaching.

• Prioritizing teacher well-being can help schools retain talent

  As a school administrator, you’re faced with a range of challenges every day. One of the most common at the moment is mitigating the negative impacts of teacher shortages. After all, without a consistent and functional faculty, the quality of studen…

• NAACP targets a new civil rights issue—reading

  FAIRFAX, Va. — For years, the Fairfax County NAACP’s small education committee devoted itself mostly to fights over Confederate school names and acts of racism against individual students.

• How to Lock Areas of a Google Doc – Teacher Tech

  You want to restrict editing on PART of a Google Doc. This step by step guide will show you a hack for how to lock areas of a google doc. Many teachers love using Bitmoji, it makes your digital interactions more personal.

• How Music Changes Learning | EdNews Daily

  Music can provoke deep emotions while taking us back in time. Given this trajectory, it also has the power to help us learn and retain information. Emotions and learning go hand-in-hand.

• Reaching every student with Equatio | Texthelp

  Are you curious how Equatio could help you incorporate the UDL framework in your teaching? Check out the handy toolmatcher guide below to discover how different features of Equatio align to CAST’s UDL guidelines.

• Top 10 Tech Tools for 2023

  It’s that time of year again: time for our annual list of tech tools and tips to launch you into the new year with renewed inspiration for teaching and learning.

• All Ditch Summit Videos | Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit

• Mr. Piercey’s Website

• ChatGPT, Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence in Education – Ditch That Textbook

• ADHD A Difference in Cognition not Simply A Disorder, Stephen Tonti TED Talk | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  Stephen is a Senior Directing major at Carnegie Mellon. He is also the current President of Carnegie Mellon’s Film Club. He recently completed his Thesis Project within the School of Drama: a production of Mac Wellman’s “A Murder of Crows.

• What Does ADHD Iceberg Mean? ADHD Resources for Teachers and Parents | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopment disorders. People with ADHD find it hard to concentrate on a single chore at a time, however, though they are strong symptoms of ADHD, lack of inattention or focus alone is not enough to diagnose someb…

• 242: Student-led podcasting for sustained learning – The Thinking Stick

  On this special episode, Jeff and Tricia sit down with a listener of the show: Joe Taranto. Joe reached out to Jeff and Tricia about his experience podcasting with students. Joe shares what he has learned over the years of launching and sustaining a…

• What SEL teaches us about safety

  According to a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) study, the number of children aged 3 to 17 diagnosed with anxiety increased by 29 percent between 2016 and 2020, while those diagnosed with depression increased by 27 percent. The si…

• Should the term “special education” be retired? | National Center on Disability and Journalism

  When covering school board meetings, I often heard terminology that contributed to feeling “different” and not smart enough during my years as a disabled K-12 student.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are some amazing blog posts from this past week:

• Explore Ukraine’s Incredible Capital City, Kyiv | Minecraft Education Edition

• Best Online History Games | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  – Who is Your Founding Father? “In this innovative game, students determine the “Founding Father” by evaluating the accomplishments of Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton on a significance scale of 1-10.

• Gaming the Past, Second Edition, Is Published | Gaming the Past

  Gaming the Past, Second Edition, is out with Routledge! I am so very grateful and excited to have had the chance to revise significantly and add to the first edition work that came out over a decade ago.

• Why You Shouldn’t Ask Students “The Five Questions” – Smart Classroom Management

  There is a classroom management strategy called “the five questions” that a number of school districts have adopted. I’ve been asked about it several times recently so thought I should cover it.

• Teaching with Comics and Graphic Novels in Every Classroom

  By Tim Smyth Routledge/Eye On Education, 2023 – Learn more) Reviewed by Kevin Hodgson It was during the height of the Pandemic, in the midst of our family being hunkered down in isolation, that I grabbed the thickest book I could see in the house.

• Let’s Play Greedy Pig Game – Teacher Tech

  Games are a great way to engage students. I found this game that allows for a team of players to roll a die to compete against each other. What I am looking for in my classroom is opportunities for students to strategize and to share their strategy.…

• Play is crucial for middle schoolers, too

  CHANTILLY, Va. – In Fairfax County, Virginia, thousands of middle school students experience what most of their peers leave behind in elementary school — recess. The break is only 15 minutes long.

• 16 Coloring Book Websites and Apps – Ask a Tech Teacher

  Here is a great list of coloring book websites for kids and adults to share for the holidays. Many are color-by-number, some even auto-fill the right color with a long-click. Beware though: Many have in-app purchases and advertising so preview them …

• Florida: Federal Judge Overturns “WOKE” Act in Higher Education | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis won re-election, he declared that Florida is the state where WOKE goes to die. By WOKE, he means any teaching about racism that makes white students uncomfortable. Teaching anti-racism is WOKE. Well, WOKE isn’t dea…

• Minecraft as a Springboard for Esports Success – YouTube

• Game show classroom: Comparing Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live and Gimkit – Ditch That Textbook

• Students Are Turning to TikTok for Homework Help. Is That a Bad Thing?

  Students are increasingly turning to social media platforms when they need to research topics for school. One of those platforms is TikTok, a video-sharing platform popular with K-12 students of various ages.

• The world wakes up to the role of education in climate solutions

  Earlier this year I visited an empty school in an affluent part of New Jersey. During Hurricane Ida in the summer of 2021, floodwaters had poured into vents set inches above ground level.

• Best Annotated Bibliography Generators for Teachers and Students | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  What is an annotated bibliography? To start with, let’s first break down the phrase annotated bibliography into its components and define each one of them. A bibliography is basically a list of references of cited works that one used in their resear…

• In elementary classrooms, demand grows for play-based learning

  OKLAHOMA CITY — Two third-graders sat on the floor of their classroom and lined up a row of dominoes along the edge of a low-lying table. They positioned themselves at each end of the row of rectangles, leaned in, and blew. The dominoes tumbled forw…

• Give teachers ownership to make computer science a success

  Well-intended computer science initiatives are often met with reluctance and resistance before they even get off the ground. Teachers may see the new initiative as “just another thing” on their plate or may feel ill-prepared to tackle an entirely ne…

• 5 Ways Science Encourages Life-Skills | EdNews Daily

  Watching some of the most comedic educators perform science experiments in school was quite often the highlight of my day during my young learning years. From learning about the moon’s phases to the movement of plate tectonics—Science should be an e…

• AI in Education: 5 Ways it Can Assist Teachers – ViewSonic Library

  In recent times, a greater level of acceptance has emerged regarding the role of artificial intelligence within academic environments.

• 2022 midterms + complicated topics = engaged, active, & knowledgeable citizens | History Tech

  One way or the other, things will probably get a bit more . . . hmm, interactive in your classrooms over the next few weeks.

• OPINION: Inequality is still at the heart of student NAEP score performance

  The Nation’s Report Card, with its bad news about National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, math and reading scores, drove home a message long hinted at: The pandemic created disastrous academic deficits for U.S. students, especially for y…

• Control Alt Achieve: Chromebooks Can Do That?!

• New Teaching Resources For Artemis I | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  The Artemis 1 finally took off today! Artemis 1: A Visual Tour is from CNN.

• Genially EdFest Day 2: Be a pioneer: Game-based learning methods – YouTube

  Ready, Set… Gamify! Create student-centered games and dynamic learning activities that will have them asking for more. We’ll cover everything from choice boards to escape games and quick template-based activities that come together in minutes.

• 5 Good Apps to Blur Background on iPhone and Android | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  1- Picsart Picsart is both a photo and video editor which allows you to create beautiful visuals and collages. Its Background Eraser enables you to easily remove and swap backgrounds.You can also blur backgrounds using Picsart selection tool thus ma…

• How to Encourage STEM With Student Input and Phenomenon-Based Learning | Tech & Learning

  Peter J. Smith’s advice for educators looking to encourage interest in STEM and CTE career pathways is simple: listen to students. Baldwin Park High School provides a wide range of STEM classes that are tailored to current student interests as much …

• Easier: Add a Clear Rectangle to Google Slides – Teacher Tech

  A trick many teachers are using to hack Google Slides is to place a transparent rectangle on Google Slides. Why you might ask? Placing a clear rectangle over Google Slides gives you more control over the slides when in presentation mode.

• The benefits of play are immense across all ages, research shows

  In 1966, when psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Brown was assigned to a commission to investigate what led University of Texas student Charles Whitman to kill 12 people in one of the country’s first mass shootings, Brown and his colleagues considered many dif…

• Are Consumer Maps Dead? – Map Happenings

  Back in the old days1 we had to rely on our brains for navigation. Printed maps solved that purpose: they provided the necessary information so you could locate your desired destination and plot an efficient route to get there.

• Three Micro-Tips Featuring @KamiApp #edtech #quicktip #microtip | techieMusings

  Kami is one of my favorite edtech tools. It is one that I’ve been using for years and years. I began using Kami around 2017 when I needed a better solution for handling work from my online students, but I quickly expanded its use into all my classes…

• Global network of Net safety regulators: Let’s think on this – NetFamilyNews.org

  In my last, pre-FOSI, post about this social media meltdown I told you I’d report back about what people would say about it at the conference stage. But there was actually very little said – only, rightfully, sadness for all the tech workers who’ve …

• 5 Tips for Making Videos and Creating Screencasts – Easy EdTech Podcast 189 – Class Tech Tips

  Hear favorite tips for creating screencasts to bring content to life for students and some favorite tools to make screencasting happen. The creativity challenge for November combines the popular interactive learning tool Pear Deck and Adobe Express …

• Free Technology for Teachers: Fifty Tech Tuesday Tips

  Are you a tech coach, tech integrator, or media specialist who has been asked to run a little tech workshop? Do you need some ideas for it? If so, 50 Tech Tuesday Tips is for you! 50 Tech Tuesday Tips was curated from more than 400 editions of The P…

• Twitter: Blue Ticks and Overjustification Effect. – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert

  So. Twitter is a clusterfuck right now isn’t it? However, it does serve as an interesting example of one of the key issues gamification faces when done badly (99% of the time) – Overjustification Effect.

• 5 easy gamified activities you can assign in Google Classroom tomorrow – Ditch That Textbook

  Genially is an easy to use software that lets you add lots and lots of interactive elements to your slides.

• Blended Learning and the 5Es Instructional Model – Dr. Catlin Tucker

  Too often in education, students are given answers to questions they did not ask and solutions to problems they have never encountered. This can lead to learning experiences that feel irrelevant to and disconnected from their lives beyond the classr…

• Should You Get an Extra Hour of Sleep or a Workout? | Wellness | MyFitnessPal

  You’re lying in bed, trying to decide what time to set your alarm for tomorrow. You could get a full seven hours of sleep if you wake up at your normal time, or you could wake up an hour and a half earlier to make that morning spin class. Which shou…

• Know Your Why!: Learning Should Be Fun – Take A Break to Play and Explore

  My students and I always seem to struggle a bit in November and December to stay engaged in our learning experiences. I don’t know if it the time change, the weather, or just plain old fatigue. I have to remind myself that we sometimes need a remind…

• 5 Good Tools for Tutoring Math Online | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  Teachers can spend less time preparing materials thanks to ByteLearn while still giving each student individualised training. Teachers can use the platform to track students’ development, keep tabs on their performance, and adjust the curriculum to …

• 11 Tools To Help Students Publish Their Writing –

  This post is sponsored by Wondershare PDFelement. Regardless of sponsorship status, we don’t share or recommend products, services, or tools that we wouldn’t recommend in a non-sponsored status. You can read more about our sponsorship policy here. W…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Tools for Translating Live Presentations

  Do you have any recommendations for a live translation during a keynote address or conference? For example, if the speaker is doing their presentation in English but we have Spanish speakers in the audience.

• Free Technology for Teachers: An Overview of Five Fun Geography Games for Students

  Worldle Daily is a combination of the Wordle concept and Google Street View imagery. The game is played by looking at a featured Street View image then trying to guess, by clicking on a map, where in the world that image was captured.

• 3 Creative Projects featuring Pear Deck and Adobe Express – Class Tech Tips

  The creativity challenge for November combines the popular interactive learning tool Pear Deck and Adobe Express this month. Fred Fransen, CEO of Certell, joins to discuss how to support teachers with classroom management, engagement, and actionable…

• Dot-com bust, 2022-style – NetFamilyNews.org

  It’s the end of an era as I head to Washington and this year’s “FOSI” – shorthand for the Family Online Safety Institute’s annual gathering of people in the Internet safety field. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone on stage tomorrow isn’t feeling…

• Three New Interactives About Climate Change | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  More dangerous heat waves are on the way: See the impact by Zip code. is from The Washington Post. How to Get the USA to Net Zero Carbon by 2050 – A Graphical Guide is from Information Is Beautiful.

• Democracy Survived the 2022 Elections | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Despite threats of a Trump-led Red Wave, Democrats retained control of the Senate, with the re-election of Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada. If Rev.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Felt – A New Way to Create Multimedia Maps

  About a week ago Larry Ferlazzo mentioned a new mapping tool in one of his blog posts. That tool is called Felt. I tried it a few days ago and I have to say that I like it a lot. Felt offers a lot of easy-to-use tools for creating custom maps.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Are You Juggling or Leading?

  All leaders most likely view themselves as jugglers. Who could blame them when there are always multiple areas to address and the fact that the buck stops with them when it comes to making big decisions? Here are just a few: The act of juggling requ…

• 6 Great Tools to Add Text to Videos | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  It’s true that pictures speak louder than words but sometimes words are inevitable which is why despite the ubiquity of video content we still need to add words to videos to further enhance the comprehensibility of our message.

• Bringing Blogging Back (to the Tune of Bringing Sexy Back) — Nate Bowling: American Teacher Abroad

  I was born in the waning days of the Carter Administration. My “micro-generation,” Late AF Gen-X or Proto-Millennial, was birthed into an analog world and came of age in a digital one. I remember having a gigantic TV with rabbit ear antennas. I reme…

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are last week’s selection of great blog posts:

• Cliff Mass Weather Blog: My Views on Climate Change/Global Warming and A Cool/Showery Forecast for the Next Week

  Several readers of this blog asked that I provide a summary of my views on global warming. To respond to these requests, I dedicated most of my Friday podcast to this issue–so please check it out (you can access the podcast below or through your fa…

• The First Step With An Out-Of-Control Class – Smart Classroom Management

  It’s not to teach your classroom management plan. With an out-of-control class, bringing up rules right away will fall on deaf ears. No, the first step after losing control or taking over an unruly class is to remove excitability.

• What Is Behind the Attack on Critical Race Theory?? | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Very few of its critics can define CRT. Most seem to think it means teaching about racism today. They prefer to believe that racism ended with slavery. They are wrong. Numerous states have passed laws banning the teaching of critical race theory, ev…

• Wisconsin Science and STEM Education: What Is “Student-Centered” Instruction?

  To begin, if there is one right answer to a task, it’s not student-centered. It’s students figuring out the answer the teacher wants.

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Good Source of U.S. History Lesson Starters

  When I taught U.S. History one of my go-to methods for starting classroom conversations about a new topic or unit was to give my students an interesting image or a short primary source document to review and ask questions about.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Good Tools for Creating Infographics

  Yesterday morning I got an email from a reader who was looking for some suggestions for tools that her eighth grade students could use to create infographics.

• Game Pathways – Family Video Game Database

• Epic Games and LEGO Are Working Together To Create a Child-Safe Metaverse Space – IGN

• PlayVS strong-arms teachers into using esports platform, educators allege – The Washington Post

• U of T report examines legal issues of gamified apps, implications of ‘coauthored choices’ – The Lawyer’s Daily

• How the Metaverse and Gaming can transform education | ASU+GSV 2022 – YouTube

• Masters of @ mmhmmapp: #edtech to maximize our use of face-to-face time for connection & collaboration #flipclass | techieMusings

  If you’ve seen me present virtually, you’ve seen me use mmhmm to do an over-the-shoulder slides look & easily toggle between screen share & my camera. What you don’t see there is the power of mmhmm to record & share to empower students with resource…

• The Nerdy Teacher: Coolest Projects from Raspberry Pi #MakerEd

  If you are looking for a fun way to bring a design challenge to your students, please take a moment to check out Coolest Projects from Raspberry Pi. Coolest Projects provides all of the information a student and a teacher needs to be successful.

• Schools Matter: Over 1,000 Books Banned During the Past Nine Months

  Book bans in public schools have recurred throughout American history, and have long been an issue of concern to PEN America, as a literary and free expression advocacy organization. Over the past nine months, the scope of such censorship has expand…

• Datafied Childhoods the book – NetFamilyNews.org

  A grabbier headline might be “Screens are watching us back,” but that would be like so many scary news headlines parents are subjected to. More importantly, it’s only a small part of all that this important new book – Datafied Childhoods, by Profs.

• Control Alt Achieve: You can do that with Docs, Slides, and Sheets?!

  I recently had the privilege to present a session for Google’s series of “Did You Know?” webinars. These are a collection of 8 sessions covering a wide range of Google tools for schools.

• 6th Grade Minecraft Lesson: Box and whisker, and Histogram to Agriculture and Price – Learning at 356mbps

  Materials: Students were given a worksheet to write answers and show their work. Students also required a laptop with which to work on. Time: Students had 40 minutes to complete the task. Only a hand full of the students were able to finish in the t…

• How esports have become a pathway to college scholarships

• It Takes Two Creator Shared How Filmmaking Helped the Game Mechanics

  Josef Fares explained why such mechanics as the game’s Street Fighter section are not used more.

• Building Up or Breaking Down: How Assessment Impacts a Culture of Learning | All Things Assessment

  Have you ever started a new book and just . . . lost interest? Have you ever started a book and found yourself so enthralled that you could hardly put it down? Each school year, educators have the opportunity to write a new story—and the beginning o…

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Free Design Skills Course for Students

  As you probably know, I am a huge fan of Canva. I use it on a daily basis to create YouTube thumbnails, presentations, and teaching materials like my new Around the World With Google Earth activity.

• First All-Black Everest Team Heads to Himalaya | The Adventure Blog

  Now that April has arrived, the mountaineering world is once again turning its attention to the Himalaya. In the Nepali capital of Kathmandu, climbers are now arriving in droves and are preparing for the epic challenges that now lie ahead.

• how-minecraft-started-enhanced-student-learning-explained LinkedIn

• 3 trends shaping robotics demand in 2022

• Game Pathways – Family Video Game Database

• Free Technology for Teachers: Five Image Editing Features Built Into Google Slides

  Regular readers of my blog probably know that I’m a big fan of using tools like Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud Express, and Pixlr to edit and enhance pictures. But sometimes those tools feel like they have almost too many options.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Shifting Our Practice

  In my previous post, I dove into the concept of shifting our focus from “what” to “who” in order to set the stage for personalization.

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:

• Why Video Games Education Needs Harriet Tubman – Ms. Magazine

  Harriet Tubman can help us work toward feminist, anti-racist and liberatory pedagogy in games—a vital need for the field. Promotional image for “Freedom: The Underground Railroad—A Cooperative History Game,” created by Brian Mayer (2012), with art b…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Now You Can Schedule Exit Tickets in Ziplet

  Ziplet is one of my favorite tools for hosting online exit ticket activities. There are two features of it that make it great in my book. The first is a large catalog of interesting, premade questions that you can select and use in your activities.

• A Minecraft build can be used to teach almost | EurekAlert!

  For all its massive popularity, Minecraft — the highest-selling video game of all time — is not highly regarded among the gaming world’s snob class. The graphics are blocky, and there isn’t much of a point to it. It’s for kids.

• Online Learning Games Galore! | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Show Me has a big collection of online games from various United Kingdom museums. Ology from the American Museum of Natural History has its own large collection of games.

• Three Lesson Plans About The Russia-Ukraine Conflict/War | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Lesson of the Day: ‘The Invasion of Ukraine: How Russia Attacked and What Happens Next’ is from The NY Times Learning Network. Breaking News English Lesson: Ukraine Crisis is from Breaking News English.

• Infographic Of The Week: “Map Explainer: Key Facts About Ukraine” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  This comes from Visual Capitalist, and you can see a larger version, with more information, at their site. I’m adding it to The Best Teaching & Learning Resources About The Russia/Ukraine Conflict.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Mobile Permissions Virtual Field Trips

  Mobile Permissions is the excellent free site the educators are using to easily send “digital” permission slips for FREE.

• Alaskan Ice in Retreat – The Map Room

  This NASA Earth Observatory video looks at the retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier since 1986. Transcript here.

• Free Technology for Teachers: NASA From Hidden to Modern Figures

  NASA’s From Hidden to Modern Figures is an excellent resource for teaching about the women who made significant contributions to the development of NASA’s space program. The site features written and video biographies of Katherine Johnson, Mary W.

• New Resources For Learning & Teaching About What’s Happening In Ukraine | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Terrible news last night from Ukraine. The Ukraine-Russia crisis explained: a complete visual guide is from The Guardian.

• Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map by Cen4infoRes · MapHub

• Poll: Half of Americans Don’t Want Students to Learn About the Effects of Racism Today | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Education Week reported the results of a poll that showed that half of Americans don’t want children to learn about racism today.

• Level Up, Calgary!

• Teaching Ancient Rome: Organizing Your Content – History Gal

  Ancient Rome is a HUGE unit. There’s so much information to cover and it’s hard to figure out when to teach what and how to get it all to fit in the time you have to allocated to it. So, I thought it would be helpful to show you how I plan it out.

• Free Technology for Teachers: PhET Releases Ten Updated Simulations With Interactive Descriptions

  This brings the total of PhET simulations that have some type of accessibility feature to 33. That’s fourteen more than when I wrote about PhET’s accessible simulations last fall.

• Teacher Engagement Part III: Social Engagement with Students – Dr. Catlin Tucker

  How does a teacher’s relationship with their students impact their energy levels or exhaustion? How can a teacher build strong relationships with their students to make this work more enjoyable and rewarding?

• Two ways to play chess. Also, two ways to live. – Math with Bad Drawings

  Let’s take a generic game, and ask the natural question before embarking on what may become a very long family game night. How complex is this game?

• Texas: Pastors Fight for Public Schools Against Heartless Privatizers | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  The well-organized Pastors for Texas Children is engaged in rhetorical battles with the well-funded privatizers.

• John Oliver Explains the Link Between “Critical Race Theory” and School Choice | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  John Oliver explained the Republican hysteria over “critical race theory.” At bottom, as he shows, the GOP goal is to persuade parents to escape “CRT” by abandoning their local public schools and enrolling in charter schools or seeking vouchers.

• Republicans Refuse to Act Against Climate Change | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Paul Waldman of the Washington Post writes that Republicans, with only a few exceptions, refuse to do anything about climate change. The news gets worse, but they are determined to do nothing.

• Florida Sets Off a Red-State Frenzy to Add Anti-Gay Laws to Their Anti-CRT Laws | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature passed a law to ban any discussion of homosexuality in school; the legislation is known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Other red states are rushing to pass copycat legislation.

• Schools Matter: Critical Race Theory: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

• Reinforcement: Anatomy of the Human Heart

  I created this worksheet for my anatomy students to review the anatomy of the heart. Students focus on vocabulary that relates to anatomical features, such as the mitral valve, aorta, and heart chambers. At the end, students label a line drawing of …

• Learning Anatomy through Collaboration, Part 1 | Science, Education, and Science Education

  We’ve been away from one another for far too long. Talking over Zoom, email, feedback and peer edits on documents and drawings can only go so far.

• Learning Anatomy through Collaboration, Part 2 | Science, Education, and Science Education

  Four of our 14 anatomy students plan a health-related career.  Another student plans to study forensics. The remaining 9 have no concrete plans for what they will do in 6 months after graduation. We needed to learn about muscles.

• Learning Anatomy Through Collaboration, Part 3 | Science, Education, and Science Education

  Learning about the nervous system in an anatomy class is daunting due to the number of terms that describe the nervous system.

• New Fluencies: MOBILE Esports and the BENEFITS to Students and Teacher

  One of the things I miss most about not having my own classroom are the extra curriculars that my students and I would engage in. Before COVID19 entered into our reality, I had started Esports in my classroom and intended to involve other classes an…

• A Principal’s Reflections: Leading With a Swiss Army Knife Approach

  How would one define great leadership? What are the characteristics of influential leaders? Each of these questions leads to various responses.

• Skip The Google Slide Design – Google Slides

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Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Great blog posts from last week:

• Good Government Is Not Socialism | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  The current Republican Party has reverted to the ace card it held in the 1950s: its followers refer to every government program as socialism. SOCIALISM!! This one word is supposed to terrify everyone into fearing that government is about to take awa…

• The Real Crisis in Education | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  The Network for Public Education posted this article by Mark Perna, which originally appeared in Forbes. Mark C. Perna: Why Education Is About To Reach A Crisis Of Epic Proportions

• How To Make Learning More Engaging For Students

  When you think back to your school years, those teachers who managed to inspire the class through exciting lessons will no doubt be the most memorable.

• 4 Reasons to Teach the Marvel Cinematic Universe | Tech & Learning

  Arnold Blumberg first taught a class built around the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in 2015 and has been teaching courses based on other aspects of pop culture for years. Even so, some educators still see incorporating popular media into the class…

• Bringing the world to life through augmented reality

  My school, located in London, is a rich and diverse community with over 40 languages spoken at the school. Affectionately known as a ‘village school in the United Nations of Brent,’ we can see the arch of the iconic Wembley Stadium from the end of o…

• How Minecraft Teaches Reading, Writing and Problem Solving – Ask a Tech Teacher

  A while ago, Scientific American declared “…“not only is Minecraft immersive and creative, but it is an excellent platform for making almost any subject area more engaging.

• Today’s gamers may be tomorrow’s agricultural experts – Scienceline

  William Balthazar: It’s a game where you can be creative, you can interpret it in many ways if you want to. Deborah Balthazar: This is my brother William teaching me about Minecraft, because even though it’s popular, I know nothing about it.

• To Umm or Not To Umm, That is the Audio Editing Question – CogDogBlog

• 5 Types of Microlearning Content to Include in Your Course

  When it comes to training employees, there are many approaches to take. You can offer shadow sessions, set up a mentorship program, provide resources for employees to read independently, or skip all of the above and let them learn the ins and outs o…

• Free Technology for Teachers: The USGS Multimedia Gallery Offers Excellent Public Domain Images and Videos

  The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, audio recordings, pictures, and slideshows. As you might expect, you’ll also find lots of maps in the USGS multimedia gallery.

• 8 Vital Features For Your Learning Management System in 2022 – e-Learning Infographics

  Now you are done with dreaming of a white Christmas, you might have already started with dreaming of how your learning strategy is going to look like in 2022. Happy participants, more creators, improved content and a holistic learning ecosystem.

• 4 Activities to Include in Your Middle Ages Unit – History Gal

  I don’t know why, but the Middle Ages is one of my all time favorite units to teach. I LOVE it! If you don’t love it or just need some ideas to help make teaching about medieval Europe more engaging for your students, here are 4 of my favorite Middl…

• Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai, Before and After – The Map Room

  NASA Earth Observatory has released digital elevation maps of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai both before and after the volcanic eruption earlier this month.

• Have You Seen the Latest STEM Teaching Tools? | Science for All

  If you are someone who follows this blog then you most likely are already a fan of the brilliant STEM Teaching Tools site. If it’s been awhile since you’ve visited stemteachingtools.org then I highly recommend heading there now.

• Mapping Methane Emissions – The Map Room

  Funded by NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System, scientists recently built a new series of maps detailing the geography of methane emissions from fossil fuel production.

• How To Make Math the Best Part of the School Day – Class Tech Tips

  Teaching math can feel like a struggle at times, and as a classroom teacher, I was always looking for ways to keep students motivated. If you are looking to increase student engagement this year and make math the best part of the school day, there i…

• 10storymath

  PRIVACY POLICY IDL WORKSHOP, LLC | 1788 2ND ST. #203 | HIGHLAND PARK, IL 60035

• Google Workspace Updates: Originality reports are now available for Google Slides files

  Why it mattersStudents widely use slides to showcase academic work. By expanding the originality reports feature to run in Slides, students can ensure they’ve properly integrated external ideas into more of their work, while instructors can check fo…

• Livestream with Scott Nunes & Stacey Roshan: Using @Canva’s New Draw Tools with a @Wacom Tablet #edtech @MrNunesteach | techieMusings

  I had the pleasure to join Scott Nunes for a Livestream event to share the power of the all new Draw mode in Canva paired with a Wacom tablet. As a former English teacher, Scott shared ideas for the ELA classroom along with design tips for making th…

• A Principal’s Reflections: Supporting and Rewarding Teachers with Time

  If it’s true that life is a test, then the COVID-19 pandemic represents the most challenging one education and everyone in the field has ever faced. The impacts are far and wide. Not a single person is unaffected, and everyone needs help in some for…

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Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Great blog posts from this past week:

• Cliff Mass Weather Blog: The Tonga Volcano Affects the Weather and Water of the Pacific Northwest

  Yesterday, around 0400 UTC 15 January (8 PM PST 14 January), there was a massive, explosive eruption near Tonga, in the southern tropical Pacific, about 5642 miles from Seattle (see map). Local barometers indicated a well-defined pressure wave passi…

• TESOLgraphics – Home

  ​Secondary research, or (systematic) evidence synthesis, refers to academic publications which summarise research findings from numerous (ranging from a dozen to many more) primary studies on the same topic.

• Redirecting to /blog/7-doodling-games-using-paper-peardeck-canva

  One of my favorite things about my role as a Student Engagement & Professional Development Specialist is bringing new ideas and strategies into classrooms. Every year I visit high school AVID classes and teach them one of my favorite note taking str…

• 30 Hilarious Scientific Jokes That Will Test Your Intelligence to the Limits | by David Graham | The Knowledge Of Freedom | Jan, 2022 | Medium

  Think yourself to be a genius and a science type? Here is your chance to find out, because if you get these 30 hilarious jokes then you are probably a genius or at least super intelligent! What did one tectonic plate say when it bumped into the othe…

• Day 14 – CellulAR

  A few years back when all the independent Merge Cube apps were being released, I came across the CellulAR app. My interest was piqued because my husband teaches middle school science and this is a concept that many students struggle to remember.

• 2021 Global Build Challenge: Peace with Nature Finalists – YouTube

• unesco-gbc-winners

  Our planet is in crisis. Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution of air, water, and land are impacting every corner of the globe. We all need to act and change our ways of living. This was the theme of the 2021 Global Build Challenge hosted in …

• Camp Culture – Creating an Ideal Learning Environment – PART I

  Before your dive into this blog post let’s take a pause and grab yourself some writing tools. Take just a few minutes and reflect on the following prompt;

• Winter Science Lessons and Activities | Science Buddies Blog

  Warm up with hands-on science and engineering! Match winter’s cold weather, snow, and ice with these free lessons and activities for engaging hands-on STEM.

• Control Alt Achieve: Google Tools for Speech to Text

  Our students have so many amazing ideas in their minds, and we want to make sure they are able to get those words from their heads into writing. However if a student struggles with typing or spelling they may take those big awesome ideas and shrink …

• Game On: How to Empower Students to Learn and Play through Gaming – Digital Promise

  Educators embracing video games as a media format on par with books and film has opened up countless opportunities to meaningfully address learner variability while creating authentic design opportunities.

• Slide – Organize around the opportunity to contribute | @mcleod

  Vander Ark & Liebtag, Difference Making at the Heart of Learning, 2021 (p. 80) Download this file. See also my other slides.

• Control Alt Achieve: My OETC 2022 Sessions

  My Sessions: Beyond the Slideshow: Google Slides Activities for all Subjects Time: 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM Session Resources: https://bit.ly/curts-slides Description: We all know Google Slides is a great tool for making multimedia slideshows.

• Control Alt Achieve: Tools to Support Learners: Texthelp and Don Johnston Join Forces

  Out of all the trainings, videos, and posts I share, one of the most popular topics is how to use technology tools to support learners. Everyone learns differently, and we all struggle in our learning in one way or another at one time or another.

• How to Ride a Pterosaur, According to Science | Open Culture

  This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the…

• Interstellar Travel is Hard | NeuroLogica Blog

  The Fermi Paradox points to an apparent contradiction – the universe is a big place, and the laws of physics that have allowed life to evolve on Earth are the same everywhere. Therefore, the universe must be humming with life. Yet, we have not detec…

• Cows Strapped Into VR Headsets To Make Them Produce More Milk

  In Turkey, a rancher has begun putting virtual reality headsets on some of his cattle to see if the animals produce more milk when they believe they are outside in a nice, sunny field.

• Just a moment…

• Debunking Common Myths about UDL e-Learning Infographics –

  Debunking the common myths and misconceptions about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Separating UDL fact from fiction. You may know of UDL as a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights i…

• Why Are They So Angry…About Masks, Vaccines, CRT, Voting, and More? | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Marty Levine used to write regularly for the Nonprofit Quarterly, and he seemed to be the only person writing about philanthropy who understood the danger of the billionaire foundations’ disparagement of public schools and their love of privatizatio…

• Cliff Mass Weather Blog: Does the Massive Cascade Snowpack Mean We Don’t Have to Worry About Global Warming?

  The answer is no. Similarly, a single weather event (e.g, the summer heatwave in June or the heavy rains in December) does not mean much about global warming.

• OneNote Student Guides | Nathan Richards

  Access our comprehensive range of student OneNotes designed to assist both students and teacher in using the many features of OneNote Class Notebook. Download the appropriate OneNote then distribute the pages to your students in their Class Notebook.

• The Overlooked Skill That No One Is Talking About in Education

  Without this tool firmly in the tool belt, many adults struggle to participate in today’s economy. Think for a moment.

• Schools Matter: New Year’s Resolution: Eliminate “Rigor” from Education Lexicon

  If there is a single word that comes close to capturing the zeitgeist of corporate education austerity policies that have metastasized since the Reagan era (among both Democrats and Republicans), it would be a five-letter signifier that has done mor…

• Critical – & I Mean CRITICAL – Point About “Learning Loss” That Is Being…..Lost | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Much of the public date about in-person versus virtual instruction attributes reduced test scores to distance learning.

• When Project Teams Don’t Get Along! | Mike Kaechele

• Getting Started with Teaching with Minecraft on the Chromebook – Google Slides

• A Principal’s Reflections: Tips for an Abrupt Shift to Remote or Hybrid Learning

  The other day I was with one of my partner districts as part of ongoing longitudinal work that will last at least two years.

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Amazing blog posts from last week:

• Post It Notes need to be your new best friend | History Tech

  Who doesn’t love sticky notes? Different colors. Different sizes. Plus . . . you know, they’re sticky. But they’re easy to underestimate. I mean, they’re literally a single use, throw away, forget about because their job is done, sort of thing.

• Tri-Fold Trick: Popsicle Stick Connectors – Classroom Powerups

  Want to make “BIG” trifold board projects? The National History Day competition Exhibit categories gives competitors a “Box” of space 6 feet x 30 inches wide x 40 inches deep. This about the perfect dimensions for 2 standard trifold boards which is …

• The Best Of Smart Classroom Management 2021 – Smart Classroom Management

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• What Is Quizizz and How to Use It with Your Students? Full Review | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  Share this post: Educatorstechnology Formative assessment, game-based learning tools, Quizizz Quizizz is a game-based learning tool that you can use to engage students in deep and meaningful learning experiences. It allows you to create both teacher…

• Blockchain is only a game changer if players are stakeholders | VentureBeat

• Free Technology for Teachers: Nine Interactive Maps Depicting the History of the United States

  American Panorama is a great resource from the University of Richmond that I first reviewed six years ago. Since then it has expanded from four interactive maps to nine interactive maps of United States history. American Panorama aims to be an atlas…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Six Reasons to Try Tract for Remote & Hybrid Learning

  As we head into winter (in the northern hemisphere) there may be more opportunities to try new approaches to online and hybrid learning. One of those new approaches to try is using Tract.

• Esports in Minecraft Education Edition – The Other IT

  If you aren’t aware, Esports is now the second most popular sport in the US, after the NFL. IN terms of participants, it is also second to only football when it comes to high school sports. We are not here to debate “whether playing video games can …

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Videos With Adobe Express

  Earlier this week Adobe Spark was renamed Adobe Express. It still offers all of the great creation tools that made it one of my go-to video creation tools for the last half-decade. A couple of helpful updates were also included when Adobe Spark was …

• In Defense of Graphic Novels…Again – Pernille Ripp

  Every few months, this notion of graphic novels as being something we need to push children out of comes into my life.

• Discover the science behind the Earth’s seasons, solstices, and equinoxes.

  As the seasons change, the curious minds in your class may wonder why the number of daylight and nighttime hours also changes. You can spin the Earth’s trek around the Sun into fascinating lessons about the solstice and the science of the seasons.

• Deepwater Horizon: Analyzing Maps that Document an Oil Spill | Teaching with the Library of Congress

  This post was written by Lesley Anderson, 2021-2022 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the Library of Congress. Regardless of how far students live from the coastline, studying an oil spill can pique their sense of curiosity and wonder.

• Scientists Create “Time Machine” Made of Human Cells To Reverse Pancreatic Cancer Progression

  What makes pancreatic cancer so deadly is its covert and quick spread. Now, a “time machine” built by Purdue University engineers has shown a way to reverse the course of cancer before it spreads throughout the pancreas.

• Six Myths of Summative Assessment | All Things Assessment

  Despite decades of research on sound assessment practices, misunderstandings and myths still abound.

• Paul Darvasi Gets Hit By the Serendipity Bug of Games | Episode 216 – Professor Game

  Listen to this episode on your phone! Paul Darvasi, Ph.D., is an educator, game designer, speaker, and writer who works at the intersection of games, culture, and learning. His efforts directly or indirectly aim to envision and implement better ways…

• Pokemon Go Makers Partner With Museums for Real-World Metaverse – MuseumNext

  The developer of the world’s first augmented reality (AR) platform to truly take off, Pokemon Go, has partnered with museums and other institutions for its latest release, Lightship.

• ‘Playful by Design,’ a landmark report – NetFamilyNews.org

  What better subject to zoom in on during the holiday season than play? I’ve written a lot on the subject, here, through the years but, in a way, this is Part 4 of a series I started in 2009 (here are the 2nd and 3rd parts).

• 8 Ways to Grow Students’ Vocabulary | Cult of Pedagogy

  This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org 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. What’s the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org?

• How to Use the Workshop Model to Foster Independence in Elementary School | Edutopia

• MEL VR Science Simulations

  Yes. To access 5 free lessons, please fill in our form here to download the app for free and begin the trial. The free trial consists of 5 total lesson views, whether that be viewing 5 lessons one time each, or repeating one lesson 5 times.

• Audrey Watters “Takes on Ed Tech from Its Beginnings” | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Steven J. Koutsavlis, a research associate at the National Center on Privatization in Education reviews Audrey Watters’ new book on the history of education technology in schools. Its title is Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents

  Formative is a great tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents. One of the ways that I like to use it is to upload a document and then build questions into the documen…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Use Google Drive to Add Questions and Comments to PDFs

  In my previous post I shared directions for using Formative to add questions to PDFs. Another option is to use Google Drive to add questions and comments to PDFs. Adding comments to PDFs in Google Drive is one of those little features that is quite …

• Free Technology for Teachers: The Easiest Way to Add Narration to Google Slides

  When Google finally added native support for audio in Google Slides people were excited until they found out how clunky the process is. You have to first record the audio outside of Google Slides, then upload it your Google Drive, and then insert it…

• Texas: IDEA Charter Chain Sues State Attorney General to Keep Hotel Purchase Records Secret | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  The IDEA charter chain is one of the largest and most aggressive in Texas. Betsy DeVos showered more than $200 million on IDEA to help it grow faster and to expand in other states. But IDEA, with so much state and federal money coming in, developed …

• Why school might look a little different these days | @mcleod

  Below is a 15-minute video that I made for a school district’s families and community members. The first 3.5 minutes will sound familiar to those of you who’ve watched my TEDxDesMoines talk. After that, I branch into some new directions… Hope this i…

• College, Career, Or Whatever Readiness – The Jose Vilson

  In recent times, the term “college and career ready” has come back into trend. It’s a term that first saw a spotlight during the Obama administration, when then-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and company wanted to integrate the Common Core State…

• Vialogues: Video-powered, discussion-driven – Vialogues

• Timelinely

• Cocohub – No code bot-building platform for video, voice, and text – cocohub

• Free Technology for Teachers: The Story Behind QWERTY – Why Keyboards Aren’t in Alphabetical Order

  CNN’s The Story Behind QWERTY explains the origins of the QWERTY keyboard and why it is still the standard on computer keyboards today.

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Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

More great blog posts from this past week:

• The Untold Truth Of The Nintendo World Championship

  The 1989 film The Wizard is remembered for a few things, such as Tobey McGuire’s film debut, heavy Nintendo product placement, and Jackie Vinson’s line, “I love the Power Glove. it’s so bad.

• Among Us is getting a VR version – The Verge

  Social deception game Among Us is getting a virtual reality adaptation. The VR edition will launch on Meta Quest, PlayStation VR, and SteamVR, and it’s being developed by Schell Games, creators of the acclaimed I Expect You To Die series.

• What Is Wakelet and How to Use It in Your Teaching? | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  Share this post: Educatorstechnology Content curation tools, Digital Curation Tools, Wakelet Wakelet is a digital curation tool that allows you to save, organize, and share digital resources. Wakelet’s collaborative features makes it a tool with hug…

• On Reading Choices…Again – Pernille Ripp

  I brought 4 books with me for our trip to my brother’s. 4 different books, in different sizes, with different worlds, hoping that at least one of them entices me into its world so that I can have a new book to book talk on Monday.

• The Krakow Family Who Survived the Holocaust | THIRTEEN – New York Public Media

  The Neiger family was living a peaceful life in the Jewish community in Krakow. Then World War II changed their lives forever. The documentary They Survived Together  tells the story of their miraculous escape from certain death by the Nazis in the …

• STEM Resources

  We teach students how to be confident problem solvers who use creativity, technology and collaboration to positively impact the world around them.

• UME Games

• How much human-made mass exists on Earth? | World Economic Forum

• Become a Better Hitter With WinRealty VR – GeekDad

  I heard once that the hardest single thing to do in sports is hitting a major-league fastball.

• Free Technology for Teachers: The Future of Flickr’s The Commons

  Flickr’s The Commons has been one of my go-to resources for historical imagery since I first wrote about it nearly fourteen years ago. That’s why my heart sank a little bit when I visited The Commons earlier this week and saw a note that read “learn…

• important-message–security-vulnerability-java-edition – Minecraft

  If you play Minecraft: Java Edition, but aren’t hosting your own server, you will need to take the following steps: Close all running instances of the game and the Minecraft Launcher. Start the Launcher again – the patched version will download auto…

• Understanding Teacher Engagement in Blended Learning Environments – Dr. Catlin Tucker

  We talk a lot about student engagement in education. Most educators got into this profession for the students, and, as a result, we want their experience to be as engaging and positive as possible.

• Google Workspace Updates: New ways to customize tables in Google Docs

  We’re adding several new ways to customize tables in Google Docs. You can now: See below for more details.

• My Mock Caldecott Picks 2022 – Pernille Ripp

  For the past 6 years, I have done a Mock Caldecott unit with students as we come back to school in January. The year is quietly winding down which means the reflection begins on which illustrations took my breath away. And there were many.

• Adam Laats: The Conservative Attack on Education That Failed a Century Ago | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Adam Laats is a historian of education at the State University of New York in Binghamton. He has written extensively on religion and education, including Fundamentalist U: Keeping the Faith in American Higher Education and his latest book, Creationi…

• A Look Back: New Study Finds That Using Cellphones During Lectures Hurt Exam Scores, But That’s Not The Most Important Result | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  This blog has gained many new readers over the past year. Because of that, I thought it might be worth sharing a daily “A Look Back” where I share a best post from the past fourteen years. You can also see all of my choices for “Best” posts here. Th…

• Yup. Hexagons. Again. Cause they’re awesome. | History Tech

  I can’t remember where I first learned about hexagons in the classroom. And I talk about them as much as I talk about Google tools like Jamboard. So if you’re already using hexagons, good on you. You are excused.

• Video Games During COVID-19: It’s a Family Thing – GeekMom

  The next time someone judges you or your kids for playing video games, don’t stress. Over the last year or two, most of us have upped the game time and this applies to our kids too. But this is not always a bad thing.

• 3 Ways Schools Condition Students – George Couros

  In the month of December, I am revisiting and reposting some of my most viewed blog posts. Other than running the original post from 2017 through Grammarly (where were you back then!!), the main points that I shared then are held in this post today.

• Do It Like Doofenshmirtz — Mike Washburn

  Doctor Doofenshmirtz has a lot of experience with failed inators. I have a lot of experience in failure too. Maybe that’s why I talk about it so much.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Try Virtual Backgrounds and Immersive Views for Virtual Events

  In this short video I demonstrate where to find and edit virtual backgrounds for Zoom and how to use them with the immersive view option in Zoom.

• Control Alt Achieve: Free Webinar – Google Sheets Activities for all Subjects

  Holy Sheets! Google Sheets Activities for all Subjects Google Sheets is not just a tool for crunching numbers. It is a powerful tool for learning, inquiry, exploration, and inspiration in any subject area.

• Benchmark Assessments: Weighing the Pig More Often? – Robert Slavin’s Blog

  There is an old saying about educational assessment: “If you want to fatten a pig, it doesn’t help to weigh it more often.” To be fair, it may actually help to weigh pigs more often, so the farmer knows whether they are gaining weight at the expecte…

• A Look Back: It’s No Surprise To Teachers, But Research Suggests That Most Benchmark Assessment Are Useless | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  This blog has recently gained many new readers. Because of that, I thought it might be worth sharing a  “A Look Back” where I periodically share my favorite from the past fourteen years. You can also see all of my choices for “Best” posts here.

• Here’s A New “Individualized” Homework Strategy I’m Trying With My English Language Learner Students | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  I’m generally not a fan of giving homework.

• How Long Does It Take to Get to the Moon? | HowStuffWorks

• Scout Archives – The Road to Apollo: An Interactive Journey

  Perhaps you have heard the expression “chasing the sun,” but what about “chasing the moon?” Thanks to The Road to Apollo: An Interactive Journey you can do just that. This resource is an extension of PBS’s American Experience and offers a companion …

• Free Technology for Teachers: Classroomscreen – Timers, Names, and Noise Meters

  A couple of weeks ago my Practical Ed Tech weekly newsletter was all about timers and random selectors. A reader named Erin replied to the newsletter with a suggestion to try a tool called Classroomscreen.

• Control Alt Achieve: 8 Googley Wintertime Activities for Kids

  As we get closer to the holiday break, it is expected and understandable that our students start getting a little distracted. They are looking forward to lots of days off, holiday celebrations, gifts, and more. Let’s be honest … we may be a little d…

• Free Technology for Teachers: SpinnerWheel – A Great Random Name, Number, and Word Picker

  SpinnerWheel is a new-to-me site that provides an easy way to create custom spinners for random name selection, random number selection, and even random image selection.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Seven Ideas for Crafting Comics in History Classes

  My first teaching position was as a mid-year replacement for a literature teacher who left to become the head of an ESL/ELL program in another school district.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Time is the Best Resource You Have

  These are challenging times, and I cannot express my gratitude enough to dedicated and resilient educators who continue to show up for kids and each other.

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Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Great blog posts from last week:

• My Best Ideas (for now) for Book Clubs at the Middle Level – Pernille Ripp

  Once or twice a year, dependent on what the students feel like doing, we set out on our book clubs journeys in 7th grade.

• How Accurate Is The Depiction Of Anti-Matter In Dan Brown’s “Angels And Demons”? » Science ABC

  Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons is one of the most popular novels in the world today. However, it’s not completely factually correct. There are fallacies in the depiction of anti matter.

• ‘Age Of Empires 4’ will be playable for university credit next year

  There will be unique educational content on the Age of Empires website from two professors at the University of Arizona from early next year. “Engaging with the content could allow players to earn one academic credit at the university,” reads a pres…

• The Next Chapter of Teaching and Learning on Roblox – Roblox Blog

• Cliff Mass Weather Blog: Shocking Cloud Pattern: Random Chance, An Unknown Phenomenon, or the Work of the Devil?

  Today I have gotten several emails from folks seeing an unusual, if not disturbing, cloud pattern in the visible satellite imagery. What is particularly odd is that the box seems to nearly remain in place over time. This is not normal.

• Frustration, defiance in village to be abandoned to the sea

  FAIRBOURNE, Wales (AP) — Like many others who came to Fairbourne, Stuart Eves decided the coastal village in northern Wales would be home for life when he moved here 26 years ago.

• 9 things that make viral hoaxes challenging – NetFamilyNews.org

  Remember “Blue Whale”? Almost five years ago, when I was getting to the bottom of that murky hoax, it wasn’t yet understood as one. It was being called a “suicide game,” and those two words were scaring parents around the world, literally.

• Minecraft Player Handbook – Google Slides

• Education Conference Presentations 2021 – Unreal Engine Learning HUB Private Beta

• Free Technology for Teachers: Mapping Where Food Comes From

  Where Does Your Thanksgiving Dinner Come From? is an interactive storymap that I’ve shared in the past and still find to be a neat resource. The map displays where eight popular Thanksgiving foods are grown and harvested in the United States. The st…

• Cliff Mass Weather Blog: Extreme Precipitation and Flooding in Whatcom County

  Extreme flooding forced by extraordinary precipitation has flooded the town of Sumas and other locales in Whatcom County. Landslides closed I5 and some other roads, and sewage overflows are threatening some water supplies in the area.

• Incredibox

• Perhaps Like Me – Pernille Ripp

  I have been meaning to check in on here, to write out words that do not carry the weight of the world within them, and yet every night, as I fall asleep before 9 PM, I am left with no words, no energy, no reason to share what we are doing because al…

• Nearly half of teenagers said the pandemic had a negative impact on their academics. – The Washington Post

• Free Technology for Teachers: Seven Good Tools for Making Animations

  Making animations is a great way for students to bring their written stories to life on screen. Depending upon the story, the animation could be as short frame or two that plays for twenty seconds or it could be a five minute story.

• I Was Wrong: A Definition Of Gamification That Should Make Sense To Everyone! – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert

  I was wrong… for many years in fact. So, here I am again, banging on about definitions. I have been here before, but usually trying to push through the idea of a more academic and “correct” definition of gamification.

• Lessons of Youth Activism, Climate Change, and Climate Justice – The Jose Vilson

  “Yeah, so first of all, I just want to give a little context. So Shell and Siccar Point Energy are trying to push a new oil field on the UK Parliament, the Cambo oil field, which is gonna be off the coast of Scotland, which obviously is my home.

• Change Image Background – remove.bg

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Overlay Historical Maps on Current Maps

  Next week is Geography Awareness Week. Google Earth is my favorite educational technology tool to use to teach history and geography lessons. And one of my favorite things to do with Google Earth is to overlay historic maps onto current maps.

• Education: Time vs. Money | My Island View

  I don’t think many people would disagree that the job of teaching is different in a post-pandemic era when compared to the job most teachers signed up for before 2019.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Curiosity: The Ultimate Learning Trigger

  When I reflect on my childhood there were numerous profound experiences that impacted my trajectory. I still vividly remember spending my summers in Ocean City, NJ where one set of my grandparents resided. To this day there is just something magical…

• Gimkit Announces That Their Games Are Free Now! | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Gimkit is a popular Kahoot/Quizizz-like game platform, and my students have enjoyed it in the past. However, their games have only been free for up to five players, and you’ve had to pay in order to increase that number.

• Help Your Students Become Savvy Evaluators of Media Messages

  In my media literacy posts, I’ve often written about how popular culture (movies, TV, film, magazines, etc.) as well as current and historic events (elections, the pandemic, civil rights, etc.

• Thawing Permafrost Could Release Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria and Undiscovered Viruses

  When considering the implications of thawing permafrost, our initial worries are likely to turn to the major issue of methane being released into the atmosphere and exacerbating global warming or issues for local communities as the ground and infras…

• Hotspots with Google Slides – Learning Aloud

  I was a big HyperCard fan and had a great time using the capabilities of that application to create interesting projects. I was interested in creating virtual learning environments and came up with a concept I called Grandma’s Attic.

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:

• Here Is A Good STEM Website to Use with Your Students in Class | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  Brilliant is an educational platform to use in your teaching to help students in their STEM learning. It offers hands-on and interactive lessons created by teachers and educators from MIT, Google, Microsoft, Duke, and several other renowned platform…

• Who Created Maslow’s Iconic Pyramid? – Scientific American Blog Network

  Abraham Maslow’s iconic pyramid of needs is one of the most famous images in the history of management studies. At the base of the pyramid are physiological needs, and at the top is self-actualization, the full realization of one’s unique potential.

• Math Giraffe

• Free Technology for Teachers: The 2021 Fall Foliage Map – And Explanations of Why Leaves Change Colors

  The 2021 Fall Foliage Prediction Map is a feature of the SmokyMountains.com website. The map displays a week-by-week prediction of when leaves in the continental United States will be changing colors from now through the end of November.

• What “Varsity Letters” Might Look Like In Middle School Esports • Teched Up Teacher

  Eric Churus, head coach of the Burnet Barbarians from Burnet Middle School in Union (whose middle school team won the GSE Rocket League state championship AND beat the high school state champs last year) shared with us his vision for “varsity letter…

• Update your browser to use Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Sites, Slides, and Forms – Google Drive Help

• Free Technology for Teachers: Save Google Forms Responses in Progress

  About a month ago Google announced that they were finally adding an autosave option to Google Forms. This new features lets students leave a Google Form and then come back to it later to finish answering the questions on it.

• Boxing Biomolecules – A Game for Organics

  AP Biology students usually start the year learning about biological macromolecules. I often get students wondering why they are learning chemistry in biology class.

• Fear is not a Fertilizer: Stop Grading Quizzes – Classroom Powerups

  My thought – An observation of a students demonstration of skill or content knowledge in relation to where the standards suggest they need to be. Ambiguous? Yes.

• How metal-infused jaws give some ants an exceptionally sharp bite | Science News

  If you’ve ever felt the wrath of a biting or stinging insect, it may seem incredible that something so small can so easily slice or puncture human skin.

• cloud.google.com

• Kimberly Palmer: Do video games level up kids’ money skills?

  Every few days, my 8-year-old son, Neal, asks if he can “earn something” on Roblox, a popular online video game platform. That’s his way of suggesting I buy him Robux, the platform’s currency, in exchange for him doing a chore or extra academic assi…

• Free Technology for Teachers: 700+ Free Typing Games for Kids

  TypeTastic is a site that offers more than 700 free typing games for students of all ages. I first reviewed TypeTastic a few years ago shortly after it was launched and only offered thirteen games. Since then it has obviously added hundreds of more …

• SAMR Alignment of Microsoft EDU for Student Assignments

  I am once again amazed at how life works. There are countless projects that I have labored over for days or even over a period of months. Excitedly, I share them with the world only to be greeted with a yawn. My book is a great example.

• American Revolution Choose Your Own Fate Simulation – Google Slides

• Teaching with your mouth shut and other things that happen in an inquiry-based classroom | History Tech

  I still remember how great that day was. I had rocked it in all five sections of my 8th US history class. I spent 55 awesome minutes each period highlighting the causes of the American Revolution. And. I. Killed. It. The kids clearly couldn’t get en…

• Promoting Literacy: Cultivate a Reading Culture – Dr. Catlin Tucker

  Guest post written by Amy Tobener-Talley. September 8th is International Literacy Day, a great time to think about promoting a class culture that values reading. However, encouraging students to read in and out of class is challenging as small scree…

• how-minecraft-youtubers-made-me-a-better-parent-during-the-pandemic

  Back in the spring of 2020, before my tween daughters became obsessed with Minecraft YouTube, I thought I had pandemic parenting figured out.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Blur Faces and Objects in Screencastify Videos

  Earlier this week I published a post about Screencastify’s new feature for adding interactive questions into your videos. That’s not the only new thing that Screencastify offers in its updated video editor. Another great feature is the option to blu…

• River Runner Simulation | Science for All

  Here’s a fun simulation for a Tuesday. Visit River Runner and then click anywhere on the map to place a single raindrop. The simulation then shows you where the raindrop ends up. Enjoy.

• how-to-help-anxious-students-re-adjust-to-social-settings

  For the first three days of summer camp, Stephanie Lucianovic’s 8-year-old son arrived home with tear-streaked cheeks. The causes varied — a skinned knee, another child kicking sand on his water bottle and other small bumps in days filled with climb…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Combine Canva and Google Drawings to Make Graphic Organizer Activities

  Last fall I published some videos about using Google Drawings and Google Jamboard to create labeling activities, mapping activities, and some graphic organizer activities. Those all relied on using the drawing tools built into Google Drawings and Ja…

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Quickly Create Comics With Make Beliefs Comix

  Make Beliefs Comix is a good tool for creating comic strips for all kinds of purposes including teaching empathy, practicing writing in a new language, and telling fun stories. Last week I outlined those ideas and more in this blog post.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Generate Captions for Any Video

  YouTube will automatically generate captions for almost any video that you find. Likewise, it will automatically generate captions for videos that you upload to your account. That’s great if you want to use YouTube.

• New Math Templates with Stacey Roshan — Pear Deck

  One of the things Pear Deck does, and does really well, is help you think about how to frame different questions — and provide you the tools to be able to do that and have great discussion as a class.

• Words Matter: What Values Do Your Words Convey? – Angela Maiers – Virtual Keynote Speaker – #YouMatter

  Words matter. I encourage people to choose their words wisely, because the words we choose have a powerful effect on other people. As this post showed, the words we choose matter not only for teachers, but for anyone else who plays an important role…

• Lessons from the Sandbox – Angela Maiers – Virtual Keynote Speaker – #YouMatter

  As a teacher, I’ve seen extraordinary things happen in the sandbox. From friendships being formed to brilliant dreams explored, the sandbox was the place where we created, shared ideas, and learned to love, trust, and depend on one another.

• Free Technology for Teachers: The Difference Between a Chrome Profile and a Google Account

  This morning as I was starting to get caught up on a backlog of email I answered a question from a reader who wanted to know if I had a video about Chrome profiles that she could share with her staff. I do, here it is.

• DC’s New YA Hero Celebrates Our Special Bond with Pets – GeekMom

  DC Comics’ latest young adult super-duo is out to change the world for the better, and they are coming with big ambitions and even bigger hearts. Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero, by bestselling author E.

• 5 reasons video games should be more widely used in school

  In an effort to curtail how much time young people spend playing video games, China has banned students from playing them during the school week and limits them to just one hour per day on Fridays, weekends and holidays. The new rule took effect Sep…

• ResearchGate

• The Twentieth Anniversary Of The 9/11 Attacks Are Coming-Up – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  The anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took place on 9/11 is coming-up. You might be interested in The Best Sites To Help Teach About 9/11.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Trust is a Leader’s Best Friend

  When I began the journey to become a school administrator many years ago, I took the typical courses that were required. These focused on topics such as school law, instructional leadership, change management, school finance, and curriculum developm…

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are last week’s picks of amazing blog posts in case you missed them:

• For Copepods, there is No Free Lunch when Coping with Climate Change – UConn Today

  The world’s oceans are becoming increasingly stressful places for marine life, and experts are working to understand what this means for the future.

• Using Pear Deck in K-12 Math Classrooms — Pear Deck

  When I think about my mathematics classes as a K-12 learner, I think of desks in rows, independent work, worksheets, and — most strikingly — a distinct lack of technology to do my schoolwork.

• Why “Handholding” Is Bad Classroom Management – Smart Classroom Management

  Classroom management isn’t micromanagement. It isn’t narration and correction. It isn’t guiding, advising, or praising students through every this and that.

• MLK LTM on Fortnite Creative – Classroom Powerups

  First of all… Wow. Fortnite currently has a Limited Time Mode (LTM) called “March Through Time” which has recreated the location of March on Washington for Jobs and Equality (AKA the “I have a dream” speech).

• A Game of Their Own: Summer Camp Empowers Girls to Design and Play Their Own Digital Works | The 74

  Get essential education news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up here for The 74’s daily newsletter. When 12-year-old Katie Foti showed up for her first day of Girls Make Games camp this summer, she thought she knew what creatin…

• Celebrate MLK: TIME Studios Presents March Through Time in Fortnite

  Celebrate the life and work of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a new interactive experience presented by TIME Studios. Developed by members of the community in Fortnite Creative, March Through Time immerses players in the …

• Gamers know the power of “flow” — what if learners could take advantage of it? – Illinois News Today

  One of the constant challenges in education is to retain learners Engaged, motivated and connected An increasingly distraction-filled world. Social media, streaming TV, and video games all compete for the increasingly fragmented attention of student…

• The Creator’s Guide to Flipgrid Camera + Shorts.pdf – Google Drive

• Five Reasons Why Traditional Classrooms Can No Longer Keep Up with Growing Technology Today | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

  It might have been long coming, but one fact is becoming quite clear. Traditional classrooms can no longer keep up with growing technology today. For example, one factor contributing to this trend is the fast-paced development of educational games f…

• Apple & the child online safety challenge – NetFamilyNews.org

  Online safety is finally gaining real momentum but of course not without complication.

• Discovery of tire-related chemical that kills coho salmon sparks widespread response | Puget Sound Institute

  Scientists, legislators and manufacturers are responding in various ways to the recent groundbreaking discovery of a deadly chemical derived from automobile tires, a chemical that can rapidly kill coho salmon swimming in urban streams.

• Whiteboards. The old fashioned dry erase kind. And . . . yes, they still work. | History Tech

  I am a huge fan of Google Jamboard. There are so many cool ways we can use a digital whiteboard software like Jamboard to engage kids in solving problems, for messing around with primary sources, and to capture student thinking.

• The Creator’s Guide to the NEW Flipgrid Camera

  With all of the new updates that were released to the Flipgrid Camera in August, I updated The Creator’s Guide to the Flipgrid Camera. You can access it at bit.ly/flipgridcamera My favorite new addition is the ability to add Backdrops to the camera.

• 5 Fun Physics Phenomena | Science for All

  Just something fun from Veritasium today.

• how-to-choose-the-best-face-mask-for-your-kids

  Which masks are best to keep kids safe? It’s a question on many parents’ minds as students return to in-person school amid a huge wave of coronavirus infections. Masking is a key safety measure in schools for all kids, especially for children too yo…

• Brown – Chemistry Syllabus 2021-2022

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Good Model for Audio Slideshow Video Projects

  This morning I was looking for some short videos about the history of Labor Day. In doing so I came across The History of Labor Day as produced by TAPintoTV. The content of the video was accurate and it provided a nice summary of origins of Labor Da…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Five Ideas for Using Comics in Social Studies Lessons

  Creating cartoons and comic strips can be a fun way for students to show their understanding of events and concepts. For the student who is intimidated (or bored) by the idea of writing yet another essay or making another PowerPoint presentation, cr…

• Microsoft E-sports Teacher Academy – Wakelet

• Video: There’s Hope in the Latest Climate Report | Science for All

  See the video below by SciShow titled There’s Hope in the Latest Climate Report.

• 8th-Graders Lead Effort To Clear The Name Of Wrongly Convicted Salem ‘Witch’ | HuffPost

  BOSTON (AP) — More than three centuries after a Massachusetts woman was wrongly convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death, she’s finally on the verge of being exonerated — thanks to a curious eighth-grade civics class. State Sen.

• FREE Illustrative Math In GeoGebra – Teacher Tech

  Illustrative Mathematics is a free OER aware winning curriculum for mathematics. Illustrative Mathematics is now FREE in GeoGebra for grades 6-12.

• In Pictures – BBC News

  BBC News In Pictures: News stories and topical issues using the most striking images from around the world, plus a chance to submit your pictures.

• Finding belonging in Google’s Aboriginal and Indigenous Network

  In 2013, the Google Earth Outreach team reached out to me with a request. They had been invited to partner on a mapping project in western Canada, and were looking for a Googler who could contribute an Indigenous perspective on cultural protocol. Th…

• build-with-care-recruiting-student-and-teacher-voices-to-rethink-schools-because-of-the-pandemic

  As we reflect on the experience of learning during COVID, a big question looms: What will schools look like after the pandemic? Currently, two prevalent narratives are rising over the horizon.

• 10 Creative Risks to Take With Your Students This Year – John Spencer

  We aren’t sure what this year will look like. With the spike in Covid cases, it might involve more hybrid or virtual learning. Or it might be more of a “return to normal.” But regardless of the situation, we do know that teachers will continue to be…

• Washington DC Minecraft Lesson Guide – Lifeboat Network

• Women’s Stories Being Told By Men Is One Of Gaming’s Biggest Problems

• Introducing the HyperRubric: A Tool that Takes Learning to the Next Level | Cult of Pedagogy

  I’ve always believed in the power of a good, clear rubric for helping students understand how their work will be assessed. As an English teacher, I can’t even imagine assigning a writing task without a rubric.

• Control Alt Achieve: Free Webinar – Hipster Google – Tools You Probably Never Heard Of

  I had the opportunity to present the following session recently at the 2021 SPARCC Educational Technology Conference: Hipster Google – Tools You Probably Never Heard Of Everyone knows about Google Docs, Gmail, Search, and other common Google tools.

• Getting Tech R.I.G.H.T. – Angela Maiers – Virtual Keynote Speaker – #YouMatter

  Technology transforms the world in which we live. It can make the impossible possible, and is the key to doing more with less. Yet many school leaders are apprehensive about bringing technology into their school.

• Are You Carrying Rocks in Your Backpack? – Angela Maiers – Virtual Keynote Speaker – #YouMatter

  This was a vivid visual reminder of what we do to ourselves when we don’t believe that we are enough. We often see a quote attributed to Carol Gordan: “If someone talked to you the way you talk to yourself, you would have kicked them out of your lif…

• Parents Are Not Okay – The Atlantic

  We’re not even at a breaking point anymore. We’re broken. About the author: Dan Sinker is a writer based in Chicago.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How I Created “Vintage” Travel Posters With Canva

  In the past I’ve written about using the Library of Congress vintage travel posters collection in Google Earth. Last week I read a new Library of Congress blog post the vintage travel posters collection. Reading that post inspired me try my hand at …

• Back to School Ideas – updated for 2021 – GK Techies

  If you haven’t visited the Microsoft Educator Center, you are missing out. It is an amazing FREE resource with courses on educational technology and pedagogy (not just about Microsoft). The previous version, Microsoft Educator Community, had a share…

• why-students-forget-and-what-you-can-do-about-it

  Our brains are wired to forget, but there are research-backed strategies you can use to make your teaching stick. Teachers have long known that rote memorization can lead to a superficial grasp of material that is quickly forgotten.

• A Principal’s Reflections: No Act of Kindness is a Wasted Effort

  I fly a lot. Even during the heart of the pandemic, I was on the road coaching in numerous school districts as part of long-term projects. Now things are absolutely crazy but in a good way.

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

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)

More amazing blog posts to check out:

• Evidencing learning… – What Ed Said

  Here are some thoughts from a recent PYP Evidencing Learning workshop, supporting teachers to shift from a traditional model of  ‘Pre test – Teach stuff – Post test’  to a model where assessment is integrated and iterative.  Learning is not linear.

• But What Happens to Our Readers – On the Unintended Impacts Computerized Reading Programs Can Have on the Development of Readers – Pernille Ripp

  I have never worked through so many changes in my educational model as I have for the past year. COVID teaching has pushed us all to the max, not just with what we are expected to do but also in how we are supposed to adapt to whatever ideas, progra…

• 450-million-year-old sea creatures had a leg up on breathing | News

  A new study has found the first evidence of sophisticated breathing organs in 450-million-year-old sea creatures. Contrary to previous thought, trilobites were leg breathers, with structures resembling gills hanging off their thighs.  Trilobite foss…

• Weekly Digest #64: Preparing a Learning-Focused Syllabus — The Learning Scientists

  This week’s digest was contributed by Sara Fulmer. Dr. Sara M. Fulmer is the Teaching and Learning Assessment Specialist at Wellesley College.

• David Attenborough’s 5 Lessons For Every Human | IE

  Sir David Attenborough is the most revered natural history broadcaster and narrator of our time. His unmistakable voice has resounded around cinemas and living rooms over his six-decade-long career.

• How Studying Lemur Hibernation Could Make Long-Distance Space Travel Easier One Day |Smart News Science | Smithsonian Magazine

  As humans’ closest hibernating relative, learning from the critters could also make emergency surgery safer and inform metabolic disease research In the wild, fat-tailed dwarf lemurs undergo hibernation anywhere between three to seven months.

• FINALLY! RICH TEXT in GOOGLE CLASSROOM! – Teacher Tech

  YES!! You can now BOLD, Underline, Italicize, and add a bulleted list into the description of Google Classroom Announcements and Assignments. Note that all new features always “roll out.” Meaning you might not see these new features for a few weeks.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Five Jamboard Features You Should Know How to Use

  In the last year Jamboard has become one of my favorite tools for online and hybrid instruction. I often use it in place of Zoom’s whiteboard function because I can create multiple page whiteboards that I then share with my students via Google Class…

• how-proxy-data-reveals-climate-of-earths-distant-past

  At any one moment in time, thousands of measurements are being taken of the world’s weather. Across land, sea and sky, data is being gathered manually and automatically using a range of technologies, from the humble thermometer to the latest multi m…

• Implications of the Hybrid Classroom – Mary Beth Hertz

  You can read the document in Google Doc format here. Schools are in a position where there are a variety of factors that impact their ability to provide quality instruction and build/maintain community.

• No, the COVID-19 Pandemic Was Not Grown in a Lab | IE

  Many origins were suggested for the COVID-19 coronavirus in the last year. Some thought bats and pangolins were to blame, while others wondered if frozen food contained more than just excess calories.

• Science Careers

• Spring 2021 WCAS Information

  The Spring 2021 administration of the Washington Comprehensive Assessment of Science (WCAS) is just around the corner. The test window opens April 12 and closes June 11.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Five Ways to Get Students to be More Active in Remote Learning

  This is a guest post from Hali Larkins (@HaliLarkins), communications intern at The Learning Accelerator and Master’s student at Columbia Teachers’ College.

• Maps tips for the adventurer, foodie and go-getter in you

  Whether you’re hunting down the best hole-in-the wall restaurant on your block, planning a cross-country road trip that hits your favorite national parks or in the mood to tackle your to-do list, Google Maps is here to help you play and plan.

• Google Workspace Updates: Add and manage four new types of citations in Google Docs

  FilmTV SeriesTV EpisodeMiscellaneousThis will make writing academic papers easier, since you won’t have to copy citations from other tools.

• two-ways-bring-games-your-classroom

  Gamification and game-based learning are different instructional strategies, but both can work wonders for student engagement.  Gordon Studer / The iSpot There’s a lot of hand-wringing over the amount of time kids spend with online gaming.

• frog-dissection-virtual-for-remote-learner

  Students usually end the comparative anatomy unit with a dissection of a frog specimen. Though some schools have decided to opt out of this project, it remains one of the most remembered activities of the school year.

• Control Alt Achieve: 10 Googley Poetry Projects for National Poetry Month

  For kids to write a poem. There’s loads of fun activities Here for you to show ’em. Google tools can be used To make the perfect rhyme, With templates, tools, and writing prompts To save your students time.

• Were Armed Kangaroos Added to a Military Combat Simulation Program? | Snopes.com

  The reuse of some object-oriented code has caused tactical headaches for Australia’s armed forces.

• Control Alt Achieve: Google April Fools Videos

  Most years Google releases a new set of prank videos for April Fools Day. I always look forward to these videos as they are so well produced and poke fun at current trends and technology and even at Google itself. Even better though, they provide mo…

• This Insect Has Plant DNA in Its Genome |Smart News Science | Smithsonian Magazine

  Whiteflies have a gene only found in plants that appears to allow the tiny insects to withstand plants’ chemical defenses A small, aphid-like insect called a whitefly has plant DNA lurking in its genome—and it’s among the first known instances of ge…

• Joel Westheimer: Three Essential Lessons That COVID Taught Us About Education | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Joel Westheimer is a professor of education at the University of Ottawa. He wrote this article for The Ottawa Citizen and shared it with me. This is a good time for me to mention that I strongly believe in content.

• Akata Witch: Young and Magical in Nigeria

  It’s hard to know where to begin with a review of a book where so much is going on: the authentic, detailed reflection of Nigerian-American culture? The overt tackling of racism, ableism, and sexism in one narrative?

• “Harmony Square” Is An Online Game Designed To Teach Teens About Disinformation | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  There are quite a few online games designed to help students learn about information literacy, and you can learn about many of them at The Best Tools & Lessons For Teaching Information Literacy – Help Me Find More. Harmony Square is another one I’m …

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Ways Teachers Can Improve Remote Learning

  This is a guest post from Hali Larkins (@HaliLarkins), communications intern at The Learning Accelerator and Master’s student at Columbia Teachers’ College.

• A Bold Idea for Testing: Opt-In | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  The Ossining, New York, school district has a creative response to the federal mandate to administer tests at a time when children’s lives have been disrupted by the pandemic.

• Quickly Learn Syntax with Yoda – Tech with Class

  Foolish are you! Understand you do not. We all are familiar with the unusual speech of Yoda. Students immediately recognize that his speech sounds unusual but they understand the meaning.

• Free Technology for Teachers: A New Citation Generator from ClassTools

  Russel Tarr at ClassTools.net has developed another handy tool for students. This time he’s made a citation generator. The ClassTools Citation Generator will create a MLA, APA, Chicago, and HAD citations for any URL that you enter. It will also crea…

• Invasive mussel triggers widespread talks, increased coordination with pet stores | Puget Sound Institute

  Baby zebra mussels, no bigger than a grain of rice, provoked an emergency response across the country in early March, and now state and federal officials are contemplating changes to protect the Northwest from an invasive species that some people ha…

• how-use-gameplay-enhance-classroom-learning

  Research shows that using games in teaching can help increase student participation, foster social and emotional learning, and motivate students to take risks. What happens when a gorilla goes into a battle with a brown hyena in an Australian rain f…

• Creative Jamboard Templates for the ELA Classroom – Building Book Love

  Inspired by an enthusiastic coworker who’s been using Jamboard to teach virtually, I recently tried and jammed out on some Jamboard templates in the classroom.

• Debate erupts over road across Mount St. Helens blast zone – KIRO 7 News Seattle

  ST. HELENS, Wash. — Conservation groups and scientists are challenging a federal decision to build a road through the Mount St. Helens blast zone, saying it would damage more than two dozen decades worth of irreplaceable research plots. Since the 19…

• What are the UDL Guidelines?

  My parents had an island in the kitchen when I was in high school. There were 6 worn wooden stools where we did our homework, played games of Uno, and had family dinners.

• www.unrealengine.com

  Choices matter, and when it comes to history, they are sometimes the difference between success and failure, life and death. But what would have happened if different choices were made? How would these new choices have changed the course of history?

• 18-books-to-help-grieving-children-and-teens-heal

  Kids have dealt with a lot in the last year, says Ashley McCall, a third grade teacher in Chicago. “Our students have had COVID-19, have watched relatives struggle through COVID-19, and lost relatives.

• Coming Up Leon – Zombies, Run!

  A story of love, friendship and a coming out party that almost didn’t happen. Ahead of the release of our latest New Adventure – Coming Up Leon – writer Yves Donlon discusses the process of coming out and why the family you choose is so important to…

• Control Alt Achieve: Preset Google Meet Breakout Rooms in Calendar

  Breakout rooms are a great feature in Google Meet, allowing you to take all of your meeting participants and split them up into smaller Meets where they can work on group projects, have small group discussions, and such.

• Oil and natural gas production emit more methane than previously thought

  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is underestimating methane emissions from oil and gas production in its annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, according to new research from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engin…

• How Whale Poop Helps Mitigate Climate Change | IE

  Whales are wondrous creatures that dominate the deep seas but did you know that their poop is also really useful? In this entertaining and enlightening video, Hank Green explains exactly why on the YouTube channel SciShow.

• Behavior Strategy: How to Teach When-Then | Understood – For learning and thinking differences

  A when-then sentence can help you nudge students toward appropriate classroom behaviors. It clearly explains what you expect—and the positive outcome that will happen. Here’s an example of a when-then sentence: “When you speak to me in a calmer voic…

• Simple structures can help streams survive wildfires and drought | Science News

  Wearing waders and work gloves, three dozen employees from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service stood at a small creek amid the dry sagebrush of southeastern Idaho. The group was eager to learn how to repair a …

• Beyond Writing: Other Ways for Kids to Show What They Know

  When I was growing up, my dad had this old, push lawn mower that was nearly impossible for me to start. I would top off the gas, check the oil, and yank the pull start as hard and fast as I could, over and over, until my arm and shoulder went numb.

• ‘Zombie’ Genes? Some Genes Come to Life in the Brain After Death – Neuroscience News

  Summary: In the hours after death, some cells in the human brain not only remain active, they grow in size. In the hours after we die, certain cells in the human brain are still active.

• A Principal’s Reflections: The Power of Collaboration

  There is nothing more gratifying, in my opinion than watching people work together to achieve a common goal.

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Check out these great posts from last week:

• COVID-19 Science Units – Health Equity Lessons – OpenSciEd

  The unit focuses on the question How can people help end pandemics? It is designed to teach students about the COVID-19 pandemic, transmission of the COVID-19 virus, and the impacts of the pandemic on communities.

• Classroom Games and Tech – Ed-Tech to Engage and Inspire: An Easy Way to See Students’ Typed Answers in Google Docs

  I know I’m not the only one to use this method, but here’s how I create highlighted answer blanks in Google Docs. This makes it easy to see their answers when you assign it as “Make a copy for each student” in Google Classroom.

• Trophic Cascades at Biointeractive

  This worksheet is designed for the Interactive Activity on Trophic Cascades at HHMI Biointeractive . Students learn how the loss or addition of a species, like a fox, can affect other organisms in the system.

• Washington State University will no longer require applicants to submit SAT, ACT test scores – KXLY

  PULLMAN, Wash. — Students applying to Washington State University will no longer be required to submit their SAT and ACT scores. The WSU Board of Regents voted Friday to stop requiring the use of the standardized tests in the admissions process.

• 7 COVID Edu Trends That Will Stick |

  In education we often live with one foot in the present and the other in the future.  And this has been more true during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Rare Meteorite Found in U.K. Driveway Could Hold Secrets of the Early Solar System |Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine

  On February 28, a massive meteor shot over the United Kingdom. Thousands of people saw the fireball or captured its six-second burn on doorbell and dashboard cameras. Now, the Natural History Museum in London has announced that the meteorite crash-l…

• 4 Ways to Use Google Keep for Feedback and Assessment | Shake Up Learning

  Google Keep is one of my favorite G Suite tools! One fun way to use Google Keep is for feedback. In this post, I’ve got 4 ways to use Google Keep for feedback and assessment.

• Some Favorite Graphic Novels to Add to Your Middle School Collection – Pernille Ripp

  If you follow me on any social media platform, you hopefully know how much I love to share amazing book titles.

• Company wants to pay you $70/hour to be a Minecraft gardening consultant | KRCR

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Sweet Science Project

  My daughters, like almost all children, love candy! So my daughters and I are going to attempt to make our own rock candy this weekend. They love doing little projects like this and I’m hoping that they’ll like this one as well.

• Biome4Kids: Learning in a Virtual World: CLOSED? Well sort of but maybe not or we will see…

  Biome4Kids and all the VIBE grids are, at least temporarily, closed. I am moving some of them to the Kitely grid. The others may move there or they may move to a separate server. For now there will be a security change. Here’s how that goes: Anyone …

• BLINK | Enterprise URL Shortener, Branded URLs, Link Management

  Turn all your links into real words that engage your audience. Create a free account to start linking. Buy domain names and start creating branded links, all in one place.

• Students Should Share Their Process, Not Just Their Product – John Spencer

  When I was a kid, I loved watching reality TV. Okay, it wasn’t really reality TV. It was PBS. However, I would watch an entire season of This Old House, as Bob Vila walked viewers step-by-step through a cumbersome restoration process.

• Why Do I Have to Read This? Literacy Strategies That Engage.

  Why Do I Have to Read This? Literacy Strategies to Engage Our Most Reluctant Students  By Cris Tovani (Stenhouse Publishers, 2021 – Learn more) Before the Covid pandemic, if you saw someone wearing a mask you might do a double take.

• G4C & Epic Games Team Up to Bring Powerful EdTech Tools to the Classroom

  Games for Change is excited to announce a partnership with Epic Games that will offer middle and high school educators a chance to bring Fortnite, Unreal Engine, Twinmotion, and other Epic Games content into their classrooms, now through the end of …

• Trauma Informed COVID Commemoration Activity. – Classroom Powerups

  March 16th is the 1 year anniversary of the day that my school district decided to go 100% Distance Learning last year due to the COVID Pandemic. Last year this was a Monday and I know this because I am the Regional Coordinator for National History …

• Uncovering Implicit Bias in Assessment, Feedback and Grading | All Things Assessment

  Education is a noble profession. It is a profession that aims to cultivate diverse thinkers and aspires to nurture personal growth.

• Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Randi Weingarten: Skip the Tests | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Rep. Jamaal Bowman is leading the fight in Congress to reverse the Biden decision to require standardized testing this spring. Randi Weingarten is president of the AFT. Jamaal was a middle school principal in the Bronx before he was elected to Congr…

• March 14th Is Pi Day – Here Are A Bunch Of Useful Videos | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th. You might be interested in THE BEST VIDEOS FOR CELEBRATING PI DAY.

• The Ridiculousness Of Learning Loss

  With a mix of exasperation and despair, many writers (and quite a few politicians) have demanded that schools open for in person instruction during the pandemic.

• Should We Be Worried About Learning Loss in Early Childhood? – Rae Pica

  “Instructional time” has long been a phrase that sets my teeth on edge, used as it is to keep children in seats and to eliminate recess from their day. But recently another phrase has me clenching my teeth. That phrase is “learning loss,” which seem…

• What ‘learning loss’ really means – The Washington Post

  ‘It is loss of a previously imagined trajectory leading to a previously imagined future.’

• Learning Loss Is Just Educational Halitosis

  Jordan Wheat Lambert and his son Gerald had a problem. They had a product that was doing a modest business, an antiseptic that was particularly useful for treating infections in the mouth. But they wanted more.

• “Stop.” A Letter to Our Nation’s Education Leaders and Our Nation’s Teachers | Kylene Beers

  To members of the U.S.

• Lessons Learned: Post Pandemic Practices that Our Students Deserve

  Written by: Dr. Darren E. Draper At the heart of coaching lies positive change, but sometimes change doesn’t come easy.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Kahoot Now Displays Questions and Answers on the Same Screen – Finally!

  Now when you launch a live Kahoot game for in-person or online play you can choose to enable an option to show questions and answer choices on the same screen.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create a Bibliography in Word

  As I wrote last week, I’m jealous of today’s high school students who don’t have to rely on consulting books like The Student Writer to properly format citations and bibliographies.

• link.springer.com

  This is wherein the trap lies. There is nothing wrong with making estimates about learning losses, but the possible actions these projections can induce are worrisome because they can, at best, waste resources and, at worst, lead post-pandemic educa…

• “The News Evaluator” Is A New Interactive Designed To Help Teach Information Literacy | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  News Evaluator website is a new interactive designed to help students develop information literacy skills. Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a digital self-test that trains users to assess news items, images and videos presented on so…

• Learn About Electronic Music & Create Some Yourself With New Google Tool | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Google has just announced a new exhibition at Google Arts and Culture called Music, Makers & Machines: A Brief History of Electronic Music. I’m adding this info to The Best Online Sites For Creating Music.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Wordtune – A Quick Way to Get Wording Suggestions

  Wordtune is a Chrome extension that provides suggestions on ways to rewrite sentences in your Google Documents, in your email (Gmail and Outlook), and in some social media accounts.

• Actively Learn Upgrades All Teachers To “Prime” Through June 30th | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Actively Learn is an excellent tool used by many teachers, and offers a free plan that many of us use. Its Prime plan, though, is much, much better, but a bit pricey. And pretty much the only way you can access it is if you can convince your school …

• Free Technology for Teachers: Use WriteReader With Google Classroom

  WriteReader is a good tool for elementary school students to use to create multimedia stories. I’ve featured WriteReader in about a dozen blog posts over the last few years. It has two distinguishing features that I always point out.

• Capturing Reality is now part of Epic Games – YouTube

  Capturing Reality has just joined Epic Games. The Quixel team is thrilled to partner with them to bring the real world to all digital experiences, enabling anyone to scan the world. More on the announcement here: https://ift.tt/3bww2j8

• Self-Regulation in Blended Learning Environments – Dr. Catlin Tucker

  “Students don’t do the asynchronous work.” “Students don’t work unless I am monitoring them.” “Students will only do the work if I grade it.” I hear statements like this every week. Teachers are frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of focus, e…

• Swipe Right Weeding

  Be surface. Be superficial.

• The Lost Year: What the Pandemic Cost Teenagers — ProPublica

  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Everything looks the same on either side of the Texas-New Mexico border in the great oil patch of the Permian …

• WA State: WCAS Nuts & Bolts Online Workshop 6 Free STEM Clock Hours | Science for All

  The last few months I’ve been trying to attend as many FREE online science-related workshops as I can find. While I’m not currently a classroom teacher I like to maintain my teaching certificate- so like others I’m always on the hunt for clock hours…

• 4 Ways to Make Review More Fun for Everyone – Not So Wimpy Teacher

  Springtime means review. Whether you are preparing for standardized tests, district testing, or simply benchmark reviews, you will be spending time going over all the amazing things your students have learned this year. Which, less face it, can be k…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Why Do Our Clocks Spring Forward Next Weekend?

  It’s almost that time of year when when most of us in the northern hemisphere have to move our clocks forward by one hour. I never liked moving my clocks forward in the spring before I had kids.

• Dr. Seuss and “Cancel Culture” | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  The publisher of the many books written by Theodor Geisl (“Dr. Seuss”) announced that it was suspending publication of six books that contained demeaning drawings of Asian and African figures.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Digitally-Enhanced Exit Tickets

  I love coaching as it provides a lens to see how teachers and administrators act on feedback to grow and improve. It also provides evidence that strategies aligned to research and sound instructional design are implemented in practical ways.

• Promoting Student Response Sharing in Pear Deck – Mari Venturino

  One awesome thing during distance teaching has been working with student teachers. I know that supporting student teachers while also teaching 100% online comes with a whole set of challenges (the topic of a future blog post), but it has been a grea…

• How to Set Up Mastery-Based Grading in Your Classroom | Cult of Pedagogy

  Most teachers can relate to that sinking feeling you get when you forge ahead to a new lesson even though many of your students aren’t “getting it.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

More great blog posts to check out:

• How To Build Your Confidence With Elementary Mathematics -…

  If you’re an elementary school teacher who wants to feel more comfortable teaching and doing mathematics, this mini workshop is for you. My goal is to help you feel more confident in your mathematical abilities so that you know how to help students …

• Homeless students need more than Chromebooks – Chalkbeat Chicago

  First Person is where Chalkbeat features personal essays by educators, students, parents, and others thinking and writing about public education. Remote learning is not easy on anyone, but it poses particular hurdles for the 16,000 homeless Chicago …

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Improve Audio Playback in Zoom

  On Thursday morning one of my colleagues asked me how to improve the quality of the sound when he plays videos in Zoom meetings. Zoom actually has a simple way to do that built right into the screen sharing menu.

• Mark Cuban: The ‘ultimate skill going forward’ to teach your kids

  Self-made billionaire Mark Cuban is committed to life-long learning and often says it is key to his success. In fact, Cuban has said time and money spent on learning is “the best investment” he has ever made.

• Twitter

  My older students use the @ibpyp key questions while brainstorming #questions for the #QFT @RightQuestion. I created this graphic to help students think beyond form, function, causation. #IB_DP #pypchat Enjoy!

• landing page – Digital Strategy | NetSupport Ltd

  For those lucky enough to be on half-term, why not read our new guide on creating a digital strategy in education, written by Mark Anderson (ICT Evangelist) and Al Kingsley (Chair of a multi-academy Trust and MD of NetSupport). Every school identifi…

• makingwaves.psp.wa.gov – Stories from the people restoring and recovering Puget Sound

  We’re pleased to launch the first issue of Making Waves, our new online magazine. Making Waves will focus on stories about the people who are working to protect and recover Puget Sound. The magazine is our way of celebrating the great work that’s ha…

• Using a Flip Flop Design for the Concurrent Classroom

  “I wish I could just focus on one group of students at a time.” This is a sentiment I’ve heard repeatedly from teachers navigating the demands of the concurrent classroom.

• Amazing Fortnite Pyramid! Poetry With PoetGamerr – YouTube

• Digital literacy lesson plan — November’s Quest of the Month – Classcraft Blog

  The world is in crisis. Are your students the heroes who will save the world from a new disease? They’ll have to rely on essential digital citizenship and reading skills to find out if they are.

• Free Technology for Teachers: An Easy Way to Have PDFs Read Aloud

  Yesterday, during Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff I answered a question about how to have PDFs read aloud. Specifically, the person asking the question wanted an option for having PDFs that are stored in Google Drive read aloud.

• How to prepare for a future where creativity is a survival skill — Quartz

  Adobe StockTurn on the creative thinking.From our ObsessionProductivity & CreativityLooking for creative ways to be more productive or productive exercises for boosting creativity? We have you covered.

• How to create student blogs in Google Slides (for FREE!) – Ditch That Textbook

  If you run your student blogs in Google Slides, it’s easy to get them up and running. You can create all of the files and do all of the set-up to get it started pretty quickly.

• Control Alt Achieve: 3 Google Meet Q&A Alternatives

  Google Meet has an awesome built-in feature for Q&A, but unfortunately that is only available for people who are using the Enterprise version of G Suite, which means schools that pay for the Google tools.

• Control Alt Achieve: Google Meet Q&A Feature

  The Q&A feature in Google Meet is a great way for your attendees to be able to submit questions and vote on which questions are most important to them.

• Getting Started with Student Portfolio Projects in Virtual and Hybrid Courses – John Spencer

  When I was a senior in high school, our AP Government teacher chose not to give us a final exam for the end of the first semester. Instead, we would create our own portfolios. Our portfolios had to include what we had learned and what questions we s…

• Three Online Options for Podcast Recording & Publishing

  This week’s topic choice was inspired by a reader’s question that I received last week. He wanted some suggestions for alternatives to Audacity that his students can use to record and edit podcasts. These were the free tools that I suggested trying …

• The Compliments Project | Cult of Pedagogy

  The moment I saw this video, I knew I wanted to share it with you. And I didn’t just want to post it on Facebook; I wanted it to live right here on my site, so it would never get lost. It’s too wonderful to be washed away in a wave of Internet sludg…

• Free Technology for Teachers: A New Collection of 17,000+ Historical Maps and Images

  Flickr’s The Commons is a great place to find all kinds of interesting historical photographs from museums and libraries all over the world. Recently, The British Library added a new collection of maps to Flickr’s The Commons.

• 5 awesome activities for teaching kindness (+ a challenge!) – Classcraft Blog

  Kindness is powerful. It’s also contagious. According to science, kindness doubles when you share it. Studies have shown being kind boosts your serotonin, eases anxiety, and can lower blood pressure, which is really good for your heart.

• Help your students grow future-ready skills with Hack the Classroom: STEM Edition | | Microsoft EDU

  The hack is back in an all-new way! Hack the Classroom: STEM Edition is a free virtual event series designed for K-12 educators, parents, and guardians. The sessions will feature resources and tutorials to help educators support students in learning…

• 5-simple-ways-manage-stress-year

  Finding ways to process the challenges of this year will be critical for teachers.

• Explore Empathy and Inclusion with the New Hour of Code: A Minecraft Tale of Two Villages | Minecraft: Education Edition

  Begin or continue your computer science journey with this year’s new Hour of Code lesson: A Minecraft Tale of Two Villages! Students will be challenged to bring two villages together with the power of code, learning and practicing inclusion and empa…

• Remote Attendance | Stories From School

  Taking attendance on asynchronous (no-Zoom-days) is presently my absolute least favorite thing about remote learning. (And my “least favorite” list is long.)

• Free Technology for Teachers: Mixkit Now Offers Free Sound Effects, Music, and Video Clips for Your Multimedia Projects

  Back in February I published a video overview of how to use Mixkit to find free b-roll video and music to use in multimedia projects. This week the folks at Mixkit added sound effects to their library of free media. The sound effects library is sepa…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Wizer Now Offers a Google Drive Add-on

  Wizer is an online platform for creating multimedia worksheet activities that you can distribute to students through a variety of means including Google Classroom. On Wizer you can design worksheet activities that include pictures, text, videos, and…

• 10 ways to build student relationships from an online teacher – Ditch That Textbook

  3. Ask students about themselves. It can’t all be about the content. We need to incorporate social and emotional aspects, too. “Teachers are afraid that students are going to fall behind. It’s OK,” Paulino says.

• 3 Ways to Activate Genius Mode & Creativity (Even at a Distance) with David Dubczak

  David “Creative Dave” Dubczak is a middle school teacher who sparks creativity. In today’s show, he defines creativity and the two kinds of creative thinking to understand: divergent and convergent thinking.

• 21 rules for computer users (Updated) — ICT & Computing in Education

  This is an updated version of an article published on 10 November 2009. All technology expands the space, contracts the time, and destroys the working group.

• 8 Great Educational Podcasts for Kids | Cult of Pedagogy

  As we seek to enhance instruction with technology, one tool we might not think of is podcasts.

• how-can-teachers-nurture-meaningful-student-agency

  The term “student agency” continues to be at the forefront of the educational discourse around the world.

• Using Google Jamboard for Engagement and Collaboration

  Back in the summer I wrote an article for MiddleWeb – Becoming the Virtual Teacher My Students Need – that described some lessons I learned during last spring’s Covid-induced “emergency” remote teaching.

• Stop Calling it a Late Penalty – It’s a Teacher Convenience Fee – Classroom Powerups

  Do y’all remember Blockbuster? If you don’t then you are baby. Some days I regal my 10 year old with horror stories of life before the Internet. Back in those primitive days people would have to leave their home and go to a big warehouse with walls …

• How to use Kahoot! with Google Classroom and Google Meet – Ditch That Textbook

  Using Kahoot! for distance learning with Google Classroom Infographics and slides below!DitchThatTextbook.com/KahootClassroom Matt’s Kahoot! webinar recordings Kahoot! + Google ClassroomCOMING SOON! 3 FREE ebooks + great teaching ideasSign up for th…

• 8 Video Learning Stats Post-Coronavirus – e-Learning Infographics

  Are you interested in video learning stats? This infographic shares the most recent, post-COVID statistics around online learning in a higher education environment and online video usage.

• Collaborative Drawings in Jamboard – Mari Venturino

  Jamboard is the exciting new edtech tool craze, have you tried it yet? It’s like a cross between Google Slides and Padlet. It’s a great place to have students brainstorm, collaborate, and create.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Thanksgiving Science Lessons

  I don’t think there’s a meal I like better than a classic Thanksgiving turkey with potatoes, squash, stuffing and cranberry sauce from a can (my mouth is watering just thinking about the “shlop” sound the cranberry sauce makes as it pops out of the …

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Handful of Games for Fun Typing Practice

  Last week I was writing a blog post early in the morning when my three year old came out of her room. She saw what I was doing and wanted to help. Since she can recognize all of the letters of the alphabet I let her type a few letters of each senten…

• How to Increase Participation During Synchronous Instruction (Part 1) – Easy EdTech Podcast 087 – Class Tech Tips

  In this episode, you’ll hear strategies that boost engagement and increase participation during live video lessons and synchronous instruction.

• Drop in pandemic carbon dioxide emissions previews world of electric vehicles

  Weekly carbon dioxide concentrations during the six weeks before shelter-in-place (Feb. 2-Mar. 14, purple) and six weeks during shelter-in-place (Mar. 22-May 2, green). The solid lines show the median CO2 levels across the BEACO2N network.

• How P.E. teachers are trying to get students off the couch during the pandemic – Daily News

  Imagine trying to work out in a crowded living room, with no exercise equipment besides rolled-up socks and soup cans. For many students in California, that’s what physical education class looks like these days. Since campuses closed in March, P.E.

• Monique W. Morris: Why black girls are targeted for punishment at school — and how to change that | TED Talk

  Around the world, black girls are being pushed out of schools because of policies that target them for punishment, says author and social justice scholar Monique W. Morris. The result: countless girls are forced into unsafe futures with restricted o…

• Why Personalized Learning Is Struggling During COVID-19

  Personalizing learning to kids’ unique academic needs and personal interests is a tough nut to crack, and that is especially the case within the confines of a Zoom square. That is one of the big takeaways from a recent national survey by the EdWeek …

• The 4 Ps of Teaching, Learning, and Leading in a Pandemic – KATIE MARTIN

  As I have met with educators and lead professional learning or design sessions, I have been asking people to check in and name how they feel (I am a big fan of Marc Brackett’s Mood Meter).

• How to Create a Self-Paced Classroom | Cult of Pedagogy

  As educators, we know our students have different needs. Some fly through our content, while others need more time for ideas to sink in. Some have help at home, while others miss class.

• A Principal’s Reflections: The Professional Learning Sweet Spot

  For the better part of my educational career, I always referred to any type of learning to assist me as a teacher or administrator as professional development (PD). It was always referred to like this, so who was I to argue.

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Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

More great blog posts from last week:

• Using @PearDeck w/Embedded @Flipgrid Question to Develop Deeper Connections – Modeling Optimization Problems #edtech #mathchat | techieMusings

  If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll see that I recently tweeted that one of my new goals is to use Pear Deck to create student-paced activities with questions that ramp up in difficulty to help students discover new ideas & promote higher-order thin…

• Google Classroom Popsicle Sticks – Call on Students – Teacher Tech

  If you use Google Classroom you can call on students randomly from within the Google Classroom App. This works only on your phone or iPad (or using the Google Classroom android app on a Chromebook.) This currently does NOT work on the web version of…

• Inspire Science K–5 | STEM Career Kids

• Career Profile Cards | Pacific Education Institute

• Natural Inquirer >> Science Journal for Students >> Scientist and Engineer Card Series

• WISC – Washington Invasive Species Council

• Gaming’s Not Just for Kids: What Educators Need to Know About eSports — Mike Washburn

  League of Legends, DOTA 2, Heroes of the Storm and—of course—Fortnite. You may recognize these as titles of popular video games, even if you aren’t strictly a “gamer.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Add Shapes and Drawings to Google Docs

  Yesterday morning I had a colleague come into my classroom to ask me how she could create a document that had some arrows and boxes in it. Basically, she was trying to replicate and then slightly modify a diagram she’d seen in a textbook. I showed h…

• 12 social media-inspired Google Slides templates – Ditch That Textbook

  Students use social media all the time. Let’s put those skills to use! In these social media-inspired Google Slides templates, they can show what they know with their favorite apps. No matter the age — kindergarten to high school senior — students…

• The Smallest Ideas that are Helping Me During VIrtual Teaching – Pernille Ripp

  I don’t think I have ever gone so long without writing on this blog. Through job changes, house moves, the birth of our twins, and then the birth of a very premature baby, this blog has been constant.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Good Video Lessons About Cyberbullying and Digital Privacy

  Students in my school district, like students in many other school districts, have more unsupervised time on their hands than ever before.

• Transform Worksheets Into Interactive Online Activities for Students – Class Tech Tips

  This post is sponsored by TeacherMade. All opinions are my own. How can you turn passive learning into a more active and interactive experience? More students are working online than ever before and more teachers are looking at ways to use classroom…

• 5 Classic Halloween Specials (That Aren’t ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’) – GeekDad

  Today is October 1st or, as we call it in my house, the 1st of Halloween. For many families like mine, this marks the true arrival of autumn and a solid 31 nights of decorations, costumes, seasonal music, and monster media. For those with smaller ch…

• Free Word Cloud Generator – Results

• History Mysteries for the littles: Inquiry resources and materials for your elementary classroom | History Tech

  Well, it’s been a while. Between some unplanned family obligations and a variety of work related stuff, History Tech got pushed off the front burner, then the back burner, and eventually ended up somewhere into one of those cabinets where you store …

• 6 ideas for infusing choice into the math 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.com. I love the idea of giving students choices in the classroom.

• Using Scavenger Hunts to Get Students Moving in Virtual Learning – John Spencer

  When we hear the terms “virtual learning” or “remote learning,” it’s easy to imagine students spending eight hours a day in front of a screen. However, as educators, we know that this approach isn’t developmentally appropriate.

• What can food trucks teach us about virtual and hybrid learning? – John Spencer

  When we think of innovative companies, it’s easy to imagine an open-air tech startup with ping pong tables and free drinks and huge windows and chairs so modern you’re not sure how you’re supposed to sit in them or look at them.

• Control Alt Achieve: Using Rubrics in Google Classroom

  Rubrics are a popular and helpful tool for assessment.

• How to Teach When Everyone is Scattered | Cult of Pedagogy

  Let’s go back for a moment to a simpler time, back to 2019 when you may have “struggled to differentiate.

• Peel The Fruit Slides Activity | Engage Their Minds

  I am a gigantic fan of Harvard’s Project Zero Thinking Routines. As distance learning has become a necessity for many teachers and students, I have been pondering what these routines might look like when conducting virtual discussions.

• Mapping Climate Risk in the United States – The Map Room

  Climate change isn’t just one thing: rising temperatures, or sea level rise. It’s also changes to rainfall, increased risk of wildfires, more powerful hurricanes.

• Free Technology for Teachers: “Whoa!” – This Is Why We Should Review Search Strategies Every Year

  During last week’s episode of Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff I shared a little story from earlier that day in my classroom. The story provides a good reminder of why we should review search strategies every fall even if we thin…

• Search-Icon

  The past seven months have been a big strain on families like Mandi Boren’s. The Borens are cattle ranchers on a remote slice of land near Idaho’s Owyhee Mountains. They have four kids — ranging from a first grader to a sophomore in high school.

• For Some Kids, Remote Learning Round 2 Is A Dream Come True | HuffPost Life

  Newsletter Sign UpRaise the kind of person you’d like to knowSubscribe to our parenting newsletter.

• psycnet.apa.org

• Why We Need to Open Our Virtual Classroom Doors and See Each Other Teach – KATIE MARTIN

  I asked a group of teachers how they were feeling. At first one asked, do you really want to know? Yes, I responded, I really want to know how you are feeling. One teacher shared, It’s up and down like a roller coaster.

• G Suite Updates Blog: Google Meet attendance reports available now for education meetings

  Participant’s name Participant’s email Length of time a participant was on the call, including when they joined and exited Once a meeting is finished, you’ll receive an attendance report via email.

• Is it time to kill calculus? | Salon.com

• 10 Google Tips for Remote Learning | Shake Up Learning

  Remote learning has sent teachers and schools into high gear! We are all trying to figure out what works. In this post, I’m going This has never been done before, not like this, so cut yourself some slack. We are all learning together!

• Support Online Learning with Powerful Thinking Routines |

  Project Zero at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education has created a collection of Core Thinking Routines as part of their Visible Thinking Project. Teachers can view the entire collection on the Project Zero website, where each routine is described…

• Precision In Language – The Reflective Educator

  “Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. “I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least-at least I mean what I say-that’s the same thing, you know.” “Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter.

• A Principal’s Reflections: High-Agency in the Remote and Hybrid Classroom

  Educators desperately want and need support. They need practical strategies that are not just effective but also can be developed in a reasonable amount of time.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are more amazing blog posts from this past week:

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Accessibility for Everyone – A Book to Help Educators Create Content

  All schools receiving public funding must make content accessible to everyone including those with disabilities. If your school or district is interested in helping staff understand why this is important, then consider Accessibility for Everyone for…

• A Simple Exercise Program For Teachers – Smart Classroom Management

  But exercise can also make you a better teacher by improving your cognitive ability, energy level, and the amount of stress you experience. It gives you greater confidence and comfort in your own skin, which translates to your ability to build behav…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Book Creator Adds New Accessibility Features

  Book Creator is a tool that I have been using and recommending for years for making multimedia ebooks. You can use it as an iPad app or in your web browser. This week Book Creator announced that it now works in Microsoft Edge as well as Chrome and S…

• Announcing the Desmos Middle School Math Pilot – Des-blog

  At Desmos, we love doing math on paper and we have also seen the unique power of computers to provoke wonder, enable mathematical creation, and connect ideas together. Thousands of teachers have experienced that power in our supplemental activities.

• Mo Physics Mo Problems: Tour Creator Unleashed

  Loved seeing this use of Google Tour Creator to go beyond geography projects.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: 15 Sites for Graphic Organizers

  “A graphic organizer, also known as knowledge map, concept map, story map, cognitive organizer, advance organizer, or concept diagram, is a communication tool that uses visual symbols to express knowledge, concepts, thoughts, or ideas, and the relat…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Google Forms Tutorials for Beginners

  Last night my friend Beth emailed me to ask if I had any tutorials for beginning Google Forms users. My answer was, “I sure do!” These were the three Google Forms tutorials that sent to her to share with the group of teachers she’s working with righ…

• At last: Sext ed based on facts not fear – NetFamilyNews.org

  In 1978, an award-winning documentary showed a group of teen juvenile offenders being taken to a New Jersey maximum-security prison, where for three hours “a group of inmates known as ‘the lifers’ berate[d], scream[ed] at, and terrif[ied] the young …

• Civilization Series Bibliography | Gaming the Past

  Enough interest in research about the Civilization series pops up every so often, that I thought a quick bibliography might be helpful to refer to. I have more to add, but here’s a good start. Burns, A. (2002). Civilization III: Digital game-based l…

• 10-social-media-inspired-learning-activities-no-accounts-necessary

• how-find-games-classroom-learning – Edutopia

  Playable on multiple platforms, it’s a beautiful and haunting game with a watercolor aesthetic.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Rubrics and Originality Reports in Google Classroom

  Last week Google announced that Originality Reports in Google Classroom would soon be available to all users with the limitation that you could only run three reports unless your school subscribes to G Suite for Education Enterprise Edition (the pai…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Creative Strength – A Student Video Contest

  Creative Strength is the title of the latest Next Vista for Learning video contest. Like previous Next Vista contests, this one is open to students and teachers.

• Four New Videos On Climate Change | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  GoranH / Pixabay Here are new additions to The Best Sites To Learn About Climate Change:

• Need election resources? iCivics can help. | History Tech

  We all love iCivics. And why not? Tons of useful tools. Simulations. Games. Lots of teaching materials. Oh, yeah. And it’s all free. If you’re not super familiar with iCivics, it’s good to know why it exists.

• steam-with-the-silent-a

• 3d Printing Resources

• Free Technology for Teachers: Vortex by ClassTools – Create Your Own Sorting Game

  Vortex is the latest game template published by ClassTools. Vortex lets you create an online game in which players have to sort words or phrases into up to four categories. Vortex replaces the Dust Bin sorting game that ClassTools used to offer but …

• Powered UP XP Grading Pt 2: Case Study – Classroom Powerups

  The Multiple Choice exam is a classic traditional grading method that does not fit nicely into an Standards Based Grading model. In the Fall semester I worked out a system for incorporating the district mandated 55 Multiple Choice Question Common As…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Math Attax

  Math Attax is a super-fun free mobile (iOS/Google Play) Math game that helps students w/ their basic Math skills (i.e. addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.). This is a 2 player game where students move their player up/down a grid while trying…

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Storillo

  Storillo is an innovative new tool for group writing projects. Storillo makes it easy for educators to create projects and then organize groups for students to work on together.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Story Composer

  Story Composer is an innovative multiplayer iOS game that helps students develop their story composition skills. This is done through the use over 240 animated images where students pick and choose which pictures to structure their story from the be…

• What’s Hot (and Not) in Google Classroom with Alice Keeler @coolcatteacher

  Google Classroom is a tool that can help build relationships between students and teachers. But not everything is perfect. Google Classroom Guru Alice Keeler talks about what is hot and not in Google Classroom and how teachers are using it to teach.…

• Bloom’s Taxonomy is a Ladder, not a Pyramid | Mike Kaechele

  In PBL workshops with teachers, I ask them to describe the skillsets of the Ideal Graduate from their school. I once had a high school teacher say, “I want my students to be able to write a complete sentence.”

• A Few Favorite Books from Our Classroom for Teens Who Say They Can’t Find a Great Book – Pernille Ripp

  One of the many benefits there is from being an educator who reads a lot is that I get to create many different reading lists in my head.

• A Beginner’s Guide To Copyright And Creative Commons (Simple Explanation For Teachers And Students)

  Plagiarism and copyright infringement are not new in the education world. However, it wasn’t so long ago that students mainly needed to know that they shouldn’t copy from textbooks or other students. Then things started to get digital.

• History at the movies: The 20 best films of the decade and how to use them | History Tech

  There’s nothing like watching a movie in a big screen theater – the kind that bans small children and has heated reclining seats –  holding a mega-tub of popcorn with a side of nacho cheese and a Diet Pepsi. And it’s even better when the movie is hi…

• Know Better and Do Better | All Things Assessment

  I plan to explore self-assessment with my blogs this year. One of my favorite things about writing for this blog is that it causes me to reflect and formalize my own thinking about assessment topics.

• Mo Physics Mo Problems: Flipgrid Camera Guide Updated

  Check out this guide to the new camera features in Flipgrid.

• Quick Educator Review – When Rivers Were Trails | Gaming the Past

  What it is: A FREE, beautifully illustrated, choice-based interactive text for Mac and PC with just a bit of a resource model. Players read about the main character and make choices by clicking on the relevant text with the mouse.

• Designing a Kinesthetic Station: Get Kids Moving in Math Class |

  Can the Station Rotation Model work in a math class? I get this question a lot. I’ve coached math teachers who struggle to imagine designing their lessons using this model because the curriculum is so linear.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create an Online Sorting Activity Using Google Sheets

  Flippity is a great source of templates for making online games, flashcards, and quizzes. Recently, Flippity added a new template that makes it easy to create an online sorting activity based on information you provide in a Google Sheet. Flippity’s …

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Socrates

  Socrates is an innovate new site where educators can seamlessly differentiate instruction for each student through a unique game based learning system.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Story Wheel

  Story Wheel is an excellent educational app for students wanting to develop their Language Arts skills. This is done through a super-fun iOS game where 1-4 students spin-a-wheel and develop a story by recording audio to the picture the wheel lands o…

• A Gamer’s Glossary of Terms and Acronyms | B&H Explora

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Here are some great blog posts from this past week:

• The future of work won’t be about degrees, it will be about skills

• The future of work won’t be about degrees, it will be about skills

• This District Rolled Out Minecraft and Teacher Collaboration Skyrocketed | EdSurge News

• • Chart: The Shocking Size of the Australian Wildfires | Statista

• American Sign Language Translator

• Signing Savvy | ASL Sign Language Video Dictionary

• Angie Sullivan Tells Every Nevada Legislator to Read SLAYING GOLIATH | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Angie Sullivan teaches in a Title 1 elementary school in Carson County, Nevada. She teaches the children who were left behind.

• Simple Exercise: Help Students Analyze Their Growth Over Time

  Students rarely recognize how much progress they are making over the course of a semester or school year. Their school days tend to be a blur of information, assignments, and activities.

• Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » More and Different: The Impact of AI on Future Jobs and Education

  “Better-paid, better-educated workers face the most exposure” to AI, concludes a  recent report about the impact of Artificial Intelligence on jobs in the future. This conclusion should make us question the widely held belief that our children shoul…

• Young Indigenous activists lead climate justice action in Alaska (Raised voices) — High Country News – Know the West

• Fortnite Creator is Buying Entire Forests to Prevent Them From Being Chopped Down – Healthy Food House

• A billion new players are set to transform the gaming industry | WIRED UK

• 30-education-sketchnotes-for-inspiration-ideas

• At last, the days are getting longer – Yummy Math

  What’s your guess?  How fast are the number of daylight hours changing each day?  Will the changes be dramatic or subtle?

• The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

  For the past ten years, I have written a lengthy year-end series, documenting some of the dominant narratives and trends in education technology. I think it is worthwhile, as the decade draws to a close, to review those stories and to see how much (…

• Spoilers: Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker (and the Fall of Consequences) – Classroom Powerups

  I took my boys to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker this week. Since The Force Awakens came out in 2015 both of my older boys have been all in. They know the lore and the characters and have embraced the entire mythology. I was pleased with the 2…

• App Smashing with EyeJack.

• Curriculum Soup: Shopping Online for Supplemental Lessons? | Stories From School

  We are putting on our annual black-eyed pea soup to ring in the new year, and it’s just in time to send out some blessings to my educator network.

• Science Assessment Updates (WA State)

  We are happy to announce that the WCAS training tests have been expanded. The training tests are available through the WCAP Portal. Students who take online assessments need opportunities to explore the features of the test and practice using the to…

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Make an Interactive Graphic With Canva

  One of the many neat things that you can do with Canva is create interactive infographics. In fact, you can use nearly any design template in Canva to create interactive graphics.

• Reader: I Taught SAT Prep. It’s a Sham. | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  An anonymous reader left this comment about the SAT. Once upon a time, 25 years ago, I ‘offered’ SAT tutoring (at a rather high price of $50/hr.) to denizens of a tony private school. I could charge that much because I ‘got results’. But, it was rat…

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

• Please, Don’t Assign Homework Over Winter Break – WeAreTeachers

• Meet the Mighty Women of NASA’s New Astronaut Class | A Mighty Girl

  “Meet the Mighty Women of NASA’s
  New Astronaut Class”

• A Mighty Girl | A Mighty Girl

• Meet the Mighty Women of NASA’s New Astronaut Class | A Mighty Girl

• Please, Don’t Assign Homework Over Winter Break – WeAreTeachers

• This 12-year-old boy made a video game in Roblox to cope with his father’s suicide – The Washington Post

• New Video Game Puts You In The Shoes Of A Refugee : Goats and Soda : NPR

• Irish Teenager Wins Google Science Award for Removing Microplastics From Oceans – EcoWatch

• Math Card Games That Will Help Students Practice Their Skills

• Subscribe to read | Financial Times

  Gain a global perspective on the US and go beyond with curated news and analysis from 600 journalists in 50+ countries covering politics, business, innovation, trends and more.

• Game Design Concepts | An experiment in game design and teaching

  This course was originally offered in real-time from June 29 – September 6, 2009. If you are just finding this now, does that mean you missed out on everything? Not at all. The course content is still here and available for you. Going through the co…

• This 12-year-old boy made a video game in Roblox to cope with his father’s suicide – The Washington Post

  In partnership with Facebook Gaming, The Game Awards’ Gaming Global Citizen recognizes individuals who inspire change and positivity through the power of games.

• 4 Empathy Activities For Any Classroom • Teched Up Teacher

  A design process is a creative problem-solving process that can be applied to any activity in your classroom.

• Microsoft Word – Cooperative Fundraising Activities white paper.doc

• The Thinking and Creativity That Goes Into Game Design – Teacher Reboot Camp

  Students can design a game in any subject to assess their peers. When students design games they use a lot of creativity and critical thinking skills. Students must imagine and design worlds, characters, levels, sound effects, game elements, and mor…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Dozens of Outline Maps You Can Print for Free

  Even with tools like Google Earth and Google Map there is still a need for students to learn some basics of where things are in the world lest they think that Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon are near each other. To that end, a classic geography…

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Innovative Ideas for Reducing Laptop Loss / Theft

  Jenith Mishne, Director of Education Technology in Newport-Mesa Unified School District (USD) takes personalizatoin to a whole new level. She provides time, accessories, and stickers for students to use to personalize their device.

• ditch-channel-12-video-tutorials-strategies-and-lesson-ideas-for-educators

• A pivotal book for digital safety & citizenship – NetFamilyNews.org

  The importance of the new book – Young People in Digital Society: Control Shift – cannot be exaggerated.

• Free Technology for Teachers: The History of Comic Art

  The Library of Congress currently has an exhibit on display called Comic Art – 120 Years of Panels and Pages. The exhibit is both a physical exhibit and an online exhibit. Comic Art – 120 Years of Panels and Pages has five sections.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Disable and Remove Chrome Extensions – And Why You Should

  I try a ton of Chrome extensions every year. In fact, I try so many that I sometimes look in my Chrome settings and wonder, “why do I still have that extension?” That’s not a good habit because I really should be uninstalling the ones that I don’t n…

• How a Sword and Sorcery Camp Uses Immersive Role Play to Teach STEAM | MindShift | KQED News

• six-thinking-scaffolds-that-can-move-students-toward-deeper-levels-of-understanding

  Grotzer and a team (Nancy Oriol, Stephanie Kang, Colby Moore Reilly, and Julie Joyal) looked at the Harvard Medical School MEDscience curriculum, founded by Oriol, that uses technology-mediated, problem-based learning simulations to enrich the exper…

• Formative Assessment Tools and Apps – Teacher Reboot Camp

  Ongoing assessment is necessary for student success. These assessments provide data on our learners’ progress and knowledge of the content.

• How Does Impeachment Work? — Cool Infographics

  With Impeachment in the news every day lately, Curtis Newbold (The Visual Communication Guy) put together a handy explanation infographic, How Does Impeachment Work? A FREE downloadable PDF is also available from his website.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Find and Install Google Slides Add-ons

  Google Slides on its own has some great features in it. For some examples see Tony Vincent’s recent webinar on how to use the drawing tools that are built into Google Slides. You can add even more features to Google Slides when you install Google Sl…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Need Some Classroom Blog Ideas? Try These Edublogs Resources

  For years Edublogs has hosted a list of active classroom blogs. The purpose of the list to offer a place for teachers to find examples of classroom blogs and potentially find blogging buddies for their students.

• Students in esports championship focus on leadership over competition – WISC

• 2019 Education Research Highlights | Edutopia

• Comic Creation Tools to Engage Learners – Teacher Reboot Camp

  Students of all ages enjoy learning with comics and creating comics. When students create comics they use props, scenery, dialogue, text, and characters to visualize and contextualize vocabulary and knowledge.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Digital Citizenship: The New Consequences for Inappropriate Use

  Remember the good old days of inappropriate use? The teacher would just take away the student’s privilege of using a computer and give them paper instead. Those were the days when many educators using computers were just in the first stage of SAMR: …

• Collaboration in Technology Integration – Technology Chatter

  I have said many times technology integration, whether in a 1:1 environment or with shared devices should never be 100% 1:1, a student in the screen all the time. I have referred before to this notion of 1:world when you are thinking about technolog…

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

More amazing blog posts from this past week:

• Tools to Inspire Collaborative Discussions – Teacher Reboot Camp

  More important than the learning that transpires in our classrooms is the learning we inspire beyond our classroom walls. One way to motivate students to continue using the knowledge acquired in our classes is to set up a virtual learning community.

• How To Handle Brazen Behavior – Smart Classroom Management

  So what is brazen behavior? Running or chasing in the classroom.

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Make Beliefs Comix Give Me Words

  Make Beliefs Comix is a excellent site that educators around the world are using for digital storytelling, project based learning, reinforcing vocabulary, and more. Recently, they launched their “Give Me Words” feature which lets students supply wor…

• Inspire Learning Beyond Your Classroom Walls by Setting Up a Virtual Learning Community – Teacher Reboot Camp

  More important than the learning that transpires in our classrooms is the learning we inspire beyond our classroom walls. One way to motivate students to continue using the knowledge acquired in our classes is to set up a virtual learning community.

• Google’s New “Interpreter Mode” Makes It Easier For Teachers & Parents To Talk If They Don’t Speak Each Other’s Languages | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Google has just added what they call “Interpreter Mode” to the mobile Google Assistant app.

• Steven Singer: Charter Schools Exploit Children of Color | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  The New York Times recently wrote an article claiming that many black and Hispanic families were disappointed that Democratic presidential candidates were abandoning the charter school crusade beloved by the leaders of No Child Left Behind and Race …

• Social media and television use — but not video games — predict depression and anxiety in teens

• We all love SHEG. Now their Civic Online Reasoning tools make it easier to love them even more | History Tech

  I’m starting to get the feeling that we’ve reached critical mass. When I work with social studies teachers around the country, I always make sure they’re familiar with the work by Sam Wineburg and the Stanford History Education Group.

• Five Tech-Savvy Strategies for Excellent, Engaging Virtual Field Trips – NCCE’s Tech Savvy Teacher Blog

  In 2011 I took a family vacation to New Orleans, Louisiana.  We took in all of the sites that the wonderful city has to offer, including the National World War II Museum.  The museum was spectacular, and as I walked through the exhibits I thought ab…

• a-video-game-about-conflict-resolution-helps-develop-empathy-for-refugees

  Lual Mayen, a video game developer based in Washington, D.C., remembers the first time he saw a computer. He was just a kid at the time. It was 2007, and his family was registering for benefits at a refugee camp in Uganda, where they’d settled after…

• Infographic Tools and Templates to Visualize Data – Teacher Reboot Camp

  When students design an infographic they visualize data and present their research in a dynamic way. They can use icons, charts, shapes, stylized fonts, borders, photos, and more to make data more engaging and understandable. Students can also tell …

• Free Technology for Teachers: ScriptSlide – A Google Slides Add-on for Pacing Presentations

  ScriptSlide is an interesting Google Slides add-on that takes the speaker notes in your Google Slides and displays them in a teleprompter-like screen that you can control with your phone. That might sound complicated, but it’s not. Here’s how Script…

• Image Hotspot Generator

  Step 1: Uploadan image. Step 2: Click anywhere to start tagging it.

• New ‘Privacy Toolkit’ for youth, co-created with youth – NetFamilyNews.org

  “What do children know, and want to know, about where their data goes?” is the all-important question that leads the Children’s Data & Privacy Online project’s blog post about its just-released report.

• Actively Learn – Kleinspiration

  As a mother  and a teacher, finding time to do it all is a constant struggle. Technology is continuously evolving and making every aspect of our lives more convenient.

• Intentional and Explicit Use of the  Cross Cutting Concepts – OUR TRANSITION TO MS NGSS

• How to integrate the argumentation from evidence practice into engineering design projects : StemTeachingTools

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: 6 Insights from Ed Tech Leaders Across the U.S.

  Leaders in education and technology came from around the country to the Tech & Learning Leadership Summit. There they spoke openly and passionately about current trends, critical problems, and possible solutions.

• Timeline Tools to Document and Analyze the Past – Teacher Reboot Camp

  Students can create digital timelines to analyze the past and help teach others. Timelines help students display their research in a dynamic way with photos, clickable links, video, and audio. Creating a digital timeline is engaging and also inspire…

• Did they just add tour creation to web-based Google Earth? Yes. Yes, they did. | History Tech

  Google tools. Good. Maps. Good.

• Global Learning and Leading with Minecraft Education Edition – NCCE’s Tech Savvy Teacher Blog

  As an educator and professional development trainer, I have spent the last year focusing on how Minecraft Education Edition can be delivered to educators.

• Screencast Tools to Demonstrate Student Learning – Teacher Reboot Camp

  One way for students to demonstrate what they are learning is through screencasts. In a screencast, students video record their digital screen (tablet or computer) and that shows them completing a task.

• Network for Public Education Releases Explosive New Report on Federal Charter Schools Program | Diane Ravitch’s blog

  Last spring, the Network for Public Education published a report on waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal Charter Schools Program.

• Tools for Designing Awesome Graphics – Teacher Reboot Camp

  I started this blog 10 years ago, which was shortly after using Twitter and other social media tools to connect with educators.

• Is Your ‘Standard’ Really a Standard? | All Things Assessment

  Educators, more often than not, define the term “standard” as “something someone needs to know or be able to do.” We use this definition to develop curriculum, create assessments, plan instruction, and provide feedback to students and parents.

• Engage Them in the First 5 Minutes! Bell-Ringers, Warm Ups, and Prompts! – Teacher Reboot Camp

  As soon as students enter the classroom they can be engaged in learning. At my school we call these “to dos.” I have often heard these called bell ringers, warm ups, starters, and entrance tickets.

• Best Books of 2019 – Pernille Ripp

  In June, I published my Best Books of 2019 So Far list, the very next day after publishing it, I read an incredible book, and then another, and then another. And so as it happens, the list continues, here are all of the incredible books that I loved…

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