Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

More great posts from this past week:

• 6 Steps to Teach Book Creation with Book Creator to Improve Writing

  Book Creator, the simple ebook authoring program, encourages writing and creativity in kids. They have some new templates as well.  Soon, my middle schoolers will start writing books again but in the fall, we had a great experience. In this post, I’…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Three Easy Ways for Students to Make Short Audio Recordings – No Email Required

  Earlier this week I answered an email from a reader who was looking for suggestions for tools that her elementary school students can use to make short audio recordings.

• Google Meet: When Presenting See More People – Teacher Tech

  When presenting your screen in a Google Meet, annoyingly, the majority of the Meet screen is taken up by “You’re presenting to everyone.” Control Minus A common trick when using any program is to use Control Minus to zoom out. Oftentimes it is surpr…

• Peardeck Copy of Chinese New Year 2021 – Google Slides

• 5 Tips to Improve a Scholastic Esports Team | Tech & Learning

  If you’re already in the scholastic esports space, you’ve found out how rewarding it can be for both you and your students. It’s likely, though, that you’ve had to do a lot of on-the-job learning as you tackle setting up an esports club, scheduling …

• Voice Comments in Google Docs: It’s going to be e-mote-ional! – Teacher Tech

  I’ve been a classroom teacher for 16 years. In April 2020, at the start of lockdown, I came across Mote on Twitter and everything changed!

• Charles Darwin | Biography, Theory of Evolution, & Facts | Britannica

• Why Noticing Children Is More Powerful Than Praise or Punishment

  Bored Teachers, LLC (“Bored Teachers,” “we,” “us,” “our”) provides its services (described below) to you through its website located at http://www.boredteachers.

• St. Patrick’s Day STEM Challenge Cards | Our Family Code

  From walking rainbows to coding coins, these St. Patrick’s Day STEM challenge cards are perfect for celebrating the holiday with STEAM! You’ll find a ton of STEM activities that are filled with all things St. Patrick’s Day, but you’ll also find some…

• Austin Kleon on the Surprising Truths About Creativity – John Spencer

  In our world, we have these rules that creative types are supposed to follow. However, Austin Kleon, a self-described, “writer who draws,” takes those rules and tears them to shreds. Or maybe not. Maybe he turns them upside down or folds them into a…

• Free Technology for Teachers: ClassTools Wikipedia Timeline Generator – Create and Edit Timelines

  Russel Tarr, a history teacher and developer of ClassTools.net, recently released a new template called the Wikipedia Timeline Generator. This free tool will take a Wikipedia article and generate a timeline based on that article. That’s not all it d…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Whiteboard.chat – Create Online Whiteboards You Can Share and Monitor

  Back in September I wrote a review of a new online whiteboard tool called Whiteboard.chat. I like it because it allows teachers to create whiteboards for their students. Teachers can then remotely monitor the whiteboards to see what their students a…

• Linking two enzymes turns plastic-eating bacteria into super-digesters

  Plastic is everywhere. Scientists have found tiny bits of microplastic even in the extremes of the Earth – from the deep-sea of the Mariana Trench to the peaks of the Pyrenees – and damaging life around us.

• Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code | Microbiome

  Stay Updated! Sign up for the ULC Newsletter

• Mindfulness Training for Teens Fails Important Test – Scientific American

  Mindfulness involves a conscious focus on and awareness of your present state of mind and surroundings, without judgment or reaction.

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Animated Valentine’s Day Cards

  On Wednesday I shared a video about how to make edible glass candy hearts. That activity could get messy in your classroom or kitchen. If you’re looking for a digital Valentine’s Day activity, consider creating animated Valentine’s Day cards.

• Gamification and Going Gradeless – Classroom Powerups

  I was recently asked if it were possible to use Gamification in a gradeless classroom. Yes! A thousand times yes! Gamification is a study in motivation and engagement. Top down initiatives and textbooks usually oversimplify the concept as just “Poin…

• 10 amazing assessment ideas – Ditch That Textbook

  This post is written by Batsheva Frankel an educational consultant at New Lens Ed. Batsheva has been in education for over 25 years and is the producer and host of the popular podcast, Overthrowing Education. Batsheva’s book, The Jewish Educator’s C…

• Public debate is good for science | Science

  In the age of the internet, there’s no such thing as a private debate. But is that bad for science? Some scientists have had misgivings. When debates in any sector move beyond the halls of universities and government agencies, there is potential for…

• Free Technology for Teachers: 70 Lesson Plans About WWII

  A few years ago I visited the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. If ever have a chance to visit, take it! I spent about five hours in the museum and I would have spent ten hours in it if I’d had the time. I wish that every student could visit the …

• Infographic: How to Accelerate the Growth of Restored Corals | The Scientist Magazine®

  At Mote Marine Laboratory, our group has developed a new approach to restoring corals, depicted below.

• Free Technology for Teachers: My NASA Data Story Maps – Lesson Plans Based on NASA Data

  A few weeks ago I published a summary of nine neat NASA resources for teachers and students. Shortly after that I received an email from someone at NASA who pointed me in the direction of My NASA Data. My NASA Data is much more than just a collectio…

• The Engagement Channel Model – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert

  In gamification, you will hear a lot about Flow. I myself have spoken about it many times.

• What you permit… : My Initial Guide toward Diversity and Equity in my US History Curriculum – Classroom Powerups

  My friend and host of the “Wellplayed” Podcast Michael Matera (@MrMatera) likes to end his weekly show on gamification in education with a “Quote of the Week”. Mr. Matera and the guest discuss the quote and how it might apply to the classroom. Well,…

• Safer Internet Day 2021: Ground youth safety & rights in dignity – NetFamilyNews.org

  What better day than Safer Internet Day to take cyberbullying prevention and intervention to the next level – or at least break the discussion about it wide-open? And just four days after the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child officially broug…

• Free Technology for Teachers: The Easiest Way to Create QR Codes for Google Forms

  Last fall I published a video and blog post about using QRCode Monkey to make QR codes for Google Forms. Doing that makes it easy for students to quickly access your Google Forms from their phones.

• LGBTQ+ Students Need Allies | Mike Kaechele

  Usually on this blog, I share my expertise around PBL and SEL from my personal experience. This post will use some personal stories, but LGBTQ+ is an area of growth for me and I am in no way an expert on the topic.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Fun Activities for Snowy Days

  We’re finally starting to see snow accumulation here in Maine that is typical for our winters. We had a big storm last week followed by a few inches of snow last night.

• Intriguing Study On Supporting Struggling Students In After-School Programs | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  Even older teens benefit from catch-up classes is an interesting summary by Jill Barshay of two research studies – one that showed after-school tutoring to high school students was effective in the short-term, and another one that suggests the impro…

• Posts falsely claim face mask use harms children | Fact Check

  A post spreading on social media claims that wearing face masks to help stop the spread of Covid-19 will cause children physical and psychological problems. But medical and psychological experts say the claims it makes about masks are false, and the…

• Giving Students Feedback About Their Writing – Not So Wimpy Teacher

  When I was a new teacher, I dreaded teaching writing. I am embarrassed to admit that I actually got excited about a fire drill because it gave me an excuse to skip our writing time for the day. The reality is that I had no idea how to help students …

• A Principal’s Reflections: Tips for the Socially Distanced Classroom

  Schools have either made or are about to make the transition to some sort of hybrid model. The transition is not an easy one. Just ask those who have already been through it. In the midst of adversity and limited training, educators have valiantly r…

• It’s Time to Give Classroom Jobs Another Try | Cult of Pedagogy

  This might be the perfect time for this topic. At first I just thought it was a neat idea, something teachers could implement pretty easily, something that would be a nice change of pace from what we usually talk about here.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Check out these amazing posts from last week:

• 7 Key Characteristics Of Better Learning Feedback

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

• Grace is Greater Than Grades | Shake Up Learning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Climate Science Assessment Tasks | Science for All

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

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

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

• Control Alt Achieve: Remote Learning & Pear Deck Webinar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• 7 Important Questions Before Implementing Digital Portfolios – George Couros

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Climate Clock | Human Impact Lab

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

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

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

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

• Climate Clock | Science for All

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: DOGOnews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Students as Content Creators in Minecraft | AltspaceVR

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

• The Power of Class Rituals | Mike Kaechele

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

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

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

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

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

• Traits of a Successful Online Teacher |

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

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Great posts from this past week:

• Robocompass | A Robotic Geometry Box on 3D

  Exactly as you do using a physical straightedge, compass and protractor. MathDisk Technologies is a Gess Education Award 2015 finalist on “Best Free ICT App category” Robocompass is developed by MathDisk Technologies.

• Teachers and experts question traditional ways of grading – Los Angeles Times

  By If you’re a high school student in San Diego County, it may appear your chances of getting a good grade are better or worse depending on which teacher you have.

• How To Handle Annoying Students – Smart Classroom Management

  So you have this student who seemingly at every break wants to share critical information with you. Sometimes it’s an observation. “The heater is making a strange clicking sound.”

• 14-ways-to-turn-your-classroom-into-a-game-show

• Investigating Grading Conversations | All Things Assessment

  Note: This entry is the first in a four-part series by Cassandra Erkens. School improvement conversations fail when everyone walks away frustrated, the public angrily engages, and all change efforts within the initiative are abandoned.

• GAME Manitoba – Resources » edurealms.com

  Here are my resources from my keynote and workshop sessions at the 2019 Gaming Association of Manitoba Educators conference. Feel free to use these resources, and please give attribution, especially if you find them helpful!

• One Page Dungeon by watabou

• Study finds insufficient evidence of gaming as a clinical disorder | VGC

• The Nerdy Teacher: The Pressure of Failing #PBLChat #EdChat

  One of the things I have learned over the years with project based learning is that some students are willing to take a risk and try something new to demonstrate their understanding of a topic and others will play it safe and stick to tools and reso…

• Control Alt Achieve: 15 Awesome Article Sites for Students

  Current event and general interest articles are a wonderful resource for students. They can be used for researching a topic, staying informed on what’s happening in the news, pleasure reading, and more.

• Planning a Station Rotation for Your English Classroom |

  “What are students doing in the stations that are not the teacher-led station?” I field a lot of questions like this. Teachers want to know what types of activities I incorporate into station rotation lessons.

• Avoiding Plagiarism – Paraphrasing | Academic Integrity at MIT

  Lester Thurow (1993) maintains that because Americans see globalization simply as a bigger form of their own economy, they are less concerned about it than is the rest of the world. Why is this acceptable?

• (PDF) Gamification in Education: A Systematic Mapping Study | Gennady Agre – Academia.edu

• Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: Heavy Rain, Strong Warm Front, Flooding, and Model Problems

  The last 24-h has brought some record-breaking rain to parts of Washington, with flooding on some rivers. And it reveals a problem with our best weather forecasting models. The cause of all the weather action? A strong warm followed by an atmospheri…

• how-to-create-classroom-templates-in-google-docs-and-slides

• A Tool to Help Schools Go Paperless – Class Tech Tips

  The idea of going paperless isn’t about a buzzword. It’s about making the most of your time and staying organized throughout the school year. There are definitely times when you and your students will want to have a pencil in your hands.

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Halloween Writing Contest for Middle School Students

  A couple of weeks ago I shared a selection of Halloween-themed ELA articles available through ReadWorks. As Halloween gets closer, it’s only nine days away, consider having your students participate in a Halloween writing contest that ReadWorks is h…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Fall Back! – Lessons on the End of Daylight Saving Time

  Fall is full of great things like colorful leaves, fresh apple pies, and Halloween candy! But there is one thing that I don’t like about fall in Maine. That is the lack of sunlight in the morning. As I write this at 6:37am it is still dark outside a…

• Interactive History Class 2019 – Teacher’s Log #3 (Week of 10/21) | Gaming the Past

  Disclaimer: often shockingly little/ sometimes no proofreading; just trying to get the ideas out fast and frequently for those interested In the second teacher’s log, I wrapped with a historical problem space diagram for “Courtisans [sic] of Versail…

• how-to-create-a-digital-escape-room-for-your-class-or-pd

• Mo Physics Mo Problems: Portfolio for Reflection

  Using student Flipgrid relfections to drive reflection on how conceptual models have changed over time.

• Speak and Project Lit | Using Comics in the Classroom

  How do we get our students to read? How do we create a culture of reading? How do we increase empathy and human connection in an increasingly disconnected world? Project Lit has proven to do exactly this and more.

• Add QR Codes to Posters with These Quick Steps – Class Tech Tips

  Do you use QR codes? Do you make posters? In this blog post, I’ll share tips on how to create QR codes and how to add QR codes to posters. We’ll start off with the what, then the why, and finally the how. With these quick steps, you can start adding…

• Ghost Whisperer – Yummy Math

  As the Halloween season begins, let your students play a spooky game. How does this work? This activity can be used with any grade level elementary through high school.  Younger students might work with patterns, multiples and order of operations.

• 3 Reasons Every School Should Have An Esports Team • Teched Up Teacher

  In 1998, when I was in 8th grade, Blizzard released Starcraft. Starcraft was my first introduction to esports. My friends and I loved Starcraft. We would bring our computers to each other’s houses and play after school or sports practice.

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

Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)

Great posts from last week:

• Troll Factory

  tags:fake news fakenews fake_news fake-news fake news gbl game

• Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: Northwest Contrails and Global Warming

  The new GOES-17 weather satellite, with its higher resolution imagery, does an excellent job in showing the contrails that often form over our skies. Why did I say, net warming effect? Because contrails both warm and cool, with the warming dominatin…

• Week 2: Connect Through Commenting – Student Blogging Challenge

  Great work on your first week of the challenge! We now have 1480+ students and 136 classes taking part in the challenge. Know anyone who wants to register? We’ll close the registration forms next Sunday 20th October.

• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: Rebuild The World With @Lego_Education

  I recently returned from a trip to Billund, Denmark. To many, a trip to Denmark is one of a lifetime. For me it was especially so as Billund is the home of LEGO. From the time I was a kid I have been surrounded by legos.

• Eliud Kipchoge Shatters Two-Hour Barrier With 1:59:40 Marathon

  He did it. Eliud Kipchoge’s quest to become the first sub-two hour marathoner— through whatever means necessary— is complete: the 34-year-old Kenyan ran 1:59:40 on Saturday in Vienna, Austria, at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge. That equates to 4:33 per mi…

• Boring stories, missing voices, and 7 tools for Indigenous Peoples’ Day | History Tech

  Several days ago, a group of us got together to do some Inquiry Design Model creation. And one of our conversations focused on the interactions between indigenous people and European colonists during the early years of the United States. That led to…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Educandy – Quickly Create Educational Games from Word Lists

  Educandy is a near service that I recently learned about from Eric Curts. As I mentioned in this week’s episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast, Educandy strikes me as a slightly more polished version of Flippity.

• Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog: Triumph in Northern California

  This was a historic day. Today there was a major Diablo wind event to California, with winds gusting to 70-80 mph from the northeast in favored locations.

• GTP Designer Talk 4 – Richard Bodley Scott | Gaming the Past

  In this episode I talk with designer Richard Bodley Scott about his ancient battle game, Field of Glory 2.

• Voice guidance in Maps, built for people with impaired vision

  Building a more helpful Google Maps for everyone I hope this new technology will give more people added confidence when navigating unfamiliar routes–after all, building for everyone is core to our work at Google.

• Using Games to Help Reluctant Readers and Writers (and More) @coolcatteacher

  Dr. Lee Graham is working with teachers to teach them principles of game-based learning to teach writing. Her anecdotes of classroom behavior-changing results are – pardon the pun – game-changing. Learn more.

• Encourage Play, Don’t Force Fun – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert

  I’ve said it here many times, you can’t force people to have fun. Putting a pool table in the coffee room, forcing everyone to play an online game and join a leaderboard, team building games during inductions etc. All generally seek to force you to …

• 12 Signs You’re Afraid of Your WIP

  Writers are regularly intimidated by what might seem the oddest thing: the work that springs from their own minds. If you have days when you seek a reason to do anything but write, you may be one of them.

• Harry Potter Is Always in Season: 3 New Books From the Wizarding World – GeekDad

  In our nerdy home, it wouldn’t be the Christmas season (November 1-December 31, as far as I’m concerned) without a bit of Harry Potter.

• Free Teacher Lesson Plans for Red Ribbon Week – Class Tech Tips

  This post is sponsored by Responsibility.org’s Ask, Listen, Learn: Kids and Alcohol Don’t Mix program. All opinions are my own. Have you used online resources to help students understand the dangers of underage drinking? Red Ribbon Week takes place …

• choice-stories-in-google-slides-how-to-ideas-for-class

• Free Technology for Teachers: Find Halloween ELA Articles on ReadWorks

  Last week I shared a Halloween-themed physical education lesson and instructions on how to find and modify Kahoot games about Halloween. Those of you who are looking for Halloween-themed stories to use in ELA lessons could do well to turn to this co…

• The Nerdy Teacher: No Grades and The World Did Not End #MakerEd

  I started a new class this year in the middle school. It is a design and innovation class that is supposed to help students explore problem solving and critical thinking skills. One of the things that I wanted to really explore was a class free of g…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Learn Javascript Fundamentals and More With Google’s Grasshopper

  About eighteen months ago Google published a mobile app called Grasshopper. Grasshopper was created as an app for students to use to learn to code on their Android phones or iPhones. Today, Google announced that you can now use Grasshopper in the we…

• Free Technology for Teachers: VidReader – Create Searchable Transcripts of YouTube Videos

  A couple of weeks ago I published a blog post and a video about a neat service called SnackVids. SnackVids has since been rebranded as VidReader. With its new name VidReader does the same thing that SnackVids did.

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Fixing One of the Biggest Accessibility Issues: Color Contrast

  Part of making content accessible includes ensuring that the contrast ratio is set to be fully accessible to anyone. Inaccessible color contrast is the top issue for digital content, but fixing it, or having it right from the start, is easy.

• Classroom Libraries and Student Involvement – Reading By Example

  The following is a comment I left on a post by Donalyn Miller for Nerdy Book Club. I will share more of my thinking later this week on the topic at readbyexample.substack.com. Thank you for sharing your reading life and how you came to this point as…

• Writing is a Labyrinth of Choices

  Your phone rings. You check the screen. You don’t recognize the number. Do you answer it? The cars in front of you on the highway slow down, their brake lights glowing. The traffic is gridlocked up ahead, but there’s an exit just before. Do you take…

• Roleplay Safe Words: The Blurry Line in Classroom Simulations – Classroom Powerups

  Sorry for the cheeky clickbait headline but (1) I think this a pretty important topic and (2) I hope readers will help me bring this blurry line into some focus. As a middle aged straight cisgender white male I know I am bound to have some blinders …

• Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Handy Google Slides Features You Might Be Overlooking

  Like any good presentation tool Google Slides has lots of little features that often go overlooked even by students who have used it for a long time.

• My Latest BAM! Radio Show Is On Best Tips For Grading | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

  How to Better Align Grading With the Way Students Really Learn is the title of my latest ten-minute BAM radio show. Alfonzo Gonzalez joins me in the discussion, and he has also contributed a written commentary to my Ed Week Teacher column.

• how-to-talk-to-teens-about-vaping

  Vape pens are easy to conceal, they’re easy to confuse with other electronic gadgets like USB flash drives, and they generally don’t leave lingering smells on clothes. All these things make them appealing to underage users, and confounding to parent…

• Halloween Books for Kids & Spooky Teacher Gifts – Class Tech Tips

  In today’s blog post, I’m kicking off October with plenty of favorites for you! This collection includes favorite Halloween books for kids you can grab in digital and print format. You will also find a few spooky teacher gifts.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Lesson Plan Submit – A Handy Tool for Reviewing Lesson Plans

  Lesson Plan Submit is a Google Docs add-on that is designed to make it easy for student-teachers or teachers to submit lesson plans for someone else to review. That other person could be another teacher or a supervisor. Lesson Plan Submit is easy to…

• Free Technology for Teachers: Online Safety Tip Sheets, Posters, and More

  October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Stop.Think.Connect. has a large collection of posters, tip sheets, and videos that you can use to promote good online safety practices in your school or office.

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