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Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Educandy
Educandy is a wonderful site for creating educational games. Educandy is a very easy to use and all a educator has to do is enter the questions for and Educandy turns them into educational games/activities (i.e. matching, word search, memory, etc.).
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Climate Sense: Arctic burns as climate issues gain political attention | Watching Our Water Ways
It’s next to impossible to keep up with all the new information coming out about climate change, but I thought I would share some new reports that I found interesting. For the first three months of this year, I provided a weekly report called “Clima…
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Relationships are the most important factor in your effectiveness as a teacher and your student’s success! Knowing students and them confiding in us and working with us and their peers helps us figure out their interests, strengths, insecurities, st…
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Why Writing Sucks and We Need to Talk About It – Pernille Ripp
Six years ago, I wrote a piece on here called, Why Reading Sucks and It’s Ok to Talk About It. It has shaped my work ever since. It has become a defining feature of what I believe in when it comes to the work we help students do in our year of readi…
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Design Posters and Print Them With a Standard Printer
I got my first “back to school” email this week which was a jolting reminder of just how quickly time flies during summer break. The “back to school” email that I received was from a classroom supplies and classroom decorations vendor.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Lewis & Clark in Google Earth – And Lesson Plans for K-12
This morning while browsing through Google Earth looking for a resource about sharks for Shark Week (I found it) I came across a Google Earth voyage about Lewis and Clark.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Five More Handy Features of Google Keep
Last week I published a video that highlighted ten handy features of Google Keep. Since then a few people have emailed me to point out other features that I should have included in that video.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Three More Recommended Resources for Teaching Civics and Government
Earlier this week I published a blog post in which I shared the resources that I shared with a reader who had emailed me seeking my recommended resources for teaching civics and government. I made that list completely from memory.
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Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Quick Rubric
Quick Rubric is the wonderful site for creating rubrics from the creators of Storyboard That. This is far and away the easiest site I’ve seen for creating a beautiful rubric where a user can add a row or a column w/ a tap of an arrow button. Everyth…
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Tip of the Week: Six Super Sweet Social Studies Strategies for Back to School | History Tech
It’s been an awesome week! Jump started it on Monday working with a small group of middle school and elementary teachers in the great state of Arizona. And am bookending it today and tomorrow with the fantastic staff at Rockdale County schools outsi…
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Sewage spill in Seattle triggers warnings in Kitsap County | Watching Our Water Ways
It was a tale of two health advisories that created a bit of confusion in Kitsap County following a major sewage spill last week from King County’s West Point treatment plant.
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Interactive step-by-step guides and troubleshooting | Stonly
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Innovation is all about keeping up with the tech, right? – Inspiring learning
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What I am Learning from Playing Fortnite with my Daughter – Gamified UK – #Gamification Expert
It all started when my 12-year-old daughter noticed it was on my PC. I had downloaded when it first came out, but after one go, decided it wasn’t for me. However, it had been quietly updating in the background, just waiting for my return.
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How to Empower Student Writers this School Year – Class Tech Tips
When you think of the word empower, what comes to mind? Well, I often think of helping someone find their voice or independence, or giving someone space to grow and shine. I sat down with the folks behind Empowering Writers at the ISTE Conference in…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Three Recommended Resources for Teaching Civics and Government
Yesterday I received an email from a reader who was looking for my recommendation for a few resources for teaching a government or civics course. The following are the recommendations that I made.
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Single Post | ARVRinEDU | Jaime Donally | Professional Development
Some elements on this page did not load. Refresh your site & try again. Recent Posts Some elements on this page did not load. Refresh your site & try again. Archive Some elements on this page did not load. Refresh your site & try again. Tags Some el…
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Free Technology for Teachers: The 6,000 Calorie Challenge – A Lesson in Sports Nutrition
At the end of June I completed a double century bike ride and in the process ate as much as I possibly could without feeling sick. What I ate was nothing compared to what a professional cyclist consumes during the Tour de France which I’ve been watc…
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Jan Resseger: Eight Essential Facts About Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The Charter Industry has led a sterling marketing campaign to persuade the public that they are public schools, that they are far better than “traditional” public schools, and that they are hotbeds of innovation. None of this is true. They are priva…
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The Nerdy Teacher: Don’t Forget the Introverts #EdChat
I’ve been seeing lots of tweets flood EduTwitter about reaching out to the shy students and engaging every single child because they just need that one teacher to be the one to save them from their silence. The savior complex is just gross at this p…
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Add Alt Text to Images and Videos in Google Slides
Alt text is text that you can add to images and videos to describe what they are and or what they contain. Adding alt text can make your materials that you post online more accessible to more visitors.
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Fisheries innovations credited with West Coast groundfish recovery | Watching Our Water Ways
The dramatic recovery of many groundfish species along the West Coast is a testament to the innovation, cooperation and persistence by fisheries managers and fishermen alike under the landmark Magnuson-Stevens Act of 1976.
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Developing a Community of Inquiry in Your Blended Classroom |
A consistent theme in my work on blended learning is shifting students from passive consumers in the classroom to active, engaged members of a learning community.
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Randi Weingarten: Corruption and Mismanagement in Puerto Rico | Diane Ravitch’s blog
WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement on the mismanagement of Puerto Rico’s public schools by Gov. Ricardo Rossello and former Secretary of Education Julia Keleher:
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Free Technology for Teachers: Crowdsourcing Civil War Document Transcription
Last fall the Library of Congress launched a new online initiative called Crowd. As the name implies, it’s a crowdsourcing project that anyone who registers on the LOC Crowd site can participate in.
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Summer Reading: Ambitious Science Teaching | Science for All
If you are anything like me, then the very end of July and beginning of August is a time when you start thinking about getting back to your “school brain”.
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Starting With Writing Identity First Rather than Writing Skills – Pernille Ripp
As I plan our first exploration for the coming year, one that dives into personal essays, I have been thinking about the writing experience itself. About how personal it is. About how draining it can be.
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Tools for Social Annotation in the Digital Age | Edutopia
There are many tools for social digital and web annotations, including Genius, which is built into the Washington Post’s digital platform. (Genius began as Rap Genius, where a community of rap music fans interpreted, debated, and annotated lyrics.
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Avatar and Star Wars in Social Studies | Using Comics in the Classroom
In my social studies class, we often discuss how pop culture mirrors events in society and that comics, tv shows, music, art, literature, and movies can thus be considered as societal artifacts.
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Assessment Practices and Transforming Our Relationships to Power – Shifting Phases
Today at the American Association of Physics Teachers summer meeting, I presented a 30 min talk on how assessment practices can start to transform our relationships to power — inside and outside the classroom.
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10 Ways To Integrate Technology In Your Class – e-Learning Infographics
If location is out of reach due to logistical issues, you can simulate a virtual trip by using a wide variety of augmented reality apps. To make it easier to give lessons and presentations, use a tool that tracks and displays classroom noise.
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Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: Managing And Protecting Digital Identities
It started with some tweets. I was hurt, confused and shocked. What had I said or done to make people say these things to me? And they came in a flood. Over and over for several days, several years ago.
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Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: BitDegree
BitDegree is a nice site for online tutoring where students can go to find a tutor on a wide range of subjects (i.e. programming/coding, etc). Also, this is a great place for educators looking to earn some extra income by becoming an online tutor.
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Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Stonly
Stonly is an innovative new site that educators can use to create interactive step-by-step guides for their students. This is great way for teachers to introduce topics, create digital handouts, and reinforce for student’s learning.
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Steve Hargadon: Announcing the Library 2.0 “Emerging Technology” Mini-Conference
Ida Arlene Joiner is the Senior Librarian at the Universal Academy in Texas. She is the author of the book Emerging Library Technologies: It’s Not Just for Geeks (Elsevier, 2018). Her forthcoming book on Drones in Libraries will be available in July…
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How I use comic books as a learning tool in my social studies classroom | PBS NewsHour
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Column: How bringing comics into the classroom made me love teaching again | PBS NewsHour
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The Surprising Benefits of Student-Created Graphic Novels | Cult of Pedagogy
This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. There is no shortage of ways we all can benefit from teaching graphic novels.
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Representation In Comics | Using Comics in the Classroom
On 7/21/2019, Marvel announced, at San Diego Comic Con, that a new Thor movie would be released in 2021, starring Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Thor.
Tag Archives: writing
Sharing Diigo Links and Resources (weekly)
Here are more great blog posts from this past week:
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African Elephant – Change Over Time |
This activity was created for an evolution unit in an intro biology class (1 semester class) where I wanted to include a little bit of ecology and conservation science.
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How To Handle Students Who Question Your Classroom Management – Smart Classroom Management
It can feel, depending on their tone of voice, disrespectful. It can feel as if they’re trying to put you on the spot. Or make you squirm.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Kids US Atlas – Learn About Animals of the United States
Kids US Atlas is an iPad app that features an interactive map of the United States. On the interactive map you will find twenty-five animals that are indigenous to the United States. Tap on the animals to read about them, to hear about them, and to …
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Make Videos Autoplay in Google Slides
Earlier this week I received an email from a reader who wanted to know if it was possible to make videos automatically play in Google Slides. It is possible to do that if you set the video properties to automatically play when slides advance.
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Free Technology for Teachers: DIY Emojis
Emoji Builder is a fun little site for making your own emojis. To design your own emoji on Emoji Builder you simply pick a base face then add on eyes, mouth, and accessories from menus on the site. When you’re done designing your emoji you can downl…
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Fun Apps for Designing and Printing Characters to Tell Stories
Years ago I learned about the Foldify iPad app from one of my students who had used to create characters and buildings that he printed on thick paper then folded into shape.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Math is Visual – Videos Demonstrations and Illustrations
Math is Visual is a website that features videos and images that are designed to help students understand mathematics concepts. There’s more to the site than just some videos and pictures. With every video you will find written directions for using …
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Free Technology for Teachers: Introduction to Using Google Expeditions in Your Classroom
Google Expeditions is one of my favorite virtual reality apps for students and teachers. The app provides hundreds of virtual reality experiences for students. There are VR experiences that can be used in social studies, science, and art classes.
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However, in 2018 the shirt was kelly green which drew me in, as green is my favourite colour. I read the price tag and learned that “the shirt” is a student initiative and the proceeds go back into student activities and assistance. At $18 USD it wa…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Reminder – Empty Your Google Drive Trash Bin
People who use Google Drive through a G Suite for Education account don’t have to worry about running out of storage space as G Suite for Education provides unlimited storage.
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Respect difficult problems | Seth’s Blog
They’re difficult because they resist simple solutions. Glib answers and over-simplication have been tried before, and failed. People have tried all of the obvious solutions. They haven’t worked. That’s why we’ve resorted to calling them difficult p…
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10 Teacher-Tested Strategies to Engage Reluctant Writers – John Spencer
A few years ago, my son opened a Google Document and started typing. I asked him about it and his eyes lit up as he described the shared story he was writing with classmates. This was the first day of summer break but he was choosing to write for fu…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Try Pexels Videos to Find Green Screen Backgrounds
Making green screen videos can be a fun way for students to share what they’ve learned through research about a place or event. And it’s a great way for kids to make their own weather forecast and newscast videos.
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Geometric Constructions as puzzles – The Reflective Educator
Geometric constructions are amongst my favourite things to teach in Geometry. Why? I see each geometric construction as a puzzle to be solved and I love watching children solve puzzles and share their solutions to those puzzles.
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Free Technology for Teachers: WWF Free Rivers – An Interactive, Augmented Reality Story About Rivers
WWF Free Rivers is a free augmented reality iPad app produced by the World Wildlife Foundation. The app uses augmented reality to present a story about rivers. In the app students learn about the importance of free-flowing rivers in world.
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Mo Physics Mo Problems: The Fast & The FabLaburios
Fighting the Inertia of a Traditional Classroom
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Free Technology for Teachers: A Couple of Thoughts About Flipgrid Stickers
A couple of weeks ago I was at a conference to present on the topic of formative assessment. Flipgrid was one of the tools that I mentioned in my presentation. After my presentation a nice woman asked me for my thoughts about the stickers and drawin…
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Gamification – Integrating Game Mechanics into Your Teaching | CoreyRayJones
Have you earned Gold status using the Starbucks app? Are you one of the 100 million monthly active users on Waze? Do you have a Fitbit or work towards closing your rings on your Apple Watch? Have you tried to learn a language using an app like Duoli…
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Free Technology for Teachers: An Update on FormRecycler – And How to Use It
This morning I received a question from a viewer of my YouTube channel. The question was about the Google Forms add-on called FormRecycler. The viewer was attempting to use the add-on but was repeatedly getting the following error message, “Error: R…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Try Flipgrid as an Alternative to a Classroom YouTube Channel
Whenever I lead a workshop or webinar about classroom video projects I always talk about the importance of respectfully sharing students’ videos online. That often leads into discussions about YouTube privacy settings and alternatives to using YouTu…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Wonderscope – An Interactive Story App for Kids
Wonderscope is an iPad app that uses augmented reality featuring stories that students interact with through voice and touch. Students position animations and interact with story animations by moving their iPads and reading the lines that appear on …
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Bridge the Gap: The NCCE ISTE Educator Certification – NCCE’s Tech Savvy Teacher Blog
“The geography of our organization now depends on where you’re standing,” says Dr. Heidi Rogers. Technology bridges the gap that geography makes wide. When teaching and learning span the world, how do you plan and assess success? That’s where the IS…
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The Guide to Google Drive Sharing
Kasey Bell is an award-winning digital learning consultant, speaker and blogger with a passion for technology and learning. Kasey offers engaging staff development for all levels of educators, specializing in training, presentations, keynote speakin…
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Simplify Technology with Limits : zen habits
It’s designed to do that: tech companies are motivated to keep our attention in their apps, their websites, their devices.
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Free Technology for Teachers: A Searchable Index of G Suite Updates
If you want to keep up with every update that Google makes to G Suite for Education, take a look at the What’s New in G Suite? searchable index. What’s New in G Suite? is a table of recent updates and changes to all of the core G Suite products. You…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Free Math Lesson Plans from NASA
Space Math is a NASA website containing space-themed math lessons for students in elementary school through high school. You can search for lessons according to grade level or mathematics topic. The bulk of the materials seem to be PDFs of direction…
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7 things our kids should be learning in history class. Or not. | History Tech
In a couple weeks, me and 18 other social studies teachers, district level curriculum coordinators, state education consultants, and other assorted interested individuals will get together to rewrite the state’s social studies standards. Rewrite is …
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Free Technology for Teachers: Speakd – Listen to Your Google Docs
Speakd is a free Google Docs add-on that will read your documents aloud. When you have Speakd installed in Google Docs you can open the add-on and press play at any time to hear your document read aloud.
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Top Chef: Create a Fun Gamified PD “Event” for Your Teachers
Allison Starling has an awesome idea for teacher professional development! She creates two “PD Events” at different times during the year and creates a game to encourage learning at her school. I loved this idea so much that I’m using it at my schoo…
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Control Alt Achieve: Learning Music, Art, Science, Math and more with Chrome Music Lab
When I used to teach middle school math, one unit I always loved to do each year was my “Music and Math” unit. We explored lots of connections between music and math, while learning about fractions, exponents, prime factorization, and more.
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Free Technology for Teachers: A Fun App for Learning About Money
Money Math Duel is an iPad app and Android app designed to help students learn to count currency. The app is unique in that it allows two students to use it at the same time. Students place the iPad between them and each has his or her own end of th…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Getting Started with G Suite – Mysteries Solved with This New eBook
This is a guest post from Avra Robinson (@AvraRachel), Director of Online Learning for EdTechTeacher.
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Free Technology for Teachers: PBS Kids ScratchJr – Scratch With a PBS Twist
PBS Kids ScratchJr is a PBS Kids-themed version of the popular ScratchJr app. PBS Kids ScratchJr is available as a free iPad app and as a free Android app. The app is designed to help five to eight year old students learn basic programming concepts …
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Why Engagement is Crucial to Empowerment but Empowerment is Still the Goal – The Principal of Change
I have written about engagement and empowerment often in the last few years, and it is something that I am passionate about in education.
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A Principal’s Reflections: The Skinny on Hashtags
Upon getting on Twitter in 2009, I was not only baffled about how to use the social media site but also about all the symbols associated with it. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to using these in any messages whether long or short. One of them…
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Reclaiming Handwriting – Pernille Ripp
Every year it seems as if spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have become a little harder for students to master. Despite the great lessons they have had before.
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If you’re an innovative educator you might be wondering which device is best to set up your smart home or classroom.
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Another EducatorAl Blog 