FREE PD
I was actually going to write about a couple of the really good sessions of the Untamed Learning Conference I attended on Saturday and am happy to say- now you can attend any of them- and I can catch the ones I couldn't attend. My favorites, so far - Digital Tools for STEM with Eric Cross and Mari Venturino, and the Student Engagement for Primary Learners (TK-2) with Jennifer Dean and Ben Cogswell. I only got to one of Jennifer and Ben's and plan to catch the other 3. Note: Click on the image or the link below it to register for free access... scroll all the way down to the bottom of their page til you see "Are You Ready?" "Get your free ticket". It's way further down the page than you would expect. What I liked about the sessions I attended... these are educators, who are in the classrooms, either directly teaching or directly supporting teachers. The ideas they present are not theoretical, nor do they generally require paid apps, fancy equipment, etc. You can actually do these with your students.
We've opened up our live, virtual conference - Untamed Learning for FREE to all educators! We want this to be a day of learning that supports educators where they are now and in preparation of moving into the Next Normal. So, at Untamed Learning you'll get:
Google Updates
Trying to keep up with Google updates has always been kind of like herding cats, but this last month or so... pretty close to impossible. I depend on the Google Edu pages and try to catch the folks from Fried.Tech every week. Below is today's slide deck- just click on the image and the recording on Youtube.
What really stood out today: 1. Originality reports. This is rolling out for the next school year, and the free version only gets 5 reports, but paid is unlimited (I think). The part that I liked- it is not just for teachers to say "gotcha!" If the teacher has enabled it, the students can check their work before turning it in. It is meant to be a learning experience, not just a way to catch cheaters. The other part that will be rolling out is a way to check student/student work. Not really sure how this will work- but essentially is meant to prevent kids from last year's class just passing along their papers to a new class. But- no work is shared outside of your district... unlike turnitin, etc. This will use your data, in your accounts to check. 2. Rubrics There was a lot of good info shared, and they did a demo of how to create a rubric, but the cool piece, you and your department can create a shell class- no students- and work together to create rubrics, which you can then access and attach to your assignments/edit as needed.
Micro:bit PD
I attended this virtual training last week and thought it was one of the best Micro:bit trainings I have seen so far. Excellent ideas, great pacing. Whether you are new to Micro:bit or if you have some experience-check out the slides and the great opportunities from Project Invent. This is theslide deck, therecording, and a link to thepadlet with all the referenced links.
Ideas to Share
BreakoutEdu
I love this quick little puzzle you can play with your students. It a perfect 5 minute do now or as something for students to work on while waiting for the Zoom or Meet to begin. If you want to do the digital version, it's quick and easy to assign (HES- we have a subscription) or try the kit version- way more setup and probably not something we can do right now... Adam says they will be putting one of these out every week.
UnboundEd
Having conversations in your school about race and equity? This bias toolkit may help. Or check out the resources on the Wakelet below, shared recently by Terri Eicholz.
You can download the free bias toolkit from Unbounded.org. Click the image below to find out more.
Jamboard Version History
Alice Keeler, as well as Richard Byrne and others wrote about the new version history for Google Jamboard. This is rolling out over the next couple weeks. One thing that is different about jamboard version history, compared to docs, is that it will not show you who did what- only who was on the document, as well as allowing you to restore to a previous version.
Wordtune
Richard Byrne recently wrote about this chrome extension, one that I have not tried. It is called Wordtune and can help students revise their writing. Check out his post and the video below.
LightSpace is an app which came out a couple years ago, but that I had never heard of until I read this blog post from @MerrillsEDU. Check it out.
Here's the short version: " LightSpace is an AR (augmented reality) iOS app that allows you to turn your surroundings into a canvas. Using LightSpace’s tools, you can record a video and add things like drawings, shapes and various effects right into the shot. The best part is if you walk away from your drawing, LightSpace maps the room. So, if you walk back towards your drawing, it will reappear! This is a great way to capture engagement and build interACTIVE activities."
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Looks like I seem to revisit these resources every couple of years. I have included 4 wakelets at the end of this post which contain a wealth of resources to check out for this month... or anytime.
I wrote about this in March of 2019, as well as 2017 and included long lists of resources. You can check out the 2017 post out here, and the 2019 post here. You can look back at the post on Women and Girls in Science here. This year we are celebrating the first female Vice President in the United States. It still both amazes and depresses me to have made both so much progress in my lifetime, and such slow incremental progress.
Always a great place to start, you can find an incredible assortment of lessons, videos, images and information at
https://womenshistorymonth.gov/. This site pulls in resources from the LOC, from The Smithsonian, from The National Art Gallery and more.
Microsoft has put together a really cool immersive gallery for Women's History Month. You can check it out here. You can check it out here. You can also sign up for this experience with your class. The signup info ishere. You're looking for "Microsoft's Legacy Project Virtual Museum "Women's History Month Experience” Workshop". They have 1 hour or 2 hour, happening daily all month.
Nearpod has a nice selection of lessons to choose from. Click here to check them out.
Facing History has 9 great ideas to explore for Women's History Month. Click here.
Women in Science
Breakthrough films and SciFri have an amazing collection of short videos featuring women in science. Check out the site or the YouTube Channel
Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr offer more ways to learn about famous women in history. Check out their ideas for educators here or here.
Learning for Justice reminds us to go beyond the famous firsts and to recommit to teaching about persistent women. Check out their resources here.
PBS has some great short videos to teach about women in history. Check out their resources here.
Looking for books for younger readers? You can usethis collection on Epic or create your own to share with your students.
You can download and print the entire timeline of Women in STEM from
Science with Sophie. Check it out here.
A 29 video playlist of Read-alouds for Women's History Month. If the video only shows one and stops, here's the link to the whole playlist. I did add various versions of some books, so pick and choose if you'd like. I may add more as I have time. Feel free to suggest links in the comments.
Here's a Women's History Month Spotify list from Emily's List. Enjoy.
I did not create these Wakelet collections. Thanks to rfluegel, RoseLuna706 and AllieTheLibrarian for publicly sharing their collections. The last one is gigantic- from the Westborough Public Libraries. Note that most of these books are available via C/W Mars libraries.
Today is the day to celebrate reading! I never thought it would be anything controversial, but some really wonderful things have come out of the ongoing Seuss controversy. Many teachers and librarians are working hard to diversify their collections. Working to recognize the limitations of our collections, of the selections we choose for our classes is important. There are now some excellent resources to help teachers do this.
NEA has created a site to help you find more resources, whether you are in person or doing this virtually.
Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) has created several tools to help include diverse voices in your collections. You can read more about that here.
Reading Rockets has a nice list of links to check to help you diversify your collection, partnering with NEA and with Colorín Colorado
Check it out here.
Colorful Pages offers a different approach, with a unit plan and a series of books to read all week. Check out their info here.
Take some time to explore books read by the authors.
Ideas to Share
Scratch has a new place to play with new features called Scratch Lab. I was reading about this in an article on medium. There are a couple of cool new blocks to play with- Animated Text blocks and this interactive Face Block. Click on the video link below to go try it out yourself...
or go to https://lab.scratch.mit.edu/face/ or https://lab.scratch.mit.edu/text/
Edcamp Cardigan resources
I didn't get to go to this virtual edcamp over the weekend- but Erin did! I'm sure she will have more to share, but here's a collection of 51 items created by Bruce Reicher @breicher from this day long conference. If you are looking for ideas to diversify your collection- check out the resources below. As always, librarians are the gods and goddesses of organizing information!
Last week I tuned in to watch the announcements about upcoming changes in Google for Education. Little did I know that it was going to be a 90 minute deluge of changes. Everything from the name officially becoming Google Workspace to new pricing tiers, new features and more. I just sat thru yet another 30 minute webinar on these changes. It is simply overwhelming.
If you don't want to deal with these changes right now, scroll on down to a few other Ideas to Share. Here's something I hope will help. John Sowash made up these graphics below and said it was OK to share them. As you can see- lots of changes. I will also link in Eric Curt's post as well as the video update from today and their slide decks. And don't worry if it's too much at once. This link from Google Edu breaks out what is offered in each tier. It will be coming out all year, in phases and you can just concentrate on what you need/care about. I like screen recording on chromebooks, revision history on jamboard, multiple Meet moderators and pre-scheduling breakout rooms. But remember, not everything is in the free version. Check out the video below for more info about that.
Click on the individual images in the gallery below to see each one in detail.
Here's a couple of slide decks... The first one goes with the video above and the second was a link given out in the presentation.
Here is a summary blog post from Eric Curts. Yes, there are more than 50 new or changed features.
Dive in, find out what changes affect you, and can help your students. Ideas to Share
Kiss the Ground
Learning about climate change, environmental issues? I think that this may hit home for some of our farm families who deal with sustaining the soil every day. This excellent movie is now available to show in schools. Kiss the Ground, explores how this crisis can be reversed, explaining that when we regenerate the world’s soils we can stabilize the Earth’s climate, restore local ecosystems, and create abundant food supplies. Check it out.
Tutorial on Actively Learn
This is an excellent tutorial from Sam Kary's New EdTech Classroom for a great tool that can really help all students engage. Adding more interactivity and feedback really makes a difference. Haven't tried Actively Learn? Worth your time to investigate it.
Build your own FlipGrid Frame
Check out the screencastify video below for step by step directions from Kristina Uihlein Holzweiss https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cYlQDsNLWU
Embed a Google Drawing in a Doc
This is from Sarah Kiefer's post, where she said, "I can see some of you scratching your head on this post ... but if you are using a Google doc for your students and want an "interactive" portion, you can! It just takes a little bit of thinking to ensure you keep the interactive part available." Yes, I know this is our February vacation week, but figured that many of you are stuck at home, iced in at the moment, anyway. I spent much of my free time last week attending the virtual MassCUE conference and a bit of the Ohio conference as well. I'm really glad I have til July to get through some of the many excellent recorded presentations for MassCUE as there is simply not enough time in the day. But before I share some of the presentation material that I found really useful, I wanted to share this video from Greg Kulowiec. Record to Slides now has screen recording! This can be a game changer for some of you. MassCUE favs...so farIt's hard to pick out favorites as there are seriously so many to choose from and I have only started to go through all the pre-recorded sessions. A few that stood out for me include Torrey Trust et al's Inspiring Children’s Writing Through STEM Activities & Digital Storytelling, Christina Scilingo's G Suite Sweets (The Sequel), Laura Tilton's Google Forms and Data Studio presentation and I learned a lot about using Microbit classroom from both Melissa Zeitz's presentation as well as Katie Henry's. Katie also showed the integration with Tinkercad, which maybe useful. I cannot share the actual presentations- but have permission from Torrey and Christina to share their slideshows and resource docs. I have referenced some of Torrey Trust's hyperdocs in the past, but had not seen her or the co-authors, Robert W. Maloy, and Sharon A. Edwards present. This was an engaging presentation with excellent examples, which I hope you can glean from the Google Slides link. One of the incredible resources accompanying this is a 30+ page doc of their Digital Connections Toolkit. Don't be overwhelmed... keep the link and check out parts of that interest you as you have time. G Suite Sweets I enjoyed Christina Scilingo's G Suite Sweets presentation; always pick up a few new tricks seeing how others use these tools. The link to her slides is here. Christina also included a link to her incredible Digital Resource Guide. This is yet another document to save and check out. Well rounded list of resources with great examples to follow. Here's another link to some useful example documents. You can follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/msscilingonps Google Forms and Data Studio I have learned a bit about Google Data Studio in the past, but haven't had time to play around with it. This looks like an excellent, easy to use tool. I find it more intuitive than pivot tables, and will make a great replacement for Awesome Table, which is no longer free. This is the link to the slide deck that Laura presented. Check out the links on the slides for great examples to play around with. Laura was careful to give the tips needed to make data cleanup a whole lot easier. This can help you explore and walk you through the steps, or take the FREE beginner's course offered by Google online
And from Ohio- Eric Curts I was lucky to catch Eric Curts' presentation at OETC Ohio Ed conf 21. Now, if you're thinking, ah- I've seen this before... Eric updates his resources- all. the. time. I, too, have looked through all of the resources in Google Tools for Struggling Readers. They change, all the time and I really appreciate a chance to revisit them and pick up some new idea. If you go to his site, just add the document to your google drive. If you make your own copy, you won't get all the updates in the future. Ideas to Share
Jake Miller has a new way to present Google Slides in a partial screen.
Handy tip to have. Valentine's Day
Just in case you still need a little something for ♥ Valentine's Day, here you go...
Christine Dixon and Marla Rosenthal have a Valentine's Paper Engineering Challenge for you. Click on the screenshot below. Remember you can find all of their STEAM challenges here.
♥ Or, how about using some of Christine Pinto's ideas with the littles? Check out her link here.
♥ Need more? Here's a bunch of quick, easy ideas for your classroom.
♥ Or, how about just a kindness challenge? Click on the image, then go to the three dots on the top right to make your own copy.
3D or VR Field Trips
This site was new to me today. It offers you a great way to explore monuments and international treasures. It is from Cyark, which I had never heard of. Explore the National Mall virtually with Monumental Ideas! cyark.org/monumentalide… "Engage students in STEAM based learning with a set of tools to discover and investigate the Lincoln and MLK Jr memorials. Comprehensive lesson plans are provided for K-12 @NationalMallNP"
Click on the link for the game and the lesson plans This is their mission: Ideas to Share
SafeYouTube is now Video Link.
Although I agree that we shouldn't need to have a Black History month or a Women's History month or a Hispanic history month, etc., we still have a ways to go to teach in a more inclusive manner, to tell all the history, of all the people. So, you can click on this link to see past entries, if you'd like, but I pulled together all of the links I had saved more recently into a Wakelet.
Ideas to Share
TEMPLATES
This is yet another week of lots of PD opportunities. The district has a PD day on Friday; today is the first of 3 days of FETC, and today also features NewsLit Camp with CNN. Leslie Fisher is offering 3 webinars this week. Edweb is offering 6 webinars, ranging from STEM to equity, diversity and reading complex texts. So, having one Zoom link open in the background seems to be the way this week is going to roll. But, I wanted to focus on a three really good professional development opportunities I had last week and today. I attended Leslie Fisher's Friday night webinar on notetaking, featuring Knowt and attended quite a few math Fun Factor webinars as well. Media Literacy is something I firmly believe we all need more of, and NewsLitCamps are always informative. Fun Factor MathFirst, Fun Factor Math. I read about Fun Factor in my newsfeed from Smithsonian Tween Tribune. Essentially, they are offering free math PD to K-5 educators, using hands-on materials to teach and reinforce math concepts. The really cool part is that they are also willing to send you the materials to use in your class. The 3 main tenets are: Make it hands-on. Make it engaging. Make it memorable. You can read more about it here. This link will bring you to the current schedule with various webinars listed by grade bands/topics. What I liked about it was the ability to take these lessons and be able to use them whether you are in person, hybrid or remotely. Teaching these concepts in a hands-on manner really helps so many children. One other thing that you will notice if you sign up for any of these webinars, is that they also sprinkle the research findings throughout, as well as offer you a slide deck, and complete directions along with the demo and the materials. Fun Factor is well worth checking out, offering various days and times to suit most. In addition to the Fun Factor math lessons, they also have a Crazy Eights math club with more activities. Oh, and they have an app! Bedtime Math is free. Check it out here. You can also contact them to run a family math night. KnowtI really enjoyed the latest Friday night webinar with Leslie Fisher. This was on tools for note-taking, with a deep dive on Knowt. There are so many tools to help students take notes. I learn something new every time. I had read Richard Byrne's post on Knowt, and talked about it briefly here, back in November, but having the creator of Knowt talk about and show his product...wow! You can see the webinar on demand through the end of the week, here , but only thru 1/29/21-Friday morning 7 am PST. This tool has great possibilities for both educators and students. Teachers can take their notes, or even copy from a website and automatically generate flashcards, quizzes and more. The data you can get is so helpful, showing you how much time your students spend on the quiz question, enabling you to immediately use the data to help re-teach or clarify topics that your students need help on. You can use premade assignments, reconfigure assignments, differentiate assignments and so much more. It is integrated with Google Classroom. It is free. It is being developed every day by students who are still in college as well as Abheek Pandoh, the CEO, who recently graduated from Rutgers. This will link you to the Knowt Team YouTube channel, where you will find full hour webinars, but also a host of short and sweet FAQ tutorials to quickly answer questions. Just need a little help setting up your class- check this quick tutorial link. Finally, a quick repeat of Richard Byrne's video. Newslit Camp with CNNThis is the second NewsLit Camp I have attended. The events of the last several months have reinforced the need for media literacy to be taught in schools. If you need to learn more, click here for the Playlist of Professional Development videos from News Literacy Project. The video featured below is just one of 8 sessions. John Silva and Shaelynn Farnsworth will be presenting tomorrow- 1/27/21 on edweb about conspiracy theories. Resource Folder: bit.ly/NLCResources Highlites of/links from sessions I attended:
Ideas to ShareChristine Dixon over at Make, Design, Innovate has recently offered some fantastic STEAM choice boards on her site. From K/1 thru Grade 5, she and Marla @teachseuss have created Choice Boards to help students- Watch, Make, Create, Learn and Play. You can read all about them and download your own copies here.
This has been a crazy couple of weeks. Emotions run high, lots of uncertainty, COVID numbers increase... hard for both teachers and students to get back into a rhythm of learning. I actually learned a lot this past week, attending the STEM 4 Innovation conference, the Future of CS conference and a Friday night Leslie Fisher webinar on what's new with FlipGrid. Next week brings FETC, a free virtual conference.
Attending virtual conferences, while not at all like meeting people and talking with them in person, has been a great way to stay in touch with other teachers, with what is new in the tech integration world and learning more about how to help teachers with the pivot from f2f to remote learning. I was fortunate enough to snag a ticket to the Future of CS conference and 2 things really stood out to me. One was the role of AI or artificial intelligence in our everyday lives and how we can best begin to or continue to teach these basics to K-12 students. The other was the fact that technology is inherently biased along racial and gender lines. I attended an incredibly informative workshop run by Vicky Sedgwick, Alexis Cobo and Kelly Powers. Vicky has kindly given me permission to share the slidedeck. There are embedded links on the slides and an amazing amount of additional resources linked on the last few slides.
The other takeaway from this conference was from Dr. Nicki Washington's final keynote called, Do You *Really* Want an Inclusive CS of the Future? She points out in example after example that “Racism isn’t a BUG, it’s a FEATURE.” I hope to get access to a shareable recording of this one, as I think everyone would benefit from hearing more about this issue. It was a very powerful presentation. We also received complimentary passes to view Coded Bias- which I also highly recommend.
Ideas to Share
Teaching Social Justice is More than One Lesson
Hyperdocs to help teach social justice. This blog post includes 5 hyperdocs to help students process the recent events and to work through ideas on social justice.
Teaching Social Justice is More than One Lesson
Big Deal Media published a series of articles on Media Literacy today. Images are linked to the resources.
If you are interested in media literacy, be sure to sign up for NewsLitCamp with CNN, coming up on Jan. 26. https://newslit.org/updates/all-educators-newslitcamp-with-cnn-worldwide/
More math...Mathigon is an excellent online math resource. It's "the textbook of the future".
Ideas to Share
Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman YouTube channel has STEM challenges, STEM read alouds and more. Worth checking out.
Tony Vincent tweeted about a new extension that lets you take notes on YouTube videos- side by side.
More Jamboard Ideas from Alice Keeler and Kim Mattina
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AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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