As I was looking through my Wakelet of links I had saved over the last week and most seemed to be focused on STEM. So, after an initial list of upcoming PD, most of what I am sharing this week are STEM resources. Friends who teach bio are looking for ways to do the labs remotely, although the physics teachers at least have some online simulations to use. Hardest to find are activities for elementary science that do not presume that students have access to a bunch of different materials that they may well not have at home or any way to procure. Hopefully some of the various resources can help.
Upcoming PD
My inbox overflows with all sorts of professional development offerings. One that caught my eye is the interview with Ken Burns- happening on Wednesday- tomorrow 4/29. I can't go as I have prior commitments, but maybe you can.
As we look to the future, anarticle on Edsurge seemed to offer a way to start examining how we can remotely do PD for teachers who are now teaching remotely. Their solution seemed to be to use centralized repositories of information. "Instead of talking shop and sharing tips in person, Butts says he and his colleagues have organized and shared links to resources in Google Drive folders that they can all access." This is more or less what we are doing in our district. It's a process.
These are ongoing opportunities that you may want to check out.
EdTechTeacher has been offering a great variety of one hour webinars. I attended one this week on using AR in remote learning. They are offering a couple on using Google Applied Digtial Skills this week.
Mystery Doug & Mystery Science...
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WWF brings Wild Classroom to classroom or to students home
"Connecting educators and parents with the tools and resources they need to help kids explore and understand the world around them. Together we can inspire the next generation to build a future where people and nature thrive!" |
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Seeds of STEM offers great ideas for the younger students. Aimed at early childhood, Seeds of STEM is a year-long problem-based STEM curriculum, developed in alignment with four sets of standards. They have some great weekly curriculum ideas to share as pdfs with your families.
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This is an example from one of the Daily Do lessons called Why are Flowers do Different? You can see the whole lesson here.
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The NSTA Daily Do
"are sensemaking tasks teachers and parents can use to engage their students in authentic, relevant science learning. Students actively try to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design solutions to problems (engineering) using the science and engineering practices. |
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One of my favorites, which I wrote a bit about this a few years ago, is the OK GO Sandbox. The video to the left is from the UPSIDE DOWN & INSIDE OUT lesson. "OK Go Sandbox is an online resource for educators that uses OK Go’s music videos as starting points for integrated guided inquiry challenges allowing students to explore various STEAM concepts."
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The Christa McAuliffe center at Framingham State has an excellent page of curated resources for STEM at home. You can check them out here and look through thespreadsheet ( this document changes daily)
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Create & Learn offers some really interesting courses for kids to learn from some of the best schools in the world. Just pick the course, check the schedule and sign up for free. Created by Stanford, Harvard graduates, and former Tech Leaders at Google & Apple https://www.create-learn.us/ |
STEM Learning Ecosystems has put together an excellent resource list as a spreadsheet and has also reached out to the various ecosystems for even more ideas.
"The STEM Ecosystems Initiative is built on over a decade of research into successful STEM collaborations, and seeks to nurture and scale effective science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning opportunities for all young people." |
Here's the info:
"For many years, Netflix has allowed teachers to screen documentaries in their classrooms... However, this isn’t possible with schools closed. So at their request, we have made a selection of our documentary features and series available on ourYouTube channel. If you are a parent or teacher, please check the ratings so that you can make informed choices for your students and children. For more information and to download accompanying educational resources please visit the Netflix Company Blog."
K-12 Learning Blueprint is a well organized, not overwhelming list of resources for educators. Check it out here.
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OWLS is a site that is curating resources for students, educators and parents. They have pulled together some padlets with information for all subject areas. Easy to use.
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The To-Do List
I wasn't going to include this one, but then realized that with everything else that you have going on , you may not know that it is there. Check out theshort blog post and share with your students if you are just starting out in Google Classroom.
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New to Templates in GSuite?
Check out the Google Teacher Tribe podcast. Then learn more from Kasey in the video below on on her blog. |
https://bit.ly/MathChoiceBoardsK-2
https://bit.ly/ChoiceBoards3-5
https://bit.ly/MathChoiceBoards6-8
The RIO school district over in Oxnard, CA has put out some excellent resources, including a list of printable packets and thisexcellent resource for Math Choice Boards. Again, remember to make your copy of these documents and to credit the authors.
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Laura Rogers K-5 Click here
Rob Baier from Pennsylvania made:Math Choice Boards K-8!
Here is the Crosswalk Document so you can see which CCSS standards these match up with: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WMVie3DAhf71Wq5Km-HWKUeD9OMI7-qb/view
Illustrative Math https://tasks.illustrativemathematics.org/content-standards
YouCubed https://www.youcubed.org/tasks/
NRich https://nrich.maths.org/11993
Dr Paul Swan https://drpaulswan.com.au/teaching-at-home/
I was used to using VM for virtual manipulatives, but have seen a lot of posts lately that mentioned Toy Theater. This is a treasure trove of manipulatives, games and so much more. Check it out.
If you need printables visit https://classplayground.com/category/math/
This is just a screenshot of some, not all, of the vitural manipulative available.
It feels like I am attending anywhere from 1 to 3, 4, or more webinars a day lately. One presenter, aside from Greg and Avra at EdTechTeachers stands out this week, Leslie Fisher. I attended one of her webinars on using Merge Cubes last week, enjoyed that one, so I signed up for one of her book creator webinars this week. Now, I have used Book Creator with kids, and honestly, didn't think I would learn a whole lot. I was wrong. Not only have they added over 200 accessibility features to Book Creator, but Leslie came up with very cool ways to use it- for all ages, not just elementary. I plan on attending another one this coming Friday- Book Creator and Accessibility. You can register for it here. The one I liked the other day is still open "on demand" til Monday 4/20.
Resources to Share
| Commonsense Media has created an excellent resource for teachers, families, students. " Wide Open School is a free collection of the best online learning experiences for kids curated by the editors at Common Sense. There is so much good happening, and we are here to gather great stuff and organize it so teachers and families can easily find it and plan each day. " It is divided up by educator or a family and then by age range and then by topic. Worth exploring by both teachers and families. |
| "MIT FULL STEAM Ahead is a collection of resources that MIT is putting together for teaching and learning online. These are meant as a rapid response to the need for online resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will curate existing resources for K-12, higher education, and workforce learners, as well as provide a weekly package of relevant materials for K-12 students and teachers." Check out these great resources here. Don't forget about the Edgerton Center while you're in the neighborhood. They have great instructables here. |
| Helperbird is a browser extension that gives you the features to make the web more accessible and make you more productive. By providing you with features such as dyslexia fonts, change the font & background color, text to speech, overlays, dyslexia ruler, immersive reader, reader mode and much more. Download the extension for chrome here. It is also available for Edge and Firefox. |
| Choice Boards for all disciplines, for all ages seem to be making a comeback as we search for ways to make home learning work for all. Miguel Ghulin down in Texas does a nice job of going through some of the many possilbiities when using Google Slides as wlll as a basic how to. If you would rather read it than view it- click here |
CoBUILD19 is the Facebook group associated with the folks at Infosys, but actually started by Adam Maltese. Here's part of the blurb for this one, "CoBuild19 - Sharing Activities for Kids and Families at Home was created by educators and researchers to help youth and their caregivers to spend quality time together building and creating'...'The activities are designed to be completed with free or low-cost materials, supplies, and tools found commonly in homes, around communities/neighborhoods, or readily accessible at local stores or ordered online." |
Infosys has opened up their Pathfinders Institute to all. I took the MakerEd courses for a week the last 2 summers out in Indiana and it was worth the time. Looking forward to exploring what they have on offer for all. Just an FYI- it is not all tech, not all CS, not all art, but a great combination of all of these with low-tech, no-tech projects as well. Here's the official blurb: "This virtual classroom allows students, teachers and families to access computer science and maker education content from home in an interactive and engaging online environment. Below are video lessons, links to resources and activities, and opportunities to join live training sessions led by educators and professional development providers. Explore the content and get started today!" |
| National Geographic Explorers offers a live Daily show every day at 2 pm EDT. These are really cool ways to explore from climate change to frogs to following the pathways of the first humans who migrated out of Africa in the Stone Age. Check out the upcoming discoveries just waiting for you here. |
We can do this.
Is it going to be the same? No. Is the same, only at a distance, what our community needs? No. The kids, the parents, all the teachers and admin need to maintain our community- not just the academic learning, but the important parts of the community of people caring and being cared for.
MassCUE -virtual
3/31 - Tuesday @ 8:00 p.m.: Grades 6-12+ Educators - Hosted by John O’Neill and Erin Fisher
4/2 - Thursday @ 8:00 p.m.: Grades PreK-5 Educators - Hosted by Chris Gosselin and Rayna Freedman
The link to join is http://meet.google.com/xjk-cing-ftd
Microsoft teamed up with Matt Miller (Ditch that Textbook) and Holly Clark (The Infused Classroom) to create a site with lots of ideas, and help for teachers. Some of it is crowdsourced, some from Matt and Holly. This is a work in progress and is worth going back to. http://onlinelearningideas.com/ |
Edtechteacher had a series of great webinars last week and they are continuing this week. They are also offering some excellent short courses. CAST is offering a webinar a week, plus a couple of "office hours" zoom meetings you can attend to get more info, ask questions. This week the focus was on reading tools, next week on video and the 4Cs. Check out the schedule and sign up here. Google Hub https://teachfromhome.google/intl/en/ MassCue is offering free subscriptions to Hoonuit- https://www.masscue.org/hoonuitopen/ as well as virtual hangouts Edweb.net- https://home.edweb.net/webinars/ Always one of my first choices for PD. Excellent speakers- always current topics. Amazing collection of archived webinars | |
One of the many webinars I have attended over the last 2 weeks was the SEDTA webinar last night, Supporting Students with IEPs During eLearning Days. After registering, I , along with 8000 others tried to get onto the edweb system. Needless to say, it didn't work. Luckily there is a recording, which you can access at edweb. AEM is offering a series of webinars coming up to help teachers use UDL in their lessons to reach all of the learners.
Here is more info from their page:
The AEM Center is hosting a series of webinars, each providing a deeper dive into a specific topic related to accessibility. Visit our AEM Events page for full details about each webinar.
- Personalizing the Reading Experience: Week of 3/30
- Creating High-Quality and Accessible Video: Week of 4/6
- Creating Accessible Documents and Slide Decks: Week of 4/13
- Making Math Notation Accessible: Week of 4/20
- Tuesdays, 10 – 11:30 AM ET
- Thursdays, 4 – 5:30 PM ET
So what's next?
Ideas to Share
Edtechteacher has put together not only a series of quick webinars for this week, but also has an easy to read page for remote learning. Some of the webinars are happening tomorrow, so sign up quickly if you're interested. |
This is temporary hub of Google information and tools to help teachers during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. It is well organized, not overwhelming. Check it out. If you want/need more- here's Steve Wick's collection... |
This is the original hyperdocs site. Check out Teachers Give Teachers for a searchable database of hyperdocs. Heather Marshall has a great padlet of hyperdocs for novels. There are math hyperdocs, livebinders of hyperdocs and so much more. You don't have to recreate the wheel. | Peterson's Web Page Hyperdocs This site has more hyperdocs than you can shake a stick at. Looking for a quick way to get students started on a topic? These can all be self-paced ways to explore topics. This page has them listed, but then sorted out by topic in the top navigation. Remember if you use a hyperdoc- first- File>make a copy, then go thru and make sure that all the links work- some may not be available to your students and you may have to make changes. Think about distribution- one view only, one for each student...etc. |
If your school is trying to narrow the range of digital tools down to lighten the load, what are a couple of tools that you can learn and teach your students, given a week or two? What do you need? A way to communicate, a way to share lessons and stay connected. Here's a few tools to look at that may be helpful.
But, remember, if we actually have to close school, you can't be messing about learning new tools. Use the tools you and your students know, and lessen the cognitive load, as the whole thing will be stressful enough.
Screen Recording
Screencastify or Nimbus look to be good choices. I haven't used Screencastify in a while, but according to Richard Byrne their latest update was a good one. Check out his post here.help.screencastify.com/ Screencastify is a chrome extension. Get it here.
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Ideas to Share
| This tool came out recently, or I saw it recently... It is a way to remove the background of any video. Think greenscreen without the greenscreen. Check it out here. Or check out Richard Byrne's post about it here. |
| Pear Deck has created some excellent tutorials to show you how to stay connected with their tools. You can create student paced lessons and keep all of your students engaged. Check out more here. |
| Need worksheets? Check out Wizer. "Amaze Your Students With Smarter Worksheets Create and share free interactive worksheets with your students online. Join the Wizer community, share your work and explore content made by fellow teachers." |
So- what did I learn at #EdCampBoston?
My biggest take away by far was a session with Laura Beals D’Elia, one of the tribe of library goddesses on
Diversity in Picture Book Collections.
Laura is now over at Westborough and she has created an amazing padlet of diverse books. She led us through her discovery of how to assess a collection and how she is addressing diversity in her library. Not being a librarian, I hadn't a clue. I wish I lived closer so that I could take her course, sounds like an intense learning experience that we could all benefit from. So- what did she share? Here are the notes that Nancy et al took for the session. Here is the searchable database. One thing to note- this is a database- a list... not a list of recommended books- just a list. You can learn more about the way this came togetherhere. Laura's padlet has various categories, from family and friends to poetry to science. These are books that she has chosen to buy for her school library. Below is just a small sample of what you will find https://padlet.com/lauradelia11/tx9e8r7f2x0z
We started out with using QR codes for sign out sheets- bathroom, hall passes, etc. I have seen various versions of this over the last few years. Since not all classrooms allow student cell phone use- a simple way is to have a spare chromebook with a link for the qr code- or just to the google form for the hallway/bathroom/nurse pass. This will document who signs out- when and where. Joli had a blog post with examples a while back.
A lot of teachers were excited to share their success with ZipGrade and GradeCam- neither of which I have used ( nor anticipate using). If you have a lot of this kind of grading to do, these apps must be a godsend. https://www.zipgrade.com/ or https://gradecam.com/
Teachers seem to promote using the chrome add-on -Pear Deck for Google Slides This is a quick and easy way to change a static presentation into an engaging lesson.
Classcraft in the Classroom from Classcraft on Vimeo.
Kudos from Classcraft on Vimeo.
But, you don't have to travel that far if you live in western Mass, because EdCamp North Quabbin is right around the corner. Check it out here: https://www.smore.com/dhv24-edcamp-north-quabbin-is-coming?
One last thing to share...
Are you celebrating Read Across America day Monday March 2nd? □Try some digital reading and creating with this multimedia text set- https://t.co/5uJ7AGLAVn Feel free to make a copy and edit to fit your needs! @TsGiveTs #HyperDocs #PUSDedu @GoogleForEdu pic.twitter.com/SCDPuEtKpJ
— Lisa Highfill (@lhighfill) February 26, 2020
More Ideas for Black History Month
One of the resources referenced is a film kit -Selma/The Bridge to the Ballot. You can see the trailer here.
Ideas to Share
This was shared on Twitter. What a treasure trove of Google PD! The links to presentations just keep on coming. You can do a deep dive into Googley PD or just a refresh on the basics.
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I was excited to see the post from Tinkercad about using the Smithsonian artifacts as 3D models. I can't wait to go through them and try printing some, or just using the Tinkecad app to display a 3D model.
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Then I saw the post about Smithsonian Open Access and realized that this just keeps getting better! "Welcome to Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo."
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Great Hyperdocs Resources
I was in the first cohort to take the Hyperdocs course, back when the book was published. Since then I have been amazed at all of the wonderful resources freely shared online via hyperdocs.co and so much more. This is a resource shared by Nadine Glikison and teachers at FTCSC. Check it out! https://www.fttechtips.com/hyperdocs.html If you are looking for Middle School hyperdocs, one of my favorites is Heather Marshall who has great hyperdocs for novels and more.
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International Day of Women and Girls in Science
More Black History Month Links
Sciencenetlinks has a nice collection of resourceshere. The Listenwise Blog featured "The 1619 Project: Teaching Resources and Lessons". They have also updated their Stories of Black History page with many new resources. |
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Ideas to Share
Richard Byrne shared a tool that I had not seen called Headliner, as a potential replacement for Adobe Spark. It looks interesting and is on my list to check out. Let me know if you try it! One thing that Richard pointed out that is worth repeating- edu gets the pro version for FREE.
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Wes Fryer posted an excellent resource on copyright the other day. He also shared a slide deck, which you may think is dated... but it actually still useful. I always told my students that "fair use" is a term that is used in courtrooms, and they really did not want to go there. Wes shows an excellent example of Fair Use in his school and explains why this is fair use. In light of the recent fines paid by schools to Disney, well worth reading.
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Using Split Screen
Here's a partial list from my long time friend, my teacher, and outstanding Assistive & Educational Technology Consultant, Karen Janowski. If you haven't checked out her UDL Toolkit or her Executive Function Toolkit- you are missing out!
- Insert Learning - InsertLearning is a Chrome extension that lets you turn websites into interactive lessons.
- Actively Learn - Provides scaffolded support to enhance understanding and comprehension of text. Embed notes, questions and videos into reading, students think, write and collaborate. Awesome tool! Discover what other teachers have created or create your own. Explore the Catalog here by category and filter.
- Explore ActivelyLearn accessibility features here.
- CommonLit - Excellent resource for grades 3 - 12 fiction/nonfiction accessible text. Includes text to speech, highlighting tools, Guided Reading Mode and more. Must explore and use!
- Read Works - resources for teaching reading comprehension to K - 6 learners
Black History Month
https://hadleytechtuesday.weebly.com/tech-tuesday/category/black-history-month
Share My Lesson has updated lessons for 2020 BLACK HISTORY MONTH LESSON PLANS AND RESOURCES |
" Black History Month is here, and it's the perfect time to listen to Code Switch! We've got episodes all about the hidden heroes and buried history of black America. To help you dive right in, check out our new playlist. It's got stories on everything from sports activism, to the Black Panther Party, to one woman's fight for respect that went all the way to the Supreme Court. So as you grind through the middle of winter, listen to our recommendations to be inspired, enlightened and moved."
NearPod has a good selection of lessons for Black History Month for free, and many more if you have a paid subscription |
Flocabulary has made all of their Black History Month collection free for the month. They have lots of different units with great teacher resources. You may find that your students really get into these videos as well. |
| Ever Fi has put together a great course on African American History, aimed at high school age students. It's free and from my quick perusal, looks great. |
Ok, I had never heard of Carol Boston Weatherford, but after reading about all of these books that she has written, looks like I will need to check out her work. You can read more about her and her books on Mia Wenjen's blog |
Brain Pop & Brain Pop Jr offer a wealth of resources to use in the classroom. We are so fortunate to have this resource in our school, but it also looks like most of the resources for Black History Month is free this month. Check it out here. |
Author
Maureen Tumenas
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