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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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. Google sunsetting Tour Creator and ExpeditionsMany of you probably got the email from Google stating that they are retiring Google Tour Creator and Google Expeditions this summer. These are great tools to use, but rather than be sad about the sunsetting of them, Donnie Piercey created this nice tutorial to show you how to do something very similar in PearDeck. Check it out. Wizer AddonFor those who are using Wizer.me for pdf annotation, you may have already seen this, but Wizer just added a Google Drive add-on that lets you quickly convert PDFs that are in your Google Drive into online worksheets on Wizer. Richard Byrne of FreeTech4Teachers explains it all here. Looking for new dramatic ways to present science topics? Check out Frank Gregorio's YouTube channel. "This channel is dedicated to providing teachers and students a powerful new resource to combat student apathy. Here, you will find dramatic, visually stunning video "trailers" in the natural sciences choreographed to powerful music, designed to motivate and inspire students at the beginning of a lesson to the wonders of Biology, Earth Sciences, Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Environmental Science and Math. Over 90 million students and teachers worldwide have seen these videos to date, and their comments highlight their exceptional value to education. " Free Stories and EbooksThis was a new resource for me- Clarkness.com. It is a site with tons of free stories and free ebooks for the beginning reader. There are 1,519 online stories, 117 ebooks and 64 personalized stories available. A similar site: Reading Hawk Library also has free downloadable ebooks and Dolch sight word story collections for the beginning reader, offering 4 ebooks, and 45 story collections. Another incredible teacher created resource for free read alouds is Mrs. Lemansky's Library. Check it out here. These are accessible via Google Slides. She has even more on her YouTube channel. FlipGrid ARHave you explored AR in Flipgrid with your students yet? Try it out with this free offer to make Thanksgiving "REALI-Turkeys" Help your students focus on things they can be thankful for with this fun writing activity. Flipgrid "REALITurkeys" gives students the chance to showcase their voice through the fun of Flipgrid's augmented reality. Simple write, record and then batch download student AR codes from the educator dashboard. Cut, paste and hang to share! Grab the free template here! How do you create FlipgridAR videos? Resources from PBS Learning MediaPBS always offers quality programming and great resources for educators. Have you seen the Learn Along Bingo packets? The Teacher Planning Kits? If not, check them out here.
Need more Turkey?Maytal, over at CreateCodeLoad is offering a free Scratch game, along with complete directions, even videos to help you and your class create a Thanksgiving turkey game in Scratch. Check it out here. Social Studies Links
I shared some of these links over the summer with a few teachers, but they are worth repeating/adding to.
A wonderful friend and talented NYC teacher, Kate Meyer, introduced me to the 1619 podcast. This link will bring you to all the available podcasts. This is the main link to the trailer. Below are some videos to tell you even more.
50 States
Can you identify each state by one photo? Fun quiz for all ages. Studying the 50 states? Regions? Or just for fun. Check it out here.
Free Primary Sources from the LOC
We had an interesting social studies PD with Laurie Risler recently, focused mainly on teaching students to differentiate between primary and secondary sources. Laurie also mentioned this collection from the LOC- free ibooks. I downloaded several of them, but have yet to figure out how to distribute them on a set of ipads via Apple School Manager and Jamf, without having to log into each one with an apple id. If you know the magic, please leave some directions in the comments or email me.
East of the Rockies- AR app plus Learner Kit
This is aimed at high school age students- 12-17. It is an AR app (the cost is either 1.99 or 3.99- I've seen both.) Here's the synopsis: "The East of the Rockies app is an experiential augmented reality (AR) story written by Joy Kogawa, one of Canada’s most acclaimed and celebrated literary figures. The story is told from the perspective of Yuki, a 17-year-old girl forced from her home and made to live in the Slocan internment camp during the Second World War. As Yuki and her family adjust to their new reality inside the camp, they struggle to make life as normal as possible" The author, 84 years old, is a former internee at one of B.C.’s Japanese Canadian Internment Camps.
Disinformation Game
Richard Byrne recently shared a couple of links to two versions of a game called Bad News, used to teach students how to recognize disinformation. One is for older students, one for younger. It looks like a fun way to work on these skills that we all need every day. You can check out his post here.
Links to ShareEL Tech Tools is a google site filled with ideas, especially for EL teachers and their students. Created by Kelly Martin and Josh Harris for an ISTE presentation, you will find a solid selection of tools, nicely sorted into categories.
Different WorldsIt's often hard to talk about world issues with students. We all come to school with different backstories, different issues that we have had to deal with in life. As an educator no one wants to make a student feel vulnerable, or uncomfortable. So, how do you talk with kids about first world problems vs the rest of the world problems? Or do you agree with Patrick Gothman that this sort of thinking is divisive and we should stop saying, "first-world"? How do you address the social inequities that we deal with in the US and compare/contrast them to what others face on a daily basis? The video below is made of combined images from artist Uğur Gallenkuş. You can read more about the images here. Coming soon...GameBender By this time tomorrow, we will all know what this magical new product is, but so far Jay Silver is just sending out teasers. For those of you who have loved using MakeyMakey in the classroom, Jay is one of the inventors. Here's a short blurb from a longer EdSurge article. "According to a project summary from the National Science Foundation, which has given Gamebender $1 million to pilot its wares in museums and schools, the product “is composed of a projection system that allows real-time programmable interactions between everyday and virtual objects without a computer screen.” According to Andrew Sliwinski, Co-director of Scratch, “GameBender will bring the power and magic of coding to kids in a totally new way." CopyRight WoesMy Twitter feed seems to be filling up recently with warnings about copyright violations after a school district in Houston got sued- and lost- big time, to the tune of $9.2 MILLION! I know that some teachers are pretty casual about copyright, using the educational "fair use" clause as a reason not to follow the rules. Back when I taught a grade 9 computer class, one assignment was to create a page for a field guide, in conjunction with a trip to the Everglades. The kids were thrilled to see so many hits on their work, over 4000 for one year's version. I explained to them that that meant that any copyright violation was seen by 4000 lawyers. Fair Use is used in a court room- you do not want to go there. Please review the basic copyright rules! You may be surprised that some of the things you take for granted as OK, really aren't. Check out Richard Byrne's blog post about this here, or watch the video of his webinar with Dr. Beth Holland below.Copyright for Teachers. #InnovatingPlay - #iplay019 Creating a Global Play BoxWhen I saw this slide deck from the #InnovatingPlay, Creating a Global Play Box, I knew that many other teachers would love to see this resource. Jessica and Christine's website/blog posts and twitter chats simply contain a wealth of resources that they have created or have been shared through their PLN. So, check out the slidedeck here- Global Play Box. When you have time to spare and you are looking for amazing ideas for Early Childhood or Elementary curricula, just spend the day following the links on their blog https://www.innovatingplay.world/ STEM Lab ChallengesKarly Moura has done it again! She has created and shared an excellent collection of STEM challenge cards and badges. She gives links to all the instructions and has each task clearly defined. I don't have exactly the same array of STEM stuff that Karly has, but now that I have this slidedeck to use as a template, perhaps I can go through and decide to make some microbit or edison challenge cards. It would be a challenge to make some Cubetto or BeeBot cards- using mostly graphics for the non-readers. As always, Karly makes me think of new ways to use materials and to organize lessons, and provides ideas for assessment. Ideas to Share
Math with Bad Drawings
8 Things Every School Must Do To Prepare For The 4th Industrial Revolution
One Small Step
My friend, Victor Tam, shared this online recently. As educators, we often don't realize how much we influence our students every day, helping them take that one small step. I didn't realize that this story was also nominated for an Oscar. Producer, Shaofu Zhang also hopes that One Small Step can help inspire young girls and women to pursue their dreams in the STEM fields.
Moment AR
Merge cubes have been in the news for the last year or so. They recently won an Award of Excellence for Classroom at TCEA. I picked up a bunch of merge cubes when they went on sale last year, but have not had time to dig into how to integrate them into general ed classes. Also- all of the AR/VR stuff makes me seasick- instant vertigo. I've tried sitting, tried using the fancy Oculus goggles, etc., but I can't do it. Lucky for me, the art teacher next door, Ken Richards, took the materials I have on hand and started exploring to show his grad class. The HES students he has shown this to loved it. We don't have devices to fit into googles for all, and only have a few pairs of them anyway, but we do have ipads. Many of the apps are free. You can learn more about Merge Cubes here... and here. If you have a project you'd like to try out, or if you just want to test it out yourself, stop by and see me. We don't currently have a subscription to co-spaces, which is a topic for another day, but it is easy enough to get trial access.
One of the new free apps that is getting a lot of press and some rave reviews from folks who do AT and SEL is Moment AR. Here is a full demo of Moment AR, an evidence and research based tool using the Merge cube for Autism, Mental Health, Language, and Social Skills. Moment AR: Full Demo from Kevin Chaja on Vimeo. Chromebook Gestures
This was shared recently on twitter by Don Yerks. It is a nice little graphic to show a trackpad checklist with all the basic gestures you and your students can use on chromebooks. Click the image to see the shared gsheet with more info
Finding Images Online
This is probably the topic I get asked to help students with more than just about anything else. Yes, images must be cited. Yes, not all images online are available for you or your students to use. Jennifer Gonzales wrote about this recently and did a really nice job covering all the currently available options in this post. Although I have to say that when students are using Gsuite products the image search feature can be set and I think the default is CC or PD images. But, that said, students often just do a Google Image search and forget to use the filter dropdowns to target their search. I tend to use Pixabay and Unsplash when I am searching for my work.
Ideas to share
*Apex Review
Monica Burns shared a free resource this past week that she has created. "This book is for educators working with students of all ages, especially those in a Chromebook classroom. This free ebook is called Using Book Creator for Formative Assessment: 15 Tips for Checking for Understanding." Read more about it and download this free resource on her blog, then head right over to Book Creator and read more about using Book Creator and Adobe Spark
We are reminded that this week is Assistive Technology Awareness Month by Leslie DiChiara. She shared a great intro to AT video by Chris Bugaj on herblog. Just a reminder, CTD has an excellent library of Assistive Tech resources, including Quick Takes.
Cool Tools
It would be hard for me to decide which one of the new-to-me tools I learned about this week is the coolest.
I really loved Jen Giffen's quick post about PDF Candy. I have the full version of Adobe Acrobat at home, but not at school. It drives me crazy when I need/want to make changes to a pdf and cannot do it right away. This tool may solve that problem. It's called PDF Candy. Just head over to the site, choose what you need/want to do with the pdf and click on it. You upload your PDF, make changes and download it. If you don't want to wait, there is also a free downloadable program for Windows. Check it out here.
Another cool tool I learned about is actually software called Pepakura Designer. It is used to take a 3D file, for example a file from Tinkercad, and"unfold" it to make a 2D paper design which can then be printed and folded. I see this as a great way to do some rapid prototyping vs the much slower and more costly 3D printing. I haven't tried it out yet, but check out Stu Lowe's Tweet.
Merge Cube-Co-Spaces Add-on
This new add-on has been released and so far, it is getting great reviews. I tried Co-Spaces back when it first came out, but it took forever to load for me. Partially because I have pokey internet, but it seemed cool, but clunky. It has come a long way. I am not a huge Merge Cube fan, but I know some teachers- and some students love them and have found great value in using them to demonstrate learning. This new combo sounds great- and easy to do. However, the caveat is that you need a Pro license. This is for a minimum of 30 students and will cost $105/year. Check out the video below and see what you think.
Makeblock's Neuron
A few years ago, I backed the Neuron on Kickstarter. It's still in the box. But, after watching this little guy programming with Neuron and Swift playground, it's got to come out of the box, even if I just bring it to school and let some brilliant students give it a go. If you're wondering- Neuron is a lot like Little Bits- but it seems sturdier to me.
Articles to Ponder
Balance?
Last week I noticed an article by George Couros about balance. I first met George back when Beth Still brought him to ISTE (it may have still been NECC), as the "newbie". Little did I know that Alec's little brother was going to go on to become a rock star educator. But, Balance: This is a goal of mine, so I was interested to see what George said. I was struck by his first paragraph: “Balance is stupid.”
Of course, he goes on to talk more about this and about how he now views balance today. Then I saw another article by John Spencer who delved into this same topic. Take the time to read his whole article. Or... just watch the video below- then go read the whole article, it's worth your time. Google Tour Creator
When I saw the announcement last Wednesday that Google has created a really cool, easy to use tool to make VR tours right on a chromebook, I envisioned using it for a current 4th grade project on regions. Well, we're still waiting for it to roll out for our district. But, I do have access on my personal Google account and will keep checking the domain settings to see when it lands out heah. Essentially, you start here, then you go to Google Maps, street view (grab that little peg man and plop him where you want to look around), use the images found there or upload your own 360° images. So, I decided to test it out by looking around on the Kenai Peninsula where my son is doing some forestry work. Guess what- no roads= no Google street view- duh! But I did check out Yellowstone and found some good street view images there- although of course not everywhere I wanted to see.
But, if you want a couple of really good tutorials- turn to Richard Byrne's blog and learn more. I will put the 1st tutorial below, but he has another one to add even more detail. Check out his second tutorial here. Applied Digital SkillsI posted a video about this back in March, and although I signed up to try it out for Digital Skills Week, life intervened and I didn't get back to it. Since then, I have talked with other educators and some are using pieces of this all the way down to 3rd grade- or at least upper elementary. EdTechTeam hosted a couple of half hour webinars that you can check out on YouTube. There is so much to explore in this well organized system that is already made for you. I loved the clickable pdf that Heather Sanders made. If you have a few minutes, check out a tiny piece of the curriculum- theIf-Then adventure stories are great for all ages. Summer PD
I know- too early to even think about... let me get through the year... BUT I just wanted to let you know that MassCue is sponsoring yet another PD opportunity in Western Mass! This one will also be at Gateway- over in Huntington. Their IT director-Chris Parker- is a Hadley native and I have to say, having met him all of one time at #EdCampWesternMass - he's kind of awesome. Lots of ideas, runs a great program in his district. So- this will be in August. My all time favorite Google Guru to learn from- Jenn Judkins will be there. Honestly, I can sit in her sessions all day long and come away with something new every time. She actually uses these tools, has incredible work flow ideas, and she's funny. It's $65 for the whole day. I can pretty much guarantee that you will come away with ideas that you can use in the classroom, as an admin, etc. Check it out here.
AR/VR
Those of you who know me, know that Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality both make me feel seasick. I can be sitting down, I can hold a 3D image way out away from me, but I am the Dramamine queen. But, that does not mean that I don't see the value in this for some of our students. I have a whole box of Merge Cubes that I picked up when they were on sale at Walmart for $1/each, but haven't had the time to mess around with them. If you have time, stop by- I'll share. I love the Merge Cube educator group on FB. The ideas being shared every day are really amazing.
I was fortunate enough to catch Michael Fricano's webinar on Saturday. It went long- so you can watch the whole hour plus if you have time, or just check out the resources he shared in the Livebinder. He is also consolidating all of the AR/VR stuff into a nice new website- check it out here. |
AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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