Good Changes in JamboardThis past week has brought a couple of great changes in Jamboard. First you can customize backgrounds... and the one everyone was waiting for- revision history! To access revision history on the chromebook: Ctrl Alt Shift H Need to lock items in place on Jamboard? Check it out... Yet more templatesWe are Teachers shared a great collection of 25 Google Slides templates recently. You can check them out here. There have also been some amazing holiday themed google slide decks shared on social media. This Grinch choice board came from [email protected] This Grinch Pear Deck template came from Dalton Tedder on Twitter. You can get your own copy here - https://t.co/4je10gu8sU?amp=1 Or try some Grinch Pixel Art ( addition and Subtraction) I haven't tried this one yet, but love the idea of Green Screen Snow Globes NewsLitCampI can't say enough positive things about NewsLitCamp PD. I attended one last week and plan to attend the next one with CNN on Jan 26th. Especially in today's uncertain times, we need to help ourselves, our students and our communities parse out the truth in the media we consume. I was hoping that it was recorded, but John SIlva did share the resource folder link with us. The one I just attended was the Texas Tribune, but all of them are in the resources, and sooo much more. However, hearing this stuff live, discussing it; we need to do more in schools to promote media literacy. Join the next one on January 26th. Sign up here!
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MathShare
This is a new one to me. Mathshare. I just got a promo from Benetech, the same folks who put Bookshare together. I asked about it in one of the listservs I follow and one person had played around with a bit, but not very much feedback so far. Check out the video below and let us know how it worked with your students.
Here's the blurb: " Mathshare is a free problem-solving tool that makes learning math easier. With Mathshare, students can solve problems step-by-step and explain their reasoning with a note. This helps students stay focused and shows teachers how they got their answers. Mathshare is free for teachers and students.How Mathshare Helps Students Many students struggle with learning math. Some need help staying organized, some have trouble with legible handwriting, and others may have learning differences like dyscalculia or dysgraphia. For all students who want to learn math, Mathshare makes it easier to learn and helps build positive math experiences. Key benefits:
Lots of Advent Calendar Style Lists
My task list keeps filling up with stuff that I might do, given time. Lots of ideas that folks are sharing, mostly in an advent calendar style.
Aaron Maurer started out my list of lists with his 25 days of Making Challenge. These are lots of fun to try, by yourself or with your students. You can check out Aaron's 25 Days of Making Challenge here.
#CreateWithChrome- a Google Slide Based Advent Calendar with teachers sharing project ideas. I think the original creators are Brian Briggs @bribriggs and Ryan O'Donnell
@creativeedtech. Check it out here and add your own ideas!
Shelly Sanchez Terrell (@ShellTerrell) shared a wonderful 25 Days of STEM calendar on her Teacher Reboot Camp site. So many ideas to explore! Thanks Shelly!
Need more Media Literacy Ideas?
I hadn't seen this site before, AllSides.
I had used FactCheck in the past, and of course Snopes, but this one is different. They also have an AllSides for Schools, but realistically, reading their TOS, very few of our kids qualify to use it on their own; " you represent that you are of legal age to form a binding contract", although it says it is for middle school through college. Perhaps the best use would be as a teaching tool with younger kids. Here's how they describe the site. "AllSides strengthens our democracy with balanced news, diverse perspectives, and real conversation.We expose people to information and ideas from all sides of the political spectrum so they can better understand the world — and each other. Our balanced news coverage, media bias ratings, civil dialogue opportunities, and technology platform are available for everyone and can be integrated by schools, nonprofits, media companies, and more."
If you haven't followed Eli Pariser and his work on filter bubbles and algorithms, check out his original TED talk or his talk about algorithms from last December(2018).
There was an article in Forbes this summer by Kalev Leetaru which reiterated that "Fake News" is not a technology problem, but a societal problem. The gist of the article was,
"To truly solve the issue of “fake news” we must blend technological assistance with teaching our citizens to be literate consumers of the world around them.Societies must teach their children from a young age how to perform research, understand sourcing, triangulate information, triage contested narratives and recognize the importance of where information comes from, not just what it says. In short, we must teach all of our citizens how to be researchers and scientists when it comes to consuming information. Most importantly, we must emphasize verification and validation over virality and velocity." Sadly, this is not news. 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.
Best Webinar on Fake News Evah!
I attend a lot of webinars. Over the last several years, we have all heard way more than we ever wanted to about "Fake News". I have attended many webinars talking about this and exploring ways to help our students determine the credibiilty of what they read/see. I know I just posted about this a couple weeks back, but... Tiffany Whitehead did a phenomenal job the other day and gave tons and tons of resources. I first met Tiffany at an ISTE librarian breakfast, maybe 2011 or 2012. She was an up and coming young librarian then, and wow- now she has really become one of the goddesses of the library world. What you should really do, head over to Edweb.net and watch the webinar. It's about an hour long. You can get MA pdps for these if you take the CE quiz at the end. So- here's the link and you can just head on over and watch it. I have a one tab page of links that I opened as we went along- so if you just want links... here you go. Don't miss the great infographics and lesson plans over at the Newseum. Tiffany has an excellent blog post with some great videos to share with your students. Great way to get these conversations going.
One resource that I am adding to HES/HA is the Brittanica School Insight chrome extension. This will help students bring fact-checked material to the top of their search. Read more about it here. I'm not doing a "force-install", simply adding it to the white list. To install, either click the big green button on that last link, or go here. I shared the video years ago, in a different venue, but if you are not familiar with the term "filter bubble", check out the TED talk below. Think confirmation bias... before you even get to look at a range of results. If you are logged into your Google account and use Google search- you are in the filter bubble. I know that many can not use an incognito tab at school, but try it at home and then look around to see what other search engines like Duck Duck Go come up with. It may surprise you. Here's Eli Pariser's talk on filter bubbles from 2011 ( yeah- that long ago- and we still have filter bubbles). Citations
While I am still on my research kick, citations. These used to be the bane of many a student's existence. Now, we have tools that make it ever so easy. One of the HES teachers contacted me a few weeks back because the Easy Bib online site had way too many ads, some not entirely appropriate for 5th and 6th graders- to say the least- "distracting". However, there is an Easy Bib add-on, right in Google Docs. Easy to use- no ads.
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month
H/T to all my AT friends who are posting great articles and links to help us learn more about dyslexia. Learning Ally has a great program called 1 in 5. Check it out here, and watch the video below. They also have great basic information as well as infographics you can download, print and share. Thanks to Leslie DiChiara for posting the link to Edutopia's article as well as many others. Check out this month's blogposts. You can find excellent resources to learn more about dyslexia at Understood.org. This is a whole page of links. Reading about how dyslexia impacts Henry's life in so many ways was really eye-opening for me as I read A Day in the Life of a Teen with Dyslexia. If you want to get a broad understanding of the many facets of dyslexia, check out the link here.
Hopefully the video below will show back up... YouTube seems to be having issues
Explode the Controller?
I met John Lynch at the Scratch Conference in Cambridge this summer. We were both in a hands on workshop, using micro controllers, arduino, etc... to make stuff. I was fortunate enough to get to work with John on our little project. I had seen his work earlier, but didn't know it was his when we were all checking it out. Now, after seeing his work all around the web, on makey-makey and so much more, I want to build some of these. So...HES teachers- this is a challenge for me, for you, for some of our students- let's make some of these Explode the Controller games!
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AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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