April is right around the corner and will be bringing us National Poetry Month. More about that next time, but, a friend shared this article with me about a new anthology of Native poetry, with U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Check it out. I'm sure that with Amanda Gorman and poetry at the Super Bowl, we will have a lot to share in the upcoming weeks. Equity and Accessibility I tend to write about various tools for accessibility a lot as that was the biggest change for me when I flipped from private schools to public schools. I had never had kids with disabilities of any kind in my many years in private schools, either it wasn't a "good fit" or the kids had private tutors, so it did not impact my teaching. Then in the fall of 2013 I started working in a public school. I ended up taking a crash course- 36 credits in 16 months and an Ed.S later- now, I get it. This didn't even touch on equity issues relating to gender, race, digital access, etc... just physical and cognitive issues. I was thrilled to see the article and listen to the podcast that Katie Novak and Mirko Chardin did with Jennifer Gonzalez recently, called If Equity is a Priority, UDL is a Must Check out the article and podcast here: www.cultofpedagogy.com/udl-equity/ Katie and Mirko talk with Jennifer starting ~ 5 min in. More Accessibility Stuff
CAST presented a webinar today called : What It’s All About: Teaching, Learning and Assessment These frameworks are a work in progress. This is the slidedeck (ppt). The recording will post in the coming weeks. Torrey Trust et al, recently shared this really nice hyperdoc/choice board on the Foundations of the U.S. Political System. Please remember to make your own copy/ do not request edit access, and please credit the authors. Tall Tweets I highlighted Eric Curt's tutorial for Tall Tweets, back in 2018. Lately I have been seeing more and more folks using both Tall Tweets and the new version Studio Creator to quickly and easily create gifs and videos. Teachers have been assigning or offering this as an option... show mitosis as a gif, show the water cycle as a gif, etc. So, I added the new version, Creator Studio, the slides add-on, to our allowed marketplace add-ons. It has mixed reviews, so if you try it and want to share either your positive or negative experiences, let us know. It's an add-on, so go to slides, add-ons-get add-ons to find it. It looks like most of the features you may want to use may not be free. Ideas to Share
0 Comments
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.
This week I will simply share a few of the resources that have come across my email, twitter, and various pln groups. A couple tools that stood out this week, Pear Deck and using Google Slides to create various games for students. I've also been seeing lots of choice boards, and have included some for math. The lists of "stuff" are, as always, overwhelming.
Don't miss out on Netflix documentaries- now available in "your classroom"!
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."
One email that did attract my notice was from the UK, a weekly update on keeping kids safe online. I guess this should have been on my radar as we are asking kids to spend more time on screens, but there is a definite uptick in accounts of predators on the various sites that kids have been using more now for socializing. We are often asking kids to post video responses, but many kids, at least in the surveys I saw, are not supervised and are sharing personal videos online, talking with strangers, etc. The esafety advisor also shared links to ThinkUKnow activities for students. These are UK based, but applicable here as well.
Creating your own games? There are lots of ways to do this. Richard Byrne offers 3 ways, in addition to MIT App Inventor to create sorting and matching games in his recent blog post. I think my favorite is Educandy which has recently added a memory game template that you can use by providing a list of words or terms. Check out some of the other options he mentions in his blog as well.
Kasey Bell from Shake Up Learning demonstrated some great ideas for creating Drag and Drop Games in Google Slides. You can listen to thepodcast here, or watch the video below to learn how. The steps are also written out on her podcast/blog page.
New to Google Classroom?
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.
Math Choice Boards
Living Maths has posted 2 versions of each grade band. Make sure you go to File>Make a Copy and DO NOT request access.
https://bit.ly/MathChoiceBoardsK-2 https://bit.ly/ChoiceBoards3-5 https://bit.ly/MathChoiceBoards6-8
More K-5 Math Choice Boards
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
Problem of the Day
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/
Manipulatives and More
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. When?
Two posts from amazing educators stood out for me this past week. One was about Daniel Pink's new book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing; and the other was from Jessica Twomey and Christine Pinto's #Innovative Play- 2 great resources- Connected Play Centers and MLK Character Traits Study .
I actually saw images with Pink's "controversial" statements about the research on timing of math in school, not realizing that this was part of Pink's book, until Matt Miller tweeted about Pink's keynote at FETC. So, I haven't read the book yet. I ordered a hard copy (so I could lend it out after I read it), which should be arriving today. But I was intrigued by the research cited and have questions about it.
Here's Matt's sketchnote:
Images from Keynote attendees' posts
So, what subject comes first in the school day? Is the data only related to math or all subjects? What does later in the day mean... how subjective is this? And last but not least- breaks... How do you time all of this? How much control do teachers have/should teachers have over scheduling?
How ? The #Innovative Play Way
I have always found that early childhood and elementary teachers come up with the best ways to learn. The connection to play is so important. This week I saw two great resources, one on Connected Play Centers- embedding character traits, which connected so nicely with their presentation on MLK - Character Trait Study, using stories to make this important connection. I love the way these teachers think and their creative ideas. They also take so much of the work out of a project by including the links, the videos, but spark ideas that let you incorporate your own materials.
Check out the Connected Play Center's updated play board here:
Check out MLK Character Traits here:
Ideas to Share
I often get asked about using Google Read and Write for Chrome. It is a pretty amazing tool set, which is often underutilized. Texthelp continues to add more and more features. This, although helpful, can put folks off. I remember the first time I saw the Kurtzweil dashboard- pretty much made me walk away. Student and teacher time is precious. Things need to work with no fuss, and no one really has a lot of time for a steep learning curve. So- Check out the training Texthelp offers online. You can spend less than an hour and get a lot of the basic skills, or just watch a 3 minute video to help you figure out one tool. Remember- use the Chrome browser- log into your school account. Teachers get all the features free, students get a free trial, or if you get lucky, your district can get a great deal and include everyone. Here's the basic training link . Here's the Resources link. Scroll down and check this one out. There's a whole series of resource material for ELL students, including this handy PDF. Need a quick video to learn a tool? Check out their YouTube channel.
Critical Thinking
Edutopia has a nice article called, " Preparing Social Studies Students to Think Critically in the Modern World", which can give you ideas about using primary sources. Check, Please! is geared for older students, but I think high school students or any teacher could pick up a few pointers. Here's their info: "In this course, we show you how to fact and source-check in five easy lessons, taking about 30 minutes apiece. The entire online curriculum is two and a half to three hours and is suitable homework for the first week of a college-level module on disinformation or online information literacy, or the first few weeks of a course if assigned with other discipline-focused homework."
To Share with Parents
The UK has a great organization called National Online Safety, which puts out a weekly post/pdf around various topics that parents, and teachers, should stay informed about. A recent one was on TikTok, but check out all of their free, downloadable resources here. |
AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
|