As the school year starts to wind down for many, it seems like we are caught in a whirlwind of trying to get "it" all in, trying to finish up projects, tying up loose ends, etc... all while trying to "finish strong". This has been the strangest school year on record for most of us. Hopefully a few of these tips, and articles can help you finish up and have fun doing it.
This has been all over Twitter and FB over the last week.
26 Great ideas for the End of the Year! Click thru to the shared doc and make yourself a copy. Thank you to @candytechideas, @MongelliMegan and @the geoffwagner!
Backyard Bio
BioBlitz is really fun, whether you do it with your class, your school, your club or your family. There's still time (not much) to sign up for this! Check it out here. STEM for ALL Video Showcase
Coming up next week. Check out more info here.
Save the Dates! May 11th - 18th Climate Action Kit
My latest "thing". I love microbits and have tried several types of bit boards to extend the pins and make it easy for elementary kids to use. This one has it all so far.
It has an easy to access Microbit board and an excellent curriculum linking to UN SDG goals with STEM content. I have attended several Inksmith webinars to learn more about the Climate Action Kit, after getting one a year or so ago. It pretty much sat on the shelf for a while, but after the webinars, and building my own plant watering system, I am hooked. These are easy to use, give very clear instructions and diagrams, are inexpensive and are linked to Ontario curriculum. Check out the Climate Action Kit here. Teams scores big on this one!Imagine if the developers of the Flipgrid Shorts Camera, Immersive Reader and Microsoft Teams all sat down to come up with an idea. Well Reading Progress is just that! Learn more about automatic running records and how this new tool can be in used in reading classrooms everywhere!
I drank the Google koolaid years ago and love all of the ways we can connect with our students, collaborate, etc. But- that doesn't mean that I don't love Flipgrid, Immersive Reader, etc- all in the Microsoft realm. So when I saw this come out the other day, I had to investigate. It looks GREAT! Honestly, I am not sure how to integrate it all into our googlesphere, but we should. As teachers and students we can get free Microsoft teams accounts. I don't know how crazy it would be to assign the reading passages in Teams through Google Classroom, but there must be a way. So- check out the videos above and visit the blog post to tell you all about it.
Ideas to Share
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This post is mostly about STEM, but scroll down for some resources on media literacy as well as some early reading resources.
I took the vacation week off from writing a blog post, but did 5 days of PD instead. One of the best overall STEM conferences I have attended recently was the 4 day Elem STEM con. This was very inexpensive with the early bird registration and is still a deal at ~ $50 for the sessions available. You can still register thru the end of this month, only 3 more days. Check out the resources. I spent 4-7 hours/day at this conference for 4 days and still have not even listened to half of the presentations. They expanded to include more secondary STEM, as well as a lot of great information for DEI and Special Ed.
The other great PD I attended was an all day MakeyMakey workshop- "virtually hands-on". Next month will be the Circuit Playground workshop. These are sponsored by CS for MA. STEM Links
These are some of the STEM links from the Elementary STEM CON as well as the Amplify STEM conference. One that I really liked, surprisingly enough was one on math-Through the Looking Glass, Strengthening Arithmetic Skills with Fresh Perspectives. Sunil Singh was so engaging and made this fun. He also shared great links for math games that I will include below.
Reading Resources
These look great- and they are free! Student activity centers for PreK thru grade 5. FLORIDA CENTER FOR READING RESEARCH
Thinking about PD for the summer?
Aside fromInfosys, which I highly recommend, check outEducator Alexander's series. Media Literacy
Wes Fryer recently shared a media literacy lesson he created for his 5th grade class. Thanks Wes, for freely sharing your work! You can access the lesson here.
My go-to resource for media literacy is the News Literacy Project. They now have resources and lesson plans for grades 4 and up. This, in addition to the Checkology program and the NLP Sift make an excellent foundation for all of our students. "The Sift, NLP’s free weekly newsletter for educators — delivered during the school year — explores timely examples of misinformation, addresses media and press freedom topics and discusses social media trends and issues. It also includes links, discussion prompts and activities for use in the classroom."
They have recently introduced an upper elementary unit to help students learn to tell fact from opinion. Check it out here.
This lesson is designed to help students learn the difference between fact-based and opinion-based statements. The lesson includes a fun slideshow activity, handy flowchart, graphic organizer and other materials tailored for grades 4-6. 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
As always, things change rapidly in the online world. One website that I love, but haven't featured is
The Kid Should See This. "The Kid Should See This is an unprecedented collection of 4,500+ kid-friendly videos, curated for teachers and parents who want to share smarter, more meaningful media in the classroom and at home. " And... it's free. Not just for little kids, all ages will love these videos.
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Originality reports & Google Citation Tool
Plagiarism comes up over and over again across all grade levels and disciplines. Google Has tools to help right in Google Classroom. You can find out more about it here.
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Google Workspace also recently came out with built-in tool for citations. You no longer have to use a 3rd party add-on or extension. Check out Richard Byrne's video below.
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Whiteboards, again...
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New Microbit
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Free Google PD
Inspire Creativity through Learner Engagement
This one looks really good, uses lots of different tools and explores student choice and voice. If you haven't checked out the Teacher Center, it is worth your time. You can filter by time required, by topic and by level of difficulty. An easy way to up your game.
If this is something of interest, sign up, and go in and register for any mini course of interest as the registration dates close after the initial presentations.
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Welcome to Google Tools for Remote and Hybrid Learning! In this series of 6 mini-courses, attendees will gain the confidence and skills they need to effectively lead students through a remote and/or hybrid learning model by taking full advantage of Google tools for Education. Attendees may opt to receive all 6-hours of instruction or choose which mini-courses to attend based on their needs and level of comfort with these tools. If you have no experience with Google's Suite of tools for education, we encourage you to attend all 6 mini-courses.
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STEM |
In episode one, Tom tackles both the challenges and opportunity presented by our new learning environment:
"While the threat of coronavirus looms, students are stuck at home and educators are left rethinking the role of technology in teaching and learning. A silver lining of this global pandemic is the huge opportunity it provides to rethink the student learning process. Yet, teachers can’t be expected to change without a galvanizing vision of what beneficial change actually looks like. Right now, we need leadership in formulating tech-infused and student-centric learning environments."
Listen on Anchor, Spotify and all major podcasting outlets.
Books for STEAM/STEM
I wanted to add a couple of other sites to also check-STEM Read and STEM Storytime FlipGrid
STEM Read is offering read alouds with some lesson plan ideas. "During social distancing and school closures, STEM Read is releasing Canned Goods: non-perishable e-learning activities teachers can drop into lessons and parents can use to keep kids engaged. Look for the Canned Goods posts to find quick, fun, stemtastic activities that adhere to state standards. As always, you can find more ideas in our other posts and full lesson plans and videos on our Book and Educator pages. "
Prezi Video - Unlike screen-sharing apps that toggle between you and your content, this video maker shows you alongside your graphics in real time (like a TV newscaster), so you don’t lose your face-to-face connection. Use it live with your video conference app of choice or record to share later with a simple link.
Prezi Design - Our new design tool helps you create interactive infographics, social media posts, charts, maps, and reports that add meaning to your message when you can’t be there to explain it in person. Realizing it would be useful to you now, we’ve released it ahead of its scheduled launch date.
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Greg Kulowiec shares a short video to point out some of the new features of Google Earth.
"Google Earth allows educators and students to create projects that can be shared with anyone on the web. Educators can use this tool to create custom global tours in Google Earth that point students to specific locations around the world."
Upcoming PD
PECS AT Conference
PECS-AT Conference 2020 Join us May 20, 2020 for our Virtual Event! With funding support provided by the New Hampshire Department of Education, Inclusive Technology Solutions is proud to announce this exciting day long virtual event. The event runs from 10:00am – 3:00pm eastern. This event brings together New Hampshire based practitioners and organizations; national AT presenters and vendors. The day is comprised of 25 minute Assistive Technology presentations; 25 minute Edcamp-style conversations; and, 25 minute vendor presentations. Over 40 sessions will be available throughout the day and the best part of all – the event is FREE! To register for the event and explore the on-line schedule, visit bit.ly/atexpo520
Coming up Wednesday and Thursday. Learn to leverage Lesson Pix for all your students. Streaming on YouTube and FB. Check it out.
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KEYNOTE EVENT NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON HOSTS A LIVE STARTALK: COSMIC QUERIES PODCAST
Eduporium recently sent out an email with lists of STEM webinars to check out. I have checked out the Hummingbird ones, as well as some of the MakeyMakey webinars. Worth the time.
This is an excellent series of webinars from Dr. Monica Burns to get you up and going with Book Creator. This is a diverse tool with a robust set of accessible features. Highly recommended!
Here's the link for more info.
"Teachers, you’re invited to an exclusive live conversation with Ken Burns!Teachers! Join us on Wednesday, April 29 at 7pm ET for an exclusive live chat with award winning director Ken Burns. Together with PBS Digital Innovator All Stars David Olson, Larissa Wright-Elson and Paige Somoza we’ll explore creative ways to bring history to life for your students." |
These are ongoing opportunities that you may want to check out.
The News Literacy Project is offering aseries of 4 webinars in May. You have to sign up for each one separately. More Info
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Using SumDog? They are offering a series of quick 15 min webinars to get up/keep you up to date. They also have all the webinar recordings readily available.
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Holly Clark of Infused Classroom is offering 3 different Free classes: one for Book Creator, one for Flipgrid and one for Adobe Spark.
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Pear Deck has an ongoing series of PD, nicely divided across the week, as well as daily beginner classes, offered every 2 hours. I attended one of their PD sessions yesterday on using PearDeck with Britannica Launchpacks. I am more and more impressed with the versatility of this tool.
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Mystery Doug & Mystery Science...
What else is out there?
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." |
Audio in Google Slides...almost
Scientific Method or Engineering Design Process?
Links to Share
KQED published a downloadable guide The MindShift Guide to Understanding Dyslexia"This MindShift Guide to Understanding Dyslexia is meant to serve as a primer to: • Better understand, recognize and identify dyslexia • Discover new tools and teaching strategies to support dyslexic students in improving their reading skills • Be aware of resources that can support dyslexics of every age"
As always you will find many resources here. However, the key to finding the right resource is SETT- Student, Environment, Task, and then Tech... and this is not a one and done deal. The student will change, the environment and required tasks will change- so the tech will have to change as well.
3D Models
I saw this post on the Tinkercad blog and thought it was a cool idea to be able insert a Tinkercad model into a powerpoint. It may well be one of those ideas that looks cool, but doesn't really add value, or it may be that incredible engagement piece that brings it all home to a student. |
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Then I saw this Merge Cube turkey and thought... hmmm. Maybe. I know that since3D models take so long to print that merge cube and the object viewer can be used to "bring the 3D model to life", but haven't tried it yet. What do you think? Cool? Worthwhile? Or? |
STEM Through Literature Someone shared this link from wcresa.k12.mi.us in a group recently and I love all the books they chose to feature and the links to other resources to integrate these books into STEM lessons or vice versa. It reminded me of HeyWorthLeap's mentor text page- another wealth of resources. So, if you're looking to integrate literature and STEM for the younger grades, right up through middle school, check out these two links. |
Different Worlds
Coming soon...GameBender
CopyRight Woes
#InnovatingPlay - #iplay019 Creating a Global Play Box
https://www.innovatingplay.world/
STEM Lab Challenges
Ideas to Share
One Pagers | Jennifer Gonzalez shared an excellent blog post on creating "one-pagers". When I first looked at her post, I was thinking- yeah- just fancy sketchnotes... but take the time to really look at the images and listen to her interview with Betty Potash. You may come away with some new ideas to use with your students. |
Math with Bad Drawings
Kevin Hodsgon shared a book the other day on Goodreads, giving it 5 stars. Knowing Kevin a bit, I was curious about this 5 star book. Turns out it is a first book written by Ben Orlin, who actually lives in Norhampton. I checked out his blog and if you or one of your students is prepping for the ACT and using https://olive-book.thinkific.com/ Until 9/15/2019, you can get free enrollment with the coupon code MATHWITHBADDRAWINGS.) The book is on sale now. From Amazon: "A hilarious reeducation in mathematics-full of joy, jokes, and stick figures-that sheds light on the countless practical and wonderful ways that math structures and shapes our world." |
8 Things Every School Must Do To Prepare For The 4th Industrial Revolution
Bernard Marr wrote an interesting article in Forbes listing the things we must do for the "4th Industrial Revolution". Some were pretty much as expected- more STEM, develop makerspaces, global connectedness, etc. No roadmap, no how, no funding sources... It does seem that the push is away from a general liberal arts education toward a more directed education that serves "industry". What do you think? |
2019 STEM for All Video Showcase
From the website:stemforall2019.videohall.com/ "More than 240 federally funded projects, highlighting innovations in STEM education, share short videos of their work. Researchers, practitioners, policy makers and the general public are invited to post to the discussions. Share your perspectives, ideas and feedback. Vote for your favorites. Voting and discussion ends on May 20 at 8PM EDT."
Build a Better Book
and part of the focus was using the Makey Makey. What I really liked about this project- it involves students in improving accessibility for others.
This is a blurb from the project website to give you a brief overview:
"The Build a Better Book project works with school and library Makerspaces to engage youth in the design and fabrication of inclusive media, including picture books, games and graphics. Using both low- and high-tech Makerspace tools, such as 3D printers, laser cutters, Makey Makeys, conductive boards and craft materials, youth design, fabricate, test and refine multi-modal books, games and STEM graphics that incorporate tactile and audio features. These products are designed by and for learners with visual impairments as well as other physical and learning disabilities. Through the project, middle and high school youth develop technology skills and learn about STEM careers as they design and create multi-modal picture books, graphics and games that can be seen, touched and heard!"
The link to the showcase presentation is https://stemforall2019.videohall.com/presentations/1438.
The project website link is: https://www.colorado.edu/project/bbb/
Don't miss the project gallery https://www.colorado.edu/project/bbb/design-gallery
DreamBig
http://www.discovere.org/dreambig/activities. Well worth your time!
Global Problem Solvers
Check out what they have to offer here.
Ideas to Share
Global Accessibility Awareness Day
This Thursday, May 16th is Global Accessibility Awareness Day. In honor of GAAD, the Accessible Technology Coalition has put together a great list of webinars. I was surprised today when working with a colleague who did not know about NIMAC, about the regulations and laws in place to help guarantee equal access. Check it out here.
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BreakoutEdu
BreakoutEdu announced this week that they will have 600+ games aligned to curriculum standards- coming in August. Sign up for early access. You will need full platform access. If you are at HES, you have access; see me if you have questions.
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National Day of Action
ESSA- Title II |
Join us on May 15 for a National Day of Action to advocate for a $500 million increase for Title II, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Nearly every school district receives Title II funding to support the recruitment, preparation, development, and retention of excellent teachers and school leaders.
Click here for ways to get involved, send message to Congress, etc. |
Teach With Tech Conference
TWTcon is an online conference. It is free- limited access, or very inexpensive ~$11 for full access for a year. Check it out here. The 2019 Summer Teach with Tech conference will run live starting on July 22nd through July 24th. Check out the schedule of sessions(all times are Eastern Standard Time).
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Using Google Tools to Support Writing
Kasey Bell recently published anexcellent podcast: 60 Tools to Inspire Students with Chromebooks. Kasey always has great, useful ideas. You can listen to the podcast here.
Need a quick review of how to use some of the Google Chrome tools? Texthelp (creator of Read and Write for Google Chrome) recently hosted a webinar with Kasey Bell, who spoke about all the writing support tools. If you missed that, or simply do not have the time to sit through a webinar, fear not, Darcie, a tech teacher in VA, wrote a great blog post about it, summarizing each tool very nicely. Read more about ithere. |
Wait! I Can Run Linux on a Chromebook??
@dougpete recently added a link to this article in his Twitter feed. If you're looking for someone who is always on top of the latest tech trends, follow @dougpete.
I was amazed to read that you can actually run Linux on a chromebook, and that you do not have to be a tech wizard to do so. Going forward, all new chromebooks will have this capability. I am not a big Linux fan, but think about it.... you can use LibreOffice suite, if that makes you happier than Google Docs. It simply opens up possibilities. Here's the key paragraph: "Now? It's as simple as simple can be. Just open the Chrome OS app switcher by pressing the Search/Launcher key and then type "Terminal". This launches the Termina VM, which will start running a Debian 9.0 Stretch Linux container. Congratulations! You're now running Debian Linux on your Chromebook." |
New Reading App
"As with ABCmouse, ReadingIQ is available at no cost to teachers for use in their classrooms, with the ability to assign an entire reading level of books to each student to read at home, completely free." Check out a short video from the site.
It is free for teachers- be sure to look up at the top right of the navigation and click on Teachers to get all the details.
The video below is a preview from Learning Problem Solving and Growth Mindset in a Makerspace. The blurb for this one is "Makerspaces build students’ cognitive abilities while fostering independence, perseverance, and self-regulation."
What I noticed, aside from the nod to Rosie the Riveter. was the theme of not giving up. Now, I am not a big proponent of jumping up and down for joy about failing. Yes, I know all the little acronyms that go along with FAIL... and not that these are wrong, it's just- I want to succeed. Accepting that a big part of the engineering design cycle is prototype, test, make changes, iterate, takes not an acceptance of failure, but the knowledge that it is a process. The ability to persevere through the process, to take constructive criticism and use it, is the hardest part for many of our students, as well as our teachers to learn. I was down at the Google HQ in Cambridge a few years back and listened to a panel of folks who work for Google. The one woman who truly impressed me said something to the effect of "I was always the smartest one in the class. I was used to being right. Now I am one of many and I have had to learn to learn from others and from my own mistakes. Accepting and learning to use criticism is hard."
So, where am I going with this? The other book I picked up was called, "What do you do with an idea?" I also found a whole book module on this in Teaching Children Philosophy, which was a course over at Mt. Holyoke, not sure if it is still offered. Curious, I started looking around the web and found that this book, this children's book, is being read and discussed in college engineering and design courses. I loaned my copy to First Grade, but see if you can find one. Short, easy to read, nice illustrations, but a pretty powerful message and great questions on the site. What makes an idea important? What does it mean to feed an idea and make it grow?
Google's bring AR to the web. We've all seen the fancy $ Occulus Rift, as well as the utilitarian Google Cardboard, but Google is actually working hard to bring AR to the web, and not as a novelty. They have a prototype called Article. Article is a 3D model viewer that works for all browsers. Read more about it here.
I saw a tweet from Leslie Fisher about Handwriting recognition in Google Docs, which got my attention: Handwriting recognition in Google Drive. Go ahead and read more about it on her blog. I'll tuck the video in here, too. But... this isn't quite as grand as it sounds. Google Keep can do OCR on an image and then you can send this text to Google Docs. Google Docs can take a PDF and pull the text out of it- not perfectly, and I hope you didn't care about the formatting. However, a combo of tools is getting a whole lot closer. I have a Rocketbook and it can recognize my handwriting and it can send it to docs, to evernote, etc. So- yes, it is cool, but there's another tool in there, not just Google Drive. Here's the link for Rocketbooks. They are also somehow affiliated with ThinkBoard- which is a whiteboard- that you can use the app on and send it to docs- does HW recognition, OCR from the whiteboard.
What The What? There is handwriting OCR Recognition in Google Drive!? I shared with you a few months ago how Google Drive can do OCR with one small setting change. Now? It can also perform OCR on your handwriting. I show how in this video blog entry. https://t.co/4mUFGbx3TI
— Leslie Fisher (@lesliefisher) November 20, 2018
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Maureen Tumenas
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