Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month
With the focus on racist attacks on Asian and Asian Pacific people of late, and being that May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Learning for Justice referenced this lesson plan, posted last fall that you may find helpful. PBS, as well as many others offer great resources as well.
Great ideas from Dr. Torrey Trust's Students
UMass's Dr. Torrey Trust always shares the best stuff! She recently shared this great collection of final project ideas from her students.
Enjoy!
Seterra Geography Games
Not sure where I saw this link recently, but Seterra is a really neat site to customize and play geography games. Check it out here.
New Text Overlay Options in Google Docs
Finally! This just came through my feed this morning... you can now position text over an image in Google Docs! Here's the update from Google Workspaces, Richard Byrne over at FreeTech4Teachers is on top of it and already has a post on how to use it.
Virtual Libraries from @msmteaches
There are some amazing teachers who freely share their work and one that I would like to call attention to is @msmteaches. She has created an amazing amount of great material that she shares on her web site. Check out her virtual libraries!
https://sites.google.com/view/msmteaches/virtual-libraries. Seriously- check this out: 186 slides of more than 4,100 books and nearly 300 drawing tutorials News from Alice Keeler
Alice Keeler's knowledge and enthusiasm are always welcome in my email feed! This morning she not only shared about Automagical Forms- a really cool way to take your worksheets, pdf, docs and flip them right over to Google Forms with no copy/paste, but she also created a short little video to show how the new Auto-save feature works in Google forms. See below.
Caveat on Automagical forms... it is free to try- only 6 pages. Then it's something you or your district has to pay for. Check the pricing structure here. Here's thehow-to guide. Marathon Kids Connect
I was looking through the EdTech Digest lists of winners for this year and saw this one for runners- Marathon Kids Connect. I wonder if it would be useful for Girls on the Run club or at the MS/HS? It says it's free. I did not investigate the data collection side of it.
Crayola Video Series
Shannon McClintock Miller shared some great info about the Crayola video series recently. It looks like it's on Facebook- not YouTube. Here's Shannon's post to tell you more about it.
Matt Bergman - Infusing Tech
Nice interview of Matt Bergman on tech integration. Made me remember to post a link to Matt's post for this cool puzzle maker. "I'm a Puzzle is a great site that you can use to piece together a custom puzzle for students. Whether you are giving students a preview about a topic or want to put together a clue for a scavenger hunt, this a great free resource for you to use!"
Google TakeOut
Still not sure about how to get your data from Google Drive? Here's another video to show you how.
Scratch
Last week was Scratch week! There were so many amazing projects posted online. Scratch just keeps getting better and better! Mitch Resnick posted this fun project. Try it out.
Wakelet
Wakelet community week is right around the corner. If you haven't checked out Wakelet yet- there's lots of great opportunities. Check it out here.
Tech Tips
0 Comments
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
Technology ≠ Learning
I met Tom Murray at at Future Teachers conference in Albany a couple years ago. A dynamic teacher/leader, he has been pushing educators to examine their process via Future Ready Schools program. Recently he has been talking a lot about wasting time on low level learning in the name of using technology. What do you think?
Vicki Davis interviewed Tom Murray recently about Time Wasting with Low Level Tech. Tom talked about this in his blog post- Need to Stop.
George Couros wrote a post about this back in January called, As Technology Becomes Easier to Use, Our Depth of Learning Needs to Continue to Increase. I liked this quote, "Technology has removed many barriers, but thinking should not be one of them." You can read his whole blog post here.
Scott McLeod over in Colorado was singing the same tune in a recent interview with EdSurge: How to Move From Digital Substitution to ‘Deeper Learning. Interesting article, especially the conversation about SAMR. McLeod: " Well the challenge with SAMR, which is sort of the dominant framework for K-12 schools right now, is that it’s a technology continuum, not a learning continuum." Yup, he's right. Check out the whole article here, or listen to the podcast. Phishing
We've all seen phishing scams come through our email, phones, etc. Last week a friend in Oklahoma, Wes Fryer, shared this phishing quiz from Google. Take it yourself, have your students take it. See if you can identify the scammers.
Wakelet
I've used Wakelet as a consumer for a while, mostly as a way to catch up on twitter chats that I miss. The other day I saw something from Matt Miller about using it as an educational tool. He has a post with lots and lots of ideas here. I must have missed a guest post back in August from Paul West- with more curation ideas.
I hadn't even looked at this tool as a curation/collaboration tool. So far, with just a couple hiccups, I really really like it. I wanted to have it as a Google Chrome extension and as an iOS app. The extension appeared to work, but it also killed off my speeddial2 extension that I really rely upon. Wakelet support responded really quickly with an idea for a multitab new tab link, that works for me. They have also reached out to see if I want to have a Google Hangout and talk more about how to use this tool in the classroom. They are starting to accumulate some ideas on their website and even have a newsletter that I found interesting. They have a how-to guide for educators ebook, and a blog post to walk you through the setup. All of these features are written up in The Wakelet Wave- a monthly newsletter. They also have aYouTube video channel with ideas, and tutorials. Where to find PD?
Teachers often ask me where do I find all these webinars, etc., and then the second question is always, how to carve out the time. My go-to resource is EdWeb.net. There are new webinars almost every day, with learning communities formed around the major topics. The webinars are online; they are free; and they are recorded in case you cannot watch them live. Everyone learns differently; everyone has different tastes. I try to catch webinars live, if possible, but like knowing that the recording and the CE certificates are available to me. The variety of webinars offered through EdWeb is amazing. Try it, you may like it.
Odds 'n Ends to Share
Googly Activities for Primary Grades
Eric Curts shared a post recently with lots of wonderful ideas. Check out Eric's work here.
Paul Reynolds at FableVision shared this one.
TelepromtMe is a free online teleprompter. Check it out here.
Sharon LaPlante, a special educator with over 2 decades of experience, recently recorded a webinar for Innovate CT. She presented on Enhancing Notetaking and Executive Functions with Educational Technology. You can find more about Sharon's work on her website, including her podcast.
|
AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
|