Keyboard shortcutsIf you're someone that likes to work through things quickly, here are some keyboard shortcuts that you might find helpful.
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As teachers we want to remember when planning to use "technology" our lessons to follow the guidelines described in this brief video: technology, pedagogy, and content.
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Website/App resources
Click on the icon to be taken to the website.
SlidesGo, Slides Carnival, and SlidesMania are all websites where you can get PowerPoint or Google Slide templates for FREE. I have used SlidesGo during my online teaching in Spring of 2020 and have recently learned about the others. I look forward to using all sites to create engaging presentations to use during virtual teaching and eventually when I am back in the regular classroom.
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Oh my goodness gracious, this is amazing! Maybe you aren't the most artistic person... maybe you are... but this site allows you to do a quick sketch and choose from what the computer or app thinks you meant to draw! Create a poster, pamphlet, etc. with the ease of how a sketch should be! The only negative might be that it could easily become a time-draw with students (or teachers) wanting to just play around on it.
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Get ready for the coolest thing!! If you need a place for students to make their own books, this is it! Students can add text, photos, etc. easily and the coolest feature? BookCreator will read the book to the reader. A negative for young writers would be their lack of spelling skills. When the book is read, the unknown word is simply read as the letters provided. Therefore teachers would likely want to proofread all stories to check for spelling. This couldn't be an independent activity unless in the upper grades.
Implementation ideas? Students write a story in their notebook, they can even illustrate it there. Then, have them enter the BookCreator classroom library and make their story online. Students are then able to read each others' books! Awesome, right? |
If you've never heard of an infographic you're not alone! I had seen them before but never knew what they were called... now I've made one! This website, for the most part, is easy to use. However, the clipart and picture upload functions are limited and hard to find... I wasn't ever able to upload a picture from my computer - it never worked for me.
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Freckle.com, previously known as FrontRowEd.com started out as a math site that provided various domains for students to practice. Now it has expanded into a website for Math, ELA, Social Studies, and Science! It is free, or if you want the more upgraded version with unlimited assigning capabilities then there is a fee.
Math domains (unless noted it is on all grade levels for elementary):
ELA domains:
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Google Classroom is a free tool that you can use to keep your students on task during computer lab time. I tend to drop assignments on our class page and important links that they will use throughout the year. It becomes their "home page" where everything that they will need to use will be. The negative is that students need to have a gmail to use this tool.
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This admission is slightly embarrassing. When I first starting teaching in 2015 I used to make my lesson plans and PowerPoints on my laptop and then email myself everything I would need for the upcoming week. It took me until my third year of teaching to realize I could just do my lesson planning/uploading of important documents and worksheets directly into GoogleDrive. It's easy to organize into folders and share with others (just make a team drive!) By using this, I can access these files wherever there is internet access! And every time I find something I want to share with my grade level I don't have to email it! Which is pretty handy! I haven't come across any negatives yet.
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Different kind of PowerPoint website... slightly more complicated so make sure you have time to play around with it! I think I will continue to use PowerPoint since I know shortcuts and am extremely familiar with it.
Graphic Organizer creator that is super easy to use! You can include pictures along with your text thoughts. Learn the basics in less than 2 minutes with the videos provided... and no subscription required! The only negative I found was that I couldn't include text in the same "popplet" with a picture if I wanted to describe it.
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I use PowerPoint for almost anything and everything. From expectations at the beginning of the year to reading and math lessons. It holds me accountable to get through my lessons and it holds students accountable by being more engaging/interactive. If things aren't reached during the lesson, it's easy to review the next time in class and pick back up. A few negatives of PowerPoint is that Youtube videos know longer are supported if you embed them within a slide. You will have to go to the actual site (which most of us don't have time for.) Also, PowerPoint doesn't work on all computers... so if I create something at home there's no guarentee it will work wherever I need to share it with my students.
Because of that unfortunate piece, I will often upload it to Google Slides (presentable wherever.) The negative with this is that some of the presentation effects or settings may be altered. Often my transitions will change or have to be added back in. |
ReflexMath.com is a great math fluency website for students. Students are actually engaged while working on their addition/subtraction or multiplication/division fact families. Each day students work until they get their "green light." This is their signal that they have worked enough on their facts. Easy to read reports are just a click away for the teacher (which are great to share at conferences.) Unfortunately, unless you get a free grant for a year, you do have to pay for this program. Click on the button to be taken to their tour page to find out more.
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For one of our projects we were told to use this program to recreate a space via this program's 3D modeling system. I was very excited to get started, because I've always wanted a program that could do this! And it was free! That being said, I somewhat successfully accomplished this, but only after about 3-4 hours of figuring out how things work. This program slows down your computer and will at times cause it to crash. It was not as user friendly as I had hoped it would be. I tried to stick to the basic rectangle tool. Another option was using objects from their "warehouse" that other users made. This wasn't discovered until the end of my time. I'm not sure if there were so many issues because I was using a free option, but I don't think I would use this again... at least not to create something so in depth.
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Snagit is an easy to use screenshot program that captures pictures of your screen, can video record your screen as well as record audio output. Unfortunately you do have to purchase this software, most computers have a similar "Snipping Tool" feature. On a PC the shortcut to use is Ctrl+Shift+R and you then select the space of the screen you want to capture.
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Informational Resources
Growth Mindset
Robinson, C. (2017, October). Growth mindset in the classroom. Science Scope, 41(2), 18+. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu.proxy2.cl.msu.edu.proxy1.cl.msu.edu.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/apps/doc/A509163059/AONE?u=msu_main&sid=AONE&xid=86a47d08
While reading the article Growth Mindset in the Classroom by Cheska Robinson, I came across this website where you can find "everything you need to build a growth mindset..." by following their guidelines:
1. Mindset Check Up (this resource alone makes this site amazing, I might have to alter some verbiage for my 2nd graders, but I would be very interested in seeing what they think about their mindsets at the beginning and end of the school year.) 2. Growth Mindset Overview 3. Establish Growth Mindset: Beliefs 4. Establish Growth Mindset: Focus 5. Sustaining the a Growth Mindset Culture |
In the same Growth Mindset article, they provided another interesting resource. Through OpenColleges's InformEd you are able to explore the "Your Brain Map" by looking at the different parts of the brain. Each part of the brain is explained in several ways. For example, Broca's area has 3 subsets of information (speech production, learning first language, and learning a second language.) Other areas of the brain have more subsets of information, like the frontal lobe. I think this would be an amazing way to visually engage students in learning about their brains to fully understand Growth Mindset.
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Resources to Try
The following resources are things that I would like to try, but haven't had the chance to yet.
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