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use of Twitter enhanced student engagement

Teachers spend out-of-pocket money each year for their classes and this can really add up. To help reduce those costs and enhance your classroom, take advantage of the following ways to get free stuff. From audio books to activity kits to free software, you will find something in this list that you can use with your students.

"I think history education needs a complete overhaul. I'll write about this in detail in a future post, but for now, how 'bout this for a grenade: all history classes should be interdisciplinary courses about current events, taught backwards"

"AudioNote Lite is an app that can support a broad range of students who need to record audio of what is spoken in the classroom but who also need to create visuals to understand and interpret what is being said. So this app has the ability to take notes, record audio, draw and highlight important information in the notes. AudioNote Lite automatically indexes class meetings by synchronizing notes and audio. AudioNote Lite is limited to 10 minutes of audio per note, and 2 hours total. Upgrading to the full version of AudioNote allows unlimited recording and sharing of notes over Wi-FI and email."

The ability to digitally scan documents on-demand in class, make it viewable in large form, then write, erase, highlight on said document is an incredibly valuable tool.

""So what now, technically speaking?""

"Often you may come upon a website you wish to add to a web 2.0 resource like Diigo, Delicious, Evernote, Livebinder, ReadItLater, Instapaper, Shareholic, etc. On a computer browser, you can install extension toolbars to make quick work of it, but not so easily on the iPad. Not wanting to relegate the iPad to a second-class browsing too, you can make these tools work by copying the javascript code directly into the browser bookmark."

"A backchannel -- a digital conversation that runs concurrently with a face-to-face activity -- provides students with an outlet to engage in conversation. Every time I think about this tool, I remember my student, Charlie (not his real name). Given his learning challenges, he struggled to keep up during class discussions. Long after his classmates grasped a concept, he would light up in acknowledgement and then become crestfallen as he had no way to share his revelation. Charlie needed an alternative means to participate, and a backchannel would have provided him with that outlet. "

"Pushing students to go beyond what they think they can do is at the core of good teaching. This Teaching Channel video follows students and educators at Springfield Renaissance School, part of the Expeditionary Learning network. Students at the school understand that struggling with a particular task is part of learning. Teachers have high expectations of students, expect a positive classroom culture and are willing to gently prod students to dig deeper and reveal more. Teachers embed Common Core standards like the ability to use textual evidence to back up arguments, into the culture of class. They also understand that the love of learning takes ownership and self-awareness."

"This week's question is: What are your suggestions for effective classroom management strategies? At various times, I would imagine that classroom management is a challenge to many of us who teach -- it certainly is to me!  New years, new classes, new students (who all come from different backgrounds and previous school experiences) all can contribute to an occasional or often challenging environment.  How can we respond in effective and positive - not punitive - ways?"

"After some successful science discovery time last week, I was encouraged and motivated to reintroduce math discovery in my classroom. Discovery learning was an effective approach for me last year and I developed/sourced a number of discovery tub ideas (which I've pinned here). Many of last year's discovery tubs focused on math learning and I knew that discovery time was valuable for developing students' numeracy skills. So, when students asked me about "putting numbers on the learning carpet", I decided it was time to get back to math discovery in our classroom. "