Group items tagged

"My favorite thing about PlanBoard is how easy it makes organizing resources. You can upload files, create links, connect to files in Google Drive, and more. All resources are not only saved by lesson, but they are added to resources for your instructional unit-making future planning much more efficient. You can even indicate curriculum standards with just a couple of quick clicks. PlanBoard has many state curriculum standards available, or you can upload your own."

Uses free articles on CNN to create new lessons every day. pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar are included.

R. Byrne: "Over the course of the school year our students create some fantastic digital products. Building a digital portfolio is a great way for students to look back at everything they've done and organize it into a cohesive package. The following five tools are good services for creating digital portfolios." As always, Byrne gives some good brief examples of the kinds of lessons the tools can be used for. He includes Silk, Dropr, Google Sites, Weebly, and eduClipper. Some instructional videos included.

This lesson explores imagery in a translation of Beowulf, but could be applied to any poem or literary narrative (including scientific readings). The teacher walks us through two lessons that have middle-school kids (7th grade/ 12 yrs old) use their own words to create mental pictures. This could be very effect for ESL students if vocabulary aids were also provided on the board. Helps with reading and effective writing.

A great explanation of how and why to use screencasting, with many examples and video tutorials. From Modern Lessons. "The fundamental advantage of screencasting is that it allows educators to provide an easily created video resource for their students that essentially acts like a private tutor. It gives students a way to explain themselves through drawing, typing, voice narration, and video, allowing you, as the educator, to demonstrate a process, concept or skill. Through published screencasts, students can access content in and out of class in order to learn at their own pace. However, we also want to think about having our students act as creators of their own screencasts to demonstrate their problem solving, tell a story, explain a sequence, diagram a concept, or illustrate a concept."

"Description: A wonderfully designed site with lessons and tools to create digital music and teach music theory. Lessons start at a very basic level and build to advanced compositions." For middle and higher students. May get the uninterested moving.

Nik Peachey explains how to create lessons using video files. Create Quick Video Task Sheets Vidinotes is an interesting site that I spotted a few weeks back. It's a great way to produce instant (almost) video worksheets to go with YouTube videos. Basically, what it does is to convert an flv video file into a number of screen shots with a space next to each screen shot for the students to take notes."

This app is like Evernote on steroids. Free from Microsoft, you can organize a whole class using the apps built into the interface for all devices, both computers and mobile. Organize and publish lesson plans and assignments, create quizzes and make hand-written notes on them, send emails, add photos from other devices, create video and audio messages, clip any webpage to view later on or offline. Works with a large number of other apps, such as fax/scanner tools, Feedly for archiving information, smart pens, ModNotebooks, which digitizes paper and pencil documents. Or create your own app with onenote appi (dev.onenote.com). T/H A. Burns

"Around this time last year I shared a neat Google Spreadsheets script called Flippity. Flippity was originally designed to help you create flashcards through Google Spreadsheets. This morning Steve Fortna informed me that you can now use Flippity to create Jeopardy-style gameboards through Google Spreadsheets. In the video embedded I demonstrate how to use Flippity to create a Jeopardy-style gameboard." T/H to R. Byrne

Explain Everything is another useful iPad app to create lessons/lectures for your students. Use fingers to draw, add images or video, record what you do on the screen as a movie with audio, and export the resulting video to, i.e., YouTube. In this YouTube tutorial, a teacher explains how students can use the app for their projects.

"Use this downloadable PowerPoint show, complete with script in the Notes area, to walk students through the process of creating an infographic. The show includes tips on using the tools available in PowerPoint to "build" infographics right on a PowerPoint slide and save it as an image file. Even if you do not use PowerPoint, the tips will apply in any visual tool from Google Docs/Drive Drawing to a full image editing program such as Photoshop. Please note and respect the copyright notice on this show." A nice sample lesson and ideas on constructive criticism and a customizable rubric in Word doc.

The descriptions of the tool uses are of great interest. This is a thoughtful blog article. Tools mentioned are Visme, Padlet, Recap, Voxer, Picktochart, Nearpod (virtual field trips), Formative (assessment), Quizizz, Buncee (projects), Blendspace to share Websites and create lessons, Storyboard, BloomzApp for messaging and planning as well as translation. Much to explore here.

Offers 4 different tools than can help you and students with video and Web work: Scrible to annotate electronic texts lets students work collaboratively and teachers can use annotations for formative assessment and comments; VideoAnt lets you use video as texts to timestamp video for access later, type up notes in a sidebar, and share annotations; Kaizena Shortcut is a Google extension that allows detailed feedback, and can also be used for recordings; EDPuzzle lets teachers create lessons for instructional videos like Khan Academy and give feedback on students progress. These all sound worth a try.

"LearnBoost empowers teachers and schools with a free all-in-one classroom tool. You can manage your classroom, track student grades, create lesson plans, mark attendance, view reports and more!" Very similar to Engrade. Offered in a dozen languages as well. Nice tutorials. Links to other Google apps, such as Calendar and Docs and Spreadsheets. Mobile able.

This is a nice chart (with verbs) of Bloom's taxonomy, and Stepes to work through the taxonomy as you create a lesson. Impresses one with all the steps that Bloom's taxonomy requires.

Evernote for iPad seems to have a new interface, and this video is the most up-to-date I coud find--by J. Hannam 10/31/13. The introductory video covers just about everything, including note creation, sharing with other apps, annotating images using Skitch (built-in), and connecting with Explain Everything to create lessons. Evernote has always seemed a little more trouble than it's worth, but maybe after more trial and error, I'll get to like it. Might be useful for student projects, if the teacher is allowed to share the notes and can skillfully organize them when received. The information age really demands organization skills.

Another great lesson for teacher training from the Teaching Channel. The teacher looks at themes in _Hunger Games_, but goes beyond the text to what is happening underneath in terms of writing craft. Since the work is familiar, they don't have to work at understanding, but rather can focus on and analyze the "messages" contained in the work. The storyboards are used to have students create a reality show to convey the messages, such as "survival," "acts of resistance," how images and dialogue are used, etc.

"Create and share great video lessons with your iPad or browser." This is a great tool for getting students talking, or for creating a lively presentation. You can upload a picture, or draw from scratch, as on a blackboard or whiteboard. Easy to use, free download, and available from the App Store for smart phone or iPad.

"You could use Google Maps Engine Lite to create your own classroom version of Novels on Location. Ask your students to write short short book reviews in the placemarks that they add to a shared Google Map. If you have students creating video book trailers, those videos could be added to their placemarks too. If could be a fun challenge for your call to try to collectively "read around the world" by locating stories set on each of the seven continents. " A nice tool and an interesting lesson using it. T/H R. Byrne