CALL_IS_VSL

"Providing your students with a public audience is not only a critical part of the project-based learning process, but it's also a great strategy for building authenticity into assignments to create work that matters. We often leverage our students' parents and guardians in this process because 1) they are easily accessible, and 2) they are our partners in their children's learning plans. Why not then continue and build this partnership in PBL? John Larmer wrote a great blog about how to build parent support for PBL, and one of the best ways he mentions is to keep them involved in the PBL project you launch in your classroom. Here are some strategies to consider as you leverage parents for your next PBL project."

"Among the many things students are expected to do, self-assessing their learning is part of the suite of metacognitive tools that are valued in today's society. This skill enables the student to think about their thinking, identify what they're doing well and what needs improvement. Self-assessment takes practice, and when it comes to schoolwork, students are not given enough opportunities. " K.Sung offers an example of ways for students to get in practice in self-assessing.

"For a little inspiration, we're showcasing twelve terrific poetry projects from our incredibly creative community of educators. You'll find projects for first graders and high schoolers, and everything from sensory poems to color explorations to poems about polliwogs. (We also think any of these would be just as fun for adults to try - a little creative expression is always good for the soul!)"

"nCtrl is a series of free standards-based lessons that teach key digital citizenship concepts. These lessons, for students in grades 4-8, are designed to engage students through inquiry-based activities, and collaborative and creative opportunities."

"Programming is magic. It's the ability to create things from pure imagination. We started CodeCombat to give learners the feeling of wizardly power at their fingertips by using typed code. "As it turns out, that enables them to learn faster too. WAY faster. It's like having a conversation instead of reading a manual. We want to bring that conversation to every school and to every student, because everyone should have the chance to learn the magic of programming. "CodeCombat is a community project,with hundreds of players volunteering to create levels, contribute to our code to add features, fix bugs, playtest, and even translate the game into 50 languages so far. Employees, contributors and the site gain by sharing ideas and pooling effort, as does the open source community in general. The site is built on numerous open source projects, and we are open sourced to give back to the community and provide code-curious players a familiar project to explore and experiment with. Anyone can join the CodeCombat community! "

"Use these strategies to help middle and high school students identify relevance, accuracy, bias, and reliability in the content they read." T/h J Coiro

"Of course, since we all live in the real world, it's unlikely that we will be successful in getting all our students participating -- particularly in a cognitive way -- all the time. However, there are a number of actions we can take to increase the odds of as many as our students being active learners and co-creators of what is happening in the classroom.... These techniques can include use of individual whiteboards for students to use for writing and sharing responses; not having students raise hands and, instead, having teachers call on students (especially if they are given thinking and partner-sharing time for preliminary processing); and asking students reflective questions at the end of class for use as exit slips. "It's also important to remember that the effectiveness of these kinds of techniques will always be constrained or expanded by the quality of the relationships and the culture in any classroom." T/h L Ferlazzo

"It's no longer enough to work from a pre-determined set of knowledge and skills all students are expected to acquire. To truly meet the Common Core, we have to teach students to dig deeper, think bigger and apply what they learn to real-world problems." So it's also about how teachers approach their job. Article by N. Krueger, 12/29/18

"I love genius hour, I love Innovation Day, I love the idea of learning and creating something. But I felt we were starting to focus too much on the creation part rather than just the learning part. That too much time was spent creating the imagery of their learning rather than the learning itself. So instead I asked the kids to do what we have called project time, 30 minutes once a week where they just get to learn. Sure, they can create, sure they can make things, but they can also use the entire time to just read, study, ask questions, whatever they want to do. I decided on a big category to help them focus their curiosity, geography, and with held breath I sat back. "The last two weeks have been incredible. Students have read library books on countries, they have studied maps, they have created impromptu map quizzes, and yes, they have even created presentations. The learning that has happened has been tangible as kids ask questions about the broader world, about their place in it. When I asked them what they thought, the response was overwhelming; "We love it, Mrs. Ripp. Please don't change it. What will we focus on next?" (History for those who wonder)." T/h P. Ripp

"Slidesgo offers over 100 high-quality, free presentation templates for Google Slides and PowerPoint. When you find a presentation template that you like, just click a button to either download the PowerPoint Template or make a copy of the Google Slides theme to your Google Drive. This collection of templates is beautifully designed and fully customizable." T/h N LaFave

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A series of lessons from Falmouth University. Free -- sign in with university

Bunches of things to do online and for flipped classroom, too

Types of activities: Make Instagram Galleries for Historical Figures. Create a Netflix series for a novel (displaying an understanding of plot, setting, characters, etc.). Make Amazon product pages to show the types of organelles that plant or animal cells might shop for. Create a Twitter profile for George Washington. Make Facebook pages for endangered species. A variety of activities for high school students.

Quizlet is one of the most flexible self-teaching tools available online. It offers far more than quizes: Good for self-practice, flashcards, vocabulary study, etc. All the multimedia you want and students can create their own practices. This pdf booklet/Google presentation helps you get started with distance learning.

"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.

Scholastic Learning has daily projects for grades PreK-12, sorted by level and subject area. Great ideas for learning.

Mcafee 25 digit activation code will guide you with each and every steps for McAfee like from signing up to the mcafee activate enter code account to the steps to download and install McAfee from www.mcafee.com/activate and then mcafee 25 digit activation code will guide you how to find McAfee activation code and steps to mcafee.com activate as well because McAfee activate is the most important factor otherwise your antivirus will not work.

"#BookSnaps provide fun visual ways to share our reactions to what we read. This post provides my quick take on #BookSnaps built on my experience working with teachers and students. For a more comprehensive look at #BookSnaps, please check out the amazing work of their founder, Tara Martin." T/h Nick LaFave