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CodeWizardsHQ is the leading online coding school for kids and teens ages 8-18. We deliver the most fun and effective live, online coding classes which are designed to give our students the programming knowledge, skills, and confidence to thrive in a digital world.

"Combine a slow pace of meaningful change towards a new more enlightened vision for education with a rapid drive towards heightened levels of standardised testing (an unceasing desire to measure attributes of learning that increasingly matter less), and we have a system that is in need of radical change. The question is, will COVID be the catalyst for this change?" Educatiion is still operating on the industrial technology. Students are changing at the rate of digital technology. Will the extensive period of schooling at home on the Internet help make a change possible? We'll have to see.

"Mote works through a Chrome extension that makes it easy for teachers to leave students voice-recorded feedback in Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Classroom. Students don't need the Mote extension or even an account to listen to recorded feedback. It's a real time-saver and a great way to provide effective feedback. " While Nick is right that voice annotation may be a good way to explain you thoughts on student writing, I think that MS Word has a voice annotation feature. And the written notes to students are still important if for nothing else than a reminder as the student re-writes. Mote requires uploading a document to Google Docs first, though that is no big deal. Worth a try, and Nick explains clearly how to run through the whole process.

"Each 45-minute webinar will feature clips of real educators teaching students remotely as we explore the most effective ways to engage and educate students in an online classroom." I expect these webinars will be available for some time after the COVID crisis ends, so this may be a good spot to learn more on blended and fully remote teaching. Reasonably price at $149 for a 15-hour course of study.

"Students often struggle with mapping out a story's plot. Toontastic solves this problem by using story arcs to drive the entire creative process. Each story arc consists of 3-5 parts or scenes, and scenes are limited to a maximum of 1 minute each. After selecting a scene, the app provides a succinct video explanation of that scene's piece of the story arc (i.e. Beginning - where you introduce the characters and the setting of your story)." Story arcs include short story, classic (5-part) story, and science report. T/h

The Quizlet Blog is a good source, not just for using Quizlet, but for lesson plan ideas like this one for Black History Month -- or any time of the year that race might come up as a topic. And when doesn't it?

"This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told Author: J. Arthur Thomson"

"Brainstormer is a great tool for group brainstorming. Teachers and students contribute ideas to a shared board, build on each other's thoughts, and vote for their favorite ideas. Plus, it's completely free and no accounts are required. " T/h Nick LaFave

"While there are several slides template sites, SlidesMania is hands-down the best one for teachers and students. They've embraced the idea that there's a lot more to Google Slides than presentations. " Dozens of templates to use for free. T/h Nick LaFave

Tools you may have used that went away. Nick LeFave offers many new alternatives, a number with enhanced features.

An image optimizer allows you to use high-quality images that will load much faster for student reports, e.g. Nick recommends TinyPNG which is currently free and allows you to upload an image and then download a reduced size file.

"Loom is the best choice for teachers and students looking for a free screen recorder. They generously offer many of their paid features to students and teachers for free. Just go to loom.com/education and click on Verify Education Account." T/h to Nick LaFAve. He also has links to short lessons on how to use this screen recorder.

"One of my favorite review game platforms just added a great new collaborative feature. Teachers can now let their students collaboratively create questions for their next round of Gimkit using KitCollab. Teacher setup is simple and allows question writing to happen in real-time or asynchronously. Students just click on a link, write a multiple-choice or text-input question, and submit it for teacher approval." T/h Nick