EDTECH at Boise State University

Informative article describing the benefits of peer teaching.

When I've thought of the Khan Academy website, I used to think of the great deal of content there that is focused on Math and Science, with smaller sections for History and Economics. There is a much smaller but very useful section of the website focused on Grammar.

This is a new site that I like to visit with students. It allows the opportunity for them to take a brain break and pick which activity they do. What I enjoy is that there are calming ones that we can use when they come in from recess/lunch and dancing ones for after a long test/lesson.

This is my favorite website for elementary kids to get some wiggles out. The kids love the variety of activities, along with getting "points" and then leveling up to different characters. I love the site because I have the ability to choose an amount of time for the students to engage in physical activity and what I want to focus on. I made "Choose the Go Noodle" reward cards for homework winners.

Great site for integrating brain breaks and physical activity throughout the day. Connections to content material as well.

Scholastic site with ideas for using technology and art.

Article that emphasizes the need for inquiry-based science methods and change in pedagogy.

This blog gives ideas about how to use Buncee in elementary classrooms to differentiate learning.

The Big6 model is designed to help build information problem-solving and decision making skills, and is "completely transferable to any grade level, subject area, or workplace."

Larry Ferlazzo is an ELL teacher who has amassed a huge collection of resources including his "Best Of…" lists. There are a lot of good ideas here, not just for ELL/ESL teachers.

Discuss need for technology integration training during pre-service teacher training.

Interesting article discussing the integration of technology in science instruction. The importance of using TPACK, professional development for teachers in both science content and pedagogical methods for inquiry based instruction.

The David Rumsey Map Collection is a great resource for historical maps, and the Georeferencer feature is a cool way to overlay historic maps over a modern map and adjust the opacity to compare the two.

For those who haven't explored it yet, Google Earth's Voyager feature is a great resource for geography and mapping activities to integrate into lessons. (Launch in the Chrome browser).

Read, Write, Think is a web page about incorporating reading and writing in a classroom with a lot of emphasis placed on the language arts obviously.

Excellent resource for all age students for literacy skills.

Great templates to customize content. You can add video or images and text is read aloud. Possible tool to customize content for ESL learners

Great site for early childhood students learning English. Gives picture and audio and an opportunity to practice the skills.

This long-term project has students creating a blog that serves as their reading response journal for the year. For this assignment, students created a blog to replace their hardcopy notebooks. As students read various things in their English class, they use this one place to do all reading activities. Once they have finished posting, they then receive time to go and comment on other people's posts. This gives students a place to practice their writing skills with an authentic audience. As the year goes on and students get more comfortable with commenting, students could end up having rich conversations based on each other's writing. I like this because it is easy to set up and use for the course of the year. This can be applied to almost any subject area. Even a math teacher could use something like this for students to summarize their learning and bounce ideas off of their peers. The functionality and utility of this project make it a must-have for educators of all subject areas.

This project has students recreating scenes from older text using social media. Here, students were given different scenes from the play Romeo and Juliet. Students had to retell the scene using different social media platforms. This involved them creating accounts for the characters in their scene and reenacting it through the digital medium. When they were finished with their project they needed to tweet out the results to the class. Then they could view other peoples projects and comment on what they had done. This project gives students a way to think about older situations and reimagine them. It requires them to understand the important pieces of their scene and express them in a contemporary way. The feedback element through Twitter provides an audience for their work where they can get praise and feedback. This project would likely take a longer amount of time if social media accounts had not already been made, but it would be a great culminating activity. Freshman at my school read this play and I could see myself using this project.

This project has students using Instagram to post pictures that are related to the book they are reading. For this project, students were asked to select one line from the first two chapters of the book they were reading. They were asked to find a picture somewhere around their school that related to the line they selected and take a selfie with it as well. The final step was to post their picture with their quote as the caption using the classes hashtag. I like this assignment because students can select whatever part of the reading speaks to them the most and find a way to represent this visually. This pushes students to look deeper into what they are reading. Additionally, time can be spent looking at other posts made by other students and further depth can be added to the novel. This is a quick and easy task that can be done every few chapters for any novel. I could see myself using this project to supplement the reading being done in my class.

This project also has students making a Facebook account for their character and using these accounts to communicate with other students. This is similar to the remixing assignment, but it is a long-term assignment rather than a culminating activity. Students start by making a Facebook page for their character and post status updates as the class reads the book. They talk from the perspective of their character and it allows students to expand their thinking. When students are done, they use their page to have discussions about the novel as a class and out of character. This is a great way for students to step into the chose of different characters they are reading about and has students participate in multi-level writing. This is applicable to numerous different reading projects and something I could see myself using in my English class.

This project has students retelling a story through the use of a social media account. For this project, the story of To Kill a Mockingbird was retold with an Instagram account. The account was made from the perspective of the main character and pictures were added with different captions to explain the story. This allowed the students to use contemporary social media norms in the context of older stories. I like this project because it forces students to highlight the key points of a novel without simply writing them all out. If everyone in the class was using the same platform, they could add each other and comment on each other's posts. This would be a good way for students to see stories from the eyes of their character and add new layers of depth to stories. This is an idea that can be used with many different social media platforms and with many different stories. To Kill a Mockingbird is read by the Freshman in my district and this is a project I could see myself using.