MEd Program Diigo Group

If you copy/paste youtube links into a search box, it creates an ad-free/comment-free link that you can save to access a youtube video for your class. It also eliminates the "suggested videos" that pop up at the end of each video.

The Khan Academy is a free online resource for learners to access over 3,000 videos. Since the video tutorials are short, the content keeps even the most distracted student's attention. Working at a Community college, many students entering are required to take academic placement test in math and english. The math assessment seems to be the most fustrating among students. This site has interactive quizzes to assist in preparation and or to identify where the deficiency is for students. Students are advised to review the content prior to completing the assessments and to help as they matriculate throughout their required math courses.

This is a great resource for students of all ages. In my school, STEM is a huge focus. This website provides thousands of STEM resources for students in grades Pre-K through after twelfth grade. There are resources for each content area. When thinking of how to integrate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, this is a great website to check out!

This is a great mathematics drill-and-practice educational software for students of all ages. It is completely web-based, and so students can access it from any computer with an internet connection. Each student has a personalized account and completes drills that focus on his or her specific "math fact needs". Thus, students are receiving individualized practice for math facts. My students love it! It's free, easy to use, and extremely student-friendly. I highly recommend it!

This blog post provides critical questions to ask when you start forming your PLN, and also a strategy for beginning to explore.

This guide provides key steps to encouraging buy-in and safety in your school while setting up social media to advance student learning in the classroom. If you are interested in Edutopia's other classroom guides, see http://www.edutopia.org/classroom-guides-downloads

Dear Professor and Class, Sibelius is a music editor software that gives music students, composers, and songwriters a platform to write, play and publish music notations. Sibelius is ideal tool for music students and teachers. Sibelius is used to construct professional and perfectly aligned notes. Sibelius allows users to write music, transcribe audio, share notations, scan and print music sheets. The software is adaptable and flexible. Students and teachers can import music from other programs such as iTunes and connect to several sites such as Facebook and Youtube. Sibelius also is capable of using Midi instruments. Sibelius insists on being the fastest, smartest and easiest software around (http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/7/index.html). Students easily write music by creating your own musical score and there are several templates already in place. References Sibelius 7 - music notation software. Sibelius - the leading music composition and notation software. Retrieved October 10, 2013, from http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/7/index.html

Google drive is a great online collaboration resource. I recently had the opportunity to participate in a training called "iPad pair share." At the training we collaborated with about 40 other educators through Google drive. Throughout the training we were able to write down our thoughts or questions on different online/iPad tools. This would be great tool for students to collaborate on class projects or assignments. The only problem with this is that you have to have an account, which requires all the students to have an account to use this.

Rich, We have started using Google Drive in our school and it has also been embraced countywide. It has really helped our teachers streamline forms and spreadsheets. It has also served as a great host for housing static information like our handbook and policies. Finally, the calendar option has made it a one stop shop for information. I am a fan of Google Drive, but like you said you need to have an account to use it.

Schooltube is a videosharing site for teachers and students all over the United States. It can be used to locate and share video content for all grade levels.

Wordle can be used for brainstorming ideas. I think that it can be used for any grade level.

I use Wordle to keep track of our vocabulary lists for each unit. Great site!

I love Wordle! Earlier in the year, I had my class create autobiographies and then make wordles out of the text. It turned out well, and it was interesting to see the big ideas in my students' lives.

This is great for math classrooms!

This is a primary math activity site that features TV characters.

Wiggio is a great resource for collaboration within groups. The site allows users to post important dates within a shared calendar, use to do lists and assign specific tasks to group members and my favorite of all, send text/voice messages to remind group members of important info.

This is an amazing classroom management system to promote positive behavior. Each student in the class is given an avatar. Simply click on the student's name and give/take dojo points for the behaviors you've programmed in. All of the data is logged into the site and saved for the duration of the year. Use the class feature daily or weekly to identify classroom strengths and areas for improvement. Individual student reports are also available and serve as a powerful tool for parent conferences and grade level meetings. Teachers can choose to reward students based on their positive behaviors by points or percentage. I have used the site extensively in my classroom (5th grade) and have found it to be the most effective positive behavior strategy I've ever tried.

A great free online tool for tracking student behavior. This site allows teachers to instantly record student behavior and participation in class. It also graphs students weekly behaviors and allows students to set goals. Teachers can link class dojo up to parents' email and cell phones so parents can recieve daily updates on their childs behaviors and choices in school.

I have a few teachers who have used this tool in their own classrooms and absolutely love this technology. In order to stay organized, Class Dojo allows teachers to keep track of students behavior. Then, teachers could have a simple way of tracking data in order to allow for positive incentives. Displaying data for the class shows how behavior is effecting classroom lessons and keeps students accountable for their actions. Behavior reports are also good printouts to bring to parent-teacher conferences.

This website is an amazing tool. You can share files, documents, and even your screen with your group partner. ShowDocument allows teams to complete co-edits, use a whiteboard for brainstorming, view video clips, search web pages, and even utilize google maps. ShowDocument has a lot of collaborative web tools in once place. You have to pay for a membership to use chat translators and screen captures, but the basic tools are ideal for most group projects. Best, Denee

Debategraph is a fantastic tool for individual and group study. It is perfect for organizing thoughts, ideas and facts. You can create bullet points and subcategories of information. On Debategraph you can map your ideas and collaborate with team members. I used Debate graph on my website in 605 as a language arts tool. Its a an ideal tool for brainstorming and organizing a persuasive or informative argument. Students can also present information using the debategraph as a visual. Best, Denee Devenish

Debategraph allows users to map and discuss ideas. EDTC 610

This site provides many links to other sites, for those wanting to know more about multicultural education.

This site allows you to customize your own map. You can even create a link so others can access the map you have created. You can add physical systems like water, land, and climate. You can also add populations, culture, political, economic, environment, and society information. You can also draw on the map and place markers. This would be very useful for 7th grade World History and Geography. It could actually have a place in any grade. I have not used it yet, but I plan to. I like everything about it so far.

With Splashtop software I am able to access my laptop through my iPad. This software allows me to move freely around my classroom and instruct. In our health lessons I am able to display our power points or access online resources on my computer from my iPad. It also has a tool called whiteboard, which allows me to draw, highlight, circle, or point out different things that are displayed on my screen. This could really come in handy when we talk about different muscles in the body and allow me to really point out a specific muscle. This is a great resource for a teacher, but unfortunately is not free.

I selected a source from ERIC that focused somewhat upon the novelty and implementation on PARCC assessments in place of other testing batteries in school systems. This article may help us to a degree in honing our focus of our EQ as to why students grades declined significantly in the third quarter. Discussing issues with the ELA and the Common Core in Massachusetts, the very novelty of the testing led one overwrought educator to even remark, "...I'm not really thinking about PARCC yet. I have too much else to do" (Barrett, 2014, p. 25). Herein, Barrett mentions that field testing was just implemented into 18 states, just last year, and income and resource availability may play a significant role in Massachusetts' national performance leadership on former testing assessments and the Common Core (p. 24). Interesting to note is that the two parts of the PARCC testing, the PBA and the end of year examinations are only one month apart, spanning from March-April, and May-June (p. 25). Barrett, L. (2014). Common core 'A really big reset'. Education Digest, 79(8), 22.

This citation caught my eye because I am a Massachusetts educator and it is still undetermined whether or not the PARCC tests will be implemented in my district again this year. In general I felt that, last year, the assessment took too much time away from instruction. Now the teachers and parents I know seem more uncertain than ever that all our preparation efforts are worth it. I think if we weren't in such an all-fired hurry to raise our scores PARCC could actually develop into a meaningful exercise. Everybody relax!