Back to Blog
March Newsletter3/18/2019 Word Clouds are a type of graph or image composed of words used in a specific text or subject. The size of the word indicates its frequency and importance. The bigger and more bold the word is the more important it is and the smaller words are those that are of less importance and also show up less frequently. Teachers can use word clouds to compare and contrast pre-reading to post-reading, as an idea generator, as a cover for a book read in class, or as a word map. Below is a list of word cloud generator tools. Enjoy! Computers are here, and they are becoming a larger part of our everyday life. They are in our cars, TVs, appliances, and jobs. Careers in the computer science field are growing. Have you ever thought about how coding could help your students learn your curriculum? Have you been afraid that you don't know anything about coding, and how could you teach it to your students? Well, I challenge you to take a course from CodeHS and learn it yourself. This is a simple to use, web-based learning platform. There are videos explaining the steps you are going to learn. Questions to see if you understand what you have watched, and practice to try what you have learned. When you have completed a course stop and think about how you could use this in your curriculum. Let's help our students find their passions for life. CS First is a coding curriculum provided by Google. It uses a program called scratch to teach students how to code. Even if your not familiar with coding you can teach and learn along with your students. CS First has a step by step guide with instruction and activities that allows almost anyone to add coding into their classes. The CS First kit includes lesson plans and solution sheets for the teacher, as well as fun passports and stickers for the students. Check out what its all about at CS First. Jamboard is a digital collaborative whiteboard app that integrates with everything in a google apps for education account. You can access the web version by going to www.jamboard.com, or download the iOS app from the app store. The iOS app has a bit more features and functionality then the web version. Through the iOS app a teacher can import google drive files and folders, and import pictures and videos. You can also use the app's drawing features which are not included in the web version. Whatever you put on the iPad will sync directly to the app on the web. It's easy to share a Jam with students so that groups or whole classes can collaborate together. Check out the videos below!
This is a chrome extension that allows you to insert instructional content into any webpage. You start by going to almost any web page, then highlight text, add notes, and embed your own questions—either multiple-choice or open-ended—that students answer right on the page. You can also embed other content like YouTube videos, ThingLink images, flashcards from Quizlet, mind maps from Coggle, even your own recorded videos. Once a lesson is created, assign it to a class of students with a special code or through Google Classroom, and student responses are sent to a teacher dashboard, where you can grade them right inside the app. You can also share lessons with other teachers, so they can copy and edit them for their own use. Easily monitor student responses and annotations during class. TO get started go to the chrome webstore to download the extension. I've included a short tutorial below. BunceeThis is a Buncee presentation I created just to try it out. Jessica Evans shared this site with us, and Tom and I felt that it is a great resource for teachers. This is a source that provides pictures that students can use, and not worry about the other junk that comes with other search engines. It is pretty safe, I tried to search for common things that I have seen student search for that brought up inappropriate stuff. I couldn't with Kiddle. However, not all of the pictures are great works of art either. The best thing is that you can have your kids search and be safe. Google Sheets to Google CalendarSheets2Gcal is a Google sheets add-on that allows you to put several calendar events into a spreadsheet and then quickly add them to your Google Calendar saving you time from adding the events individually. Just follow the video tutorial below. Standards Based GradingHere are two good articles I recently read that I enjoyed reading about SBG. I wanted to share them with you.
1 Comment
Read More
Wendy Betts
4/1/2019 11:49:56 am
Thanks for the articles on SBG. Gives me more good information to share.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |