Oh, it's almost that "wonderful" time of year. Time for testing, packing up the classroom, thinking about summer vacation, celebrating another year accomplished, and...planning what to do for these last few weeks AFTER testing. AHHHH!
All teachers know what the end of testing means, checked out brains. Not only students, but teachers, too. The stress is over, the preparing is done, but now what? For 3-4 weeks, students are still coming to school to be engaged in learning. We owe it to them to still teach them, but now is the time to try some new things you have wanted to try! Think of the 4 Cs: Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication. What can you do to incorporate all 4? Webquests - A great way to hit all 4 Cs! Try these websites to find one for your class
Make videos. Students could do a year in review video. What did they learn this year? What knowledge could they pass onto the next class? Kahoot. Make some fun Kahoot lessons that make your lessons completely interactive. It's like Trivia Crack at school! Check it out in the categories section to the right! Discover Wonderopolis.com and think about all the AMAZING things that can be done with the information on that site! Think outside the box. Make your students excited to finish out the final weeks of this school year!
ThingLink was a site I featured a few weeks ago. It was one that I saw another teacher demonstrate, but I had not used it with students myself yet. That tends to be difficult in my position. I don't have guinea pig students to try things on anymore, but I do have teachers that have been stepping up as my testers!
Mrs. Davis in 4th grade wanted me to do something "techy" with her kids when they finished their informational papers. The first thing that came to our minds was ThingLink. Create an Account
I chose the free service they provide , and it has proven to be enough at this point. Hint for teachers: under the Get Started button is a link for teachers to follow. I logged in using my Google+ information (so, your school Google account works).
Student Accounts
I made a "Davis" group and then clicked on the gear to manage my students.
You then can add students without using an email address. I did this because I wasn't clear on the class code usage. We did have some problems, although this is an option. Then they could use their Google logins. It will create an account for them, using their firstname@somerandomletters,moreletters. I believe all the students in your class will have the same extension on their address after the @ sign. Then the password is a unique one. I recommend changing this AS SOON as they log in for the first time.
From there, they can get started. Follow the link below to learn HOW to make a ThingLink!
Make a ThingLink Here are some samples on what the student created ones look like! Would you like to have a classroom calendar you can display on your webpage? It has never been easier than with Google Calendars! This is a step-by-step on how to get the calendar created and the code to put in the website. I can tell you how to put it into Weebly, but if you need to know how to do it on another platform, let me know and I will look into it for you! Go to Google Calendar on your App waffle (you need to be logged in). Click on each photo to learn more. They go in order of the process. From there, if you are on Weebly, go to the page you would like to insert the calendar onto. On the left side you will see a button that has this icon, </> Embed Code. Click it and drag it where you want it on the page, paste the code you copied, into the box. It should now be on your page. You may have to publish and view the website to see it fully!
Connecting with classrooms around the country? Who would have thought this was possible even five years ago? Well, it is, and we have a 5th grade class that made it reality for this Technology Integration Specialist. What is Mystery Skype? I had heard about Mystery Skype on various blogs and from some teachers in a neighboring city. It is a way to play 20 questions with another school that isn't in your area. You can go to the Mystery Skype page and search for teachers that are interested in Skyping with your class. The teachers connect and find a common day and time (keeping time zones in mind!). Then you call each other via Skype and ask yes/no questions about each schools' location.
I connected with a teacher in another state for Mrs. Thompson's fifth grade class. The teachers know where each other is from, but the students do not. Through a series of questions, we narrowed down the states we were from. They figured out we were in Missouri and we figured out they were in Vermont. We then tried to track down each others' city...we got theirs and they got close to ours! Within 30 minutes, we had connected with another school, used research skills, inference skills, collaboration, geography, and communication to work together to find this school. The process was very well-done. We had done a mock-Skype session within our building to ensure they all knew their jobs. We had a group on Google Maps trying to find their location, another group with atlases trying to figure out what questions to ask next, another group with a Missouri map in front of them, answering questions, students talking to Vermont telling them answers or asking questions, students recording the questions being asked and those asked of us, students photographing the experience, and probably more! It seemed chaotic, but they were doing SUCH an excellent job working together. This was one of the most fun things I have been a part of this year! We even have a class set up to do a Mystery Hangout (same as Skype, but with Google Hangouts) with another COUNTRY and another class doing a different state...but it's a mystery...so I can't tell! Check out my Twitter account as I live tweet the country hangout on April 8th!
Need a way to manage those classroom behaviors? Want a positive way to do this in a way that motivates students to make good choices? Class Dojo may be the site for you!
I have seen this site used in elementary all the way through high school. The outcomes have been the same in all the classrooms, students and parents love it. How Does it Work
Class Dojo is a web-based behavior management tool. The great thing is that you can use this on your computer, phone, ipad, or any other device with connectivity. Teachers sign up for a FREE account and input their students' names into the system (some teachers use their numbers instead, your choice). Then the student is assigned a monster avatar.
What happens next, is that you get to award students points for their good behavior. What is "good behavior"? Well, the great thing is that you can customize the good and the bad behaviors. Because along with the giving of the points, there is the taking away of the points for negative behaviors. The great thing is that when you award a student a point, there is a message that comes up that congratulates that student and says why you awarded that point. Because many teachers keep this projected all day on their board, students often times will rethink their behaviors because they do not want their peers to see them get deducted points. Some teacher choose to only reward points and do not take them away. Again, it is a personal decision that you can make. Motivating Students
Now that students have earned points, what happens? Of course people have thought about his, and there are many options of things you can do to reward students. Some have come up with clever reward charts like Hanging out in First.
Seriously, search Pinterest for Class Dojo rewards. You will find enough to reward your students for years!
Parents and Data
There is a great tool for parents. They can sign up for the site and get automatic feedback on their child's behavior daily from this site. You can also choose to send reports home. The great thing is that this site stores your data, giving you a way to track behavior. This can be a wonderful tool for those students you are needing to keep data on for behavior. It allows you to be specific about the behaviors causing the issues, so you can better address and solve them.
Another great web-based tool! |
AuthorFifth grade teacher in a 1:1 iPad classroom, sharing my journey with technology in the classroom Categories
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