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!
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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! What is Kahoot? Web address for student access is kahoot.it. There is no .com or .edu. Just kahoot.it. Web address for teacher login is getkahoot.com. Teachers, go to www.getkahoot.com when you want to create or display the questions. Instruct students to go to, or provide a link, to kahoot.it for students. Kahoot is an interactive game-like learning platform. Teachers can either create a collection of questions or search for public ones. This is a GREAT platform for boosting student engagement in the classroom. You are able to ask them in real-time with your lesson. The question is displayed on the projector, it is NOT on their computer screen. You must have a projector to run the game through! Students must have a device to answer on. I have some thoughts on classrooms with limited devices though. 3 Types of Kahoot Quiz - You can ask as many questions as you want. It is okay to use a video or picture in your question. There must be one correct answer, but you can have more than one. The time limit can be set for each questions, ranging from 5 seconds to 2 minutes. Students earn points based on them being correct and them how fast they answer them, think playing trivia at a restaurant! Result can be downloaded after the game, and you can see who answered what. *Use initials or class numbers in order to use as a formative assessment!* Discussion - This option is to encourage conversation. It is one quick question that does not have a right or wrong answer. Students type in their answers and they display on the board. There are no points in this game-play. Survey - You can ask as many questions as you want. You can use a video or picture. There are no right or wrong answers. The results of each question can be discussed right there in class. The results can also be downloaded and saved. Kahoot in the Classroom Kids in Kindergarten through college have used this platform. It is ideal if each student has a device. You would display the Kahoot page on your projector and there is a game pin. The link would be on your webpage for students to go to. They type in the game pin, so they DO NOT need a login. Establish how you want them to display their name, first name, class number, initials, or other. If you are in a 2:1 situation, I would either assign the left to answer odd questions and right the evens, have them work together to answer them, or duplicate each question to where Student 1 answers all left and Student 2 all right, but they are still answering the same questions. This would take longer and may not be ideal. You could also have Student 1 answer the Kahoot questions while Student 2 does whiteboard, then switch the next day. Would I use this every day? No. But I would use it for those lessons that need a little extra engagement or that has a lot of knowledge checks in it. I am trying it with grade 2 tomorrow! I can't wait! Check out a video done by Susan Johnson that will show you a demo of using Kahoot. Steve Johnson has a video of him using it with his students. That is the last video on today's blog. One of our teachers demonstrated Thinglink for the high school teachers during our PLC day a couple of weeks ago. I had seen this in passing, but had never looked at it from an educational standpoint. There are so many GREAT things that can be done with this site. Imagine this, you have an image and on that image there are clickable points. These points include links to websites that give more information, questions to think about, a Google form exit slip/quiz/response...endless possibilities. Your very own interactive poster! First off, cost. Free to educators. Here is the breakdown between the free and paid. Really, the difference is if you have a lot of students you want on here to create. I think most of us can safely say that we don't have over 100 students. Some of you do. The Premium would be good if you had over 100 students AND you wanted them to be able to create Thinglinks of their own...often. I would not purchase this for just one project. Once you sign up (and you can, using your school Google account - easy peasy!), this is your workspace... Once you choose your image, it puts it in a workspace. You then click to tag the picture. From there you use the space to the left to add links or text. It is very easy to use. When you are finished, click Save at the bottom. After saving, you can share your Thinglink via social media, with a link, or embed it on your website. So easy. You can even go back in and edit it.
If you use Thinglink in your room, send me the link that either you or your students do! I would love to see them. Better yet, have me come in WHILE you are doing them so I can provide support. Click here to check out the AWESOME video on their site! PowToon came up during our PD day at school Friday, so I wanted to showcase it for you to see what it is all about. In order to get to it, go to Google Drive. Click on "Create" and it may already be an option in your dropdown. If not, you can click on "Connect More Apps" and type in "PowToon". Select PowToonEdu to view it. To connect it, click on the blue "Connect" button. Students can do this, too, if needed. Once you click on PowToon you can start from scratch or choose from templates that can be modified. There is an area to filter their results to the left. Click on the template you want and click "Go". The first time through will take you through a tutorial. The left side is your dashboard, similar to PowerPoint. The slide workspace is in the center. Then on the right is the area where you can pull in your images. All you do is click and drag them to the workspace. Along the bottom is the timer for your slideshow. It can be manipulated by dragging the dark lines to specify how long you want the image to be on the screen. Let the kids explore! They will figure it out quickly. When finished, I recommend changing the area at the top left where it says "movie" to "slideshow" by clicking on it. Then go to "Export" in the top right. It can then be titled and published. My First PowToon Creation |
AuthorFifth grade teacher in a 1:1 iPad classroom, sharing my journey with technology in the classroom Categories
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