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Showing posts with label Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resources. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Writing Practice: Revision Gameboard

We all know writing in the classroom is essential to building communication skills in students. But teaching students to revise their work is critical to that development and effectively understanding content.

We may be strong at teaching the thesis, or the introductory paragraph, or how to use and explain evidence in the body of an essay. Where most of us need work is with helping our students revise their work in an effort to make it (almost) perfect. The problem with revision and revising tactics (aside from the time it takes) is that students need guidance and structure in order to effectively address the issues within their essay. You can't tell a developing student to merely "look it over and make some edits."

Lisa Guardino, EdTech TOSA in El Dorado County created the below file to make it easier for students to cover the vast ground of effectively revising an essay.

She's created a Google Doc "gameboard" in which students one by one complete "squares" on their board as they complete the tasks embedded within. Each square focuses on a different aspect (grammar, strong thesis statement, focusing on the audience, etc.) suggesting various tools for students to use in revising their work. You can alter the tools they use as you see fit. As each student completes the various tasks they fill the cell of the table in with a color. If done correctly, the student has fully revised their paper in a meaningful way focusing on different aspects of the writing and editing process. The more we can embed these skills in our students' practice, the stronger writers they will become.

Guardino's work is embedded below for you to view, and I've provided a link to your own copy. With your own copy you can make as many alterations as you see fit! When ready to roll these out to your students, have them make a copy of the document themselves so it becomes theirs.

With this tool, the revising part of the writing process will seem less daunting, the students get to visually identify areas of their essay they need to revise, and they can work at their own pace and pick areas to revise before others. In short, they will be given a path to success and be responsible for how effectively they use their voice.

Link to the file below


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Monday, April 24, 2017

#Twitter Roll Call

Here's your Twitter Roll Call for the past week....just a number of things I see around the Twittersphere that move me and compel me to share them with you. You can always live vicariously through me, or you can sign up for a Twitter account yourself and start building your PLN!! If you need a bit of Twitter 101, let me know and I'll show you how to get started.

Also, if you just want to stalk around Twitter without signing up for an account, you can do that too! just go to https://twitter.com/search-home and type in any keywords that might be useful to you. You can also search via hashtag.

Ideas & Resources






Things To Ponder













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Video Use in the Classroom: EdPuzzle & Playposit

Video in the classroom is nothing new. Videos are engaging and spark interest and learning in our students and have a distinct advantage of not being our voice (😝)! The way in which video is delivered however has changed. Gone are the days in which the only was was to wheel in the big TV strapped to the media cart to a place where most can see. Popping in the VCR (remember those?? Whoever has one still....you're amazing!) that documentary you recorded 7 summers ago. Not anymore. Technology has progressed where we can deliver self-paced, engaging video-based curriculum that allows us to assess our students' understanding in real time.

Two resources I love to talk about to achieve these ends are EdPuzzle and Playposit. Both are constructed similarly, have benefits over the other, and are excellent tools to utilize in the 21st century classroom. If you use video in the classroom (whether for classwork or homework) it's not enough to say "watch this video and take notes" - students need direction in order to get the most out of your curated resource.

Check out more after the jump!

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Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Alternative to the Poster & Brochure Project

How many times do we ask students to make posters and brochures in class? How many times have you been asked to make them in real life? Maybe your class rules or reminders posted around the room were created on poster paper a while ago, but your prinicpal rarely asks you to create a poster to demonstrate your knowledge of the California State Standards or a brochure on what your classroom management philosophy is. Or a hand-drawn visual assessment of our favorite students (we all have them, admit it 😜). Unless you're marketing an event or creating a hand out for people at some function, chances are the poster and brochure making skills max out as a Senior in high school.

We can do better. We need to build design skills and have students visualize their learning, yes. But there are many alternatives to this process. Alice Keeler has put together a handy little collaborative, crowd-sourced document to identify different ways of accomplishing the same task. Check the list below (there's a tab at the bottom to see the Poster alternatives) for inspiration and ideas!

Have a great idea you use in the classroom that isn't present on the list? To add to the list, click here: Add to Project List



Link to a larger version of this file



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Tuesday, April 18, 2017

#Twitter Roll Call: Ideas, Things to Think About, Resources

Here's your Twitter Roll Call for the past couple weeks....just a number of things I see around the Twittersphere that move me and compel me to share them with you. You can always live vicariously through me, or you can sign up for a Twitter account yourself and start building your PLN!! If you need a bit of Twitter 101, let me know and I'll show you how to get started.

Also, if you just want to stalk around Twitter without signing up for an account, you can do that too! just go to https://twitter.com/search-home and type in any keywords that might be useful to you. You can also search via hashtag.

Ideas & Tips




Things to Think About


Resources


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Thursday, March 23, 2017

#Twitter Roll Call: Just a Roundup of Things to Share

I'm going to start a recurring feature on this blog that looks at certain resources and interesting ideas I find on Twitter. You can always live vicariously through me, or you can sign up for a Twitter account yourself and start building your PLN!! But barring that, here is a bit of random things I've found interesting over the past few weeks.

If you want to get started on Twitter, let me know and I will show you the ropes.

Inspiration:





Interesting Ideas 




Resources & Tools







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Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Resources for Subjects: Tech Resources to Check out

I know this post won't cover every subject, but I'm hoping that it will have a little something for everyone. You may even find some use in some resources geared towards other subjects. Let me know if there is something specific that you need in your classroom. I'd love to work with you and help in any way I can.

 Across Curriculum
  • Peer Grade - Peer feedback on assignments has never been easier. Collect work and redistribute to students for peer review. Complete with backend data for the teacher to analyze peer feedback
  • mysimpleslideshow - Create a script for a story and let the resource find images automatically that flow with your script. Narrate the story or have a computer-generated voice do it for you
  • ELink - Curate any type of resource into a slick looking website or embed-able resource for students. Students could also use it to collect resources on a given topic 
ELA
  • CommonLit - Library of informational texts with questions to gauge understanding and media to facilitate deeper learning
SAT/ACT Prep
  • PrepFactory: Helps students identify what types of questions will be asked on the SAT & ACT using interactive and engaging activities and games
Social Science
  • Hexagonal Thinking Approach - The idea with this tool/activity is to get students to categorize events and concepts related to an overall subject (Think "Causes of WWII" as the subject and political events like the "Munich Agreement" could be an event), you can push your students to identify links between events, and also establish priority over other events. An excellent explanation of this process can be found here. Creating Visual Hexagons is a visual twist on this concept as well that can be done in Google Drawing or Slides. 

Maths
  • g(Math) add on - easily create graphs, equations and other needs for the Maths class with this add on for Docs & Sheets. g(Math) also has a Google Forms add-on for your formative assessment needs! See the gif below to get yours

Science/STEM
  • The Concord Consortium - a collection of classroom activities and simulations that can be filtered by grade level and subject
Physical Education
Performing Arts
  • Soundtrap - Originally created for music industry artists, this web-based music producing service is user-friendly and allows students in many different performing arts get to use their voice to produce their works
Visual Arts

  • Google Arts & Culture - a repository of artistic work from around the world spanning thousands of years of history 





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