ENGAGING INTERACTIVE LEARNERS
Articles | Hybrid & Blended |General Tools | Routines | eLearning Activities | Formative Assessment | Interactive Presentation Tools
Annotation Tools | Video Tools | Virtual Classrooms | Templates | Synchronous & Asynchronous Collab. & Chats | Screencasting | Sticky Notes & Exit Slips | Reading/Literature | Science | Math | Social Studies/History | Online Games | Digital Escape Rooms | SEL | Videos
Even though teaching online may feel like a different animal than teaching face-to-face, there are many similarities in terms of the building blocks of a lesson. The tools teachers use to engage students online are indeed different. It is also true that engaging students in learning activities online will require, at least initially, that teachers guide students to those technology tools and support them in learning how to navigate online tasks. However, the activities and tasks teachers use to create their lessons offline can be transferred to the online environment if teachers know what tools to use.
Articles and Videos to Boost Online Learning Participation
7 Tips for Parents Supporting Remote Learning
5 Structures for a Virtual School
Five Ways to Boost Student Participation in Remote Learning
3 Strategies for Promoting Deep Learning Virtually
18 Questions To Ask Students About Their Day Remote Learning
The Building Blocks of an Online Lesson
5 Strategies to Engage Learners Around Flipped Instruction
The Pedagogy of Digital Discussion How to Use Khan Academy for Remote Learning
- Although the origin story of Khan Academy might have started with videos, there are now lots of resources on their website that go along with each topic. For example, if I go to the Courses drop down menu which I mentioned before, choose World History, and then choose Byzantine Empire, there are two videos, and two articles with questions built in to check for understanding. The videos also have closed captioning options.
Why Are Some Kids Thriving During Remote Learning? While many students are struggling to adapt to online learning, some seem to thrive with it. A few of the shy, highly creative and hyperactive kids seem to be doing better in their school work online than they did in class.This has inspired the teachers to consider keeping some days online even when schools reopen. Students can self-pace their learning and choose when they do their homework. It also gives students a chance to take a needed break and exercise, walk around, do something different for a while, which research shows are beneficial for renewed focus.
Five Ways to Differentiate Instruction in an Online Environment
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
The Do’s & Don’ts of Hybrid Teaching
Making Hybrid Teaching Work for Educators & Students
How to Improve Distance Learning for Students ... - Edutopia
Hybrid Teaching Is Multitasking to the Umpteenth Degree More Do's and Don'ts
New Google Slides "Tier List" Activity EduProtocols are popular to foster discussion This activity is called a "Tier List". It is a high engagement student activity It encourages critical thinking, communication, comparing, contrasting, prioritizing, and defending rationales It can be used in any subject or grade level It should only take 15 to 30 minutes, and can be used multiple times throughout the year with different content. You can get the templates, directions, and a 12-minute tutorial video at: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2023/03/google-slides-tier-list-activity.html
Back to School 2020 is a resource offered by Google for Education through Applied Digital Skills platform. It features 20 lessons to help you learn and integrate a wide variety of digital skills- focused lessons in your instruction be it online or in the classroom. Getting Started in Your Classroom | Time Management & Organization | Study Skills | Art & Games |
How to Help Middle School Students Learn to Work Independently These students can navigate a self-paced class with lots of teacher support at the beginning and clear expectations about assignments.
How to Engage Students in Meaningful Math Discussions Online As middle and high school math students talk through problems, they build camaraderie and gain greater conceptual understanding.
How to Keep Students’ Attention in a Virtual Classroom Teachers worried about students zoning out during distance learning can lean on these programs to help
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
Combatting the Challenges of the Concurrent Classroom with the Station Rotation Model | Lesson Plan Template | Statin Rotation Template |
- ✅ Let's Talk About Station Rotation As teachers learn about this technology-enhanced instructional model, they have a lot of questions! They wonder if their class periods are too short or if their class sizes are too big to use this model. I break down five frequently asked questions and explain how teachers can use this model in their classrooms
DISTANCE LEARNING (Crisis Learning)
10 Best Decisions Made with Distance Teaching
9 Ways Distance Learning should be Different from Face-to-Face
Nurturing a Classroom Community During Distance Learning Strategies like using a variety of groupings and having students meet each other during online office hours can help build strong relationships.
How to Create Community in a Virtual Classroom
Practical Remote Teaching Tips for Teachers and Educators
Connecting With Reluctant Remote Learners K - 5
Distance Learning with ELLs
Connect, Extend, Challenge downloadable activity slide to help your students reflect on a piece of their work and record their thoughts about it through the lens of Connect, Extend, Challenge!
8 Strategies to Improve Participation in Your Virtual Classroom
7 Strategies Designed to Increase Student Engagement in Synchronous Online Discussions Using Video Conferencing
- More Discussion Participation Ideas talk2.docx
Synchronous Online Discussions: Preparation, Facilitation & Wrap Up
Synchronous Lesson Routine Tips
Remote Learning Communication: How to Best Connect with Students
How to Teach and Assess With Team Assignments
Distance Learning FAQ: Solving Teachers’ and Students’ Common Problems Lessons learned from problems during remote learning can help inform teaching and learning this fall.
When Parents and Teachers Work Together
The learning curve for remote teaching was steep for parents and teachers in the beginning. But, as we get used to it, we find there are ways to make it easier and even more effective than solely classroom teaching. The main key is for parents and teachers to have open communication about the child and to each understand everyone’s challenges.
Jacqui
Hybrid and Blended Classrooms
Starter Guide
Difference between hybrid learning and blended learning
Choosing the Right Blended Learning Model
Tips for Implementing Blended Learning
Using Blended Learning To Strengthen Math Skills
The blended learning models that can help schools reopen
Video 10 key points about blended learning
Using Blended Learning to Explore Multifaceted Topics Blended learning stations allow teachers to create exciting interdisciplinary lessons that expose students to a variety of learning modalities.
BLENDED LEARNING Co-teaching With Myself Creating his own instructional videos allowed one teacher to be in two places at once in his classroom.
Personalize learning with Explore Boards
TEACHFLIX: Crowdsourced Videos for Educators and by Educators TEACHFLIX, which has a curated library of teaching videos and resources for students. You can browse by keyword, subject area, or grade level.Teaching with Teachflix Activities ebook make a copy of the activities in Google Slides. Or you can download a PowerPoint file of the activities. Or you can download everything in a PDF file.
Designing and Facilitating Learning for an Alternating A-B Hybrid Schedule (Links to an external site.)
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
Alternative Strategy for Using Google Docs for Collaboration and Commenting
Better Together Activities for Collaboration
12 brain breaks to energize your classroom
Brain Break Choice Cards
Ask Your Students for Feedback!Want to ensure that the rest of your school year is as productive as possible? Gather mid-year feedback from your students with a simple, quick feedback strategy, like Keep, Start, Stop!
Guided Notes Templates Guided Notes are teacher-prepared handouts that outline lectures, audiovisual presentations, or readings, but leave blank space for students to fill in key ...
New Google Slides "Tier List" Activity EduProtocols are popular to foster discussion This activity is called a "Tier List". It is a high engagement student activity It encourages critical thinking, communication, comparing, contrasting, prioritizing, and defending rationales It can be used in any subject or grade level It should only take 15 to 30 minutes, and can be used multiple times throughout the year with different content. You can get the templates, directions, and a 12-minute tutorial video at: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2023/03/google-slides-tier-list-activity.html
✅Personalized Learning Made Easy: Using the Learner Variability Navigator in the Classroom "Many of these students become marginalized when systems do not consider their learner variability. "The Learner Variability Navigator is a free online tool. It translates learning research into learner factors and teaching strategies. It is designed to be used as a supplement or support to programs. A key goal is to tailor instruction to meet individual needs. It then examines the factors that research has identified as critical to learning success and provides strategies, assessments, activities and videos to address students who may need support in an identified factor. The list is extensive and the factors are grouped into four categories – content area, cognition, social-emotional and learner background. The following video shows how to use the Learner Variability Navigator.
The Power of Brain Breaks
Responsible Decision-Making Activities for the Classroom
Verbal Workout Free website with interactive exercises for commonly taught MS and HS books.Before reading the book, browse the quiz words with typical sentences to get familiar with unknown words. Then take the pre-reading quiz to increase word awareness and improve comprehension. After reading the book, browse the quiz words with book sentences. Then take the post-reading quiz based on example sentences from the book. The sentences are in story order, so this reinforces both the story and the words already learned.
Tools for Students to Create Tutorials .
Tips for Navigating a Concurrent Classroom | The Concurrent Classroom: Using Blended Learning Models to Teach Students In-Person and Online Simultaneously
🎯Making Thinking Visible: - This is a site from Harvard’s Project Zero that provides routines to promote thinking and understanding. These concepts can be expanded into the Blended environment. You may want to visit this site that provides some of these routines in a virtual kind of way. You may want to look at this site that provides tech apps that work with different routines, or this other site that provides a look at Google Slides and Routines Core Thinking Routines | Digging Deeper Into Ideas | Introducing & Exploring Ideas | Investigating Objects & Systems |Perspective-taking | Considering Controversies, Dilemmas, and Perspectives | Generating Possibilities and Analogies | Synthesizing & Organizing Ideas | Exploring Art, Images, and Objects |Global Thinking
5 Strategies to Engage Learners Around Flipped Instruction
PBS Learning Media has thousands of standards aligned videos, interactives,lessons and more. Any materials can be posted directly to Google Classroom. Interactive lessons are learning modules that feature readings, videos, formative questions, and other interactive elements. Teachers can even create lessons by combining materials and posting the link for students in Google Classroom
Quick activities to pair with a video. "Something that'll help students take the next step with what they've learned? Something that'll help them engage in the content in new ways? And something that isn't just busy work?Free ebook full of activities to engage your students with videos. It's called "Teaching with TeachFlix." t has links to lots of simple activities you can use with all sorts of classroom videos, including: plus ideas for using some of our social media templates in the DTT templates library -- and places to find other great teaching videos.Get that ebook in a Google Slides file, a PowerPoint file, or a PDF file ... and knock out some lesson plans in a hurry."
Applications For Annotating Websites.
TARA. It’s a service that solves problems for new teachers and veteran teachers. Those problems are having more time to do the parts of your job that you love and finding new resources and ideas to bring into your lesson plans. TARA Helps You Quickly Find New Strategies The resource bank is a useful my feature of TARA. It contains more than six dozen instructional strategies that you can incorporate into your lesson plans that you create in TARA (more on that in the video at the end of this post). The strategies include templates for handouts that you can use in your lesson plan. Most importantly, the strategies in TARA’s resource bank include tips on how to use the strategies and additional readings about strategy implementation. short demo video www.freetech4teachers.com
ClassroomQ A bit like a digital deli counter ticket system for your classroom. Classroomq provides you with a simple webpage on which your students can indicate that they need help and state the problem/question with which you can help them. Classroomq shows you a list of the students who have asked for help and their questions. You then digitally cross-off their names as you address their questions. Classroomq will provide you with a record of which students asked for help and the questions they may have asked. short video to see how Classroomq works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Quick Play Assignments when Your're in a Pinch Sometimes you don't have the time to create a brand new assignment from scratch. When an emergency sub is standing in or for indoor recess, rely on Quick Play to help push out the highest-reviewed games to your class easily and, well, quickly.
An Educator’s Guide to Remote Learning Get some ideas, tools and templates here.
Student-created Kahoot! Questions Teachers who love Kahoot! can encourage their students to design Kahoot! questions that the teacher can use to create a variety of review activities. When students develop the questions, they must think critically about the content they’ve covered and craft questions designed to target essential vocabulary and concepts.
Blended learning tip: This is ideal for a small group collaborative activity as part of a station rotation or whole group rotation lesson. Ask groups of 4-6 students to work together to craft a collection of questions on a digital slide deck, like the one I’ve included below. Then the teacher can review the questions and answers, selecting the best ones to include in future Kahoot! review games.
ClassQuiz works in a simple way. It allows you to take three primary actions:Create a quiz that allows the insertion of pictures/images Explore and find quizzes others have created Import quizzes from Kahoot! that you can then edit in ClassQuiz This import option gives you access to the content in a more established tool. Once the quiz has been set up, students select responses, view results, and see a leaderboard. ClassQuiz boasts of the following features that safeguard student data: You can import a Kahoot! by selecting Import, then pasting the link (a.k.a. URL) to a Kahoot! quiz into the box.
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comIs Class Participation Too Arbitrary to Grade Fairly?
Institute for Habits of the Mind: - This is a resource filled with multiple ideas that promote student cognition to promote deeper understanding. Check out their many resources including favorite rubrics, be sure to take a look. How might this rubric be incorporated as virtual exits tickets, online self assessment, and classroom online discussions?
5 Strategies to Engage Learners Around Flipped Instruction
25 Ideas for Whiteboard Videos
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comClassroomscreen was designed by teachers to help students focus on their immediate tasks and activities, and it works like an educational multitool. It provides 13 different widgets for free, including a timer, traffic light, random name picker, sound level monitor, drawing tool, poll, and work condition symbols (i.e work together, ask neighbor, whisper, or silence).
Teacher Suggestions for a Hybrid Classroom Advice from teacher’s who’ve been using this model,
Hybrid Classroom Set up
Resources for the Shift to Online/Blended Learning
Blended Learning Playlist "The playlist concept stems from the Individual Rotation Model in which each student works from an individual playlist of activities. I’ve used playlists for formal writing, grammar, and projects. The goal of the playlist model is to allow students some control over the pace and path of their learning."
Teaching in a Hybrid Model is a Google Slides Presentation by Sarah M. Rich (thanks to Chantal Shabazz).
Using a Flip Flop Design for the Concurrent Classroom is by Catlin Tucker.
Juggling ‘Roomers’ and ‘Zoomers’? How Teachers Make Hybrid Learning Work appeared in Ed Surge
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
The Do’s & Don’ts of Hybrid Teaching
Making Hybrid Teaching Work for Educators & Students
Hybrid Teaching Is Multitasking to the Umpteenth Degree More Do's and Don'ts
It’s Like ‘Teaching Two Classes at Once’ Suggestions from teachers 3xperiences in a hybrid classroom
Three Tools for Creating Audio Slideshow Videos
Blended, Flipped, and Remote Learning: What’s the Difference?
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers.com
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Scribe - Free Chrome extension to automatically generate step-by-step guides complete with visual screenshots for technology tasks.
Simple noise meters that you can use on your laptop and display on a screen in your classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bouncy Balls It shows the volume of the noise in a room by displaying a set of colorful bouncing balls on your screen.
Classroomscreen place reusable countdown timers, stopwatches, noise meters, random name selectors, and more helpful classroom management tools. The noise meter lets you set a sensitivity level and have an alarm sound when the room gets too noisy.
Sound Meter is a Chrome extension that measures the sound that is picked up by the microphone connected to your computer. All three of these noise meters are demonstrated in this short video.
The Concurrent Classroom: Using Blended Learning Models to Teach Students In-person and Online Simultaneously
FOUR LEARNING MODELS THAT ARE WORKING IN REMOTE (AND CONCURRENT)
Station rotation - Hybrid Learning
Station Rotation
Difference between hybrid learning and blended learning
Choosing the Right Blended Learning Model
Tips for Implementing Blended Learning
Using Blended Learning To Strengthen Math Skills
The blended learning models that can help schools reopen
Video 10 key points about blended learning
Using Blended Learning to Explore Multifaceted Topics Blended learning stations allow teachers to create exciting interdisciplinary lessons that expose students to a variety of learning modalities.
BLENDED LEARNING Co-teaching With Myself Creating his own instructional videos allowed one teacher to be in two places at once in his classroom.
Personalize learning with Explore Boards
TEACHFLIX: Crowdsourced Videos for Educators and by Educators TEACHFLIX, which has a curated library of teaching videos and resources for students. You can browse by keyword, subject area, or grade level.Teaching with Teachflix Activities ebook make a copy of the activities in Google Slides. Or you can download a PowerPoint file of the activities. Or you can download everything in a PDF file.
Designing and Facilitating Learning for an Alternating A-B Hybrid Schedule (Links to an external site.)
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
Alternative Strategy for Using Google Docs for Collaboration and Commenting
Better Together Activities for Collaboration
12 brain breaks to energize your classroom
Brain Break Choice Cards
Ask Your Students for Feedback!Want to ensure that the rest of your school year is as productive as possible? Gather mid-year feedback from your students with a simple, quick feedback strategy, like Keep, Start, Stop!
Guided Notes Templates Guided Notes are teacher-prepared handouts that outline lectures, audiovisual presentations, or readings, but leave blank space for students to fill in key ...
New Google Slides "Tier List" Activity EduProtocols are popular to foster discussion This activity is called a "Tier List". It is a high engagement student activity It encourages critical thinking, communication, comparing, contrasting, prioritizing, and defending rationales It can be used in any subject or grade level It should only take 15 to 30 minutes, and can be used multiple times throughout the year with different content. You can get the templates, directions, and a 12-minute tutorial video at: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2023/03/google-slides-tier-list-activity.html
✅Personalized Learning Made Easy: Using the Learner Variability Navigator in the Classroom "Many of these students become marginalized when systems do not consider their learner variability. "The Learner Variability Navigator is a free online tool. It translates learning research into learner factors and teaching strategies. It is designed to be used as a supplement or support to programs. A key goal is to tailor instruction to meet individual needs. It then examines the factors that research has identified as critical to learning success and provides strategies, assessments, activities and videos to address students who may need support in an identified factor. The list is extensive and the factors are grouped into four categories – content area, cognition, social-emotional and learner background. The following video shows how to use the Learner Variability Navigator.
The Power of Brain Breaks
Responsible Decision-Making Activities for the Classroom
Verbal Workout Free website with interactive exercises for commonly taught MS and HS books.Before reading the book, browse the quiz words with typical sentences to get familiar with unknown words. Then take the pre-reading quiz to increase word awareness and improve comprehension. After reading the book, browse the quiz words with book sentences. Then take the post-reading quiz based on example sentences from the book. The sentences are in story order, so this reinforces both the story and the words already learned.
Tools for Students to Create Tutorials .
Tips for Navigating a Concurrent Classroom | The Concurrent Classroom: Using Blended Learning Models to Teach Students In-Person and Online Simultaneously
🎯Making Thinking Visible: - This is a site from Harvard’s Project Zero that provides routines to promote thinking and understanding. These concepts can be expanded into the Blended environment. You may want to visit this site that provides some of these routines in a virtual kind of way. You may want to look at this site that provides tech apps that work with different routines, or this other site that provides a look at Google Slides and Routines Core Thinking Routines | Digging Deeper Into Ideas | Introducing & Exploring Ideas | Investigating Objects & Systems |Perspective-taking | Considering Controversies, Dilemmas, and Perspectives | Generating Possibilities and Analogies | Synthesizing & Organizing Ideas | Exploring Art, Images, and Objects |Global Thinking
5 Strategies to Engage Learners Around Flipped Instruction
PBS Learning Media has thousands of standards aligned videos, interactives,lessons and more. Any materials can be posted directly to Google Classroom. Interactive lessons are learning modules that feature readings, videos, formative questions, and other interactive elements. Teachers can even create lessons by combining materials and posting the link for students in Google Classroom
Quick activities to pair with a video. "Something that'll help students take the next step with what they've learned? Something that'll help them engage in the content in new ways? And something that isn't just busy work?Free ebook full of activities to engage your students with videos. It's called "Teaching with TeachFlix." t has links to lots of simple activities you can use with all sorts of classroom videos, including: plus ideas for using some of our social media templates in the DTT templates library -- and places to find other great teaching videos.Get that ebook in a Google Slides file, a PowerPoint file, or a PDF file ... and knock out some lesson plans in a hurry."
Applications For Annotating Websites.
TARA. It’s a service that solves problems for new teachers and veteran teachers. Those problems are having more time to do the parts of your job that you love and finding new resources and ideas to bring into your lesson plans. TARA Helps You Quickly Find New Strategies The resource bank is a useful my feature of TARA. It contains more than six dozen instructional strategies that you can incorporate into your lesson plans that you create in TARA (more on that in the video at the end of this post). The strategies include templates for handouts that you can use in your lesson plan. Most importantly, the strategies in TARA’s resource bank include tips on how to use the strategies and additional readings about strategy implementation. short demo video www.freetech4teachers.com
ClassroomQ A bit like a digital deli counter ticket system for your classroom. Classroomq provides you with a simple webpage on which your students can indicate that they need help and state the problem/question with which you can help them. Classroomq shows you a list of the students who have asked for help and their questions. You then digitally cross-off their names as you address their questions. Classroomq will provide you with a record of which students asked for help and the questions they may have asked. short video to see how Classroomq works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Quick Play Assignments when Your're in a Pinch Sometimes you don't have the time to create a brand new assignment from scratch. When an emergency sub is standing in or for indoor recess, rely on Quick Play to help push out the highest-reviewed games to your class easily and, well, quickly.
An Educator’s Guide to Remote Learning Get some ideas, tools and templates here.
Student-created Kahoot! Questions Teachers who love Kahoot! can encourage their students to design Kahoot! questions that the teacher can use to create a variety of review activities. When students develop the questions, they must think critically about the content they’ve covered and craft questions designed to target essential vocabulary and concepts.
Blended learning tip: This is ideal for a small group collaborative activity as part of a station rotation or whole group rotation lesson. Ask groups of 4-6 students to work together to craft a collection of questions on a digital slide deck, like the one I’ve included below. Then the teacher can review the questions and answers, selecting the best ones to include in future Kahoot! review games.
ClassQuiz works in a simple way. It allows you to take three primary actions:Create a quiz that allows the insertion of pictures/images Explore and find quizzes others have created Import quizzes from Kahoot! that you can then edit in ClassQuiz This import option gives you access to the content in a more established tool. Once the quiz has been set up, students select responses, view results, and see a leaderboard. ClassQuiz boasts of the following features that safeguard student data: You can import a Kahoot! by selecting Import, then pasting the link (a.k.a. URL) to a Kahoot! quiz into the box.
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comIs Class Participation Too Arbitrary to Grade Fairly?
Institute for Habits of the Mind: - This is a resource filled with multiple ideas that promote student cognition to promote deeper understanding. Check out their many resources including favorite rubrics, be sure to take a look. How might this rubric be incorporated as virtual exits tickets, online self assessment, and classroom online discussions?
5 Strategies to Engage Learners Around Flipped Instruction
25 Ideas for Whiteboard Videos
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comClassroomscreen was designed by teachers to help students focus on their immediate tasks and activities, and it works like an educational multitool. It provides 13 different widgets for free, including a timer, traffic light, random name picker, sound level monitor, drawing tool, poll, and work condition symbols (i.e work together, ask neighbor, whisper, or silence).
Teacher Suggestions for a Hybrid Classroom Advice from teacher’s who’ve been using this model,
Hybrid Classroom Set up
Resources for the Shift to Online/Blended Learning
Blended Learning Playlist "The playlist concept stems from the Individual Rotation Model in which each student works from an individual playlist of activities. I’ve used playlists for formal writing, grammar, and projects. The goal of the playlist model is to allow students some control over the pace and path of their learning."
Teaching in a Hybrid Model is a Google Slides Presentation by Sarah M. Rich (thanks to Chantal Shabazz).
Using a Flip Flop Design for the Concurrent Classroom is by Catlin Tucker.
Juggling ‘Roomers’ and ‘Zoomers’? How Teachers Make Hybrid Learning Work appeared in Ed Surge
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
The Do’s & Don’ts of Hybrid Teaching
Making Hybrid Teaching Work for Educators & Students
Hybrid Teaching Is Multitasking to the Umpteenth Degree More Do's and Don'ts
It’s Like ‘Teaching Two Classes at Once’ Suggestions from teachers 3xperiences in a hybrid classroom
Three Tools for Creating Audio Slideshow Videos
Blended, Flipped, and Remote Learning: What’s the Difference?
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers.com
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Scribe - Free Chrome extension to automatically generate step-by-step guides complete with visual screenshots for technology tasks.
Simple noise meters that you can use on your laptop and display on a screen in your classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bouncy Balls It shows the volume of the noise in a room by displaying a set of colorful bouncing balls on your screen.
Classroomscreen place reusable countdown timers, stopwatches, noise meters, random name selectors, and more helpful classroom management tools. The noise meter lets you set a sensitivity level and have an alarm sound when the room gets too noisy.
Sound Meter is a Chrome extension that measures the sound that is picked up by the microphone connected to your computer. All three of these noise meters are demonstrated in this short video.
The Concurrent Classroom: Using Blended Learning Models to Teach Students In-person and Online Simultaneously
FOUR LEARNING MODELS THAT ARE WORKING IN REMOTE (AND CONCURRENT)
Station rotation - Hybrid Learning
Station Rotation
- Combatting the Challenges of the Concurrent Classroom with the Station Rotation Model
- ✅ Let's Talk About Station Rotation As teachers learn about this technology-enhanced instructional model, they have a lot of questions! They wonder if their class periods are too short or if their class sizes are too big to use this model. I break down five frequently asked questions and explain how teachers can use this model in their classrooms
- Station Rotation Task Cards
- 5 Strategies For the Teacher-led Station!
- How to make station rotation work during hybrid learning
- Managing face-to-face and remote learners at the same time
- 9 Practical Tips for Setting Up Blended Learning Stations in Your Classroom from PowerMyLearning has great ideas for planning and preparing stations. This simple but thorough list helps you plan for the little (and big) things you might not think about when getting started.
- 10 Tips for Teachers Using the Station Rotation Model by Catlin Tucker is a follow-up to her post on creating learning communities with the station rotation model. Catlin shares some great ideas for teachers at any grade level who are getting started or who want to improve their stations.
- Getting started with learning stations in middle school by James Hunt provides us with 5 tips for successfully integrating stations in the middle school classroom. In this post James shares sample task directions along with his group template and other resources you can use yourself.
- Station rotation task cards that you can copy and adapt to your classroom. Just go to "file" then "make a copy" to add it to your Google drive. Or go to "file" then "download " and choose "Microsoft PowerPoint" if you are a Microsoft user.
- 9 Practical Tips for Setting Up Blended Learning Stations in Your Classroom from PowerMyLearning has great ideas for planning and preparing stations. This simple but thorough list helps you plan for the little (and big) things you might not think about when getting started.
- 10 Tips for Teachers Using the Station Rotation Model by Catlin Tucker is a follow-up to her post on creating learning communities with the station rotation model. Catlin shares some great ideas for teachers at any grade level who are getting started or who want to improve their stations.
- Getting started with learning stations in middle school by James Hunt provides us with 5 tips for successfully integrating stations in the middle school classroom. In this post James shares sample task directions along with his group template and other resources you can use yourself.
PBS Learning Media has thousands of standards aligned videos, interactives,lessons and more. Any materials can be posted directly to Google Classroom. Interactive lessons are learning modules that feature readings, videos, formative questions, and other interactive elements. Teachers can even create lessons by combining materials and posting the link for students in Google Classroom
An Online Wheel Spinner for Every Occasion
Responsible Decision-Making Activities for the Classroom
Scribe Extension Instead of repeating the same directions over and over, automate the task with this Scribe Chrome extension. Create step-to-step guides for frequently used tasks, saving you time for more important or creative activities.
Random Name and Group Pickers
Flippity.net offers a random name picker that can be used to select one student's name at random. It can also be used to randomly create small groups of students.
Smart chips for Google Docs Your new best friend in Google Docs Gone are days when online documents were just text and images. We create documents expecting people to read them online. They should be interactive! Add smart chips to your Google Docs so people can access files, people, maps, places, dates, dropdown menus, tasks ... even a stopwatch!
Building blocks for Google Docs
Pre-made templates that help you track projects, files, and more. They can be inserted into a variety of different file types. They can save you time from creating them from scratch. Plus, they might include things you might not have thought of yourself! Read more here
Guided Notes Templates Guided Notes are teacher-prepared handouts that outline lectures, audiovisual presentations, or readings, but leave blank space for students to fill in key .
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
How to Create a YouTube Channel www.freetech4teaches.com
LearningApps.org "...is a free online platform that allows educators to create a wide variety of online learning activities: Where is what?, fill-in-the-blanks, Voting Group puzzle, The Millionaire game, maps, and ordering, to name just a few (for more information, see the chart with all available apps at the end of this article). The platform has templates for most standard exercises and some creative templates with elements of gamification which makes it perfect for all types of learners. " video
Calendly free appointment booking tool and its integration with Zoom. A long-time reader of my blog asked if I could make a video about that process. I was happy to oblige. video www.freetech4teachers.com
Save Time with Custom Templates from Text Blaze to provide time saving feedback responses to student assignments.
Alternative Strategy for Using Google Docs for Collaboration and Commenting
Better Together Activities for Collaboration
20 ways to build classroom community and relationships
ClassroomQ A bit like a digital deli counter ticket system for your classroom. Classroomq provides you with a simple webpage on which your students can indicate that they need help and state the problem/question with which you can help them. Classroomq shows you a list of the students who have asked for help and their questions. You then digitally cross-off their names as you address their questions. Classroomq will provide you with a record of which students asked for help and the questions they may have asked. short video to see how Classroomq works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Quick activities to pair with a video. "Something that'll help students take the next step with what they've learned? Something that'll help them engage in the content in new ways? And something that isn't just busy work? Free ebook full of activities to engage your students with videos. It's called "Teaching with TeachFlix." t has links to lots of simple activities you can use with all sorts of classroom videos, including: plus ideas for using some of our social media templates in the DTT templates library -- and places to find other great teaching videos.Get that ebook in a Google Slides file, a PowerPoint file, or a PDF file ... and knock out some lesson plans in a hurry."
100 FREE templates to use in class tomorrow: This BRAND NEW ebook has tons and tons of templates you can use right away. There are templates for Canva, Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Forms and Genially
Picture Word Inductive Model Example "Students create their own Picture Word Inductive Model. I gave them each an image from a US History topic we covered and created a template for them to use to create words for the image, sentences, categories, etc. It worked well for all the different levels. Highly recommend."Here’s a model, to download which she gave me permission to share
Ask Your Students for Feedback!Want to ensure that the rest of your school year is as productive as possible? Gather mid-year feedback from your students with a simple, quick feedback strategy, like Keep, Start, Stop!
Edutopia Video: “How Drawing Can Lead to Deeper Understanding”
10 Templates of Graphic Organizers | Circly - Free tool for creating interactive, collaborative graphic organizers using circles for grouping concepts.
Tools for Students to Create Tutorials
Schoolytics is a Google Partner for Education that provides educational organizations with a unique classroom analytics and AI platform that measures, monitors, and manages student engagement data. The platform’s various dashboards allow users to utilize data and automated alert systems to identify risks and learning patterns associated with their students.Measure distance learning engagement through Google Classroom usage. Schoolytics generates visualizations and data tables to measure student engagement, enabling access for individual teachers or entire school districts.
Applications For Annotating Websites.
Miro Brainstorming Tools - Mind mapping tools help students working together in colaboration to inquire, brainstorm, and look for answers. Miro has some free capbilities that you might find useful. Some of the tools include KWL, 5W's, and Mind Mapping to name a few. You might want to even look at examples and find a way to duplicate these in Google Draw or Docs.
Scribe - Free Chrome extension to automatically generate step-by-step guides complete with visual screenshots for technology tasks.
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Social Media Templates Yelp Review, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Instagram, Tweet, and more
Social media graphics in Canva download
TikTok Curriculum Ideas download
Russel Tarr, owner of Classtools.net, has developed and published a bunch of great tools over the years.
Fake SMS Generator www.freetech4teachers/com
Instagram Template - Free Google Slides template to mimic Instagram posts, including 6 different layouts, along with directions.
Airbnb Template Here's a link to download it for Google Slides or PowerPoint. How ow to use this Airbnb template?
Big Huge Labs create multiple fake items, including trading cards, magazine cards, and newspaper articles.
UuuTube template for Google Slides and PowerPoint! Customizable text (video title/description, alternate videos, even view and like count!). And you can insert images -- or even videos! -- for the main video or the alternate videos. There are so many ways your students could use this .Insert a video from YouTube (if your district allows it) on something you're studying. Student summarizes the video in the description. (Optional: Make up alternate videos based on the main video.) Record a video with the Camera app on student device (Chromebook, laptop, phone) and upload it to Google Drive. Then insert the video in the template. Describe it in the description. (With optional alternate videos again.) Take a photo with your device's webcam (in Slides: Insert > Image > Camera) that serves as the thumbnail/video image. Insert it where the video goes (and design with text and other visuals like YouTubers do). Add description, alternate videos, etc.Insert a photo from an image search of an image related to what you're studying. Ask students to describe what a successful YouTube video would be like in the description.
Tools For Creating Fake “Stuff” For Learning
Tools For Making Internet ” Memes”
Fodey is also good.for social media like tools
Use Quick Play Assignments when Your're in a Pinch Sometimes you don't have the time to create a brand new assignment from scratch. When an emergency sub is standing in or for indoor recess, rely on Quick Play to help push out the highest-reviewed games to your class easily and, well, quickly.
30 sites for students with free time on their hands
Video - How to Add Checkboxes to Tables in Google Docs www,freetech4teachers.com
3 Tricks for Inserting Audio Into Google Slides | Polls in Google Slides Poll Everywhere integrate it into Google Slides. how to video | Easy Polls is a free service where you can set up polls in a matter of seconds and have them published on your website, facebook, twitter, or simply share the link to the poll with your audience. |
TARA. It’s a service that solves problems for new teachers and veteran teachers. Those problems are having more time to do the parts of your job that you love and finding new resources and ideas to bring into your lesson plans. TARA Helps You Quickly Find New Strategies The resource bank is a useful my feature of TARA. It contains more than six dozen instructional strategies that you can incorporate into your lesson plans that you create in TARA (more on that in the video at the end of this post). The strategies include templates for handouts that you can use in your lesson plan. Most importantly, the strategies in TARA’s resource bank include tips on how to use the strategies and additional readings about strategy implementation. short demo video www.freetech4teachers.com
Create Your Own Chatbot for Surveys and Quiz Practice Acquainted is a free polling tool Acquainted is a conversational polling tool. What that means is that people who take your poll get an instant response from you regarding their selections of poll options. Your responses are written into Acquainted and programmed to appear to poll respondents as they make answer choices. Watch my short demonstration video www.freeech4teachers.com
Use Google Slides where each student gets their own copy The link takes you to a sheet doc. Follow the direction using the sheets' menubar at the top to install add-on
DisplayNote Broadcast is a tool that you can use on your computer to broadcast your screen to your students’ laptop, tablet, or phone screens. It works equally well whether you use Mac, Windows, or Chromebook because it doesn’t require you to install any software.To use DisplayNote Broadcast you need a free account but your students do not. Once you’ve created an account simply go to the broadcast site and click “start a broadcast.” A six digit code is then created. Give that code to your students to enter on the DisplayNote Broadcast site and they’ll be able to follow along with everything you do on your computer. Here’s a short video overview from a teacher’s perspective and from a student’s perspective. www.freetech4teachers.com
Strategies for Supporting Working Memory
Ten Skills Students Can Learn from Google's Applied Digital Skills Lessons www.freetech4teachers.com
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
Cut Up Google Slides - alicekeeler.com/cutupslides Take a Google Slides and put it into smaller Google Slides presentations. This does NOT cut up your original, it stays the same. However, this Add-on allows you easily copy Google Slides from one Slides presentation to multiple slides presentations.
Speech to Text There is a dictation feature built in to many devices that will allow you to dictate into any place where text can be typed. There is also a speech-to-text feature built right into Google Docs. Simply click “tools” and “voice typing” in a Google Doc, and you will see a microphone icon. Below that is a dropdown menu to select the language in which you plan to dictate.
Slip-in-SlideWith the Slip-in-Slide add-on, you can effortlessly insert slides into multiple student presentations at one time. You can choose to send one or many slides from your presentation to an assignment folder in Google Classroom. This makes distribution of new material quick and easy. It integrates with the folder structure of Google Classroom to send your slides directly into student’s existing presentations. A tutorial on how to use Slip-in-Slide here.
Doc to Slides View Doc to Slides on YouTube It magically takes whatever is in your Google Doc and converts is to Google Slides! Not only does it create slides from a doc there are also other capabilities, e.g., creating slides for individual students quickly and directing a slide you already have to each student. Install Doc to Slides
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Classroomscreen is a service that lets you create a homescreen on which you can place reusable countdown timers, stopwatches, noise meters, random name selectors, and more helpful classroom management tools. The noise meter lets you set a sensitivity level and have an alarm sound when the room gets too noisy. The random name selector lets you enter a list of names and save it for unlimited reuse. The countdown timers are easy to adjust for time allotment and appearance. In addition to the timers, noise meters, and random name pickers, Classroomscreen also offers handy tools like a digital whiteboard, a calendar, a task list, and a QR code to share the whole screen with your students. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.com
Three Tools for Creating Audio Slideshow VideosNoteledge iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. It is a digital notebook that allows you to visualize your thoughts and organize your notes in a single place. It offers three helpful functionalities that enable you to capture, organize, and create new ideas and inspiration. Students can use it to curate content from the web by clipping images, text, and/or screenshots and add their notes to clipped content. They can also clip videos from popular video hosting services such as YouTube and Vimeo and annotate them the way they want. Using the app's annotating tools, students can draw, outline, sketch, and create collages by cutting out images and arranging layers. They can also add their own audio recordings and photos and insert videos into their notes. Additionally, notes can be organized into mood boards or idea boards and be shared with others in various formats. They can be exported as PDFs with audio and video included or be shared as slideshows. Noteledge has both a basic free version and a premium version.
GoSoapBox Engage your students and knockdown participation barriers with GoSoapBox, A free web-based student response system. Set up an event, or GoSoapBox space, for your class. Students enter the SoapBox through a unique code, and only the instructor can view the student names. Accessible through a computer or mobile device, GoSoapBox offers many tools for some creative Q&A in your classroom. The confusion barometer allows the teacher to assess the students' understanding of the topic. The poll and quiz tools provide a formative assessment option. Post questions or topics for your students using the GoSoapBox discussion tool. An option to post anonymously is available as well as many other settings for using the Social Q&A tool. Students can post questions for their peers or the teacher to answer.
How to Create and Share Clips of YouTube Videos
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comCanva Graphic Organizer Templates Graphic organizers are a staple part of most classrooms. However, they are not known for their amazing design aesthetic. Thankfully, Canva has a huge variety of graphic organizer templates that you can customize for your students
Helperbird Whether you need speech to text, text-to-speech, Opendyslexic font, highlight tools, note-taking, clutter removal, Immersive Reader, etc., this tool has all of your favorite accessibility tools rolled into one! video tutorial
Use the Talking Points app to communicate with ALL families.Talking points allows you to communicate with your families. You write your message in your home language, families respond in theirs and it is translated automatically. Teachers can use the web-browser or mobile app, families can use text messages or a mobile app.
TeacherMade - Quickly Create a Variety of Online Activities A tool that lets you easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities into online activities to share with your students. According to developer Laura, “My goal with TeacherMade was to create a way for us to make online worksheets that are easier than Google Slides. TeacherMade is a tool that you can use to turn your PDFs, Word docs, and Google Slides into interactive activities for your students to complete online. TeacherMade will automatically score those activities for you, if you choose to enable that option. Should you choose not to have activities scored for you, you can still view what your students do on each activity. Video - How to Use TeacherMade www.freetech4teachers.com.
Worksheet to Wow: 10 ways to upgrade your worksheet. Scroll down to find the embedded slide presentation on the Worksheet to Wow page. Click on a cabinet. When it pops out, click the folder you'd like to see. Want to use any of the ideas in the folders? There are links to all of them in the original Google Slides file for the slide deck. Just look in the speaker notes.
Interactive Activities Templates Blackout Poetry, Which One Doesn't Belong, Interactive Map, Virtual Trip Postcard, Annotate, Picture This and Take a Stand Template and more
How To Collaboratively Annotate PDFs On Google Drive
ISLCOLLECTIVE MAKES THEIR WORKSHEETS INTERACTIVE SO STUDENTS CAN COMPLETE THEM & SEND TO THEIR TEACHER
Canva offers nearly two thousand worksheet templates for teachers to copy and modify. All of the templates can be downloaded as PDFs. You could print them and give them to your students to complete. But who wants another thing to have to print and keep track of? So instead of printing worksheets made with Canva's templates, download the PDF and then upload it to TeacherMade where you can quickly turn that PDF into an online activity. Watchvideo Free account for Educators www.freetech4teachers.com Five Features of Canva Presentations You Might be Overlooking | video Find learning templates | 21 Canva Tutorials for Teachers | How to Create a Video With Canva | Canva Tutorials for Teacherswww.freetech4teachers.com
Design Skills for Students course is a seven-part, self-paced course that teaches high school age students everything they need to know to create great graphics, animations, presentations, and more. Each part of the course has a short tutorial video followed by a practice activity for students to complete. Take a look at the first lesson right here. If you are looking for some Canva tutorials for yourself, take a look at list of more than three dozen Canva tutorials. www.freetech4teachers.com
Upping Your Canva Game Discover some tested tips for fabulous designing in Canva,
Wizer is a site that is for creating online assignments/worksheets. These assignments can contain all types of media (i.e. audio, video, images) as well as being able to share w/ others. The assignments on Wizer allow for student tracking so a educator can assess how well a student is doing. | Wizer released a Google Drive add-on that lets you quickly convert PDFs that are in your Google Drive into online worksheets on Wizer. With the add-on installed you can simply select any PDF in your Google Drive then choose "open with Wizer" to use that PDF in Wizer where you can then add interactive elements. You can see an overview of Wizer's Google Drive add-on in this video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bublup allows you to save and organize your digital content in visually attractive ways. Bublup combines the functionalities of a cloud storage site and content bookmarking tools. Organize your resources in visual folders like photos, videos, pictures, notes and many more. Bublup has collaborative features. Users can also create beautiful stories (also known as rolls) out of their stored content and share through a generated webpage link. Additionally, the site provides you with smart suggestions of content to similar content as the one you have saved in your folders. Student researchers can use it to collaborate on shared research projects. Teachers can design a space on Bublup where they share with their students resources related to the content they learn in class.
How to Create Your Own Search Engine It might sound complicated, but it’s not. In fact, it’s no more difficult than completing a Google Form. To create your own search engine head to Google.com/CSE. There you’ll select “add new search engine” and on the next screen all you have to do is enter a list of websites that you want your search engine to index. When your list is complete you’ll be given a URL for sharing your unique search engine. A demonstration of the whole, five minute process can be watched here. www.freetech4teachers.com
5 Ways to Improve the Odds of Students Actually Watching Instructional Videos
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
Brainstormer Online is a fun tool that helps teams to come up with ideas together remotely. The brainstormers will be guided through the steps of coming up with ideas, voting and reviewing ideas. No signup needed. Just create a session and start brainstorming. Voting capabilities also.
PresentationTube is a non-profit that has provided a free service to teachers for many years. That service is the ability to record video presentations based on PowerPoint files and PDFs. Recently, PresentationTube released a Chrome extension that lets you create video lessons in your web browser. PresentationTube's Chrome extension will let you record while talking over your PowerPoint slides or a PDF. You can record with your webcam turned on or you can choose to just record your voice talking over your slides or PDF. While you're recording you can draw on the screen, add text notes to the screen, and highlight text on the screen. When you have finished recording a presentation with PresentationTube's Chrome extension you can upload it directly to the PresentationTube website where you can then publish it publicly or keep it unlisted. www.freetech4teachers.com
Weava is a tool that allows you to annotate websites and PDFs. Students can easily highlight sections in PDFs and websites and add notes to contextualize and enhance their learning. Using Weava Workspace, students can easily review and edit their highlights. They can also add more highlights and organize everything into a single place. Highlights can be organized and categorized into collections and sub-folders. Weava enables students to collaborate on their research, share highlights and engage in meaningful discussions. Most important of all, Weava enables you to instantly generate bibliographical entries from your highlights in MLA, APA, Chicago, and Harvard styles. Weava is available as a Chrome extension.
Page Marker Page Marker is a Chrome extension that enables you to easily annotate live web pages. You can draw on any section on the webpage using your mouse or touchscreen. You can also highlight lines of text using your preferred colour.The eraser tool lets you delete parts you don't like and with a single click you can customize the thickness or change the default color. Students can use these extensions to draw on live webpages, add shapes and arrows, and share their annotated content with each other.
Web Paint Another excellent tool to annotate and draw on web pages. You can add text, notes, shapes, lines, and arrows and share your annotated content with others. Web Paint offers the added screenshot functionality allowing you to create screen captures of your annotated web pages. Students can use these extensions to draw on live webpages, add shapes and arrows, and share their annotated content with each other.
Mobile Phone Scanners Good for scanning documents and worksheets
CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help | Digital Learning Design Guide | Creating Virtual Reality activities in your remote teaching is easy and FREE with CurrikiStudio. No coding necessary. Take a static photo and turn it into a virtual tour to post to your website or LMS video tutorial | Excellent guide that maps out 5 easy ways you can use CurrikiStudio tools to give those remote lessons a reboot!
Recording and Inserting Audio How to record audio and save it right in your google drive Insert the audio into your digital learning path Have your students respond to you verbally Make your emails to your parents quicker and more personalized.
Classroomscreen was designed by teachers to help students focus on their immediate tasks and activities, and it works like an educational multitool. It provides 13 different widgets for free, including a timer, traffic light, random name picker, sound level monitor, drawing tool, poll, and work condition symbols (i.e work together, ask neighbor, whisper, or silence).
Google Tools for Struggling Students
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Discover QFT at The Right Question Institute (https://rightquestion.org/) - QFT, known as Question Formation Protocol is a simple way of promoting inquiring through collaborative groups of students. It incorporates the simple steps below and will allow your students to own the inquiry process while reflecting on their questions. Pay special attention to the templates that are provided for you to bring students to the blended world. They are free.
Quickly and easily take a printed PDF or worksheet, upload its text to Google Docs, and make it readable for your students. video
Talk and Comment Create voice notes inside any service on the web, including Google Docs, Google Classroom, Twitter, Facebook comments, Gmail, YouTube, Reddit, Slack, and more! Simply record your voice from the widget inside your browser, and paste the generated voice link anywhere you want.This extension makes it super easy to create quizzes that include oral directions or support.Watch this video to see just how easy it is to use and to get started with it yourself.
Guide for helping kids with special needs enhance their learning through the use of Google's technology. The guide entitled "Guardian's Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers
GoNoodle is an online resource that provides teachers with a library of “brain break” videos to use in their classrooms. The videos - ranging in length from two to ten minutes - are geared toward students in kindergarten through sixth grade, and they cover a variety of activities, such as exercise, song, dance, mindfulness, and coordination
Make Common Craft-style videos This video demonstrates how to use Google Slides and Screencastify to make Common Craft-style videos, but you could accomplish the same thing with PowerPoint and ScreenPal. Or use Mysimpleshow which is specifically created for this type of video. Free educational account.
Desmos is a FREE interactive tool used to graph, model, collect data, and question students over collection of higher math concepts Example activities
Using an easily accessed feature on your computer enlarge or highlight your mouse, so that students can more easily see where you are clicking. Most computers have this feature built into their accessibility tools, but you can also use a Chrome extension like Custom Cursor for Chrome to add additional fun. You can choose from a number of colors, shapes, and even cursors like SpongeBob, Harry Potter Cat, and a chicken nugget in the shape of a dinosaur.
Convert Handwritten Notes Into Google Documents When you snap a picture and upload it to Google Drive you can then have it converted into a Google Document that you can edit and share just like any other Google Doc. In the following video see how easy it is to use Google Drive to convert physical notes into Google Docs.
Circle-Based Visuals with Circly Circly is a free web-based tool that allows you to create simpler ways of looking at complex topics. The teacher or students can drag-and-drop circles anywhere on the screen to create connections between ideas or topics. The tool is extremely colorful and simple to use.
Applications for Creating eMail Newsletters
Talk and Comment is a chrome extension that enables you to record voice notes and share them almost anywhere on the web. As a teacher, you may want to install and use it to share audio feedback in the form of voice comments on students work. This is especially helpful if you have a classroom blog or website. Each audio note you create has a generated link that you can easily copy and paste online. Students can also use it to collaborate on joint projects and to engage in discussions around topics of interest. The way Talk and Comment works is simple and easy. First, install the extension from Chrome web store. Next open the webpage or head over to the platform where you want to share your audio comment and click on the extension's widget and start recording your comment. Once done, copy and paste the generated link. video tutorial
SceneVR "An engaging way to tell stories from an entirely new perspective. It turns your collection of panoramic and VR-ready photos into a slideshow of navigable scenes, allowing you to create unique 360° narratives." You can add text also.
Awesome Table makes your Google Sheet data visual. Take your website to the next level by presenting their Google Sheets data in beautiful, dynamic displays. Awesome Table is a great add-on to use on your Google Sheets to turn your spreadsheets into interactive visualizations. No coding knowledge is required to operate it, it is simple and easy to use. Tutorials and overview
Tools to Help You Convert Handwritten Notes into Digitized Text
AutoDraw matches your online doodles with professional drawings using any device. Begin a picture, and as you add to the image, AutoDraw's algorithms offer possible matches for your attempt. Click on any of the matching images to replace your doodle with a completed drawing. Use the site's tools to add text, change outline and fill colors, and add shapes. When finished, download your creation as a PNG file to your device.
3 Easy Ways Students Can Voice Type Their Documents
Mozilla Hubs A virtual reality space similar to the mega-popular Nintendo game Animal Crossing. With Mozilla Hubs, you can invite students to socialize in a space where they can move around and interact as avatars, which might be an interesting divergence from regular video conferencing.
Wizkids CAS is another Google Docs Add-on that offers a graphing calculator feature. Wizkids CAS offers tools for solve=ing equations and plotting graphs, finding numerical and exact solutions, and simplifying and factoring expressions with variables. The video embedded below provides an overview of the features in Wizkids CAS.
DIFFERENTIATED TEACHING
Having the ability to customize a formative assessment based on a student’s learner profile without that being obvious to all students makes differentiation easier. Wizer is a Swiss Army knife for teaching. The creators call it a “digital multimedia worksheet” tool, but that gives too much credit to paper worksheets—this is one of the best online differentiation tools out there. It allows teachers to add video, audio, and images to interactive worksheets, making them very accessible to all students. Wizer is simple to use, and other teachers’ digital worksheets are available as well. recorded a tutorial with her. I think this free tool is a must-use, although some teachers say it is targeted to younger students. You can distribute to students through a variety of means including Google Classroom. One of its better features is the option to add questions directly on top of images and diagrams. A variety of question formats are supported including open response, multiple choice, and matching questions. Years ago I made this video about how to use Wizer. The interface has changed a little since then but the tools are the same. www.freetech4teachers.com
needing to organize their ideas into useful outlines.
Google Education’s artificial intelligence (AI)–driven tools help increase engagement for K–12 learners with support and timely feedback. With Google Education’s interactive practice sets, students can receive one-to-one feedback and support without ever leaving their assignment, saving educators time and providing insight into students’ learning processes and patterns. The practice sets use artificial intelligence to deliver hints, pop-up messages, video lessons, and other resources, providing encouragement and support the moment that students need such feedback. Practice sets are currently (11/30/22) in beta testing for schools using Google Workspace for Education Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus. To learn more about practice sets and how to use them in the classroom, view Introducing practice sets in Google Classroom on YouTube.
JotForm Report Builder is a useful tool for virtual learning. It takes the data you collect from online forms and turns it into visuals. You can use these presentation-ready reports to share any data you collect. In a distance learning environment, you can gather information remotely and share it in a variety of formats. So if you are presenting information on data you’ve collected to your school community, this will come in handy.
Class Charts Helps organize students into appropriate learning groups and minimizes school behavior issues.’
Tools to schedule conferences with students, parents and peers
Otter is a web tool and mobile app that allows you to record audio and generate live transcriptions of your recordings. Otter provides automated meeting notes for popular video conferencing services including Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Students can use Otter to" take notes during lectures, transcribe research interviews, capture notes from group study sessions, and process public audio data for research purposes." Otter has collaborative features. Otter users can invite each other to edit, highlight and work on their notes collaboratively. They can also 'start a recording inside a group to share the transcript live'. Other equally interesting features provided by Otter include: the ability to import and transcribe audio recordings, arrange notes into folders, generate word clouds from recorded notes, export notes as PDF, TXT, MP3, and many more.
Background Removal Tools for Photos and Videos Three online tools for background removal from photos and images. They are all simple to use.
Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
Classdojo Build productive classroom communities with parents and students.
Split Your Browser Screen into Two with Dualless
Classting Social media approach draws families into the daily classroom It allows easy communication and updates with families. The flexibility in options is a plus, allowing teachers to share photos, videos, messages, and homework. Homework, updates, and photos are all part of the platform, insuring successful connection with families. Continuous communication throughout the school year creates a positive environment.
Remind Teachers' text reminders keep students -- and parents -- up to speed. With over 70 languages and options to share files and links, it's easy to keep students and parents informed and involved
Bloomz Android | IOS Full-featured parent-teacher communication platform
Create Green Screen Video With Zoom Zoom's desktop client has an option to replace your background with any picture that you want to upload to your Zoom account. The video shows how to edit the video in Spark, but you can use other video editing programs also. Seamless method to create newscasts, for example. Video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom A free iPhone and iPad app called Overviewer. Overviewer is a free app that lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a document camera during a Zoom meeting. The app essentially mirrors your iPhone or iPad camera into Zoom via Airplay or Lightning Bolt cable. Here's an overview www.freetech4teachers.com
Classtag Flexible user-friendly tool gets teachers and families in sync
Distance Learning with ESL
An Online Wheel Spinner for Every Occasion
Responsible Decision-Making Activities for the Classroom
Scribe Extension Instead of repeating the same directions over and over, automate the task with this Scribe Chrome extension. Create step-to-step guides for frequently used tasks, saving you time for more important or creative activities.
Random Name and Group Pickers
- Wheel of Names is a free random name picker website that not only lets you enter names, it lets you upload images to be chosen at random. Wheel of Names also lets you create a free account that you can use to save a series of wheels. That option could be helpful if you have multiple classes and don't want to enter names whenever you need to pick a name at random.
- SpinnerWheel lets you place multiple spinners on the same screen and spin them at the same time. By doing that you can create a random group picker, generate randomized writing prompts, randomly generate math problems, and even create random quiz game questions. You can use SpinnerWheel without creating an account on the site. However, if you do create a free account on SpinnerWheel you will be able to save your spinners to use whenever you like and as often as you like.
Flippity.net offers a random name picker that can be used to select one student's name at random. It can also be used to randomly create small groups of students.
Smart chips for Google Docs Your new best friend in Google Docs Gone are days when online documents were just text and images. We create documents expecting people to read them online. They should be interactive! Add smart chips to your Google Docs so people can access files, people, maps, places, dates, dropdown menus, tasks ... even a stopwatch!
Building blocks for Google Docs
Pre-made templates that help you track projects, files, and more. They can be inserted into a variety of different file types. They can save you time from creating them from scratch. Plus, they might include things you might not have thought of yourself! Read more here
Guided Notes Templates Guided Notes are teacher-prepared handouts that outline lectures, audiovisual presentations, or readings, but leave blank space for students to fill in key .
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
How to Create a YouTube Channel www.freetech4teaches.com
LearningApps.org "...is a free online platform that allows educators to create a wide variety of online learning activities: Where is what?, fill-in-the-blanks, Voting Group puzzle, The Millionaire game, maps, and ordering, to name just a few (for more information, see the chart with all available apps at the end of this article). The platform has templates for most standard exercises and some creative templates with elements of gamification which makes it perfect for all types of learners. " video
Calendly free appointment booking tool and its integration with Zoom. A long-time reader of my blog asked if I could make a video about that process. I was happy to oblige. video www.freetech4teachers.com
Save Time with Custom Templates from Text Blaze to provide time saving feedback responses to student assignments.
Alternative Strategy for Using Google Docs for Collaboration and Commenting
Better Together Activities for Collaboration
20 ways to build classroom community and relationships
ClassroomQ A bit like a digital deli counter ticket system for your classroom. Classroomq provides you with a simple webpage on which your students can indicate that they need help and state the problem/question with which you can help them. Classroomq shows you a list of the students who have asked for help and their questions. You then digitally cross-off their names as you address their questions. Classroomq will provide you with a record of which students asked for help and the questions they may have asked. short video to see how Classroomq works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Quick activities to pair with a video. "Something that'll help students take the next step with what they've learned? Something that'll help them engage in the content in new ways? And something that isn't just busy work? Free ebook full of activities to engage your students with videos. It's called "Teaching with TeachFlix." t has links to lots of simple activities you can use with all sorts of classroom videos, including: plus ideas for using some of our social media templates in the DTT templates library -- and places to find other great teaching videos.Get that ebook in a Google Slides file, a PowerPoint file, or a PDF file ... and knock out some lesson plans in a hurry."
100 FREE templates to use in class tomorrow: This BRAND NEW ebook has tons and tons of templates you can use right away. There are templates for Canva, Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Forms and Genially
Picture Word Inductive Model Example "Students create their own Picture Word Inductive Model. I gave them each an image from a US History topic we covered and created a template for them to use to create words for the image, sentences, categories, etc. It worked well for all the different levels. Highly recommend."Here’s a model, to download which she gave me permission to share
Ask Your Students for Feedback!Want to ensure that the rest of your school year is as productive as possible? Gather mid-year feedback from your students with a simple, quick feedback strategy, like Keep, Start, Stop!
Edutopia Video: “How Drawing Can Lead to Deeper Understanding”
10 Templates of Graphic Organizers | Circly - Free tool for creating interactive, collaborative graphic organizers using circles for grouping concepts.
- Reading Rockets templates These include a Hamburger Paragraph, Persuasion Map, Pros and Cons 'T' table and finally Sequence Chart (helps students flesh out the procedural steps required to, for instance solve a math problem, record a video tutorial, etc).
- National Geographic use the search bar to search for specific graphic organizer. Some of the featured types include: Graphs, Grids, Multiple Causes and Multiple Effects Diagram, Cause-and-Effect Diagram, Four-Column Chart, Web, Two-Column Chart, Research Chart, KWL Chart, Venn Diagram, Scientific Method Chart, Goal-and-Outcome Diagram, Steps in a Process Diagram, Classification Chart, Three-Column Chart, Decision Matrix, Sequence Chain, Cycle Diagram, Spider, T Chart, and many more.
- HMH structure writing projects and help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research, and brainstorming." These templates are organized into the following categories : Sequence of Events, Main Topic and Key Details, Compare/Contrast, Story Planning, and Other Graphic Organizers. For instance, in the Sequence of Events category you will find templates like Timeline, Flow Chart, Step-by-Step Chart, Sequence Chart, and Time-Order Chart,
- 15 Google Forms templates for class tomorrow
- Education Oasis Some of the templates provided are fillable allowing students to fill them out before they print them. Categories: Close Reading Graphic Organizers; Central Idea Graphic Organizer; Cause and Effect Graphic Organizers; Character and Story Graphic Organizers; Compare and Contrast Graphic Organizers; Sequence, Cycle, Timeline, Cluster, Hierarchy, and Chain of Events Graphic Organizers; Vocabulary Development and Concept Graphic Organizers; and Miscellaneous Graphic Organizers.
- Freeology Each template comes with a short description of what the graphic organizer is used for. Some of the graphic organizer templates featured in the site's library include: Character Details Organizer, Vocabulary Boxes, Beehive Flow Chart, Weekly Learning Log, Fact Opinion Worksheet, Book Review, Short Story Overview, Character Compare/ Contrast Graphic Organizer, Note Taking Organizer, New Year's Reflection, Annotations Bookmark, and many more.
Tools for Students to Create Tutorials
Schoolytics is a Google Partner for Education that provides educational organizations with a unique classroom analytics and AI platform that measures, monitors, and manages student engagement data. The platform’s various dashboards allow users to utilize data and automated alert systems to identify risks and learning patterns associated with their students.Measure distance learning engagement through Google Classroom usage. Schoolytics generates visualizations and data tables to measure student engagement, enabling access for individual teachers or entire school districts.
Applications For Annotating Websites.
Miro Brainstorming Tools - Mind mapping tools help students working together in colaboration to inquire, brainstorm, and look for answers. Miro has some free capbilities that you might find useful. Some of the tools include KWL, 5W's, and Mind Mapping to name a few. You might want to even look at examples and find a way to duplicate these in Google Draw or Docs.
Scribe - Free Chrome extension to automatically generate step-by-step guides complete with visual screenshots for technology tasks.
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Social Media Templates Yelp Review, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Instagram, Tweet, and more
- Instagram Stories on the social media app, this one's about posting images and videos chronologically. for demonstrating a skill. showing a process or a cycle. a day in the life". anything sequential or something that has a start and an end. You can get the template here for Google Slides or PowerPoint.
- 12 social media-inspired hooks you can use in your class activities right away!
Social media graphics in Canva download
TikTok Curriculum Ideas download
Russel Tarr, owner of Classtools.net, has developed and published a bunch of great tools over the years.
Fake SMS Generator www.freetech4teachers/com
Instagram Template - Free Google Slides template to mimic Instagram posts, including 6 different layouts, along with directions.
Airbnb Template Here's a link to download it for Google Slides or PowerPoint. How ow to use this Airbnb template?
- Write a listing for the home of a character your students are studying.
- Review the home of a historical figure.
- Write contrasting reviews (positive and negative) from two perspectives on the same place.
- Write a "before" listing and an "after" listing based on a significant world event (like a war).
- Students write a listing for a place they'd love to stay to share about themselves with the class.
Big Huge Labs create multiple fake items, including trading cards, magazine cards, and newspaper articles.
UuuTube template for Google Slides and PowerPoint! Customizable text (video title/description, alternate videos, even view and like count!). And you can insert images -- or even videos! -- for the main video or the alternate videos. There are so many ways your students could use this .Insert a video from YouTube (if your district allows it) on something you're studying. Student summarizes the video in the description. (Optional: Make up alternate videos based on the main video.) Record a video with the Camera app on student device (Chromebook, laptop, phone) and upload it to Google Drive. Then insert the video in the template. Describe it in the description. (With optional alternate videos again.) Take a photo with your device's webcam (in Slides: Insert > Image > Camera) that serves as the thumbnail/video image. Insert it where the video goes (and design with text and other visuals like YouTubers do). Add description, alternate videos, etc.Insert a photo from an image search of an image related to what you're studying. Ask students to describe what a successful YouTube video would be like in the description.
Tools For Creating Fake “Stuff” For Learning
Tools For Making Internet ” Memes”
- Memes curricular ideas download
- Memes in Canvas Search for memes in templates (remember educational version is free)
- Antimatter: A New Spin on Memes in the Classroom Using Memes for Formative AssessmentIn the same way a cartoon in a newspaper asks us to think deeply about a larger idea, a meme also acts as a compressed little puzzle that speaks to a larger idea. Instead Students can take on the role of creators. Memes let teachers tap into higher levels of thinking, such as analysis and synthesis.This is a tool that helps students make their own memes. Memes are a great option for your formative assessment routine. You can have students create content and evaluate big ideas by creating a meme. A meme can indicate how much the student has internalized the subject matter by asking them to apply their learning in a unique storytelling context. In the past, you might have asked students to email their creations or upload memes to a learning management system or space like Google Classroom.You can increase opportunities for students to evaluate each other’s work. Antimatter helps tackle this challenge by having students create memes live on a shared canvas with the rest of their classmates.With Antimatter, students have options to a wide selection of creation tools. Students get access to a selection of meme templates. If you choose to share student memes with a wider audience, there is a special space on Antimatter where you can publish student work. You can select memes created by your students to share on Antimatter’s Discover page. sign up as a teacher:
- Create a studio for each classroom. Note that it’s per classroom. If you teach, say, AP Physics 2, you would create a studio for Period 2 and Period 4.
- At the end of a unit, create an activity which maps to that unit. Continuing with the physics example, you might create a space for a unit on Optics or, say, the Doppler Effect. Some of the activities also ask you to create a prompt. You can set up an activity in Antimatter in less than a minute.
- Invite your students to the space via an invite link. Antimatter makes it simple to copy and share a link with your students. They can sign up via Google Single Sign on. Once they are in the space, students can start creating their own memes.
Fodey is also good.for social media like tools
Use Quick Play Assignments when Your're in a Pinch Sometimes you don't have the time to create a brand new assignment from scratch. When an emergency sub is standing in or for indoor recess, rely on Quick Play to help push out the highest-reviewed games to your class easily and, well, quickly.
30 sites for students with free time on their hands
Video - How to Add Checkboxes to Tables in Google Docs www,freetech4teachers.com
3 Tricks for Inserting Audio Into Google Slides | Polls in Google Slides Poll Everywhere integrate it into Google Slides. how to video | Easy Polls is a free service where you can set up polls in a matter of seconds and have them published on your website, facebook, twitter, or simply share the link to the poll with your audience. |
TARA. It’s a service that solves problems for new teachers and veteran teachers. Those problems are having more time to do the parts of your job that you love and finding new resources and ideas to bring into your lesson plans. TARA Helps You Quickly Find New Strategies The resource bank is a useful my feature of TARA. It contains more than six dozen instructional strategies that you can incorporate into your lesson plans that you create in TARA (more on that in the video at the end of this post). The strategies include templates for handouts that you can use in your lesson plan. Most importantly, the strategies in TARA’s resource bank include tips on how to use the strategies and additional readings about strategy implementation. short demo video www.freetech4teachers.com
Create Your Own Chatbot for Surveys and Quiz Practice Acquainted is a free polling tool Acquainted is a conversational polling tool. What that means is that people who take your poll get an instant response from you regarding their selections of poll options. Your responses are written into Acquainted and programmed to appear to poll respondents as they make answer choices. Watch my short demonstration video www.freeech4teachers.com
Use Google Slides where each student gets their own copy The link takes you to a sheet doc. Follow the direction using the sheets' menubar at the top to install add-on
DisplayNote Broadcast is a tool that you can use on your computer to broadcast your screen to your students’ laptop, tablet, or phone screens. It works equally well whether you use Mac, Windows, or Chromebook because it doesn’t require you to install any software.To use DisplayNote Broadcast you need a free account but your students do not. Once you’ve created an account simply go to the broadcast site and click “start a broadcast.” A six digit code is then created. Give that code to your students to enter on the DisplayNote Broadcast site and they’ll be able to follow along with everything you do on your computer. Here’s a short video overview from a teacher’s perspective and from a student’s perspective. www.freetech4teachers.com
Strategies for Supporting Working Memory
Ten Skills Students Can Learn from Google's Applied Digital Skills Lessons www.freetech4teachers.com
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
Cut Up Google Slides - alicekeeler.com/cutupslides Take a Google Slides and put it into smaller Google Slides presentations. This does NOT cut up your original, it stays the same. However, this Add-on allows you easily copy Google Slides from one Slides presentation to multiple slides presentations.
Speech to Text There is a dictation feature built in to many devices that will allow you to dictate into any place where text can be typed. There is also a speech-to-text feature built right into Google Docs. Simply click “tools” and “voice typing” in a Google Doc, and you will see a microphone icon. Below that is a dropdown menu to select the language in which you plan to dictate.
Slip-in-SlideWith the Slip-in-Slide add-on, you can effortlessly insert slides into multiple student presentations at one time. You can choose to send one or many slides from your presentation to an assignment folder in Google Classroom. This makes distribution of new material quick and easy. It integrates with the folder structure of Google Classroom to send your slides directly into student’s existing presentations. A tutorial on how to use Slip-in-Slide here.
Doc to Slides View Doc to Slides on YouTube It magically takes whatever is in your Google Doc and converts is to Google Slides! Not only does it create slides from a doc there are also other capabilities, e.g., creating slides for individual students quickly and directing a slide you already have to each student. Install Doc to Slides
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Classroomscreen is a service that lets you create a homescreen on which you can place reusable countdown timers, stopwatches, noise meters, random name selectors, and more helpful classroom management tools. The noise meter lets you set a sensitivity level and have an alarm sound when the room gets too noisy. The random name selector lets you enter a list of names and save it for unlimited reuse. The countdown timers are easy to adjust for time allotment and appearance. In addition to the timers, noise meters, and random name pickers, Classroomscreen also offers handy tools like a digital whiteboard, a calendar, a task list, and a QR code to share the whole screen with your students. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.com
Three Tools for Creating Audio Slideshow VideosNoteledge iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. It is a digital notebook that allows you to visualize your thoughts and organize your notes in a single place. It offers three helpful functionalities that enable you to capture, organize, and create new ideas and inspiration. Students can use it to curate content from the web by clipping images, text, and/or screenshots and add their notes to clipped content. They can also clip videos from popular video hosting services such as YouTube and Vimeo and annotate them the way they want. Using the app's annotating tools, students can draw, outline, sketch, and create collages by cutting out images and arranging layers. They can also add their own audio recordings and photos and insert videos into their notes. Additionally, notes can be organized into mood boards or idea boards and be shared with others in various formats. They can be exported as PDFs with audio and video included or be shared as slideshows. Noteledge has both a basic free version and a premium version.
GoSoapBox Engage your students and knockdown participation barriers with GoSoapBox, A free web-based student response system. Set up an event, or GoSoapBox space, for your class. Students enter the SoapBox through a unique code, and only the instructor can view the student names. Accessible through a computer or mobile device, GoSoapBox offers many tools for some creative Q&A in your classroom. The confusion barometer allows the teacher to assess the students' understanding of the topic. The poll and quiz tools provide a formative assessment option. Post questions or topics for your students using the GoSoapBox discussion tool. An option to post anonymously is available as well as many other settings for using the Social Q&A tool. Students can post questions for their peers or the teacher to answer.
How to Create and Share Clips of YouTube Videos
- Over the years there have been many third-party tools that offered ways to clip and share portions of YouTube videos.Now YouTube offers its own integrated tool for creating and sharing short clips of videos. You'll find YouTube's clipping tool directly under the title (next to the share button) of the video you're viewing. Click that clip button and you can select a 15 to 60 second segment of the video. Once you've selected a clip, you can share that clip via the URL that YouTube provides for it. The clip will play on a loop wherever you share it including when you embed it into website. Watch this short video www.freetech4teachers.com
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comCanva Graphic Organizer Templates Graphic organizers are a staple part of most classrooms. However, they are not known for their amazing design aesthetic. Thankfully, Canva has a huge variety of graphic organizer templates that you can customize for your students
Helperbird Whether you need speech to text, text-to-speech, Opendyslexic font, highlight tools, note-taking, clutter removal, Immersive Reader, etc., this tool has all of your favorite accessibility tools rolled into one! video tutorial
Use the Talking Points app to communicate with ALL families.Talking points allows you to communicate with your families. You write your message in your home language, families respond in theirs and it is translated automatically. Teachers can use the web-browser or mobile app, families can use text messages or a mobile app.
TeacherMade - Quickly Create a Variety of Online Activities A tool that lets you easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities into online activities to share with your students. According to developer Laura, “My goal with TeacherMade was to create a way for us to make online worksheets that are easier than Google Slides. TeacherMade is a tool that you can use to turn your PDFs, Word docs, and Google Slides into interactive activities for your students to complete online. TeacherMade will automatically score those activities for you, if you choose to enable that option. Should you choose not to have activities scored for you, you can still view what your students do on each activity. Video - How to Use TeacherMade www.freetech4teachers.com.
- To get started using TeacherMade you can sign-up with your G Suite account or register with any other email address and password of your choice. Signing up with G-suite is a good idea if you use Google Classroom, because TeacherMade is focusing on creating a deep integration with Google Classroom. TeacherMade recently went through a complete overhaul so that it runs smoother and faster than ever before. As a result, the free version of TeacherMade is now easier for teachers and students to use.
- The best way to discover all that TeacherMade can do is to upload a PDF that has a variety of question types on it. For example, a PDF that has a multiple choice question, a fill-in-the-blank question, and an identification question. (Quick tip if you don’t have a PDF: you can quickly create one by using the “download as PDF” option in Google Docs or the “save as PDF” option in Word). www.freetech4teachers.com
- Adding audio to PDFs and integrating Google Classroom into my TeacherMade account. video, adding audio to TeacherMade activities can be a good way to make directions more accessible to students. It's also a good way to add audio-based prompts. www.freetech4teachers.com.
- If you use Canva, take a look at this about how to combine Canva and TeacherMade. www.freetech4teachers.com.
Worksheet to Wow: 10 ways to upgrade your worksheet. Scroll down to find the embedded slide presentation on the Worksheet to Wow page. Click on a cabinet. When it pops out, click the folder you'd like to see. Want to use any of the ideas in the folders? There are links to all of them in the original Google Slides file for the slide deck. Just look in the speaker notes.
Interactive Activities Templates Blackout Poetry, Which One Doesn't Belong, Interactive Map, Virtual Trip Postcard, Annotate, Picture This and Take a Stand Template and more
How To Collaboratively Annotate PDFs On Google Drive
ISLCOLLECTIVE MAKES THEIR WORKSHEETS INTERACTIVE SO STUDENTS CAN COMPLETE THEM & SEND TO THEIR TEACHER
Canva offers nearly two thousand worksheet templates for teachers to copy and modify. All of the templates can be downloaded as PDFs. You could print them and give them to your students to complete. But who wants another thing to have to print and keep track of? So instead of printing worksheets made with Canva's templates, download the PDF and then upload it to TeacherMade where you can quickly turn that PDF into an online activity. Watchvideo Free account for Educators www.freetech4teachers.com Five Features of Canva Presentations You Might be Overlooking | video Find learning templates | 21 Canva Tutorials for Teachers | How to Create a Video With Canva | Canva Tutorials for Teacherswww.freetech4teachers.com
Design Skills for Students course is a seven-part, self-paced course that teaches high school age students everything they need to know to create great graphics, animations, presentations, and more. Each part of the course has a short tutorial video followed by a practice activity for students to complete. Take a look at the first lesson right here. If you are looking for some Canva tutorials for yourself, take a look at list of more than three dozen Canva tutorials. www.freetech4teachers.com
Upping Your Canva Game Discover some tested tips for fabulous designing in Canva,
- How to Use Google Maps & Street View Imagery in Canva PresentationsThere is the ability to embed interactive Google Maps and Google Street View imagery into your Canva presentations. Adding Google Maps into Canva is relatively straight-forward. Simply choose Google Maps from the "Apps" menu in the Canva presentation editor and then search for a location in the search box that appears. Adding Street View imagery into your Canva presentation requires using the "embed" option from the "Apps" menu in the Canva presentation editor. You then need to insert a link from Google Maps to display the Street View imagery in your presentation. Watch the video that I've embedded below to learn how to use Street View imagery in your Canva presentations. Video - How to Use Street View Imagery in Canva Presentationswww.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Create Custom QR Codes in Canva www.freetech4teachers.com
- ✅Canva doc Includes traditional word processing tools and more, e.g., embed multimedia or previously created files, magic writer which uses AI to support writing and research Video | How to Include Google Maps in Your Google Documents and Canva Documents www.freetech4teachers.com
- Video - How to Collaborate on Canva Documents. www.freetech4teachers.com
Wizer is a site that is for creating online assignments/worksheets. These assignments can contain all types of media (i.e. audio, video, images) as well as being able to share w/ others. The assignments on Wizer allow for student tracking so a educator can assess how well a student is doing. | Wizer released a Google Drive add-on that lets you quickly convert PDFs that are in your Google Drive into online worksheets on Wizer. With the add-on installed you can simply select any PDF in your Google Drive then choose "open with Wizer" to use that PDF in Wizer where you can then add interactive elements. You can see an overview of Wizer's Google Drive add-on in this video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bublup allows you to save and organize your digital content in visually attractive ways. Bublup combines the functionalities of a cloud storage site and content bookmarking tools. Organize your resources in visual folders like photos, videos, pictures, notes and many more. Bublup has collaborative features. Users can also create beautiful stories (also known as rolls) out of their stored content and share through a generated webpage link. Additionally, the site provides you with smart suggestions of content to similar content as the one you have saved in your folders. Student researchers can use it to collaborate on shared research projects. Teachers can design a space on Bublup where they share with their students resources related to the content they learn in class.
How to Create Your Own Search Engine It might sound complicated, but it’s not. In fact, it’s no more difficult than completing a Google Form. To create your own search engine head to Google.com/CSE. There you’ll select “add new search engine” and on the next screen all you have to do is enter a list of websites that you want your search engine to index. When your list is complete you’ll be given a URL for sharing your unique search engine. A demonstration of the whole, five minute process can be watched here. www.freetech4teachers.com
5 Ways to Improve the Odds of Students Actually Watching Instructional Videos
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
Brainstormer Online is a fun tool that helps teams to come up with ideas together remotely. The brainstormers will be guided through the steps of coming up with ideas, voting and reviewing ideas. No signup needed. Just create a session and start brainstorming. Voting capabilities also.
PresentationTube is a non-profit that has provided a free service to teachers for many years. That service is the ability to record video presentations based on PowerPoint files and PDFs. Recently, PresentationTube released a Chrome extension that lets you create video lessons in your web browser. PresentationTube's Chrome extension will let you record while talking over your PowerPoint slides or a PDF. You can record with your webcam turned on or you can choose to just record your voice talking over your slides or PDF. While you're recording you can draw on the screen, add text notes to the screen, and highlight text on the screen. When you have finished recording a presentation with PresentationTube's Chrome extension you can upload it directly to the PresentationTube website where you can then publish it publicly or keep it unlisted. www.freetech4teachers.com
Weava is a tool that allows you to annotate websites and PDFs. Students can easily highlight sections in PDFs and websites and add notes to contextualize and enhance their learning. Using Weava Workspace, students can easily review and edit their highlights. They can also add more highlights and organize everything into a single place. Highlights can be organized and categorized into collections and sub-folders. Weava enables students to collaborate on their research, share highlights and engage in meaningful discussions. Most important of all, Weava enables you to instantly generate bibliographical entries from your highlights in MLA, APA, Chicago, and Harvard styles. Weava is available as a Chrome extension.
Page Marker Page Marker is a Chrome extension that enables you to easily annotate live web pages. You can draw on any section on the webpage using your mouse or touchscreen. You can also highlight lines of text using your preferred colour.The eraser tool lets you delete parts you don't like and with a single click you can customize the thickness or change the default color. Students can use these extensions to draw on live webpages, add shapes and arrows, and share their annotated content with each other.
Web Paint Another excellent tool to annotate and draw on web pages. You can add text, notes, shapes, lines, and arrows and share your annotated content with others. Web Paint offers the added screenshot functionality allowing you to create screen captures of your annotated web pages. Students can use these extensions to draw on live webpages, add shapes and arrows, and share their annotated content with each other.
Mobile Phone Scanners Good for scanning documents and worksheets
- Microsoft Office Lens Office Lens is especially good if you use Microsoft Office, but it’s a solid option for anyone who wants free scanning with (mostly) properly formatted OCR results. Apple App Store | Google Play
- Adobe Scan straightforward, Adobe Scan is the good app if all you need is clean PDFs and reliable text recognition. Google Play | Apple App Store
CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help | Digital Learning Design Guide | Creating Virtual Reality activities in your remote teaching is easy and FREE with CurrikiStudio. No coding necessary. Take a static photo and turn it into a virtual tour to post to your website or LMS video tutorial | Excellent guide that maps out 5 easy ways you can use CurrikiStudio tools to give those remote lessons a reboot!
Recording and Inserting Audio How to record audio and save it right in your google drive Insert the audio into your digital learning path Have your students respond to you verbally Make your emails to your parents quicker and more personalized.
- Cloud Audio Recorder Option to save directly to Google Drive
- Padlet - for student audio responses
- Audio Email - for more personal emails
Classroomscreen was designed by teachers to help students focus on their immediate tasks and activities, and it works like an educational multitool. It provides 13 different widgets for free, including a timer, traffic light, random name picker, sound level monitor, drawing tool, poll, and work condition symbols (i.e work together, ask neighbor, whisper, or silence).
Google Tools for Struggling Students
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Discover QFT at The Right Question Institute (https://rightquestion.org/) - QFT, known as Question Formation Protocol is a simple way of promoting inquiring through collaborative groups of students. It incorporates the simple steps below and will allow your students to own the inquiry process while reflecting on their questions. Pay special attention to the templates that are provided for you to bring students to the blended world. They are free.
Quickly and easily take a printed PDF or worksheet, upload its text to Google Docs, and make it readable for your students. video
Talk and Comment Create voice notes inside any service on the web, including Google Docs, Google Classroom, Twitter, Facebook comments, Gmail, YouTube, Reddit, Slack, and more! Simply record your voice from the widget inside your browser, and paste the generated voice link anywhere you want.This extension makes it super easy to create quizzes that include oral directions or support.Watch this video to see just how easy it is to use and to get started with it yourself.
Guide for helping kids with special needs enhance their learning through the use of Google's technology. The guide entitled "Guardian's Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers
GoNoodle is an online resource that provides teachers with a library of “brain break” videos to use in their classrooms. The videos - ranging in length from two to ten minutes - are geared toward students in kindergarten through sixth grade, and they cover a variety of activities, such as exercise, song, dance, mindfulness, and coordination
Make Common Craft-style videos This video demonstrates how to use Google Slides and Screencastify to make Common Craft-style videos, but you could accomplish the same thing with PowerPoint and ScreenPal. Or use Mysimpleshow which is specifically created for this type of video. Free educational account.
Desmos is a FREE interactive tool used to graph, model, collect data, and question students over collection of higher math concepts Example activities
- online substitute for a graphing calculator.
- tool for showing students dynamic relationshipGoogle's Teach from Home is a resource you to keep handy. It features a wide variety of materials, tools, and guides to "help teachers and families manage and support children's use of technology".
- I want to draw your attention to this excellent guide we uncovered from Teach from Home which is particularly ideal for helping kids with special needs enhance their learning through the use of Google's technology. The guide entitled "Guardian's Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
- Change font size, text spacing, and background color.
- Split up words into syllables.
- Highlight verbs, nouns, adjectives and sub-clauses.
- Choose between two fonts optimized to help with reading.
- Read out text aloud, and change the speed of reading.
Using an easily accessed feature on your computer enlarge or highlight your mouse, so that students can more easily see where you are clicking. Most computers have this feature built into their accessibility tools, but you can also use a Chrome extension like Custom Cursor for Chrome to add additional fun. You can choose from a number of colors, shapes, and even cursors like SpongeBob, Harry Potter Cat, and a chicken nugget in the shape of a dinosaur.
Convert Handwritten Notes Into Google Documents When you snap a picture and upload it to Google Drive you can then have it converted into a Google Document that you can edit and share just like any other Google Doc. In the following video see how easy it is to use Google Drive to convert physical notes into Google Docs.
Circle-Based Visuals with Circly Circly is a free web-based tool that allows you to create simpler ways of looking at complex topics. The teacher or students can drag-and-drop circles anywhere on the screen to create connections between ideas or topics. The tool is extremely colorful and simple to use.
Applications for Creating eMail Newsletters
Talk and Comment is a chrome extension that enables you to record voice notes and share them almost anywhere on the web. As a teacher, you may want to install and use it to share audio feedback in the form of voice comments on students work. This is especially helpful if you have a classroom blog or website. Each audio note you create has a generated link that you can easily copy and paste online. Students can also use it to collaborate on joint projects and to engage in discussions around topics of interest. The way Talk and Comment works is simple and easy. First, install the extension from Chrome web store. Next open the webpage or head over to the platform where you want to share your audio comment and click on the extension's widget and start recording your comment. Once done, copy and paste the generated link. video tutorial
SceneVR "An engaging way to tell stories from an entirely new perspective. It turns your collection of panoramic and VR-ready photos into a slideshow of navigable scenes, allowing you to create unique 360° narratives." You can add text also.
Awesome Table makes your Google Sheet data visual. Take your website to the next level by presenting their Google Sheets data in beautiful, dynamic displays. Awesome Table is a great add-on to use on your Google Sheets to turn your spreadsheets into interactive visualizations. No coding knowledge is required to operate it, it is simple and easy to use. Tutorials and overview
Tools to Help You Convert Handwritten Notes into Digitized Text
AutoDraw matches your online doodles with professional drawings using any device. Begin a picture, and as you add to the image, AutoDraw's algorithms offer possible matches for your attempt. Click on any of the matching images to replace your doodle with a completed drawing. Use the site's tools to add text, change outline and fill colors, and add shapes. When finished, download your creation as a PNG file to your device.
3 Easy Ways Students Can Voice Type Their Documents
Mozilla Hubs A virtual reality space similar to the mega-popular Nintendo game Animal Crossing. With Mozilla Hubs, you can invite students to socialize in a space where they can move around and interact as avatars, which might be an interesting divergence from regular video conferencing.
Wizkids CAS is another Google Docs Add-on that offers a graphing calculator feature. Wizkids CAS offers tools for solve=ing equations and plotting graphs, finding numerical and exact solutions, and simplifying and factoring expressions with variables. The video embedded below provides an overview of the features in Wizkids CAS.
DIFFERENTIATED TEACHING
Having the ability to customize a formative assessment based on a student’s learner profile without that being obvious to all students makes differentiation easier. Wizer is a Swiss Army knife for teaching. The creators call it a “digital multimedia worksheet” tool, but that gives too much credit to paper worksheets—this is one of the best online differentiation tools out there. It allows teachers to add video, audio, and images to interactive worksheets, making them very accessible to all students. Wizer is simple to use, and other teachers’ digital worksheets are available as well. recorded a tutorial with her. I think this free tool is a must-use, although some teachers say it is targeted to younger students. You can distribute to students through a variety of means including Google Classroom. One of its better features is the option to add questions directly on top of images and diagrams. A variety of question formats are supported including open response, multiple choice, and matching questions. Years ago I made this video about how to use Wizer. The interface has changed a little since then but the tools are the same. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Wizer released a Google Drive add-on that lets you quickly convert PDFs that are in your Google Drive into online worksheets on Wizer. With the add-on installed you can simply select any PDF in your Google Drive then choose "open with Wizer" to use that PDF in Wizer where you can then add interactive elements.
- Differentiated Instructor Tracker
needing to organize their ideas into useful outlines.
Google Education’s artificial intelligence (AI)–driven tools help increase engagement for K–12 learners with support and timely feedback. With Google Education’s interactive practice sets, students can receive one-to-one feedback and support without ever leaving their assignment, saving educators time and providing insight into students’ learning processes and patterns. The practice sets use artificial intelligence to deliver hints, pop-up messages, video lessons, and other resources, providing encouragement and support the moment that students need such feedback. Practice sets are currently (11/30/22) in beta testing for schools using Google Workspace for Education Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus. To learn more about practice sets and how to use them in the classroom, view Introducing practice sets in Google Classroom on YouTube.
JotForm Report Builder is a useful tool for virtual learning. It takes the data you collect from online forms and turns it into visuals. You can use these presentation-ready reports to share any data you collect. In a distance learning environment, you can gather information remotely and share it in a variety of formats. So if you are presenting information on data you’ve collected to your school community, this will come in handy.
Class Charts Helps organize students into appropriate learning groups and minimizes school behavior issues.’
Tools to schedule conferences with students, parents and peers
Otter is a web tool and mobile app that allows you to record audio and generate live transcriptions of your recordings. Otter provides automated meeting notes for popular video conferencing services including Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Students can use Otter to" take notes during lectures, transcribe research interviews, capture notes from group study sessions, and process public audio data for research purposes." Otter has collaborative features. Otter users can invite each other to edit, highlight and work on their notes collaboratively. They can also 'start a recording inside a group to share the transcript live'. Other equally interesting features provided by Otter include: the ability to import and transcribe audio recordings, arrange notes into folders, generate word clouds from recorded notes, export notes as PDF, TXT, MP3, and many more.
Background Removal Tools for Photos and Videos Three online tools for background removal from photos and images. They are all simple to use.
Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
Classdojo Build productive classroom communities with parents and students.
Split Your Browser Screen into Two with Dualless
Classting Social media approach draws families into the daily classroom It allows easy communication and updates with families. The flexibility in options is a plus, allowing teachers to share photos, videos, messages, and homework. Homework, updates, and photos are all part of the platform, insuring successful connection with families. Continuous communication throughout the school year creates a positive environment.
Remind Teachers' text reminders keep students -- and parents -- up to speed. With over 70 languages and options to share files and links, it's easy to keep students and parents informed and involved
Bloomz Android | IOS Full-featured parent-teacher communication platform
Create Green Screen Video With Zoom Zoom's desktop client has an option to replace your background with any picture that you want to upload to your Zoom account. The video shows how to edit the video in Spark, but you can use other video editing programs also. Seamless method to create newscasts, for example. Video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom A free iPhone and iPad app called Overviewer. Overviewer is a free app that lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a document camera during a Zoom meeting. The app essentially mirrors your iPhone or iPad camera into Zoom via Airplay or Lightning Bolt cable. Here's an overview www.freetech4teachers.com
Classtag Flexible user-friendly tool gets teachers and families in sync
Distance Learning with ESL
Weekly Interactive Lesson Planers Template 1 | Template 2 Second slide may be tutorials for you and can be deleted
Thinking Routines
🎯Project Zero’s Thinking Routines Toolbox. "This toolbox highlights thinking routines developed across a number of research projects at. A thinking routine is a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking. Thinking routines to deepen students’ thinking and to help make that thinking “visible.” Thinking routines help to reveal students’ thinking to the teacher and also help students themselves to notice and name particular “thinking moves,” making those moves more available and useful to them in other contexts. For Tips for Using Thinking Routines Effectively, click here. For an overview of the Thinking Categories, click here. For an alphabetical list of thinking routines, click here" Core Thinking Routines | Digging Deeper Into Ideas | Introducing & Exploring Ideas | Investigating Objects & Systems |Perspective-taking | Considering Controversies, Dilemmas, and Perspectives | Generating Possibilities and Analogies | Synthesizing & Organizing Ideas | Exploring Art, Images, and Objects |Global Thinking
The Power of See, Think, Wonder Thinking Routine
Inquisitive A Teacher’s Guide to Visible Thinking Activities
Thinking Routines
Support Online Learning with Powerful Thinking Routines includes Google Slides to use with students
Establishing Norms for Remote Learning Establishing norms will ensure a successful start for your remote learning classroom. Discover how to include your students in the creation process
Habit stacking: 10 ways it can streamline class
✅New Google Slides "Tier List" Activity EduProtocols are popular to foster discussion This activity is called a "Tier List". It is a high engagement student activity It encourages critical thinking, communication, comparing,
contrasting, prioritizing, and defending rationales It can be used in any subject or grade level It should only take 15 to 30 minutes, and can be used multiple times throughout the year with different content. You can get the templates, directions, and a 12-minute tutorial video at: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2023/03/google-slides-tier-list-activity.html
A slide deck with 35 conversation starters—excellent for the start of class.
A Daily Ritual That Builds Trust and Community Among Students
The Power of Brain Breaks.
12 brain breaks to energize your classroom
Mood Meter and model the process of reflection by explaining where you place yourself on the graph. As you identify the color on the Mood Meter that represents how you are feeling, do a “think aloud” to explain how the square represents your state of mind and what might be causing you to feel this way. Next, pose the question to the class: Where would you place yourself right now? First, have students write their color in the chat. Then have them write their coordinates. Finally, ask them to name their emotion. If time allows, create breakout groups and have each group come up with a strategy that could help someone improve their energy and mood. Groups can share their ideas in the chat, on a virtual whiteboard, in a shared Google Doc, or verbally.
🎯New Google Slides "Tier List" Activity EduProtocols are popular to foster discussion This activity is called a "Tier List". It is a high engagement student activity It encourages critical thinking, communication, comparing, contrasting, prioritizing, and defending rationales It can be used in any subject or grade level It should only take 15 to 30 minutes, and can be used multiple times throughout the year with different content. You can get the templates, directions, and a 12-minute tutorial video at: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2023/03/google-slides-tier-list-activity.html
Building Classroom Community collection of ideas K - 5
Slides to the deck of conversation starters Additional check-in or icebreaker questions to begin class or work in breakout rooms. | Students complete a “check in” on how they are feeling (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Check in SEL Templates K - 8)
Icebreakers.io. Icebreakers.io offers lists of icebreaker questions. The questions are arranged in categories for small groups, for introverts, for adults, for work, and for fun. All of the questions can be viewed individually and copied. You can also download the lists of questions in convenient PDFs. www.freetech4teachers,com
Canva ice breaker templates -- If you want to do a fun ice breaker game, Canva has you covered with some eye-catching pre-made templates, including: Human BINGO, Spot the Not, Would You Rather?, and Self Portrait. Copy and edit these templates in Canva!
15 Ideas for Building Community in Your Virtual Classroom is from The Teaching Channel.
Here are two options (out of many!) to begin a week of distance learning. On Mondays ask students to respond in writing to a series of questions – the first couple are more reflective on the past week, while the next ones are more SEL-oriented.Here’s a downloadable example.
Synchronous Lesson Routine Tips
Brain Dumps to lock it in long-term memory. Three-step protocol with Slides Template:
Allow the norms to develop organically
Distance Learning Morning Meeting
Emoji Emotions Share your screen to project a Google Slide or Doc with emojis that reflect a range of emotions. Take into account representation (race, ethnicity, gender, ability) when choosing the emoticons and give each one a title. Students will use the chat window to participate, so model the activity by sharing the emoji that represents how you are feeling (or its name, if the conferencing platform does not support emojis) in the chat. Explain verbally or in writing why you chose your emoji and what is impacting your feelings. Then ask each student to do the same. Time permitting, debrief by gathering in breakout groups, by having students raise their (virtual) hand to speak, or by asking students to write in the chat window. Ask them to brainstorm strategies or words of encouragement that might help other students who are not feeling positive emotions.
Movement Breaks for Better Learning Collection of movement break resources
ActivEd is offering free access to its "Walkabouts," platform with web-based lessons for students in grades pre-K-2 students that integrate movement with language arts, math and reading content and correlate to state learning standards. Students, teachers, and parents can access grade-level content. http://info.activedinc.com/covid
Brain Breaks strategy for getting students refocused and priming their brains for learning. Also look at GoNoodle and Teachers Pay Teachers has some free ones
10 New Focused Attention Brain Breaks
Sworkit Kids is a free app or website that provides prompts for one to five minute physical activities that kids can do in their classrooms or at home relatively small spaces. These activities are great for short brain breaks. Recently, I discovered that you can use Sworkit Kids without installing the app on your phone. Whether you use Sworkit on your phone or in your web browser at https://app.sworkit.com/collections/kids-workouts the content is the same. You can choose from nineteen categories of activities. The categories are arranged by age group and activity type. www.freetech4teachers.com
Picture This Share your screen to project an intriguing image. Don’t reveal the title or context. Then provide students with a link to an “Intriguing Image: See, Think, Wonder” Padlet or a Google Doc with three columns or text boxes. Model the strategy by examining the image and typing a few ideas into the Padlet or document. Then lead students through the strategy, giving them about two minutes for each step. Let them review what everyone wrote, and send them into small breakout groups to create their own title for the image. When they return, have one person from each group type their title in the chat or report it to the class before revealing details about the image.
More Middle - High School Rituals
Remind yourself that social time is as important as academic time: If you are teaching online, deliberately use some of your precious time for social connection. For example, begin your class time with a social ritual: try a short “mental stretch” break; offer some monitored hangout time before class starts; or create small groups that meet socially asynchronously. This isn’t wasted class time—it’s an investment to help keep them motivated and present for the long haul.
Three Good Things if your school’s tech policy allows, have students use their personal devices to scroll through some posts with the hashtag #threegoodthings on Twitter or Instagram. Then instruct students to write or sketch in their journals a list of their own three good things and then reflect in writing on the one that feels most significant at this moment. Students can share one of their good things in the chat or in a remote Wraparound activity by unmuting when called on. Alternatively, create a “Three Good Things” Padlet or Flipgrid ( Microsoft has rebranded Flipgrid as simply Flip) where students can reflect and share their ideas rather than doing so in their journals.
Brightful Meeting Games offers online games that can be used with video conference platforms
Weekly Schedule Sharing a simplified version of your overall plan of learning activities and method for teaching at the beginning of each week with parents, will help make supporting their child easier. Indicative timetables, even for activities that can be done flexibly, will help provide a structure to the week.
Expectation Slides Gain student participation, online behavior, and norms through expectation slides. | Sample expectations | More Samples
Pear Deck check-ins before each lesson. Use the Pear Deck add-on for Google Slides or add-in PowerPoint to check-in on your students before, during, and after any presentation. Pear Deck even has a classroom climate feature that allows you to gather feedback on how your students are feeling.Click here to get a "Check in with Students" lesson that you can copy and add to your Google Drive | Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom
Students complete a “check in” on how they are feeling (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Emotional Check-ins K- 12 "The emotional check-in gets every student’s voice into the room at the start of each class. Although students can always say “pass” instead of sharing, each student has the opportunity to be heard every class session. The check-in is also a great opportunity to practice active listening, turn-taking, and following group norms."
Virtual Team Building Activities
Try Good, OK, Bad Using this template will help you to know about where your students are at and allow you the opportunity to follow up with any issues. Now more than ever, it is important to be mindful of our students social emotional health! This template works best if you complete their activity as a class. Check out this template plus 9 others in 10 whiteboard templates for distance learning
🎯Is there anything else you think it would be helpful for your teacher to know about how you or your family are doing?
Daily Check-in With Google Forms A Google (or Microsoft) form makes it simple and easy to get started connecting with all of your students. Ask your students to fill out the form as they are logging in for the day. You can review their answers while they complete a digital warm-up or between video calls.| More (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Each morning start with a question that everyone answers. There’s always a Would you rather? question of the day, as well as a survey question. What was your favorite field trip? What was your favorite subject this year? What was your favorite specials class? Something like that.
Talking points allows you to communicate with your families. You write your message in your home language, families respond in theirs and it is translated automatically. Teachers can use the web-browser or mobile app, families can use text messages or a mobile app.
Video Conferencing: Establishing Routines and Structuring Online Time with Students
Thinking Routines
🎯Project Zero’s Thinking Routines Toolbox. "This toolbox highlights thinking routines developed across a number of research projects at. A thinking routine is a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking. Thinking routines to deepen students’ thinking and to help make that thinking “visible.” Thinking routines help to reveal students’ thinking to the teacher and also help students themselves to notice and name particular “thinking moves,” making those moves more available and useful to them in other contexts. For Tips for Using Thinking Routines Effectively, click here. For an overview of the Thinking Categories, click here. For an alphabetical list of thinking routines, click here" Core Thinking Routines | Digging Deeper Into Ideas | Introducing & Exploring Ideas | Investigating Objects & Systems |Perspective-taking | Considering Controversies, Dilemmas, and Perspectives | Generating Possibilities and Analogies | Synthesizing & Organizing Ideas | Exploring Art, Images, and Objects |Global Thinking
The Power of See, Think, Wonder Thinking Routine
Inquisitive A Teacher’s Guide to Visible Thinking Activities
Thinking Routines
Support Online Learning with Powerful Thinking Routines includes Google Slides to use with students
Establishing Norms for Remote Learning Establishing norms will ensure a successful start for your remote learning classroom. Discover how to include your students in the creation process
Habit stacking: 10 ways it can streamline class
✅New Google Slides "Tier List" Activity EduProtocols are popular to foster discussion This activity is called a "Tier List". It is a high engagement student activity It encourages critical thinking, communication, comparing,
contrasting, prioritizing, and defending rationales It can be used in any subject or grade level It should only take 15 to 30 minutes, and can be used multiple times throughout the year with different content. You can get the templates, directions, and a 12-minute tutorial video at: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2023/03/google-slides-tier-list-activity.html
A slide deck with 35 conversation starters—excellent for the start of class.
A Daily Ritual That Builds Trust and Community Among Students
The Power of Brain Breaks.
12 brain breaks to energize your classroom
Mood Meter and model the process of reflection by explaining where you place yourself on the graph. As you identify the color on the Mood Meter that represents how you are feeling, do a “think aloud” to explain how the square represents your state of mind and what might be causing you to feel this way. Next, pose the question to the class: Where would you place yourself right now? First, have students write their color in the chat. Then have them write their coordinates. Finally, ask them to name their emotion. If time allows, create breakout groups and have each group come up with a strategy that could help someone improve their energy and mood. Groups can share their ideas in the chat, on a virtual whiteboard, in a shared Google Doc, or verbally.
🎯New Google Slides "Tier List" Activity EduProtocols are popular to foster discussion This activity is called a "Tier List". It is a high engagement student activity It encourages critical thinking, communication, comparing, contrasting, prioritizing, and defending rationales It can be used in any subject or grade level It should only take 15 to 30 minutes, and can be used multiple times throughout the year with different content. You can get the templates, directions, and a 12-minute tutorial video at: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2023/03/google-slides-tier-list-activity.html
Building Classroom Community collection of ideas K - 5
Slides to the deck of conversation starters Additional check-in or icebreaker questions to begin class or work in breakout rooms. | Students complete a “check in” on how they are feeling (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Check in SEL Templates K - 8)
Icebreakers.io. Icebreakers.io offers lists of icebreaker questions. The questions are arranged in categories for small groups, for introverts, for adults, for work, and for fun. All of the questions can be viewed individually and copied. You can also download the lists of questions in convenient PDFs. www.freetech4teachers,com
Canva ice breaker templates -- If you want to do a fun ice breaker game, Canva has you covered with some eye-catching pre-made templates, including: Human BINGO, Spot the Not, Would You Rather?, and Self Portrait. Copy and edit these templates in Canva!
15 Ideas for Building Community in Your Virtual Classroom is from The Teaching Channel.
Here are two options (out of many!) to begin a week of distance learning. On Mondays ask students to respond in writing to a series of questions – the first couple are more reflective on the past week, while the next ones are more SEL-oriented.Here’s a downloadable example.
- A little different – A simple Google Form with a handful of questions. Posting weekly survey asking students to2 rate how they're feeling, if they're having tech issues, etc . Students often like it, The "problem" is if you ask, you have to respond. And there are a lot of needs out there.
- A few minutes before class starts play some music in the background that is in the pop culture. The music can keep playing as the student play ia warm up game
- Transition Bell Ringers
- Bell Ringer Resources
- The Best Resources For “Do Now” Activities To Begin A Class:
- Bell Ringers, Exit Tickets & Attendance | Weekly exit ticket for Jamboard
- Exit Ticket Builder and 10 digital tools for exit tickets in this post: 20 ideas for exit tickets in the classroom.
- STEM Critical Thinking Warm-Ups
- History Discussion Prompts for All 50 States a collection of video clips and "bell ringers" for every state in the United States. Bell Ringers are short video clips that are accompanied by discussion questions to start a lesson. the clips and bell ringers cover a wide array of topics related to each state. For example, the collection of Maine resources includes a video of top policy issues according to former governor Paul LePage, the Missouri Compromise, and the removal of a dam on the Kennebec River. The collection of resources about Iowa includes a bell ringer about the history of the Iowa caucuses, a bell ringer about African American migration to Iowa, and a lesson plan about the Louisiana Purchase. www.freetech4teachers.com
- See Think Wonder Based on work done by the Project Zero people over at Harvard Grad School of Education, the See Think Wonder strategy is one of those all purpose thinking routines that can be use across grade levels and content areas. The beauty of STW is that it encourages students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations. You can find numerous examples online. A simple Google search will connect you with everything from the original Project Zero Thinking Routines page to Teacher Pay Teacher pages. Or you can just stick with this one
- Creativity Bell Ringers K - 5
- 20 Bell Ringers to Kickstart Class - Ditch that Textbook
- Bell Ringer Exercises - Edutopia
- Creativity Warm Ups
- 17 Bell Ringer Activities For Remote Learning
- 40+ BELL WORK IDEAS FOR Various Subject Areas
- Virtual Improv Activities for Remote Learning
- C-SPAN Classroom Bell Ringers are short video clips accompanied by a few discussion questions and a list of key vocabulary terms. Bell Ringers are intended to be warm-up or introductory activities that you can complete with your students in five to ten minutes.
- 50 Distance Learning Icebreakers and Games
- 21 Social Distance Friendly and Virtual Icebreakers
Synchronous Lesson Routine Tips
Brain Dumps to lock it in long-term memory. Three-step protocol with Slides Template:
- Step 1. General: What generally do you remember?
- Step 2. Deep dive: What's everything you remember from ONE thing from step 1?
- Step 3. Teacher suggestions: What's everything you remember about these subtopics the teacher lists for you?
Allow the norms to develop organically
Distance Learning Morning Meeting
Emoji Emotions Share your screen to project a Google Slide or Doc with emojis that reflect a range of emotions. Take into account representation (race, ethnicity, gender, ability) when choosing the emoticons and give each one a title. Students will use the chat window to participate, so model the activity by sharing the emoji that represents how you are feeling (or its name, if the conferencing platform does not support emojis) in the chat. Explain verbally or in writing why you chose your emoji and what is impacting your feelings. Then ask each student to do the same. Time permitting, debrief by gathering in breakout groups, by having students raise their (virtual) hand to speak, or by asking students to write in the chat window. Ask them to brainstorm strategies or words of encouragement that might help other students who are not feeling positive emotions.
Movement Breaks for Better Learning Collection of movement break resources
ActivEd is offering free access to its "Walkabouts," platform with web-based lessons for students in grades pre-K-2 students that integrate movement with language arts, math and reading content and correlate to state learning standards. Students, teachers, and parents can access grade-level content. http://info.activedinc.com/covid
Brain Breaks strategy for getting students refocused and priming their brains for learning. Also look at GoNoodle and Teachers Pay Teachers has some free ones
10 New Focused Attention Brain Breaks
Sworkit Kids is a free app or website that provides prompts for one to five minute physical activities that kids can do in their classrooms or at home relatively small spaces. These activities are great for short brain breaks. Recently, I discovered that you can use Sworkit Kids without installing the app on your phone. Whether you use Sworkit on your phone or in your web browser at https://app.sworkit.com/collections/kids-workouts the content is the same. You can choose from nineteen categories of activities. The categories are arranged by age group and activity type. www.freetech4teachers.com
Picture This Share your screen to project an intriguing image. Don’t reveal the title or context. Then provide students with a link to an “Intriguing Image: See, Think, Wonder” Padlet or a Google Doc with three columns or text boxes. Model the strategy by examining the image and typing a few ideas into the Padlet or document. Then lead students through the strategy, giving them about two minutes for each step. Let them review what everyone wrote, and send them into small breakout groups to create their own title for the image. When they return, have one person from each group type their title in the chat or report it to the class before revealing details about the image.
More Middle - High School Rituals
Remind yourself that social time is as important as academic time: If you are teaching online, deliberately use some of your precious time for social connection. For example, begin your class time with a social ritual: try a short “mental stretch” break; offer some monitored hangout time before class starts; or create small groups that meet socially asynchronously. This isn’t wasted class time—it’s an investment to help keep them motivated and present for the long haul.
Three Good Things if your school’s tech policy allows, have students use their personal devices to scroll through some posts with the hashtag #threegoodthings on Twitter or Instagram. Then instruct students to write or sketch in their journals a list of their own three good things and then reflect in writing on the one that feels most significant at this moment. Students can share one of their good things in the chat or in a remote Wraparound activity by unmuting when called on. Alternatively, create a “Three Good Things” Padlet or Flipgrid ( Microsoft has rebranded Flipgrid as simply Flip) where students can reflect and share their ideas rather than doing so in their journals.
Brightful Meeting Games offers online games that can be used with video conference platforms
Weekly Schedule Sharing a simplified version of your overall plan of learning activities and method for teaching at the beginning of each week with parents, will help make supporting their child easier. Indicative timetables, even for activities that can be done flexibly, will help provide a structure to the week.
Expectation Slides Gain student participation, online behavior, and norms through expectation slides. | Sample expectations | More Samples
Pear Deck check-ins before each lesson. Use the Pear Deck add-on for Google Slides or add-in PowerPoint to check-in on your students before, during, and after any presentation. Pear Deck even has a classroom climate feature that allows you to gather feedback on how your students are feeling.Click here to get a "Check in with Students" lesson that you can copy and add to your Google Drive | Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom
Students complete a “check in” on how they are feeling (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Emotional Check-ins K- 12 "The emotional check-in gets every student’s voice into the room at the start of each class. Although students can always say “pass” instead of sharing, each student has the opportunity to be heard every class session. The check-in is also a great opportunity to practice active listening, turn-taking, and following group norms."
Virtual Team Building Activities
Try Good, OK, Bad Using this template will help you to know about where your students are at and allow you the opportunity to follow up with any issues. Now more than ever, it is important to be mindful of our students social emotional health! This template works best if you complete their activity as a class. Check out this template plus 9 others in 10 whiteboard templates for distance learning
🎯Is there anything else you think it would be helpful for your teacher to know about how you or your family are doing?
Daily Check-in With Google Forms A Google (or Microsoft) form makes it simple and easy to get started connecting with all of your students. Ask your students to fill out the form as they are logging in for the day. You can review their answers while they complete a digital warm-up or between video calls.| More (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Each morning start with a question that everyone answers. There’s always a Would you rather? question of the day, as well as a survey question. What was your favorite field trip? What was your favorite subject this year? What was your favorite specials class? Something like that.
Talking points allows you to communicate with your families. You write your message in your home language, families respond in theirs and it is translated automatically. Teachers can use the web-browser or mobile app, families can use text messages or a mobile app.
Video Conferencing: Establishing Routines and Structuring Online Time with Students
5E Model for Creating Online Lessons Have you heard of the 5Es framework? It’s an instructional model that’s been around for 20+ years. Using the model, teaching and learning progresses through five phases: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. Chart | Tips for Designing an Online Lesson Using the 5 Es Instructional Model.
Visual with Text Thinking Activities Includes picture pass, annotating images, comic strips, elevator pitch, marriage vows of historical characters or book characters, hexagonal thinking, book snap, trading cards, and more.
Ignite Curiosity Resources What’s Going On in This Picture? | Analyze a graph or map | Imagine if... | Activate Prior Knowledge | Respond to Quote | See Feel Think Wonder | Art Connections
70 elearning activities, templates and tutorials
Primarily Google resources for little ones on her website
Explore Boards
Choice Boards. | More boards | And More boards | Guide to creating your own | A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR YOUR CLASSROOM: CHOICE BOARDS | Choice Board template| SlidesMania offers engaging choice board templates that can be used for PowerPoint or Google Slides. This article includes more templates, links, and instructions on how to make your own choice boards.
Design a Choose Your Own Adventure Learning Experience includes sample template
Kidzcourse offers twelve courses featuring hands-on activities for kids from ages six through thirteen. All of the courses include downloadable materials like templates for making board games, developing storyboards, and making escape room activities. Each course also has video tutorials to help students complete the required tasks. Some of the hands-on Kidzcourses that stood out to me were Building an Escape Room, Paper Circuits, Save the Ocean, and Build an App. Kidzcourses can be done at home with parents. They can also be completed as in-classroom activities. Kidzcourse provides educators with supply lists, learning objectives, and handouts for each course. Some of the courses could be great as group projects that students do at the start of the school year to build some good cooperative learning habits in a fun and educational way.
Quick activities to pair with a video. "Something that'll help students take the next step with what they've learned? Something that'll help them engage in the content in new ways? And something that isn't just busy work? Free ebook full of activities to engage your students with videos. It's called "Teaching with TeachFlix." t has links to lots of simple activities you can use with all sorts of classroom videos, including: plus ideas for using some of our social media templates in the DTT templates library -- and places to find other great teaching videos.Get that ebook in a Google Slides file, a PowerPoint file, or a PDF file ... and knock out some lesson plans in a hurry."
Breakoutedu Sandbox Free teacher. created digital breakout rooms. If the answer to the clues are not provide for the teacher, the creator's email is available to contact. Breakoutedu's main site also has some free ones and valuable tutorials. www.freetech4teachers.com
Virtual Station Rotation Slide Template
✅13 ways to connect music and lyrics to class
30+ Ready-to-use Interactive Lessons
BrainVentures, an initiative of the University of Michigan Center for Digital Curricula, is making daily learning adventures free. These are crafted by classroom teachers to give students choices of learning activities; they accommodate different learning preferences and engage the learner in constructing animations, videos, photo albums and stories while taking them on field trips and having them play games and run simulations. https://cdc.engin.umich.edu/daily-brain-venture/
Canva for Education is offering teachers forever-free is offering teachers forever-free access to the pro edition of its online design platform. The program, which is optimized for Chromebook, includes drag-and-drop tools to simplify visual communication. Students can create and co-create presentations, infographics, websites, reports, worksheets, posters, flyers and signage. The program includes access to tens of thousands of templates, images, icons, illustrations and fonts. Once teachers fill out the form, the company will verify the application. https://www.canva.com/education/ | 30+ Ways to Use FREE Templates from Canva in Your Classroom (Part 1) | 30+ Ways to Use FREE Templates from Canva in Your Classroom (Part 2) | Five Features of Canva Presentations You Might be Overlooking | The Pro version is completely free to educators, which makes it even more perfect. Upping Your Canva Game
Write a Letter to the Teacher Slide Presentation
Create a Guessing Game this lesson teaches students how to make their own quizzes in Google Forms, and asks them to make a quiz about themselves for their teacher or classmates to take. This lesson would be a strategy to set your students up for creating their own content-based quizzes later in the year.
Station Rotation in an Era of Social Distancing
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
Posters and Memes: Students have fun using this resource and it’s a really good way to challenge students in a creative way. Having students create a meme or poster to illustrate a concept simplifies the meaning for the student with a related image or picture, highlights a main point, and also can illustrate new terms or complex concepts. imgflip.com has a meme and poster generator. This approach is probably better for older students to ensure appropriateness. | Meme and Pinterest Google Slide Templates
Antimatter: A New Spin on Memes in the Classroom Using Memes for Formative AssessmentIn the same way a cartoon in a newspaper asks us to think deeply about a larger idea, a meme also acts as a compressed little puzzle that speaks to a larger idea. Instead Students can take on the role of creators. Memes let teachers tap into higher levels of thinking, such as analysis and synthesis.This is a tool that helps students make their own memes. Memes are a great option for your formative assessment routine. You can have students create content and evaluate big ideas by creating a meme. A meme can indicate how much the student has internalized the subject matter by asking them to apply their learning in a unique storytelling context. In the past, you might have asked students to email their creations or upload memes to a learning management system or space like Google Classroom.You can increase opportunities for students to evaluate each other’s work. Antimatter helps tackle this challenge by having students create memes live on a shared canvas with the rest of their classmates.With Antimatter, students have options to a wide selection of creation tools. Students get access to a selection of meme templates. If you choose to share student memes with a wider audience, there is a special space on Antimatter where you can publish student work. You can select memes created by your students to share on Antimatter’s Discover page. sign up as a teacher:
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.com
The Thin Slides EduProtocol -- Thin Slides is a great, low-prep activity. Come up with a "one picture one word" prompt and you're set. Check out these Thin Slides templates to get you started
Use think-alouds to demonstrate strategies like analyzing text features, applying SQ3R, questioning, and using fix-up strategies, such as rereading, summarizing, and making connections.
List Of The Best Resources For Using Google whiteboards s With English Language Learners – Please Add Your Own!
Caption This! What was that person thinking? What would he/she have said? Use photos and historic art with speech/thought bubbles to answer those questions. It's visual and fun! Click here!
Brain Breaks Strategy for getting students refocused and priming their brains for learning. Also look at GoNoodle and Teachers Pay Teachers has some free ones
50 Interactive Ideas to Engage Students Online is from Pamela Broussard.
Three Ways to Add Some Educational Fun to Your Virtual and Hybrid Classes
Student collaboration in shared Google Slides
Digital gallery walk: Collaboration on their feet
- Better Lesson:This article provides information on the Gallery Walk protocol including ways to promote it in the Blended Learning environment. Do you want more ideas on using the Gallery Walk Protocol in the classroom? Check out this video for some great possibilities.
Add and pass: A fun activity to get them moving AND creating
Online lessons: a menu of ideas is from The British Council.
Infinity Infinity provides you with the tools to take your project management skills to the next level. Some of its features include: project planning templates to help you "break down your projects into smaller tasks, assign them to the right people, set due dates, and even keep track of everyone's progress; combine custom attributes to create any type of data; adapt the system to your needs with versatile customization options; import your data easily or integrate your favorite apps with Infinity"
7 sites with ready to use remote learning lessons and 9 perfect primary source icebreakers
Opening Up the Textbook (OUT) for Online Learning ( high School) "Opening Up the Textbook (OUT) lessons offer teachers and students more opportunities to break away from textbook-driven history classes and provide students with additional source material to contest, complicate, expand, or vivify the textbook narrative. For more information about OUTs, watch this video or read this article. "
8 Ideas Designed to Engage Students In Active Learning Online ( gr. 5 - 12) Sort It Out, Online Fishbowl, Expert Group Investigations, Collaborative Annotations, Google Map Adventures, Spotify Playlist, Scavenger Hunts, and Online Discussions. TAG Framework to engage student discussions - download your own copy here!
Brainstorming Tools
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Moving station brainstorming online
CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.”
Interactive Digital Posters Forget the glue sticks, markers and magazines to cut for pictures. Create interactive posters with Google Drawings.
10 Strategies Designed to Engage Elementary Students Online Create Virtual Word Wall , Virtual Jigsaw Activity, Subject-specific Scavenger Hunts During Virtual Conferencing Sessions, Digital Choice Boards, Storytime + Graphic Organizers, Tell Me How on Seesaw or FlipGrid, I Do, We Do, You Do in Virtual Conferencing Sessions, Online Learning Stations, Acrostic Poem, and Online Fishbowl Discussion or Problem Solving Session
Play “Would You Rather”
One of my favorite in-person games to play is “would you rather,” where students move to different sides of the room depending on their answer. To adapt this for a virtual class you could use a whiteboard or Slides , which has draggable features, so students can move their icon to the side of the screen they agree with most.
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity
Spot the Troll Spot the Troll was developed by Clemson University's Media Forensics Lab as a way to educate people about deceptive social media accounts. Spot the Troll presents players with eight social media profiles. Based on the clues in the profiles players have to decide if the social media profile is genuine or a fake designed to spread misinformation. Players get instant feedback after making a guess at whether each account is real or fake. Whether or not the player is correct or incorrect Spot the Troll provides an explanation the signs that that the account was real or fake. www.freetech4teachers.com
Virtual Field Trips You can always do a search to find more options.
Activities for home learning Kids Activities features a special section called Stuck at Home where you can access learning activities that helps keep your house-bound kids busy and motivated. These include free activities, kids shows, quarantine journals, and many more. The 'Learn' section features over 600 educational activities. "Many of our learning activities are used in classrooms and homeschool lessons. The Reading, writing, STEM, Science and so many other things can be learned through play. What makes it even more fun is thay make the perfect after school, rainy day or "mom I'm bored" activity too!t kids of different ages can learn and play together.
Using Morning Messages to Start the Day in Distance Learning The morning message is a popular way to help elementary students transition into school—and it can be adapted for home learning.
Ken Burns in the Classroom is a repository for film clips, documents, images, and even lesson plans.
STEAM At Home
Engineering at Home or On the Go "Explore engineering as a family! These activities promote team work, critical thinking and problem solving. Use the steps of the Engineering Design Process to design a unique solution to a problem. Families that engineer together will build valuable skills and will gain the confidence necessary to tackle problems with an engineering mindset."
FIRST has compiled a roster of "free and flexible" pre-K-12 STEM activities, divided by grade bands, remote learning resources and career explorations. https://www.firstinspires.org/community/home-learning
WideOpenSchool.org Combines in one place the educational resources for publishers, nonprofits and education companies. This free resource includes content from the American Federation of Teachers, Amplify, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Head Start, Khan Academy, National Geographic, Noggin, PBS, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Time for Kids, XQ Institute and even YouTube.All the content offered through Wide Open School is freely available. Not just a list of helpful websites. Instead, Wide Open School actually programs a full school day for the child by grade level, to ensure they’re getting a mix of educational material that aligns with what their day would have been when attending school.
Distance Learning with ELLs from Larry Ferlazzo's book
Bringing Number Talks to the Online Classroom Elementary school teachers use number talks to guide students to engage deeply with concepts, and they can work online, with a little creativity.
The PBS Teacher Planning Kit for New School Routines is an eight-week planning kit designed for PreK-12 teachers everywhere to help navigate this year’s new and changing school routines. Making the most of PBS LearningMedia, these kits are intended to be used whether or not you’re delivering instruction in person, and whether or not your students have internet access.Planning sheets are divided into three sections: Watch, Teach, Explore. “Watch” includes broadcast and/or online media. “Teach” connects activities, games and lessons directly to the featured media. “Explore” provides additional resources so teachers can plan a comprehensive lesson on a particular topic or theme.
List of children’s books that explore race and racism
Resource that Supports at Home Science Learning Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. Thee include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.Arizona Science Center also offers "more than 175 new online learning resources, including weekly lesson plans, videos, articles and activities. Sari on Science interprets what is happening in the changing environment.
Remote Math Lessons for Grades 6-10 Maneuvering the Middle seeks to support teachers through hands-on resources, standards-aligned curriculum, and practical teaching ideas.
The Best Sites Where Students Can Participate In Citizen Science Projects.
Smithsonian Magazine has just published SEVENTY-FIVE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROJECTS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ONLINE
10 Ways to Use QR Codes in Online Education
How to Create Labeling Activities With Google Drawings and Classroom The video demonstrates how to use Google Drawings to create a labeling activity and then distribute it to students through Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Current Event Sites for K - 12
Diffen is a nice resource for those times when you need a quick comparison of two things. Let's say you need a chart to highlight the differences between latitude and longitude, Diffen has that. Or perhaps you need a comparison of Medicare and Medicaid, Diffen has that too. If you can't find the comparison that you need, you can create your own on Diffen. Diffen is a community site. Anyone who registers on Diffen can contribute to the comparisons on the site. Comparisons are not limited to text. Images can be added to the comparison charts on Diffen. An embed code is available for each chart.
Visual with Text Thinking Activities Includes picture pass, annotating images, comic strips, elevator pitch, marriage vows of historical characters or book characters, hexagonal thinking, book snap, trading cards, and more.
- Snaps in Canva Curriculum ideas included in download
Ignite Curiosity Resources What’s Going On in This Picture? | Analyze a graph or map | Imagine if... | Activate Prior Knowledge | Respond to Quote | See Feel Think Wonder | Art Connections
70 elearning activities, templates and tutorials
Primarily Google resources for little ones on her website
Explore Boards
- What is an Explore Board? The purpose of an Explore Board Is to create a board of learning choices that help students develop background knowledge that fuels comprehension. It is meant to be a before activity. It is filled with links to a set of different forms of media surrounding a common topic, theme or issue. one-minute video explanation HERE. Read more about it HERE. Download HERE | Watch an Explore Board in Action HERE | To get started, here is a TEMPLATE you can populate for yourself - though any Explore Board can be changed and customized.
- How is an Explore Board different from a Choice Board? Simple. A choice board is used to give students choice in how they respond to a prompt or project. It is used for giving students a choice in how they show learning. It's an "outro" activity. An Explore board, on the other hand. is an "intro" activity - meant to help get students the background knowledge they need that will help them understand concepts and ideas better. It can also be used as a resource as they progress in the learning unit.
Choice Boards. | More boards | And More boards | Guide to creating your own | A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR YOUR CLASSROOM: CHOICE BOARDS | Choice Board template| SlidesMania offers engaging choice board templates that can be used for PowerPoint or Google Slides. This article includes more templates, links, and instructions on how to make your own choice boards.
- Fortnite Menu This digital choice menu provides students numerous choices to show their learning and understanding. You provide the instruction, rubric, and content, and your students will choose how to showcase their learning with any of the provided digital and non-digital tools.
- Discussion Techniques Choice Boards
- Choice board template for Google Slides Besides the slides for 6 activities or choices There is an added section where students can write about what they learned, or maybe you want them to write about something else, your choice.The good thing about these “students” slides is that they can all work on the same file. If you are teaching synchronously, you can see them work as they type, just change the view to grid. (Scroll down to see slides to download)
- Choice Boards for Math
- SchoolStack, you can easily create choice boards for students.
- Progressive Choice Boards provide choice without seeming overwhelming. This hyper doc provides background and templates
- Create Choice Boards in Google Docs
- Choice Board Add-on google slides | Check out the YouTube video. Install Hyperlink Slides Choice Board to quickly engage students with a choice board in Google Slides.
- Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Google Slides Choice Board Template View YouTube video with instructions.
- Student-created Review and Practice Choice Board Asking students to create a dynamic review and practice choice board for their peers is a cognitively challenging task. They have to think about the learning cycle or unit and identify key vocabulary, concepts, and skills that may be needed to be successful on an assessment. Then they have to design various activities that are likely to appeal to different types of students to ensure their peers have meaningful choices. This is a rigorous task, so I encourage teachers to strategically group students for this activity and give them time to engage with each other to produce a meaningful product. Click to copy
- Novel Study Choice Board Gr. 6 - 12
- Social Emotional Art Choice Board
- Student Game Board Choice Board Click on this link and make yourself a copy of this template. Edit and change any of the blocks to best meet your instruction and/or curriculum. Push out to your students via Google Classroom as their own template to complete. Easy for self check and student paced work.
- Digital Restaurant Menu Choice Board This is a fun choice menu for student creation that is split into Entrees, Desserts, Appetizers, Sides, and Beverages. Check out example of the 1893 World's Fair menu. | Another template
- Listen, Do, and Watch Choice Board (feel free to use for your own copy) to provide students with different options for learning about a concept. Brain research suggests that students need multiple representations of new concepts in order to solidify its meaning. The following activity capitalizes on using video, audio, and hands-on learning activities. Plus it provides opportunities to reflect on their learning.
- Creative Book Trailer Choice Board
- Free time choice board template
- Chromebook App Hub – Resources about teaching with Chromebooks. Wonderful part of it is that it has an idea section called Idea Sparks. These are already-created lessons from other educators that work great on a Chromebook. You can also filter them by category, subject area, age range, and general learning goal.
- Wealth of examples and best practices when using choice boards with students. Includes boards for specfic subject areas. They even have choice boards for administrators, choice board templates, and choice board assessment ideas
- Tic-Tac-Toe Click here to make your own copy | Another option
- Gamified Choice Board accrue a certain number of points to complete the task. The more the points, the more difficult the task! If you take this approach, it is important to make sure that students understand your expectations and how they will be assessed. It might be helpful to use a tool like Orange Slice to create a custom rubric. Click here for your own copy!
- Choice Boards make a copy clock on choices to edit. Student drags his/her choice to select
- Station rotation - Hybrid Learning
- 5 Ways to use Google Slides for Stations/ Small Groups slide version | video version that includes voice narration
- 10 Tips for Station Rotation Model
- Station rotation at. the Secondary Level
- Tools to Use With a Station Rotation Model
- Planning a Station Rotation Sample
- Station rotation task cards that you can copy and adapt to your classroom. Just go to "file" then "make a copy" to add it to your Google drive. Or go to "file" then "download " and choose "Microsoft PowerPoint" if you are a Microsoft user.
- Station rotation task cards that you can copy and adapt to your classroom. Just go to "file" then "make a copy" to add it to your Google drive. Or go to "file" then "download " and choose "Microsoft PowerPoint" if you are a Microsoft user.
- 9 Practical Tips for Setting Up Blended Learning Stations in Your Classroom from PowerMyLearning has great ideas for planning and preparing stations. This simple but thorough list helps you plan for the little (and big) things you might not think about when getting started.
- 10 Tips for Teachers Using the Station Rotation Model by Catlin Tucker is a follow-up to her post on creating learning communities with the station rotation model. Catlin shares some great ideas for teachers at any grade level who are getting started or who want to improve their stations.
- Getting started with learning stations in middle school by James Hunt provides us with 5 tips for successfully integrating stations in the middle school classroom.
Design a Choose Your Own Adventure Learning Experience includes sample template
Kidzcourse offers twelve courses featuring hands-on activities for kids from ages six through thirteen. All of the courses include downloadable materials like templates for making board games, developing storyboards, and making escape room activities. Each course also has video tutorials to help students complete the required tasks. Some of the hands-on Kidzcourses that stood out to me were Building an Escape Room, Paper Circuits, Save the Ocean, and Build an App. Kidzcourses can be done at home with parents. They can also be completed as in-classroom activities. Kidzcourse provides educators with supply lists, learning objectives, and handouts for each course. Some of the courses could be great as group projects that students do at the start of the school year to build some good cooperative learning habits in a fun and educational way.
Quick activities to pair with a video. "Something that'll help students take the next step with what they've learned? Something that'll help them engage in the content in new ways? And something that isn't just busy work? Free ebook full of activities to engage your students with videos. It's called "Teaching with TeachFlix." t has links to lots of simple activities you can use with all sorts of classroom videos, including: plus ideas for using some of our social media templates in the DTT templates library -- and places to find other great teaching videos.Get that ebook in a Google Slides file, a PowerPoint file, or a PDF file ... and knock out some lesson plans in a hurry."
Breakoutedu Sandbox Free teacher. created digital breakout rooms. If the answer to the clues are not provide for the teacher, the creator's email is available to contact. Breakoutedu's main site also has some free ones and valuable tutorials. www.freetech4teachers.com
Virtual Station Rotation Slide Template
✅13 ways to connect music and lyrics to class
30+ Ready-to-use Interactive Lessons
BrainVentures, an initiative of the University of Michigan Center for Digital Curricula, is making daily learning adventures free. These are crafted by classroom teachers to give students choices of learning activities; they accommodate different learning preferences and engage the learner in constructing animations, videos, photo albums and stories while taking them on field trips and having them play games and run simulations. https://cdc.engin.umich.edu/daily-brain-venture/
Canva for Education is offering teachers forever-free is offering teachers forever-free access to the pro edition of its online design platform. The program, which is optimized for Chromebook, includes drag-and-drop tools to simplify visual communication. Students can create and co-create presentations, infographics, websites, reports, worksheets, posters, flyers and signage. The program includes access to tens of thousands of templates, images, icons, illustrations and fonts. Once teachers fill out the form, the company will verify the application. https://www.canva.com/education/ | 30+ Ways to Use FREE Templates from Canva in Your Classroom (Part 1) | 30+ Ways to Use FREE Templates from Canva in Your Classroom (Part 2) | Five Features of Canva Presentations You Might be Overlooking | The Pro version is completely free to educators, which makes it even more perfect. Upping Your Canva Game
- Infographics for Students: the Complete Guide
- Video - How to Find and Download Your Old Canva Projects www.freetech4teachers.com
- Canva Whiteboard Templates whiteboard template Canva account today, you'll probably notice the new whiteboard template options too. whiteboard templates in Canva are intended to be used collaboratively. They can be used for a variety of purposes including hosting brainstorming sessions, designing flowcharts, and making KWL charts. To help you and your collaborators focus on the task at hand, Canva has added a timer option to the whiteboard templates. The timer is found in the bottom, left corner of the templates. You can set the timer of any interval that works for your group. In the short video that is embedded below I demonstrate how to use Canva's new whiteboard templates with a timer. www.freetech4teachers.com
Write a Letter to the Teacher Slide Presentation
Create a Guessing Game this lesson teaches students how to make their own quizzes in Google Forms, and asks them to make a quiz about themselves for their teacher or classmates to take. This lesson would be a strategy to set your students up for creating their own content-based quizzes later in the year.
Station Rotation in an Era of Social Distancing
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
Posters and Memes: Students have fun using this resource and it’s a really good way to challenge students in a creative way. Having students create a meme or poster to illustrate a concept simplifies the meaning for the student with a related image or picture, highlights a main point, and also can illustrate new terms or complex concepts. imgflip.com has a meme and poster generator. This approach is probably better for older students to ensure appropriateness. | Meme and Pinterest Google Slide Templates
Antimatter: A New Spin on Memes in the Classroom Using Memes for Formative AssessmentIn the same way a cartoon in a newspaper asks us to think deeply about a larger idea, a meme also acts as a compressed little puzzle that speaks to a larger idea. Instead Students can take on the role of creators. Memes let teachers tap into higher levels of thinking, such as analysis and synthesis.This is a tool that helps students make their own memes. Memes are a great option for your formative assessment routine. You can have students create content and evaluate big ideas by creating a meme. A meme can indicate how much the student has internalized the subject matter by asking them to apply their learning in a unique storytelling context. In the past, you might have asked students to email their creations or upload memes to a learning management system or space like Google Classroom.You can increase opportunities for students to evaluate each other’s work. Antimatter helps tackle this challenge by having students create memes live on a shared canvas with the rest of their classmates.With Antimatter, students have options to a wide selection of creation tools. Students get access to a selection of meme templates. If you choose to share student memes with a wider audience, there is a special space on Antimatter where you can publish student work. You can select memes created by your students to share on Antimatter’s Discover page. sign up as a teacher:
- Create a studio for each classroom. Note that it’s per classroom. If you teach, say, AP Physics 2, you would create a studio for Period 2 and Period 4.
- At the end of a unit, create an activity which maps to that unit. Continuing with the physics example, you might create a space for a unit on Optics or, say, the Doppler Effect. Some of the activities also ask you to create a prompt. You can set up an activity in Antimatter in less than a minute.
- Invite your students to the space via an invite link. Antimatter makes it simple to copy and share a link with your students. They can sign up via Google Single Sign on. Once they are in the space, students can start creating their own meme
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Adapting think-pair-share to Zoom | Think Pair Share Template for Remote Learning | FREE collaborative templates for pairs and small groups!
- 10+ FREE EduProtocol templates + ideas for using them -- EduProtocols are "lesson frames" ... the idea of the lesson stays the same, but the content changes. This makes them very efficient and effective. They're fun, too! Use the templates with your students.
The Thin Slides EduProtocol -- Thin Slides is a great, low-prep activity. Come up with a "one picture one word" prompt and you're set. Check out these Thin Slides templates to get you started
Use think-alouds to demonstrate strategies like analyzing text features, applying SQ3R, questioning, and using fix-up strategies, such as rereading, summarizing, and making connections.
List Of The Best Resources For Using Google whiteboards s With English Language Learners – Please Add Your Own!
Caption This! What was that person thinking? What would he/she have said? Use photos and historic art with speech/thought bubbles to answer those questions. It's visual and fun! Click here!
Brain Breaks Strategy for getting students refocused and priming their brains for learning. Also look at GoNoodle and Teachers Pay Teachers has some free ones
50 Interactive Ideas to Engage Students Online is from Pamela Broussard.
Three Ways to Add Some Educational Fun to Your Virtual and Hybrid Classes
Student collaboration in shared Google Slides
Digital gallery walk: Collaboration on their feet
- Better Lesson:This article provides information on the Gallery Walk protocol including ways to promote it in the Blended Learning environment. Do you want more ideas on using the Gallery Walk Protocol in the classroom? Check out this video for some great possibilities.
Add and pass: A fun activity to get them moving AND creating
Online lessons: a menu of ideas is from The British Council.
Infinity Infinity provides you with the tools to take your project management skills to the next level. Some of its features include: project planning templates to help you "break down your projects into smaller tasks, assign them to the right people, set due dates, and even keep track of everyone's progress; combine custom attributes to create any type of data; adapt the system to your needs with versatile customization options; import your data easily or integrate your favorite apps with Infinity"
7 sites with ready to use remote learning lessons and 9 perfect primary source icebreakers
Opening Up the Textbook (OUT) for Online Learning ( high School) "Opening Up the Textbook (OUT) lessons offer teachers and students more opportunities to break away from textbook-driven history classes and provide students with additional source material to contest, complicate, expand, or vivify the textbook narrative. For more information about OUTs, watch this video or read this article. "
8 Ideas Designed to Engage Students In Active Learning Online ( gr. 5 - 12) Sort It Out, Online Fishbowl, Expert Group Investigations, Collaborative Annotations, Google Map Adventures, Spotify Playlist, Scavenger Hunts, and Online Discussions. TAG Framework to engage student discussions - download your own copy here!
Brainstorming Tools
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Moving station brainstorming online
CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.”
Interactive Digital Posters Forget the glue sticks, markers and magazines to cut for pictures. Create interactive posters with Google Drawings.
10 Strategies Designed to Engage Elementary Students Online Create Virtual Word Wall , Virtual Jigsaw Activity, Subject-specific Scavenger Hunts During Virtual Conferencing Sessions, Digital Choice Boards, Storytime + Graphic Organizers, Tell Me How on Seesaw or FlipGrid, I Do, We Do, You Do in Virtual Conferencing Sessions, Online Learning Stations, Acrostic Poem, and Online Fishbowl Discussion or Problem Solving Session
Play “Would You Rather”
One of my favorite in-person games to play is “would you rather,” where students move to different sides of the room depending on their answer. To adapt this for a virtual class you could use a whiteboard or Slides , which has draggable features, so students can move their icon to the side of the screen they agree with most.
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity
Spot the Troll Spot the Troll was developed by Clemson University's Media Forensics Lab as a way to educate people about deceptive social media accounts. Spot the Troll presents players with eight social media profiles. Based on the clues in the profiles players have to decide if the social media profile is genuine or a fake designed to spread misinformation. Players get instant feedback after making a guess at whether each account is real or fake. Whether or not the player is correct or incorrect Spot the Troll provides an explanation the signs that that the account was real or fake. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Can You Spot the Deceptive Facebook Post? is an interactive quiz from The New York Times.
- Cognitive Bias Video Thinking you know something you don't
- Factitious is a game that is designed to help students practice identifying real and fake news stories.
- An Engaging Word Game Helps Students Grasp Implicit Bias A simple fill-in-the-blank exercise helped students understand the power of words and the way they might convey unspoken beliefs.
- Can You Spot the Problem With These Headlines? is a TED-Ed lesson that walks students through the dissection of a couple of hypothetical news headlines. By watching the video students can begin to understand how headlines are written to entice readers and how misleading headlines are created.
- Everyone Has Invisible Bias. This Lesson Shows Students How to Recognize It, Whiting describes how she removed words from a New York Times opinion essay to create a new, highly engaging activity for a 10th-grade class.
- Checkology offers interactive modules for students to complete. Each of the modules is comprised of between twenty and forty-seven instructional video clips and interactive comprehension checks. The four modules are titled Info Zones, Democracy's Watchdog, Practicing Quality Journalism, and Misinformation. The contents of the modules gets progressively more difficult as each section is completed. www.freetech4teachers.com
Virtual Field Trips You can always do a search to find more options.
- 6 Free Resources for Virtual Field Trips is from Edutopia.
- Virtual Fieldtrip Collection - A comprehensiv spreadsheet filled with authentic virtual PBL fieldtrip possibilities. How might you build these into a blended lesson that allows students to leave the classroom and their home? You will find a wonderful collection from museums, zoos, parks, industry, business, and even Skype sessions with experts. These examples just scratch the surface of possibilities.
- The Best Resources For Finding And Creating Virtual Field Trips.
Activities for home learning Kids Activities features a special section called Stuck at Home where you can access learning activities that helps keep your house-bound kids busy and motivated. These include free activities, kids shows, quarantine journals, and many more. The 'Learn' section features over 600 educational activities. "Many of our learning activities are used in classrooms and homeschool lessons. The Reading, writing, STEM, Science and so many other things can be learned through play. What makes it even more fun is thay make the perfect after school, rainy day or "mom I'm bored" activity too!t kids of different ages can learn and play together.
Using Morning Messages to Start the Day in Distance Learning The morning message is a popular way to help elementary students transition into school—and it can be adapted for home learning.
Ken Burns in the Classroom is a repository for film clips, documents, images, and even lesson plans.
STEAM At Home
Engineering at Home or On the Go "Explore engineering as a family! These activities promote team work, critical thinking and problem solving. Use the steps of the Engineering Design Process to design a unique solution to a problem. Families that engineer together will build valuable skills and will gain the confidence necessary to tackle problems with an engineering mindset."
FIRST has compiled a roster of "free and flexible" pre-K-12 STEM activities, divided by grade bands, remote learning resources and career explorations. https://www.firstinspires.org/community/home-learning
WideOpenSchool.org Combines in one place the educational resources for publishers, nonprofits and education companies. This free resource includes content from the American Federation of Teachers, Amplify, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Head Start, Khan Academy, National Geographic, Noggin, PBS, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Time for Kids, XQ Institute and even YouTube.All the content offered through Wide Open School is freely available. Not just a list of helpful websites. Instead, Wide Open School actually programs a full school day for the child by grade level, to ensure they’re getting a mix of educational material that aligns with what their day would have been when attending school.
Distance Learning with ELLs from Larry Ferlazzo's book
Bringing Number Talks to the Online Classroom Elementary school teachers use number talks to guide students to engage deeply with concepts, and they can work online, with a little creativity.
The PBS Teacher Planning Kit for New School Routines is an eight-week planning kit designed for PreK-12 teachers everywhere to help navigate this year’s new and changing school routines. Making the most of PBS LearningMedia, these kits are intended to be used whether or not you’re delivering instruction in person, and whether or not your students have internet access.Planning sheets are divided into three sections: Watch, Teach, Explore. “Watch” includes broadcast and/or online media. “Teach” connects activities, games and lessons directly to the featured media. “Explore” provides additional resources so teachers can plan a comprehensive lesson on a particular topic or theme.
List of children’s books that explore race and racism
Resource that Supports at Home Science Learning Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. Thee include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.Arizona Science Center also offers "more than 175 new online learning resources, including weekly lesson plans, videos, articles and activities. Sari on Science interprets what is happening in the changing environment.
Remote Math Lessons for Grades 6-10 Maneuvering the Middle seeks to support teachers through hands-on resources, standards-aligned curriculum, and practical teaching ideas.
The Best Sites Where Students Can Participate In Citizen Science Projects.
Smithsonian Magazine has just published SEVENTY-FIVE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROJECTS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ONLINE
10 Ways to Use QR Codes in Online Education
How to Create Labeling Activities With Google Drawings and Classroom The video demonstrates how to use Google Drawings to create a labeling activity and then distribute it to students through Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Current Event Sites for K - 12
Diffen is a nice resource for those times when you need a quick comparison of two things. Let's say you need a chart to highlight the differences between latitude and longitude, Diffen has that. Or perhaps you need a comparison of Medicare and Medicaid, Diffen has that too. If you can't find the comparison that you need, you can create your own on Diffen. Diffen is a community site. Anyone who registers on Diffen can contribute to the comparisons on the site. Comparisons are not limited to text. Images can be added to the comparison charts on Diffen. An embed code is available for each chart.
| Strategies for Assessing Students Remotely
🏻 The finger scale: Instead of using a thumbs up/thumbs down scale, use a 1 finger to 4 finger scale:
7 Ways to Do Formative Assessments in Your Virtual Class
10 tools for effective peer feedback in the classroom
Right Question Institute "Developed by the Right Question Institute, the Question Formulation Technique, or QFT, is a structured method for generating and improving questions. It distills sophisticated forms of divergent, convergent, and metacognitive thinking into a deceptively simple, accessible, and reproducible technique" Guide
🎯 AhaSlides AhaSlides transforms linear presentations into interactive ones with live polls, quizzes, word clouds, brainstorming activities, and spinner wheels. Ideal for remote learning days,
Connect, Extend, Challenge downloadable activity slide to help your students reflect on a piece of their work and record their thoughts about it through the lens of Connect, Extend, Challenge!
✅Google Practice Sets "With practice sets, in Google Classroom, educators are able to use content they already have, or come up with brand new questions from scratch, to build an assessment activity. Google's artificial intelligence then scans the questions and determines the learning skills being addressed, and finds helpful hints and resources to go along with each question in case the students need assistance".Introduction video | Details
Conker AI tool used for generating quizzes and formative assessments. Assessment types include quiz, fill in the blank, and reading comprehension. For the content you can provide a topic or your own source material. Assessment level can be selected from Kindergarten to higher education. The AI generated assessment can be edited as needed, and answers can be checked with a built-in Google search link. When ready the assessment can be automatically turned into a Google Form quiz. https://www.conker.ai/
Worksheet to Wow: 10 ways to upgrade your worksheet. Scroll down to find the embedded slide presentation on the Worksheet to Wow page. Click on a cabinet. When it pops out, click the folder you'd like to see. Want to use any of the ideas in the folders? There are links to all of them in the original Google Slides file for the slide deck. Just look in the speaker notes.
Yippity will convert any text or any website into a quiz automatically. It creates questions and answers based on the text submitted, which can be copied and pasted into a flashcard app or quiz tool. Copy/paste text from your notes (limited to 10,000 characters) -- or copy/paste the URL to a webpage. Submit, and it generates questions and answers. Then, use the share button to share the quiz with someone else.Create three free AI quizzes per month. Unlimited AI question generation is available on the "Early Bird Plan," which is $2.99/mo. yippity.io.
5 Metacognitive Questions For Students Learning New Material
Giant Steps From the creators of Padlet, this is a gamified digital learning experience designed for student collaboration and independent practice.Create your own or use ones from the site's collection
8 Quick Checks for Understanding Formative assessment is a proven technique for improving student learning, and the strategies shared here work both in the classroom and remotely.
Summative Assessment in Distance Learning
Formative Assessment Evaluation Tool Guide
Research cheat sheet on reflection
Here Is How to Create Grading Rubrics in Google Classroom
Schoolytics is a Google Partner for Education that provides educational organizations with a unique classroom analytics and AI platform that measures, monitors, and manages student engagement data. The platform’s various dashboards allow users to utilize data and automated alert systems to identify risks and learning patterns associated with their students.Measure distance learning engagement through Google Classroom usage. Schoolytics generates visualizations and data tables to measure student engagement, enabling access for individual teachers or entire school districts.
Incorporating Simple, Student-Designed Assessments
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comQuick Method to Pull Up Students' Writings at Once in Docs Updated Pull the Paragraph Opening up a Google Doc per student is a nemesis. No thank you. I have coded alicekeeler.com/pulltheparagraph, and it will truly save you HOURS of time giving feedback. Choose the folder in Google Drive that has student Google Doc files. Use the Add-on menu to find Pull the Paragraph. Read all student documents in one place. Add feedback and send to students WITHOUT opening any of their documents.
How do I give feedback to 100+ students?. Just scroll down and find the links to make a copy and assign right away.
Feedback Templates
Save Time with Custom Templates from Text Blaze to provide time saving feedback responses to student assignments.
The PERFECT Mid-Year Review Activity (with Templates) There are two templates, one designed for 3rd-5th graders and another for 6th-12th graders This activity is effective but will not take up too much class time.
Mid-Year Check-In Template for Students The teams at Adobe and Khan Academy have come together for a special mid-year check-in challenge. There are resources for different grade levels that you can use right away or adapt for your students. With two versions to choose from (grades 3-5 and 6-12), you can access a lesson plan and template for each level.10 tools for effective peer feedback in the classroom
Ways. to Encourage Peer Feedback
Formative I highly recommend this assessment application over others like Kahoot and Quizlet because the teacher can observe the students work in real time with the Show Your Work option and converse with the student if an intervention is needed video | Give Instant Written Feedback Tutorial | feedback text tutorial Tutorials | You can now link existing classes to your Google Classroom.
ClassKick – This tool allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Teachers and students can monitor their progress. You Can see in real time each student’s work. Classkick gives you the ability to provide voice messages to individual students as the work, and they can respond. Also a teacher can write messages, feedback or support. Students can also help each other. Also you can integrate with Google Classroom. Other features are video embedding and interactive links. With the audio feature you can narrate directions or explanations and students can respond.
CurrikiStudio Can be Integrated with Schoology, Canvas, and Google Cloassroom CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. No coding required! Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help
🎯Ziplet - A Great Way to Gather Feedback from Students Ziplet is an online tool that lets you post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. What Ziplet offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they are responding to a group survey. Makes it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. Ziplet fits in a gap between tools like Kahoot and Google Classroom. A good tool for engaging students in discussions about assignments, course topics, or the general feeling of the class. Ziplet does offer a Google Classroom integration as well as an Office 365 integration. Students can respond to Ziplet prompts in the web browser on their computers or by using the free Ziplet mobile apps. Ziplet offers lots of pre-made exit ticket questions and warm-up questions that you can use if you don't want to write your own questions.www.freetech4teacers.com a video about how to use Ziplet.
TinyTap is an iPad app and Android app and computer option for building fun and interactive review games. You can create games based on pictures, diagrams, videos, and icons. Students can play your games on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. Speaking of playing games, TinyTap recently published a game that features sixteen ways to use TinyTap in your classroom.
Demonstration of Learning with Whiteboards includes templates | Secondary Templates
Floop Collaborative feedback platform helps teachers target students response and revise. Streamlines the process of giving targeted feedback to students and lets them collaborate to improve learning outcomes.
Talk and Comment is a chrome extension that enables you to record voice notes and share them almost anywhere on the web. As a teacher, you may want to install and use it to share audio feedback in the form of voice comments on students work. Each audio note you create has a generated link that you can easily copy and paste online. Students can also use it to collaborate on joint projects and to engage in discussions around topics of interest. The way Talk and Comment works is simple and easy. First, install the extension from Chrome web store. Next open the webpage or head over to the platform where you want to share your audio comment and click on the extension's widget and start recording your comment. Once done, copy and paste the generated link.Talk and Comment works on several digital platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Gmail, Reddit, Slack and many more. Watch the video
The One Pager Strategy is an excellent strategy for combing language with nonverbal objects and imagery. infographic to help you design your own! As a side note, you might want to check out the COSTA level framework for questions. How do you create a One Pager? Whether you are using paper or a tool, like a whiteboard, it is very simple and shouldn't take too long. Check out video tutorial.
How to Add Answer Feedback to Quizzes in Google Forms & How Students video. In the video you will see: How to create a quiz in Google Forms. How to add answer feedback to quizzes in Google Forms. How students can instantly view feedback. How to leave comments on a quiz students take in Google Form. www.freetech4teachers.com
5 Time-Efficient Ways of Adding Feedback in Google Classroom
Mote: voice notes & feedback - Chrome Web Store "the faster, friendlier way to comment and feedback. Welcome to mote: the first Chrome extension that lets you easily add voice comments and feedback to shared documents." Hack for infusing both Mote and text instructions into your Google Classroom. tutorial video | Check video for more! Mote is a Chrome extension that became popular because it made it easy for teachers and students to add voice recordings to Google Slides, Google Classroom, and Google Forms. The latest update to Mote, released today, lets you add voice recordings not only to the questions in your Google Forms but also to the answer choices and feedback section in Google Forms. The updated version lets you also add voice recordings into the answer choices (for multiple choice questions) and into the feedback section of the answer key that you create for quizzes in Google Forms. All of those things are demonstrated in this short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Loop lets you create an online classroom to post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. Those features alone don't make Loop different from lots of similar services. What Loop offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they were responding to a group survey. The purpose of that feature is to make it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. video tutorial www.freetech4teachers.com
Knowt's teacher platform enables you to turn documents into flashcards and quizzes to share with your students in an online classroom. You can create online classrooms in Knowt by importing Gameplay is flashy, fun, and competitive. Students will want to plow through questions. Some of the game modes are busy and can be distracting, though.
Blooket could be a fun option for content review facts, if what you need students to review will fit in a multiple-choice format. Students get instant feedback on their devices and the class screen. Basic multiple choice is the only question type, however, limiting the learning potential. .
Student Self-Assessment Activities
Best Practices With Rubrics
Five Tools for Leaving Audio Notes in Google
Online Rubric is a Google Sheets add-on to create rubrics. It's a good add-on for those who use Google Sheets but might not use Google Classroom. Those who do use Google Classroom can create within Google Classroom. This short video explains that process. www,freetech4teachers.com
Group Work Rubrics and Checklists Quick Rubric Just click and type – it even calculates points for you.
Orange Slice Rubric Maker for Google Docs | video tutorial
Rubric Maker. Allows you to create customized rubrics "on the fly" for any subject or project. You can print the rubrics directly from the website. You choose the age level (primary, elementary, middle, or high school) and input the name of your rubric. Then a blank rubric appears for you to fill in the details. The blank rubric includes space for the criteria, plus a range to rate (gradations) the quality of the students' work. There are also ready-made rubrics you can print out. The website provides explicit direction about how to use the website
Rubistar is easy to use and you can find several rubrics created by other educators. If you know how to write a strong rubric that leads students to the desired outcome it can be a great tool.
Answer Garden short simple brainstorming and collaboration
Edulastic.The tool has numerous types of options like graphic organizers, graphs, ... You can provide feedback, but unlike Formative it is not in real time. Edulastic has a plethora of pre-made questions that can be customized or create your own. Upload File Question Type
A new "Upload File" question type encourages students to upload a picture or file of their work in response to a teacher's prompt. You'll see this new option when you go to "Author New Question". Learn more.
Spiral Spiral is a multi-use platform that allows teachers to create interactive learning experiences, pre-planned or on the fly. Basic account setup is easy and free, and it stops short of trying to do too much by offering just four types of activities: Quickfire, Clip, Team Up, and Discuss. Quickfire allows teachers to assign a quiz or ask a question. Teachers can send back inadequate responses immediately and ask students to improve and resubmit responses. Clip allows users to create interactive videos, stopping periodically to check understanding or discuss content. Team Up allows teachers to randomize or assign teams and have students create presentations that hold each member accountable. Finally, Discuss allows users to participate in interactive presentations by asking questions, sharing pictures, and responding to others.
Google Forms Access from Google Drive Excellent student response data. tutorial | 13 Google Forms Tutorials for Beginners and Experienced Users | Add audio to your Google Form | How to Give Partial Credit in Google Forms | An Overview of Google Forms Quiz Settings |
2 Learning Profile Templates to Help on the Personalized Learning Journey
Whether you are teaching face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid situation next school year, it is important to get to know our student's needs.Think of students as your customer. Why do they need me? I don't just teach a subject, but I serve as a guide to helping them learn and achieve goals. I might be a quick exit on their educational journey, but my actions could have long-lasting benefits or consequences in their lives. Personalizing learning can be difficult if you do not have an accurate understanding of your student's abilities and challenges; therefore, a learning profile could be a great strategy for getting to know your students better. Here are two examples of profiles that I have made for secondary students, which could easily be adapted to the elementary and middle school classrooms.
Edji provides teachers a means to have students read and analyze text, images or PDFs. The students are able to interact with their medium by highlighting text or adding tags to the images or PDFs. Their interactions can be text comments, emojis, or audio recordings. The teacher can also add open-ended questions to the activity. Initially, the students are only seeing their interactions with the medium. Then the true power of Edji comes to light, ‘Heat Vision’. This feature allows the teacher to activate all interactions as visible to all students. Replying to interactions is also a feature which the teacher can decide to activate. Teacher tools tutorial | Groups tutorial
Insert Training Insert instructional content on any web page.
TeacherMade - Quickly Create a Variety of Online Activities A tool that lets you easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities into online activities to share with your students. According to developer Laura, “My goal with TeacherMade was to create a way for us to make online worksheets that are easier than Google Slides. TeacherMade is a tool that you can use to turn your PDFs, Word docs, and Google Slides into interactive activities for your students to complete online. TeacherMade will automatically score those activities for you, if you choose to enable that option. Should you choose not to have activities scored for you, you can still view what your students do on each activity. Video - How to Use TeacherMade www.freetech4teachers.com.
Wizer is a site that is for creating online assignments/worksheets. These assignments can contain all types of media (i.e. audio, video, images) as well as being able to share w/ others. The assignments on Wizer allow for student tracking so a educator can assess how well a student is doing.
Worksheet to Wow: 10 ways to upgrade your worksheet. Scroll down to find the embedded slide presentation on the Worksheet to Wow page. Click on a cabinet. When it pops out, click the folder you'd like to see. Want to use any of the ideas in the folders? There are links to all of them in the original Google Slides file for the slide deck. Just look in the speaker notes.
Live Worksheets are interactive worksheets. Teachers create an account and go to the website to upload a worksheet pdf, then drag text entry boxes on top of the worksheet. Student then enter the answers online. Questions can be fill in the blank, multiple choice, matching, drag and drop, join with arrows, recording audio, word search, and more, with new activities frequently added. Teacher enter in correct answers when they create the text boxes, which the program uses to give students instant feedback (correct answers are green and incorrect answers are red) with total score for the worksheet visible for each student.
Google Forms Access from Google Drive or. Google Classroom forms getting started tutorials | interactive Google Forms
Peergrade A platform that allows teachers to create assignments and upload rubrics. Students upload work and are anonymously assigned peer work to review according the rubric.
Padlet is an online bulletin board where you can display text, images, video, and more. Padlets can be embedded in blog posts. It used to be free but now there is a limit of three Padlets before you need to upgrade. Teachers Step by Step Guide to Padlet | video tutorials | How to Remake and Reuse a Padlet Wall | Tell Padlet what to draw for you | An option to present all of the notes on a Padlet wall as a slideshow. You can simply click on the slideshow button. Padlet introduced a new feature that enables you to quickly turn a collection of notes on a Padlet wall into a slideshow. Recently, Padlet added three new features to its slideshow function. The latest Padlet slideshow features include a new slide navigator, a new QR code generator, and an automatic playback function. this short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Interactive Activities Templates Blackout Poetry, Which One Doesn't Belong, Interactive Map, Virtual Trip Postcard, Annotate, Picture This and Take a Stand Template and more
AnswerGarden – A tool for online brainstorming or polling, educators can use this real-time tool to see student feedback on questions.
InsertLearning was founded by two high school teachers who wanted to create a richer learning experience for their students. Their aim is to help teachers turn the internet into an interactive learning experience. InsertLearning lets users take any page on the internet and turn it into a lesson. Suppose, for example, a teacher finds a great article from a website that he or she would like students to read and would also like to ask them a few questions about the content, as well as add their own commentary or insert a related video.
Pear Deck Design lessons with interactive questions, polls, quizzes, and formative assessments. Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom Works with Google Slides.
Ways to use Pear Deck are:
● Starting the class with a social-emotional check-in with a draggable item on a
scale.
● During the class, doing check-ins on a scale to see how they feel they are
comprehending.
● At the end of the lesson, adding a one minute summarization of what they
learned through a short-answer written response (this is such powerful data!)
● My last Pear Deck slide is ALWAYS an “Express Yourself” slide. This is a blank
white background with the drawing feature enabled, so students can write or
draw anything they want (as long as it is school appropriate) in about one
minute. Then I always share everyone’s work with the entire class.
Chatzy – Use Chatzy to support backchannel conversations in a private setting. These live chats make great companions to classroom discussion, provide exit tickets, or keep a discussion going after the class is over.
ClassKick – This tool allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Students can monitor their progress and work. You Can see in real time each student’s work. Classkick gives you the ability to provide voice messages to individual students as the work and they can respond. Also a teacher can write messages, feedback or support. Students can also help each other. Also you can integrate with Google Classroom. Other features are video embedding and interactive links. With the audio feature you can narrate directions or explanations and students can respond.
Socrative Exercises and games that engage students using smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
The Answer Pad – Allows teachers to capture data from students using the web or the app and is touted as being ideal for the flipped or blended classroom.
AudioNote – A combination of a voice recorder and notepad that captures both audio and notes for student collaboration
🏻 The finger scale: Instead of using a thumbs up/thumbs down scale, use a 1 finger to 4 finger scale:
- One finger: I don't understand.
- Two fingers: I'm starting to understand, but I'm still confused.
- Three fingers: I can do it on my own.
- Four fingers: I feel confident. I can teach my classmates.
7 Ways to Do Formative Assessments in Your Virtual Class
10 tools for effective peer feedback in the classroom
Right Question Institute "Developed by the Right Question Institute, the Question Formulation Technique, or QFT, is a structured method for generating and improving questions. It distills sophisticated forms of divergent, convergent, and metacognitive thinking into a deceptively simple, accessible, and reproducible technique" Guide
🎯 AhaSlides AhaSlides transforms linear presentations into interactive ones with live polls, quizzes, word clouds, brainstorming activities, and spinner wheels. Ideal for remote learning days,
Connect, Extend, Challenge downloadable activity slide to help your students reflect on a piece of their work and record their thoughts about it through the lens of Connect, Extend, Challenge!
✅Google Practice Sets "With practice sets, in Google Classroom, educators are able to use content they already have, or come up with brand new questions from scratch, to build an assessment activity. Google's artificial intelligence then scans the questions and determines the learning skills being addressed, and finds helpful hints and resources to go along with each question in case the students need assistance".Introduction video | Details
Conker AI tool used for generating quizzes and formative assessments. Assessment types include quiz, fill in the blank, and reading comprehension. For the content you can provide a topic or your own source material. Assessment level can be selected from Kindergarten to higher education. The AI generated assessment can be edited as needed, and answers can be checked with a built-in Google search link. When ready the assessment can be automatically turned into a Google Form quiz. https://www.conker.ai/
Worksheet to Wow: 10 ways to upgrade your worksheet. Scroll down to find the embedded slide presentation on the Worksheet to Wow page. Click on a cabinet. When it pops out, click the folder you'd like to see. Want to use any of the ideas in the folders? There are links to all of them in the original Google Slides file for the slide deck. Just look in the speaker notes.
Yippity will convert any text or any website into a quiz automatically. It creates questions and answers based on the text submitted, which can be copied and pasted into a flashcard app or quiz tool. Copy/paste text from your notes (limited to 10,000 characters) -- or copy/paste the URL to a webpage. Submit, and it generates questions and answers. Then, use the share button to share the quiz with someone else.Create three free AI quizzes per month. Unlimited AI question generation is available on the "Early Bird Plan," which is $2.99/mo. yippity.io.
5 Metacognitive Questions For Students Learning New Material
Giant Steps From the creators of Padlet, this is a gamified digital learning experience designed for student collaboration and independent practice.Create your own or use ones from the site's collection
8 Quick Checks for Understanding Formative assessment is a proven technique for improving student learning, and the strategies shared here work both in the classroom and remotely.
Summative Assessment in Distance Learning
Formative Assessment Evaluation Tool Guide
Research cheat sheet on reflection
- 5 reflection best practices, including structured reflection activities
- 21 reflection prompts to give students ("This challenged me because ..." "I wonder how it would go if I tried ...")
- 6 reflection activity ideas, including the "What? So what? Now what?" protocol
- Here’s a good list of prompts designed for Community/Restorative Circles, but can be used anytime.... and more research-based insights.
Here Is How to Create Grading Rubrics in Google Classroom
Schoolytics is a Google Partner for Education that provides educational organizations with a unique classroom analytics and AI platform that measures, monitors, and manages student engagement data. The platform’s various dashboards allow users to utilize data and automated alert systems to identify risks and learning patterns associated with their students.Measure distance learning engagement through Google Classroom usage. Schoolytics generates visualizations and data tables to measure student engagement, enabling access for individual teachers or entire school districts.
Incorporating Simple, Student-Designed Assessments
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comQuick Method to Pull Up Students' Writings at Once in Docs Updated Pull the Paragraph Opening up a Google Doc per student is a nemesis. No thank you. I have coded alicekeeler.com/pulltheparagraph, and it will truly save you HOURS of time giving feedback. Choose the folder in Google Drive that has student Google Doc files. Use the Add-on menu to find Pull the Paragraph. Read all student documents in one place. Add feedback and send to students WITHOUT opening any of their documents.
How do I give feedback to 100+ students?. Just scroll down and find the links to make a copy and assign right away.
Feedback Templates
Save Time with Custom Templates from Text Blaze to provide time saving feedback responses to student assignments.
The PERFECT Mid-Year Review Activity (with Templates) There are two templates, one designed for 3rd-5th graders and another for 6th-12th graders This activity is effective but will not take up too much class time.
Mid-Year Check-In Template for Students The teams at Adobe and Khan Academy have come together for a special mid-year check-in challenge. There are resources for different grade levels that you can use right away or adapt for your students. With two versions to choose from (grades 3-5 and 6-12), you can access a lesson plan and template for each level.10 tools for effective peer feedback in the classroom
Ways. to Encourage Peer Feedback
- Two stars and a wish -- A protocol like “two stars and a wish” can be an effective tool for supporting students as they work on giving constructive feedback to their classmates. It works like this. As they are reviewing their classmates work they find two things they like about it (stars) and one thing they want them to fix/change (wish). It's simple but can be used with any grade level. You can make a copy of this Two Stars and a Wish form along with sentence frames here.
- TAG Method -- In the TAG method students will "Tell something good", "Ask a question" then "Give a suggestion". It's similar to "two stars and a wish" but with the addition of asking a question. It scaffolded enough to provide some guidelines but provides the student with ample opportunity to give constructive and personalized feedback. Check out this TAG Feedback template which can be printed or used digitally.
- Sentence starters & shout outs -- Sometimes you want students to give each other feedback quickly on something they just finished working on or are in the middle of working on. An easy way to do this is to have some sentence starters accessible and ready along with some simple shout out notes printed and ready to use.
Formative I highly recommend this assessment application over others like Kahoot and Quizlet because the teacher can observe the students work in real time with the Show Your Work option and converse with the student if an intervention is needed video | Give Instant Written Feedback Tutorial | feedback text tutorial Tutorials | You can now link existing classes to your Google Classroom.
ClassKick – This tool allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Teachers and students can monitor their progress. You Can see in real time each student’s work. Classkick gives you the ability to provide voice messages to individual students as the work, and they can respond. Also a teacher can write messages, feedback or support. Students can also help each other. Also you can integrate with Google Classroom. Other features are video embedding and interactive links. With the audio feature you can narrate directions or explanations and students can respond.
CurrikiStudio Can be Integrated with Schoology, Canvas, and Google Cloassroom CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. No coding required! Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help
🎯Ziplet - A Great Way to Gather Feedback from Students Ziplet is an online tool that lets you post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. What Ziplet offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they are responding to a group survey. Makes it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. Ziplet fits in a gap between tools like Kahoot and Google Classroom. A good tool for engaging students in discussions about assignments, course topics, or the general feeling of the class. Ziplet does offer a Google Classroom integration as well as an Office 365 integration. Students can respond to Ziplet prompts in the web browser on their computers or by using the free Ziplet mobile apps. Ziplet offers lots of pre-made exit ticket questions and warm-up questions that you can use if you don't want to write your own questions.www.freetech4teacers.com a video about how to use Ziplet.
TinyTap is an iPad app and Android app and computer option for building fun and interactive review games. You can create games based on pictures, diagrams, videos, and icons. Students can play your games on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. Speaking of playing games, TinyTap recently published a game that features sixteen ways to use TinyTap in your classroom.
- How to Create Your Own Educational Games With TinyTap - Getting Started. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Making Your Educational Games Look Good With TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
- Build Talk or Type Educational Games on TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
Demonstration of Learning with Whiteboards includes templates | Secondary Templates
Floop Collaborative feedback platform helps teachers target students response and revise. Streamlines the process of giving targeted feedback to students and lets them collaborate to improve learning outcomes.
Talk and Comment is a chrome extension that enables you to record voice notes and share them almost anywhere on the web. As a teacher, you may want to install and use it to share audio feedback in the form of voice comments on students work. Each audio note you create has a generated link that you can easily copy and paste online. Students can also use it to collaborate on joint projects and to engage in discussions around topics of interest. The way Talk and Comment works is simple and easy. First, install the extension from Chrome web store. Next open the webpage or head over to the platform where you want to share your audio comment and click on the extension's widget and start recording your comment. Once done, copy and paste the generated link.Talk and Comment works on several digital platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Gmail, Reddit, Slack and many more. Watch the video
The One Pager Strategy is an excellent strategy for combing language with nonverbal objects and imagery. infographic to help you design your own! As a side note, you might want to check out the COSTA level framework for questions. How do you create a One Pager? Whether you are using paper or a tool, like a whiteboard, it is very simple and shouldn't take too long. Check out video tutorial.
How to Add Answer Feedback to Quizzes in Google Forms & How Students video. In the video you will see: How to create a quiz in Google Forms. How to add answer feedback to quizzes in Google Forms. How students can instantly view feedback. How to leave comments on a quiz students take in Google Form. www.freetech4teachers.com
- QR Code for Google Forms video tutorial
- 15 Google Forms templates for class tomorrow
- How to Include Video Feedback in Google Forms One of the features of Google Forms that is often overlooked is the "go to section based on answer" setting. When you use that setting correctly you can send students to watch a review video when they answer a question incorrectly in your Form. Five minute video www.freetech4teacheres.com
- You can now save your work in progress when answering questions in Google Forms!
- Google Forms Tip- Collect Responses in A Separate Spreadsheet | Score Quizzes That Have More Than One Correct Answer } How to Require Complete Sentences | How to Combine Google Forms
- How to Create QR Codes for Google Forms
- How to Give Partial Credit in Google Forms www.freetech4teachers..com
5 Time-Efficient Ways of Adding Feedback in Google Classroom
Mote: voice notes & feedback - Chrome Web Store "the faster, friendlier way to comment and feedback. Welcome to mote: the first Chrome extension that lets you easily add voice comments and feedback to shared documents." Hack for infusing both Mote and text instructions into your Google Classroom. tutorial video | Check video for more! Mote is a Chrome extension that became popular because it made it easy for teachers and students to add voice recordings to Google Slides, Google Classroom, and Google Forms. The latest update to Mote, released today, lets you add voice recordings not only to the questions in your Google Forms but also to the answer choices and feedback section in Google Forms. The updated version lets you also add voice recordings into the answer choices (for multiple choice questions) and into the feedback section of the answer key that you create for quizzes in Google Forms. All of those things are demonstrated in this short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
- You can also use Mote to add audio to Google Forms and insert audio into Google Slides with just one click. Mote also lets you record audio messages to share directly in Gmail and or via QR codes. All of those things are featured in this Mote compilation video www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Record and Embed Audio in Google Docs ability to record audio and embed it directly into your Google Documents. When you do this you're able to play the audio without having to exit the document. This is a huge improvement over simply including a link to a hosted audio file in your doucment then having to listen to it in a separate browser window.
Watch this short video to learn how to use Mote to record and embed audio into Google Docs. By the way, Mote calls these "hypermotes. www.freetech4teachers.com
Loop lets you create an online classroom to post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. Those features alone don't make Loop different from lots of similar services. What Loop offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they were responding to a group survey. The purpose of that feature is to make it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. video tutorial www.freetech4teachers.com
Knowt's teacher platform enables you to turn documents into flashcards and quizzes to share with your students in an online classroom. You can create online classrooms in Knowt by importing Gameplay is flashy, fun, and competitive. Students will want to plow through questions. Some of the game modes are busy and can be distracting, though.
- When you sign into a free Knowt account you have the option to browse for notes, flashcards, and quizzes according to subject area. There is also a gallery of notes, quizzes, and flashcards based on popular textbooks. All of the notes, quizzes, and flashcards found through the public galleries in Knowt can be copied directly into your account where you can modify them as you like.
- Here's Knowt's promo video for their new galleries of notes, quizzes, and flashcards. And here's my overview of how to use Knowt to create your own notes, quizzes, and flashcards by importing a document into your account. www.freetech4teachers.com
Blooket could be a fun option for content review facts, if what you need students to review will fit in a multiple-choice format. Students get instant feedback on their devices and the class screen. Basic multiple choice is the only question type, however, limiting the learning potential. .
Student Self-Assessment Activities
Best Practices With Rubrics
Five Tools for Leaving Audio Notes in Google
Online Rubric is a Google Sheets add-on to create rubrics. It's a good add-on for those who use Google Sheets but might not use Google Classroom. Those who do use Google Classroom can create within Google Classroom. This short video explains that process. www,freetech4teachers.com
Group Work Rubrics and Checklists Quick Rubric Just click and type – it even calculates points for you.
Orange Slice Rubric Maker for Google Docs | video tutorial
Rubric Maker. Allows you to create customized rubrics "on the fly" for any subject or project. You can print the rubrics directly from the website. You choose the age level (primary, elementary, middle, or high school) and input the name of your rubric. Then a blank rubric appears for you to fill in the details. The blank rubric includes space for the criteria, plus a range to rate (gradations) the quality of the students' work. There are also ready-made rubrics you can print out. The website provides explicit direction about how to use the website
Rubistar is easy to use and you can find several rubrics created by other educators. If you know how to write a strong rubric that leads students to the desired outcome it can be a great tool.
Answer Garden short simple brainstorming and collaboration
Edulastic.The tool has numerous types of options like graphic organizers, graphs, ... You can provide feedback, but unlike Formative it is not in real time. Edulastic has a plethora of pre-made questions that can be customized or create your own. Upload File Question Type
A new "Upload File" question type encourages students to upload a picture or file of their work in response to a teacher's prompt. You'll see this new option when you go to "Author New Question". Learn more.
Spiral Spiral is a multi-use platform that allows teachers to create interactive learning experiences, pre-planned or on the fly. Basic account setup is easy and free, and it stops short of trying to do too much by offering just four types of activities: Quickfire, Clip, Team Up, and Discuss. Quickfire allows teachers to assign a quiz or ask a question. Teachers can send back inadequate responses immediately and ask students to improve and resubmit responses. Clip allows users to create interactive videos, stopping periodically to check understanding or discuss content. Team Up allows teachers to randomize or assign teams and have students create presentations that hold each member accountable. Finally, Discuss allows users to participate in interactive presentations by asking questions, sharing pictures, and responding to others.
Google Forms Access from Google Drive Excellent student response data. tutorial | 13 Google Forms Tutorials for Beginners and Experienced Users | Add audio to your Google Form | How to Give Partial Credit in Google Forms | An Overview of Google Forms Quiz Settings |
- You can now save your work in progress when answering questions in Google Forms! www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Include Video Feedback in Google Forms One of the features of Google Forms that is often overlooked is the "go to section based on answer" setting. When you use that setting correctly you can send students to watch a review video when they answer a question incorrectly in your Form. Five minute video www.freetech4teacheres.com
- Dozens of Tutorials for Getting Started With Google Forms www.freetech4teacheres.com
2 Learning Profile Templates to Help on the Personalized Learning Journey
Whether you are teaching face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid situation next school year, it is important to get to know our student's needs.Think of students as your customer. Why do they need me? I don't just teach a subject, but I serve as a guide to helping them learn and achieve goals. I might be a quick exit on their educational journey, but my actions could have long-lasting benefits or consequences in their lives. Personalizing learning can be difficult if you do not have an accurate understanding of your student's abilities and challenges; therefore, a learning profile could be a great strategy for getting to know your students better. Here are two examples of profiles that I have made for secondary students, which could easily be adapted to the elementary and middle school classrooms.
Edji provides teachers a means to have students read and analyze text, images or PDFs. The students are able to interact with their medium by highlighting text or adding tags to the images or PDFs. Their interactions can be text comments, emojis, or audio recordings. The teacher can also add open-ended questions to the activity. Initially, the students are only seeing their interactions with the medium. Then the true power of Edji comes to light, ‘Heat Vision’. This feature allows the teacher to activate all interactions as visible to all students. Replying to interactions is also a feature which the teacher can decide to activate. Teacher tools tutorial | Groups tutorial
Insert Training Insert instructional content on any web page.
TeacherMade - Quickly Create a Variety of Online Activities A tool that lets you easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities into online activities to share with your students. According to developer Laura, “My goal with TeacherMade was to create a way for us to make online worksheets that are easier than Google Slides. TeacherMade is a tool that you can use to turn your PDFs, Word docs, and Google Slides into interactive activities for your students to complete online. TeacherMade will automatically score those activities for you, if you choose to enable that option. Should you choose not to have activities scored for you, you can still view what your students do on each activity. Video - How to Use TeacherMade www.freetech4teachers.com.
- To get started using TeacherMade you can sign-up with your G Suite account or register with any other email address and password of your choice. Signing up with G-suite is a good idea if you use Google Classroom, because TeacherMade is focusing on creating a deep integration with Google Classroom. TeacherMade recently went through a complete overhaul so that it runs smoother and faster than ever before. As a result, the free version of TeacherMade is now easier for teachers and students to use.
- The best way to discover all that TeacherMade can do is to upload a PDF that has a variety of question types on it. For example, a PDF that has a multiple choice question, a fill-in-the-blank question, and an identification question. (Quick tip if you don’t have a PDF: you can quickly create one by using the “download as PDF” option in Google Docs or the “save as PDF” option in Word). www.freetech4teachers.com
- Adding audio to PDFs and integrating Google Classroom into my TeacherMade account. video, adding audio to TeacherMade activities can be a good way to make directions more accessible to students. It's also a good way to add audio-based prompts. www.freetech4teachers.com.
- If you use Canva, take a look at this about how to combine Canva and TeacherMade. www.freetech4teachers.com.
Wizer is a site that is for creating online assignments/worksheets. These assignments can contain all types of media (i.e. audio, video, images) as well as being able to share w/ others. The assignments on Wizer allow for student tracking so a educator can assess how well a student is doing.
Worksheet to Wow: 10 ways to upgrade your worksheet. Scroll down to find the embedded slide presentation on the Worksheet to Wow page. Click on a cabinet. When it pops out, click the folder you'd like to see. Want to use any of the ideas in the folders? There are links to all of them in the original Google Slides file for the slide deck. Just look in the speaker notes.
Live Worksheets are interactive worksheets. Teachers create an account and go to the website to upload a worksheet pdf, then drag text entry boxes on top of the worksheet. Student then enter the answers online. Questions can be fill in the blank, multiple choice, matching, drag and drop, join with arrows, recording audio, word search, and more, with new activities frequently added. Teacher enter in correct answers when they create the text boxes, which the program uses to give students instant feedback (correct answers are green and incorrect answers are red) with total score for the worksheet visible for each student.
Google Forms Access from Google Drive or. Google Classroom forms getting started tutorials | interactive Google Forms
- 13 Google Forms Tutorials for Beginners and Experienced Users
- Over the years Google has added handy little features that have made my job easier when it's time to make a quiz. Unfortunately, not all of those features are obvious when you start using Google Forms. Here are five little features of Google Forms that are often overlooked. video tutorial
- Changing default point values.
- Create a Question Bank and Import Questions in Google Forms
- Using the confirmation message as a prompt for students.
- Automatic shuffling of question order.
- How to Give Partial Credit in Google Forms www.freetech4teachers..com
- Automatic shuffling of answer choices.
- Enforcing a minimum response length on short answer questions.
- How to Direct Students to Videos Based on Answer Choices in Google Forms short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Give Self-grading Quizzes to Students Who Don't Have Email Addresses www.freetech4teachers.com
- ✅ Awesome Table Provides you with ready made templates that you can use to create various apps, each app offers a unique visualization functionality to apply to the data in your spreadsheet. Below are the eight view models you can create, click on each of one of them to access a step by step tutorial on how use create the model in question: Some of the features offered by Awesome Table include the ability to "add interactive and intuitive filters and full text search, directly from the spreadsheet"; easily customize the apps templates the way you want Offers a metrics dashboard that allows you to track your apps stats,; embed your apps anywhere online and many more
- 5 Things You Can Make With Microsoft Flip Besides Selfie Videos I demonstrate the following things that you might to try or have your students try to do: Audio-only recordings. Audio + whiteboard recordings. Green screen videos Green screen + annotation Split whiteboard with drawings, text, and images. Watch the video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Flipgrid option for writing comments in response to videos within a discussion topic. This is in addition to the written feedback option that teachers have had for quite a while in Flipgrid. Now students and teachers can write comments in response to students' video submissions within a Flipgrid discussion topic. These comments are automatically reviewed by Flipgrid for potentially insensitive comments. That's a feature in addition to the manual topic moderation that you can enable on all of your Flipgrid topics. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Favorite Flipgrid Video Features In the video you will see me demonstrate the following Flipgrid features: Uploading and sharing videos made outside of Flipgrid. Creating whiteboard videos with split screens. Blur backgrounds and use virtual backgrounds. Enable the microphone-only option. Use the picture-in-picture feature.
- 20+ Ways to use 10 BIG Flipgrid Updates
- Make sure that students actually watch the instructional videos that you create for them. Watch this short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Split Screen Videos in Flipgrid A slight relocation of the whiteboard recording tool. At the same time a new whiteboard option was added. That option is to have a split screen while recording your whiteboard videos in Flipgrid. This option allows you to display your webcam on half of your screen while the other half is used as a whiteboard. But it doesn't have to be a 50/50 split. You can choose how you want to divide your screen. You can see how that's done by watching this short video
- 5 Ways You Can Use Flipgrid's New Mic Only Feature
Peergrade A platform that allows teachers to create assignments and upload rubrics. Students upload work and are anonymously assigned peer work to review according the rubric.
Padlet is an online bulletin board where you can display text, images, video, and more. Padlets can be embedded in blog posts. It used to be free but now there is a limit of three Padlets before you need to upgrade. Teachers Step by Step Guide to Padlet | video tutorials | How to Remake and Reuse a Padlet Wall | Tell Padlet what to draw for you | An option to present all of the notes on a Padlet wall as a slideshow. You can simply click on the slideshow button. Padlet introduced a new feature that enables you to quickly turn a collection of notes on a Padlet wall into a slideshow. Recently, Padlet added three new features to its slideshow function. The latest Padlet slideshow features include a new slide navigator, a new QR code generator, and an automatic playback function. this short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Interactive Activities Templates Blackout Poetry, Which One Doesn't Belong, Interactive Map, Virtual Trip Postcard, Annotate, Picture This and Take a Stand Template and more
AnswerGarden – A tool for online brainstorming or polling, educators can use this real-time tool to see student feedback on questions.
InsertLearning was founded by two high school teachers who wanted to create a richer learning experience for their students. Their aim is to help teachers turn the internet into an interactive learning experience. InsertLearning lets users take any page on the internet and turn it into a lesson. Suppose, for example, a teacher finds a great article from a website that he or she would like students to read and would also like to ask them a few questions about the content, as well as add their own commentary or insert a related video.
Pear Deck Design lessons with interactive questions, polls, quizzes, and formative assessments. Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom Works with Google Slides.
Ways to use Pear Deck are:
● Starting the class with a social-emotional check-in with a draggable item on a
scale.
● During the class, doing check-ins on a scale to see how they feel they are
comprehending.
● At the end of the lesson, adding a one minute summarization of what they
learned through a short-answer written response (this is such powerful data!)
● My last Pear Deck slide is ALWAYS an “Express Yourself” slide. This is a blank
white background with the drawing feature enabled, so students can write or
draw anything they want (as long as it is school appropriate) in about one
minute. Then I always share everyone’s work with the entire class.
Chatzy – Use Chatzy to support backchannel conversations in a private setting. These live chats make great companions to classroom discussion, provide exit tickets, or keep a discussion going after the class is over.
ClassKick – This tool allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Students can monitor their progress and work. You Can see in real time each student’s work. Classkick gives you the ability to provide voice messages to individual students as the work and they can respond. Also a teacher can write messages, feedback or support. Students can also help each other. Also you can integrate with Google Classroom. Other features are video embedding and interactive links. With the audio feature you can narrate directions or explanations and students can respond.
Socrative Exercises and games that engage students using smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
The Answer Pad – Allows teachers to capture data from students using the web or the app and is touted as being ideal for the flipped or blended classroom.
AudioNote – A combination of a voice recorder and notepad that captures both audio and notes for student collaboration
Watch this video to see how the BookWidgets Google Classroom add-on works.
🎯Fostering Interaction in a Digital Landscape: strategies, tips and tech tools
🎯 AhaSlides AhaSlides transforms linear presentations into interactive ones with live polls, quizzes, word clouds, brainstorming activities, and spinner wheels. Ideal for remote learning days,
Virtual Rooms Collection - Resource Link
ClassPoint is a PowerPoint add-in that lets you add questions, polls, whiteboards, and interactive quizzes to your existing slides. With ClassPoint enabled your old slideshow can be turned into a new interactive activity for your students. To interact with your slides students simply go to classpoint.app and enter a class code that you give to them. They don’t need to sign-up or sign into an account to interact with your slides. A complete overview of ClassPoint can be watched here www.freetech4teacherse.com
Nearpod Diverse interactive presentation application that teachers can utilize synchronously or asynchronously. Plethora of interactive activities. The application also offers developed presentations that you can customize. video tutorial
Quizizz Lessons feature – the ability to create a slideshow that you can present to your students live or assign as homework. For those of you who are familiar with Nearpod, it’s basically a very simplified version of it, with far fewer bells and whistles. Quizizz users are now able to 'transform their quizzes into interactive lessons' that include a wide variety of multimedia materials. You can include slides, polls, questions and several other elements.
Thinglink ThingLink is an interactive image tool offering a unique way to link "things" within images. Teachers and students should register using the EDU area. Although the example on the home page uses Facebook to share a ThingLink, you do not have to use Facebook at all. Start with an image from upload, online URL, or Flickr. Select specific items within your image (called "things") and link them to resources or other websites.
Sutori is a “collaborative instructional and presentation tool for the classroom.” It can be used as an alternative to traditional presentations such as PowerPoint or Prezi. The stories can be viewed one panel at a time, like a slideshow, or scrolled through, like a timeline. Sutori is made for student-centered classrooms, since it requires students to be engaged in putting many resources together. Also, teachers can use Sutori to create linear presentations that students will view in class or at their own pace.
BookWidgets - Create Unique Online Activities for Your Students BookWidgets in depth Watch this video to see how the BookWidgets Google Classroom add-on works.www.freetech4teachers.com
Create Your Own Bitmoji Virtual Classroom in 10-Minutes (Chrome extension )Although this tool is great for remote learning situations, it can be helpful in hybrid and face-to-face learning situations too. The idea behind a Bitmoji classroom is to replicate your own classroom and make resources, news, and tools available to students in virtual settings. Click here to see example and here for tutorial. To create your own bitmoji: IOS app | Android Or you can use the bitmojis already available through the extension | How to create a Virtual Bitmoji Classroom in Slides or Powerpoint | self-paced Bitmoji Educator course. This five-module course includes lots of videos showing you exactly how to create your own Bitmoji avatar and then add it to your virtual space. Upon completion, you’ll have ideas on how to use your Bitmoji for teaching and learning
Here are several considerations to keep in mind when designing your own virtual classroom:
1. Use the Bitmoji extension to add an animated version of you!
2. Consider adding links to homework, resources, tutorials, and classroom news!
3. Don't forget about navigation! Use icons or pictures to link to slides. It might be helpful to add an icon to return back to your "home" screen or classroom.
4. Make sure that you publish your classroom to the web! This makes it easier to access regardless of device.
This template can be a fun digital place for you to put frequently-used resources for your students! Make a copy of this "interactive resource room" template in Google Slides or PowerPoint and
Free Bitmoji Classroom Templates (TPT)
Bitmoji Virtual Locker Template (Google)
Bitmoji Educator
Blurry Bitmoji? Upscale It! Educators are using Bitmojis to make personalized cartoon characters. The thing is, Bitmojis are low resolution and look fuzzy when enlarged. Upscaling is a magical process that can convert a Bitmoji to high definition by increasing the number of pixels and adding details. Click to read the entire post.
Alternative to Bitmoji Classroom High school teacher Emily Huff didn’t want to do the “cutesy” Bitmoji classroom for her older students. So she created a Netflix-like landing page for her Spanish class. She downloaded the original template from this blog and then changed it up to better fit what her students are familiar with
20+ interactive PowerPoint activities to add awesome to classes: PowerPoint lets students collaborate and display ideas effectively. Create animation, story books, video galleries and more. Here are 20 ideas for using PowerPoint in your classroom.
🎯Fostering Interaction in a Digital Landscape: strategies, tips and tech tools
🎯 AhaSlides AhaSlides transforms linear presentations into interactive ones with live polls, quizzes, word clouds, brainstorming activities, and spinner wheels. Ideal for remote learning days,
Virtual Rooms Collection - Resource Link
- Sarah Wood provides a large collection of free-to-use virtual learning rooms.
- Each virtual room is actually an interactive Google Slideshow that students can click on to explore the linked learning resources.
- There are virtual rooms for events and holidays for each month, as well as content areas.
- You can copy and customize the rooms as long as you keep the attribution logo on the Slides.
ClassPoint is a PowerPoint add-in that lets you add questions, polls, whiteboards, and interactive quizzes to your existing slides. With ClassPoint enabled your old slideshow can be turned into a new interactive activity for your students. To interact with your slides students simply go to classpoint.app and enter a class code that you give to them. They don’t need to sign-up or sign into an account to interact with your slides. A complete overview of ClassPoint can be watched here www.freetech4teacherse.com
Nearpod Diverse interactive presentation application that teachers can utilize synchronously or asynchronously. Plethora of interactive activities. The application also offers developed presentations that you can customize. video tutorial
Quizizz Lessons feature – the ability to create a slideshow that you can present to your students live or assign as homework. For those of you who are familiar with Nearpod, it’s basically a very simplified version of it, with far fewer bells and whistles. Quizizz users are now able to 'transform their quizzes into interactive lessons' that include a wide variety of multimedia materials. You can include slides, polls, questions and several other elements.
- Using Live Whiteboard for Instructor-paced Lessons
- Quizizz Adds Feature Letting Students Respond With Audio Or Video Response
- You can have the students create the questions.
- The benefit: when students write questions, it's a form of retrieval, a brain-friendly way to boost long-term learning. (We talked about this yesterday. More details on retrieval here.)
- Plus, when they write questions instead of answering them, they're seeing learning from a whole different perspective.It's pretty simple to set up. Here are the basics:
- Create a Google Form where they can type their question and possible answers. (Here's a Google Form template you can copy.)
- Take the Google Sheet with the responses and upload the spreadsheet to Quizizz.
- Check the questions to make sure they came through correctly and save the Quizizz game.
- Play the Quizizz game with students!
Thinglink ThingLink is an interactive image tool offering a unique way to link "things" within images. Teachers and students should register using the EDU area. Although the example on the home page uses Facebook to share a ThingLink, you do not have to use Facebook at all. Start with an image from upload, online URL, or Flickr. Select specific items within your image (called "things") and link them to resources or other websites.
- Drawings for Interactive Images (Googlinks) Using Google Drawings like a Thinglink - Website link
- Pear Deck Engagement tool that helps teachers to engage and monitor students through interactive lessons, polls, feedback, dashboards, questions, draggable objects and more. The instant feedback capabilities are important as students and teachers and interact. Slide Show tutorial | Video tutorial | Hard Copy Tutorial | Adding Audio to Pear Deck Google Slides Activities" - Website link | Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom | Training video - "Adding Audio to Pear Deck Google Slides Activities" -YouTube Video | "21 New Free Interactive Pear Deck Templates for Google Slides" - Website link | "New Pear Deck Critical Thinking Templates for Google Slides" Website link | "9 Awesome Add-ons to Supercharge Google Slides" - Website link | interactive Charts and Diagrams in Slides | Use Google Slides where each student gets their own copy The link takes you to a sheet doc. Follow the direction using the shheets' menubar at the top to install add-on
- Continuum - Synchronous Online Teaching Strategy "A continuum can be used in every subject area. Get discussions started with this interactive activity."
- ✅ Interactive Google Slide Template
- Create Virtual Manipulatives Activity in Google Slides The presentation shows how to create a measurement manipulative, but the concept has numerous applications. The following Google Slides presentation asks to guess how many ounces are in a pound, then they are asked to drag the one-ounce boxes into the one-pound container. When they are finished, they will record their answer in the answer box. Feel free to access your own copy of this | Create authentic looking manipulative | Another example with fixed background
- Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
- Drag and Drop Slides | Creating Drag and Drop Activities in Google Slides (YouTube)
- Easy 1, 2, 3: Create Your Own Accessible Book with Slides You may also include other interactive components from this list
- 30 interactive Google Slides activities for classroom excitement: Google Slides isn't just for delivering presentations to an audience. Here are 30 activities that bring interactive learning to students.
- Google Slides interactive notebooks + 20 activities to fill them
- Doc to Slides View Doc to Slides on YouTube It magically takes whatever is in your Google Doc and converts is to Google Slides! Not only does it create slides from a doc there are also other capabilities, e.g., creating slides for individual students quickly and directing a slide you already have to each student. Install Doc to Slides
- Record to Slides - Chrome extension that makes it super easy to record video from your webcam or screen share, and then insert that into Google Slides. How to record video in Google Slides
- Slip-in-Slide With the Slip-in-Slide add-on, you can effortlessly insert slides into multiple student presentations at one time. You can choose to send one or many slides from your presentation to an assignment folder in Google Classroom. This makes distribution of new material quick and easy. It integrates with the folder structure of Google Classroom to send your slides directly into student’s existing presentations. A tutorial on how to use Slip-in-Slide here.
- 10+ Creative Google Slides Activities
- 🎯Slido is a polling tool that has recently launched a Google Slides add-on and a corresponding Chrome extension. With Slido installed you can create polls directly in the Google Slides editor. The poll will appear as a slide in your presentation. The poll slide includes your question and the directions for your audience to respond to your poll. video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Three Ways to Conduct Polls in Google Slides Use Poll Everywhere in Google Slides to conduct my polls because I like the word cloud output option. Slido and the native Q&A function in Google Slides can also be used for polling. How to use Poll Everywhere in Google Slides. | How to use Slido in Google Slides. | How to use the Q&A function in Google Slides. www.freetech4teachrs.com
- 6 ways to share Google Slides Share Google slides to students directly and monitor their contribution to editing the slides or send a public link for anonymous mode.
- An easier Way to Add Audio to Slides Mote is a new Chrome extension that allows you to quickly record audio and have it inserted into your Google Slides with just one click. www.freetech4teachrs.com
- How to Add Audio file to Google Slides www.freetech4teachrs.com
- How to Add Captions to Slides
- How to make transparent collaborative virtual manipulatives
- Own A Space Give all students a voice by using the Own A Space strategy.
- Respond and Code Students respond simultaneously, then categorize their and their peers’ responses.
- Interactive Gallery Walks Give your students choice and voice with an interactive gallery walk.
- Bar Model in Google slides Use tables to create bar models and color them like fraction bars
- Learn how to make a magnifying glass reveal text.
- Tweet Boards Tweet boards are used as a brain dump for students to quickly and collectively share their ideas. Watch Tweet Board Sort
This activity is done after a Tweet Board and requires students to categorize the topics collected during the brain dump. - Visual Polling with Emojis Get input from kids using emojis directly on your goals and objectives slide.
- Virtual Parking Lot Give students a place to record important questions, and answer them at an appropriate time.
- Using Shapes as text boxes for Graphic Organizers Learn how to use various shapes to jazz up your text boxes when using graphic organizers
- Successes and Celebrations Learn how to use this simple routine to build strong classroom communities.
- Student Led Slides Synchronous Online learning can be student-centered when students are creating the slides.
- Expectation Slides Gain student participation, online behavior, and norms through expectation slides.
- How to Lock Google Slides Learn how to lock your slides so that kids can’t move the template around.
- Google Translate Hack Take Google translate one step further and embed clickable directions in your slides.
Sutori is a “collaborative instructional and presentation tool for the classroom.” It can be used as an alternative to traditional presentations such as PowerPoint or Prezi. The stories can be viewed one panel at a time, like a slideshow, or scrolled through, like a timeline. Sutori is made for student-centered classrooms, since it requires students to be engaged in putting many resources together. Also, teachers can use Sutori to create linear presentations that students will view in class or at their own pace.
BookWidgets - Create Unique Online Activities for Your Students BookWidgets in depth Watch this video to see how the BookWidgets Google Classroom add-on works.www.freetech4teachers.com
Create Your Own Bitmoji Virtual Classroom in 10-Minutes (Chrome extension )Although this tool is great for remote learning situations, it can be helpful in hybrid and face-to-face learning situations too. The idea behind a Bitmoji classroom is to replicate your own classroom and make resources, news, and tools available to students in virtual settings. Click here to see example and here for tutorial. To create your own bitmoji: IOS app | Android Or you can use the bitmojis already available through the extension | How to create a Virtual Bitmoji Classroom in Slides or Powerpoint | self-paced Bitmoji Educator course. This five-module course includes lots of videos showing you exactly how to create your own Bitmoji avatar and then add it to your virtual space. Upon completion, you’ll have ideas on how to use your Bitmoji for teaching and learning
- Bitmoji chrome Tip That Mst People Do Not Know About - In the search box type pose to get figures without text
Here are several considerations to keep in mind when designing your own virtual classroom:
1. Use the Bitmoji extension to add an animated version of you!
2. Consider adding links to homework, resources, tutorials, and classroom news!
3. Don't forget about navigation! Use icons or pictures to link to slides. It might be helpful to add an icon to return back to your "home" screen or classroom.
4. Make sure that you publish your classroom to the web! This makes it easier to access regardless of device.
This template can be a fun digital place for you to put frequently-used resources for your students! Make a copy of this "interactive resource room" template in Google Slides or PowerPoint and
- Add a Bitmoji or other digital avatar of yourself (1)
- Put a link/image to a featured resource on the laptop on the table (2)
- Add a collection of images/links on the board (3)
- Include links to extra digital activities and resources (4 & 5)
- Link up other things as fun "Easter eggs" like this world clock (6)
Free Bitmoji Classroom Templates (TPT)
Bitmoji Virtual Locker Template (Google)
Bitmoji Educator
Blurry Bitmoji? Upscale It! Educators are using Bitmojis to make personalized cartoon characters. The thing is, Bitmojis are low resolution and look fuzzy when enlarged. Upscaling is a magical process that can convert a Bitmoji to high definition by increasing the number of pixels and adding details. Click to read the entire post.
Alternative to Bitmoji Classroom High school teacher Emily Huff didn’t want to do the “cutesy” Bitmoji classroom for her older students. So she created a Netflix-like landing page for her Spanish class. She downloaded the original template from this blog and then changed it up to better fit what her students are familiar with
20+ interactive PowerPoint activities to add awesome to classes: PowerPoint lets students collaborate and display ideas effectively. Create animation, story books, video galleries and more. Here are 20 ideas for using PowerPoint in your classroom.
Hypothesis This is a tool for collaborative annotations. It lets you annotate the web in groups and collaborate privately with others.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comNowComment promotes social reading among middle and high school students. The tool is similar to Hypothesis. Teachers upload content to the website, and students socially annotate it.
Lightshot Take snapshots and then copy-and-paste or insert them into Google Docs or other programs. Lightshot, a Chrome extension and/or program you can load on your computer. It makes it easy to snap pictures of my screen and annotate them. Also the option to save to the clipboard and then paste. You can see it reviewed in this video. Find it online.
Lumin PDF before A digital PDF editing software. Using their suite of intuitive tools, you can store, edit and annotate PDF documents in the cloud. It doesn’t take up any extra space on your computer and makes it easy to locate and manage all of your documents in one place.With Lumin PDF, you can make annotations straight into a document using a selection of tools. Users have access to a freehand tool, the ability to add shapes to a document — and the option to add text. These are just a few of the options in the suite of digital tools you can use with Lumin PDF’s Premium Professional Plan. Lumin PDF also offers organizations the ability to collaborate with your entire network (schools, districts, etc.) using their tools.
Kami. A PDF and document annotation app for schools. Students can digitally write on e-books, PDFs, worksheets, collaborate with their peers, and draw freely. Teachers will be asked to complete a form to request access.
Actively Learn is a freemium online education platform that allows students to read a book (or some other document), make comments, answer questions posed by the teacher, and even collaborate with others.
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Scribble Provides you with a number of tools to save, manage, annotate and share web content. You can mark-up web pages and uploaded PDFs right in your browser and share your annotated content with others.
Edji provides teachers a means to have students read and analyze text, images or PDFs. The students are able to interact with their medium by highlighting text or adding tags to the images or PDFs. Their interactions can be text comments, emojis, or audio recordings. The teacher can also add open-ended questions to the activity. Initially, the students are only seeing their interactions with the medium. Then the true power of Edji comes to light, ‘Heat Vision’. This feature allows the teacher to activate all interactions as visible to all students. Replying to interactions is also a feature which the teacher can decide to activate. pdf annotation tutorial www.youtube.com/results?search_query=edji
Annotate PDFs Collaboratively Using Google Drive
Thinkio It lets teachers easily make their PDFs interactive and lets you assign them to your students and see their work.
Annotate Webpages With Edge Microsoft Edge has a bunch of neat features built into it including Immersive Reader and tools for annotation. To use these tools just click the pen icon in the upper-right corner of the Edge browser and you'll see a menu of drawing and text tools appear. After adding your highlights and notes you can share them from the same menu where you found the drawing tools. Take a look at this short video to see how to use the annotation tools in Edge. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate PDFs With Kami Kami is a service that enables users to annotate and comment on PDFs. You can do this directly on the Kami website or in Google Drive with Kami's Chrome extension. Kami also works with Word and Pages files. Here's a little video overview of Kami. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate Webpages With Seesaw Seesaw has become a very popular digital portfolio tool because of the many things that you and your students can do with it. One of those things is to annotate webpages with Seesaw's Chrome extension. With SeeSaw's free Chrome extension installed students can save an entire webpage or select a portion of the page to save. Once they've made a selection of what to save the Chrome extension will automatically open SeeSaw in a new browser tab where students can then highlight, draw, and type on the saved page. Students can also record themselves talking about the pages they've clipped. Take a look at this video to see how it works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Write on PDFs in Google Classroom Provides a way students can do free-hand writing on documents shared in Google Classroom. A better option to having students take pictures of handwritten work and uploading it to Google Classroom assignments. The Chrome extension called Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF is a Chrome extension that enables students to draw on top of PDFs that you open in Chrome. After drawing on the PDF students can save the PDF as a new copy or replace the existing copy of the PDF that was sent to them in Google Classroom. video overview of how students can use Lumin PDF to write on PDFs that are assigned to them in Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate in OneNote OneNote has lots of useful features for students and teachers. One of the features is the ability to create a shared notebook in which students add notes to PDFs and Word documents. Upload a PDF to a page in a notebook and then use the drawing tools and text tools to add notes to it to share. Here's a quick video overview of how to do that. www.freetech4teachers.com
Google Classroom, here's how to use PDFs in Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Read&Write for Google Chrome Gives you access to a number of powerful tools to do much more than just web annotations. You can use it to ‘ collect highlights from text in documents or the web for summarizing and research; create and listen to voice notes directly inside of Google Docs; simplify and summarize text on web pages to remove ads and other copy that can be distracting’…and many more.
Evernote Web Clipper You can use this one to quickly clip web pages and save them to your Evernote account. Some of the annotative features it provides include the ability to add text and callouts and highlight key text from any website or article. Clipped content can be shared though email or URL
Take Webpage Screenshots Entirely This Chrome extension lets you make whole web page screenshots which you can edit and save in PDF, JPEG, GIF or PNG format.You can annotate your screenshots with text, shapes, arrows, add blurs and apply several other effects.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comNowComment promotes social reading among middle and high school students. The tool is similar to Hypothesis. Teachers upload content to the website, and students socially annotate it.
Lightshot Take snapshots and then copy-and-paste or insert them into Google Docs or other programs. Lightshot, a Chrome extension and/or program you can load on your computer. It makes it easy to snap pictures of my screen and annotate them. Also the option to save to the clipboard and then paste. You can see it reviewed in this video. Find it online.
Lumin PDF before A digital PDF editing software. Using their suite of intuitive tools, you can store, edit and annotate PDF documents in the cloud. It doesn’t take up any extra space on your computer and makes it easy to locate and manage all of your documents in one place.With Lumin PDF, you can make annotations straight into a document using a selection of tools. Users have access to a freehand tool, the ability to add shapes to a document — and the option to add text. These are just a few of the options in the suite of digital tools you can use with Lumin PDF’s Premium Professional Plan. Lumin PDF also offers organizations the ability to collaborate with your entire network (schools, districts, etc.) using their tools.
Kami. A PDF and document annotation app for schools. Students can digitally write on e-books, PDFs, worksheets, collaborate with their peers, and draw freely. Teachers will be asked to complete a form to request access.
Actively Learn is a freemium online education platform that allows students to read a book (or some other document), make comments, answer questions posed by the teacher, and even collaborate with others.
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Scribble Provides you with a number of tools to save, manage, annotate and share web content. You can mark-up web pages and uploaded PDFs right in your browser and share your annotated content with others.
Edji provides teachers a means to have students read and analyze text, images or PDFs. The students are able to interact with their medium by highlighting text or adding tags to the images or PDFs. Their interactions can be text comments, emojis, or audio recordings. The teacher can also add open-ended questions to the activity. Initially, the students are only seeing their interactions with the medium. Then the true power of Edji comes to light, ‘Heat Vision’. This feature allows the teacher to activate all interactions as visible to all students. Replying to interactions is also a feature which the teacher can decide to activate. pdf annotation tutorial www.youtube.com/results?search_query=edji
Annotate PDFs Collaboratively Using Google Drive
Thinkio It lets teachers easily make their PDFs interactive and lets you assign them to your students and see their work.
Annotate Webpages With Edge Microsoft Edge has a bunch of neat features built into it including Immersive Reader and tools for annotation. To use these tools just click the pen icon in the upper-right corner of the Edge browser and you'll see a menu of drawing and text tools appear. After adding your highlights and notes you can share them from the same menu where you found the drawing tools. Take a look at this short video to see how to use the annotation tools in Edge. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate PDFs With Kami Kami is a service that enables users to annotate and comment on PDFs. You can do this directly on the Kami website or in Google Drive with Kami's Chrome extension. Kami also works with Word and Pages files. Here's a little video overview of Kami. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate Webpages With Seesaw Seesaw has become a very popular digital portfolio tool because of the many things that you and your students can do with it. One of those things is to annotate webpages with Seesaw's Chrome extension. With SeeSaw's free Chrome extension installed students can save an entire webpage or select a portion of the page to save. Once they've made a selection of what to save the Chrome extension will automatically open SeeSaw in a new browser tab where students can then highlight, draw, and type on the saved page. Students can also record themselves talking about the pages they've clipped. Take a look at this video to see how it works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Write on PDFs in Google Classroom Provides a way students can do free-hand writing on documents shared in Google Classroom. A better option to having students take pictures of handwritten work and uploading it to Google Classroom assignments. The Chrome extension called Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF is a Chrome extension that enables students to draw on top of PDFs that you open in Chrome. After drawing on the PDF students can save the PDF as a new copy or replace the existing copy of the PDF that was sent to them in Google Classroom. video overview of how students can use Lumin PDF to write on PDFs that are assigned to them in Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate in OneNote OneNote has lots of useful features for students and teachers. One of the features is the ability to create a shared notebook in which students add notes to PDFs and Word documents. Upload a PDF to a page in a notebook and then use the drawing tools and text tools to add notes to it to share. Here's a quick video overview of how to do that. www.freetech4teachers.com
Google Classroom, here's how to use PDFs in Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Read&Write for Google Chrome Gives you access to a number of powerful tools to do much more than just web annotations. You can use it to ‘ collect highlights from text in documents or the web for summarizing and research; create and listen to voice notes directly inside of Google Docs; simplify and summarize text on web pages to remove ads and other copy that can be distracting’…and many more.
Evernote Web Clipper You can use this one to quickly clip web pages and save them to your Evernote account. Some of the annotative features it provides include the ability to add text and callouts and highlight key text from any website or article. Clipped content can be shared though email or URL
Take Webpage Screenshots Entirely This Chrome extension lets you make whole web page screenshots which you can edit and save in PDF, JPEG, GIF or PNG format.You can annotate your screenshots with text, shapes, arrows, add blurs and apply several other effects.
Loom This is a lightweight application that lets you record and share annotated videos. You can record videos using a combination of camera, microphone and computer screen. You can record the whole screen or simply the current tab you are on.
How to Create a YouTube Channel www.freetech4teaches.com
Quick activities to pair with a video. "Something that'll help students take the next step with what they've learned? Something that'll help them engage in the content in new ways? And something that isn't just busy work? Free ebook full of activities to engage your students with videos. It's called "Teaching with TeachFlix." t has links to lots of simple activities you can use with all sorts of classroom videos, including: plus ideas for using some of our social media templates in the DTT templates library -- and places to find other great teaching videos.Get that ebook in a Google Slides file, a PowerPoint file, or a PDF file ... and knock out some lesson plans in a hurry."
How to record video in Google Slides
Animate from Audio hosted by Adobe Express is a fun little tool that matches your spoken words to an animated character of your choosing. The finished product is a short video that you can download as an MP4 and or share on your favorite websites. To create a video with Animate from Audio simply head to the site then select the character that you want to animate. Then record your spoken audio. After recording your audio Adobe Express then matches your audio to movements of your chosen character. The more inflection in your speech, the more movement you'll see in the character. Watch this video www.freetech4teachers.com
iSL Collective may be the most helpful online site teachers, and it’s easy to use the zillions of interactive videos they have or make your own. See A Look Back: Another Reason iSLCollective Is One Of Top Sites For ELLs – Their New Online Homework Feature! for details.
TED-Ed makes it super-easy to create questions for any video you choose, and students don’t have to register to see them and answer the questions. Teachers automatically receive reports on student progress. Its features are not as “interactive” as the other sites on this list (students watch the entire video and then answer questions), but its ease-of-use is a big advantage.
ESL Video like TED-Ed, its “interactivity” comes after the video is watched instead of during it, as is the case with the iSL Collective and EDPuzzle, the next one on this list. See “ESL Video” Improvements Turn Good Site Into Great One.
EDPuzzle is probably the most popular one on this list. Richard Byrne just published an excellent guide for using it at How to Create Video Lessons Without Making Your Own Recordings. | Use Screencastify with Edpuzzle
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Vialogue is an online video with a group discussion feature. Upload a video of your own, from YouTube or one of the public videos available on Vialogue. Define the purpose of the Vialogue, provide some discussion questions, and click create to finish.
Final is a web tool that facilitates collaboration on video and audio files. It allows you and your collaborators to exchange feedback on your video and audio files. The way Final works is simple: log in to your Final account, upload a video or audio file and share it with collaborators using a generated link. Collaborators can add real-time feedback on your videos and audio clips.
Narakeet Turns PowerPoint presentations into narrated videos. video tutorial
Five Helpful PowerPoint Features You Might Be OverlookingType Studio A Unique Way to Edit narrated videos. In Type Studio I simply select a few words from the transcript of my video and hit the delete key on my keyboard to remove a section of my video. If I do not have a transcript Type Studio creates a transcript for you when you upload your video into their editor. Depending on the length of the video this can just a few minutes or can be quite a bit longer than that. Once the transcript is created it appears your Type Studio editor alongside your original video. Then to cut a section of your video all you have to do is select the words or sentences you want to remove and Type Studio will remove the corresponding section of the video itself. Type Studio currently supports fifteen languages. In addition to providing tools for clipping and cutting your videos, Type Studio provides a subtitling service. You could use Type Studio just to create subtitles and transcripts without having to actually do any editing of your video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bookmark It is a free Chrome extension that can solve a problem many people face when trying to show students just a specific part of a video. That problem is having to scroll along the timeline of a YouTube video to find the spot that you want to share. Bookmark It lets you add timestamped bookmarks and notes to the timeline of a video. video www.freetech4teachers.com/
PlayPosit – An interactive video and assessment tool that allows teachers to add formative assessment features (pauses and questions) to survey what students know about the topic. Teachers choose from a library of video content from popular sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and others.
WeVideo Cloud based video editing tool that allows students and teachers to get creative. Students could have fun responding to some of learning tasks as a video and can collaborate with peers on projects. WeVideo have also recently introduced screencasting.
Tools to show YouTube videos without displaying the "related" content that appears next to and below videos on YouTube. The first two tools that came to mind were Watchkin and SafeShare.tv. Another option is to put the video into Google Slides or PowerPoint to display. And a fourth option is to use the browser extension called Quietube. Tutorial short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Explore is a recently released app that will help you tap into the functional potential of Chromebooks. This is a built-in app that acts as "your compass for navigating your Chromebook. It's an evolved form of Get Help". Explore will help you learn more about the embedded features and functionalities in your Chromebook. You will get access to tutorials, visual guides, answers to frequently asked questions, how-to guides and several other helpful resources.
- A new feature to note is a floating speaker notes tool in the Loom desktop app for Windows and Mac. The speaker notes are basically sticky notes that you can use to write a script or just some talking points to use to keep you on track while recording a screencast video with Loom. You can move the notes around while recording. The best part is that while you can see your speaker notes while recording the notes aren't visible in the final recording that you save.
- The second new feature of note in Loom is the option to create and set defaults for all of the videos that you record. You can set defaults both for what appears in your videos and what viewers can do with your videos (reactions, downloads, responses). www.freetech4teacer.com
How to Create a YouTube Channel www.freetech4teaches.com
Quick activities to pair with a video. "Something that'll help students take the next step with what they've learned? Something that'll help them engage in the content in new ways? And something that isn't just busy work? Free ebook full of activities to engage your students with videos. It's called "Teaching with TeachFlix." t has links to lots of simple activities you can use with all sorts of classroom videos, including: plus ideas for using some of our social media templates in the DTT templates library -- and places to find other great teaching videos.Get that ebook in a Google Slides file, a PowerPoint file, or a PDF file ... and knock out some lesson plans in a hurry."
How to record video in Google Slides
Animate from Audio hosted by Adobe Express is a fun little tool that matches your spoken words to an animated character of your choosing. The finished product is a short video that you can download as an MP4 and or share on your favorite websites. To create a video with Animate from Audio simply head to the site then select the character that you want to animate. Then record your spoken audio. After recording your audio Adobe Express then matches your audio to movements of your chosen character. The more inflection in your speech, the more movement you'll see in the character. Watch this video www.freetech4teachers.com
iSL Collective may be the most helpful online site teachers, and it’s easy to use the zillions of interactive videos they have or make your own. See A Look Back: Another Reason iSLCollective Is One Of Top Sites For ELLs – Their New Online Homework Feature! for details.
TED-Ed makes it super-easy to create questions for any video you choose, and students don’t have to register to see them and answer the questions. Teachers automatically receive reports on student progress. Its features are not as “interactive” as the other sites on this list (students watch the entire video and then answer questions), but its ease-of-use is a big advantage.
ESL Video like TED-Ed, its “interactivity” comes after the video is watched instead of during it, as is the case with the iSL Collective and EDPuzzle, the next one on this list. See “ESL Video” Improvements Turn Good Site Into Great One.
EDPuzzle is probably the most popular one on this list. Richard Byrne just published an excellent guide for using it at How to Create Video Lessons Without Making Your Own Recordings. | Use Screencastify with Edpuzzle
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Vialogue is an online video with a group discussion feature. Upload a video of your own, from YouTube or one of the public videos available on Vialogue. Define the purpose of the Vialogue, provide some discussion questions, and click create to finish.
Final is a web tool that facilitates collaboration on video and audio files. It allows you and your collaborators to exchange feedback on your video and audio files. The way Final works is simple: log in to your Final account, upload a video or audio file and share it with collaborators using a generated link. Collaborators can add real-time feedback on your videos and audio clips.
Narakeet Turns PowerPoint presentations into narrated videos. video tutorial
Five Helpful PowerPoint Features You Might Be OverlookingType Studio A Unique Way to Edit narrated videos. In Type Studio I simply select a few words from the transcript of my video and hit the delete key on my keyboard to remove a section of my video. If I do not have a transcript Type Studio creates a transcript for you when you upload your video into their editor. Depending on the length of the video this can just a few minutes or can be quite a bit longer than that. Once the transcript is created it appears your Type Studio editor alongside your original video. Then to cut a section of your video all you have to do is select the words or sentences you want to remove and Type Studio will remove the corresponding section of the video itself. Type Studio currently supports fifteen languages. In addition to providing tools for clipping and cutting your videos, Type Studio provides a subtitling service. You could use Type Studio just to create subtitles and transcripts without having to actually do any editing of your video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bookmark It is a free Chrome extension that can solve a problem many people face when trying to show students just a specific part of a video. That problem is having to scroll along the timeline of a YouTube video to find the spot that you want to share. Bookmark It lets you add timestamped bookmarks and notes to the timeline of a video. video www.freetech4teachers.com/
PlayPosit – An interactive video and assessment tool that allows teachers to add formative assessment features (pauses and questions) to survey what students know about the topic. Teachers choose from a library of video content from popular sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and others.
WeVideo Cloud based video editing tool that allows students and teachers to get creative. Students could have fun responding to some of learning tasks as a video and can collaborate with peers on projects. WeVideo have also recently introduced screencasting.
Tools to show YouTube videos without displaying the "related" content that appears next to and below videos on YouTube. The first two tools that came to mind were Watchkin and SafeShare.tv. Another option is to put the video into Google Slides or PowerPoint to display. And a fourth option is to use the browser extension called Quietube. Tutorial short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Explore is a recently released app that will help you tap into the functional potential of Chromebooks. This is a built-in app that acts as "your compass for navigating your Chromebook. It's an evolved form of Get Help". Explore will help you learn more about the embedded features and functionalities in your Chromebook. You will get access to tutorials, visual guides, answers to frequently asked questions, how-to guides and several other helpful resources.
- Goolge Classroom | Google Meet | Whiteboards | Zoom | More Virtual Classroom Tools
- Setting Norms and Expectations for Video Conferencing and Chatboxes
- 25 Ideas for Whiteboard Videos
- Google Classroom Cheat Sheets for Teachers and Students
- Google Education’s Differentiated Instruction through AI–driven tools help increase engagement for K–12 learners with support and timely feedback. With Google Education’s interactive practice sets, students can receive one-to-one feedback and support without ever leaving their assignment, saving educators time and providing insight into students’ learning processes and patterns. The practice sets use artificial intelligence to deliver hints, pop-up messages, video lessons, and other resources, providing encouragement and support the moment that students need such feedback. Practice sets are currently (11/30/22) in beta testing for schools using Google Workspace for Education Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus. To learn more about practice sets and how to use them in the classroom, view Introducing practice sets in Google Classroom on YouTube.
- Google Meet Teacher Center
- Beep Allows teachers and students to leave voice notes and feedback on Google Classroom, Gmail, Google Docs, Slides, Forms, and Sheets.
- 5 easy gamified activities you can assign in Google Classroom tomorrow
- Google Classroom Now Lets You Schedule The Same Assignment For Multiple Classes! (With Screenshots)
- Schoolytics does more than just let you see all of your Google Classroom information in one place. It also helps you analyze how all of your students are doing across all of your classes. For example, Schoolytics will provide you with charts to view trends about things like assignment completion, assignment timeliness, and grade distribution. You can drill down through those trends by using Schoolytics tools like equity reports to find even more information about your students and the types of assignments that you are giving to them. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Easy To Copy ALL The Google Classroom Assignments From A Previous Year At One Time The instructions from Google on how to do it are here. Basically, you click on the three dots and then click on “copy”. It doesn’t copy student work. It also doesn’t seem to copy materials, which is unfortunate.
- 5 Chrome Extensions that Make Google Classroom Even More Awesome!
- Create and use comment banks for delivering feedback. You can do that in Google Classroom by following these directions. www.freetech4teachhers.com
Google Classroom Templates Google provides you with lots of great options for customizing your Google Classroom, but if you are tired of the same options, Canva has you covered. They have a whole collection of templates that you can use to customize your Google Classroom header image. This is a great way to add some personality to your class and also to personalize it so that it better meets the kind of class you teach.
- New Google Classroom and Google Meet Updates to Note | more Google Meet New Features | ç
- More New Feature updates 2021 Classroom add-ons | Set up classes in advance with SIS roster syncing | Track student engagement | Offline workc| Originality reports in new languages
- Smart Chips in Google Docs- A New Way to Hyperlink Documents
- How to Assign group work in Google Classroom | How to create Google Meet breakout rooms for differentiated learning Check out the Help
- How to Make Sure Students Aren't Unsupervised in Google Meet Video Calls www.freetech4teachers.com
Center for more details |Google Meet help videos - Currently 21 videos total | Google Classroom help videos - Currently 11 videos total Classroom Add-ons - Google's Teach from Home is a resource you to keep handy. It features a wide variety of materials, tools, and guides to "help teachers and families manage and support children's use of technology".
- 5 Time-Efficient Ways of Adding Feedback in Google Classroom
- How to Poll Your Students in Google Meet
- Using Originality Reports in Google Classroom - How you and your students can check their writing for possible plagiarism and needed citations. With Originality Reports in Google Classroom, You can compare their written work against billions of webpages and millions of books to identify possible areas of plagiarism or passages that may need proper citation. This can help students catch problems before they submit their work, and allow you to easily check student writing while grading.
- 5 Google Classroom Tips You Might Have Overlooked The following slideshow highlights some helpful little features that might have been overlooked or forgotten about. Featured in the slideshow: Posting announcements to multiple classrooms at the same time. | Scheduling announcements to appear at a later date. | Creating topics to organize assignments. | Scheduling assignments. | Using Google Classroom to send bulk email to students and parents.
- 20 tips to use Google Classroom effectively and efficiently
- ADD-ON for Google Classroom
*Share to Classroom Need to get everyone on the same page? Use this add-on to push web pages to any of your Google Classrooms. This makes it easy for you to share content (e.g. announcements, assignments, web pages) with them. Students can also use this add-on to share websites back to their teachers.
* Online Rubric is a Google Sheets add-on to create rubrics. It's a good add-on for those who use Google Sheets but might not use Google Classroom. Those who do use Google Classroom can create within Google Classroom. This short video explains that process. www,freetech4teachers.com - 10 Google Classroom time savers for teachers
- Differentiate Assignments and Discussions
- 30 Ways to Arrange Students for Group work
- Three Tips to Make better Google Classroom Assignments Details on Break out Emojis!, Don't get too attached! and Screencast to save your voice and hair!. Also students to make a copy of a Google Doc
- How to Create Timed Quizzes in Google Classroom
- The process of uploading folders into Google Drive is a straight-forward one. In the following video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Google Classroom Help Videos - Blog post link with all the videos
- Tutorial: Connecting Google Classroom To Your Calendar So Students Can Make Appointments
- Video Series: How to Use Google Classroom - 9 short videos on using Google Classroom for instruction and more.
- ️ Video Series: How to Use Google Hangouts Meet - 13 short videos on using Google Meet for video conferencing with students and more!
- The Google Chat Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Google Hangouts Meet, Chat, and More)
- How to Create and Use a Digital Sign-out Sheet in Google Classroom to keep much better records of when students leave your classroom use a Google Form posted as a material in Google Classroom. video www.freetech4teachers.com
- 6 End-Of-Year Google Classroom Clean-up Tips - Helpful steps to close out your current Google Classrooms and be prepared for a fresh start next school year!
- Video demonstrates how to distribute
- Google Drive Collaborative Features to Help Your Virtual Teaching - Send a comment to a specific person, Transfer ownership of a file, Chat with others, Enable or limit what others can do with your shared, and Share multiple files
- Dedicated Question Space in Google Classroom A best practice in many online courses is to have a dedicated space for students to ask questions and receive responses. It may be helpful to have a discussion question designed for students to ask your questions and where you can provide feedback. Often if one student is confused, there are often other students with similar questions. This dedicated question space can also benefit students who are too shy to ask, because they are able to see your responses to other students. video tutorial | Question Guide
- Apps That Integrate. With Google Classroom
- Google Classroom Quick Tip: Use Private Comments for Reflection
- How to Share Your Videos in Google Classroom - With and Without YouTube
- How to Share Audio and Video in Google Classroom Without YouTube or SoundCloud
- Aww now has Google Classroom integration. This will allow your students to collaborate on a board that works on any device. You can use Aww without an account, which is nice, but there are some advantages to having an account, including using Google Classroom.
- Video to demonstrate how Google Classroom assignments look to students.
- How to Use Kahoot in Google Classroom
- Complete Guide to Google Meet Tools **Tips to keep kids on task in breakout rooms
- New Google Classroom and Google Meet Updates to Note
- Q&A feature in Google Meet is a useful way for your attendees to be able to submit questions and vote on which questions are most important to them. It also allows you an easy way to keep track of the questions, see what is most popular, and then check off the questions as you work through them in your session. The official Q&A feature is only available for people who are using the Enterprise version of the Google suite of tools. If your school does not pay for the Google tools it is not available.
- Google Meet Add-Ons and Updates – Explore a few Chrome extensions that can improve your Google Meet experience, especially for classroom learning.
- How toMonitor Breakout Rooms
- Teaching ideas for breakout rooms
- Five Ideas for Online Breakout Room Activities www.freetech4teachers.com
- Google Meet Add-Ons and Updates A few Chrome extensions can improve your Google Meet experience, especially for classroom learning.
- How to Annotate Your Screen in Google Meet The way to do that is to use a free Chrome extension called Annotate Meet. Annotate Meet lets you draw on top of any tab or window that you share during a Google Meet. Annotate Meet will let you save your drawings as image files. So if you were using Annotate Meet to conduct a math lesson you could save all of your work as an image that you then share with your students in Google Classroom. video a short demonstration of how to use Annotate Meet.
- 🎯Draw or Type on Your Screen in Google Meet Annotate Meet is a Chrome extension that lets you draw on your screen during a Google Meet call. Annotate Meet provides you with a small set of tools that you can use to draw or type on your screen while hosting a Google Meet. To use the extension simply start a Google Meet then share your screen. www.freettech4teachers.com
- CaptionSaver Pro for Google Meet Chrome extension that does two important things for Google Meet users. First, it will automatically turn on captions when you start or join a Google Meet call. Second, it will automatically create a text file containing the captions. That text file can then be downloaded to your computer or sent to your Google Drive. The free version of CaptionSaver Pro for Google Meet will capture the transcript of the captions and then you have to manually save the transcript. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Background blurring and New Meeting Controls With background blurring enabled everything behind me is blurred. With the meeting controls I can specify whether or not students can screen share and whether or not they can use the chat function during a meeting. video tutorials www.freetech4teachers.com
- Here is how to create and moderate polls in Google Meet as explained in Meet Help center Also see the edu-pal below
- Quickly Create Polls and Quizzes in Google Meet With Edu-pal Provides an easy way to quickly create multiple choice, true/false, and free response questions to distribute to your students to answer during a Google Meet call. You can create your question at anytime during your call by simply selecting it from the Edu-pal menu that appears in your Google Meet when you have the extension activated. Students receive a notification in Google Meet that you've posted a question for them to answer. You can see their answers in real-time in Google Meet.
For Edu-pal to work you and your students need to have it installed in Chrome. And it will only work if when using the browser version of Google Meet and not the Google Meet mobile apps. - Tactiq is a new Google Chrome extension that lets you record the captions generated by the automatic captioning tool in Google Meet. You can use it to record and save all captions or select just some captions to save. When the conversation in Google Meet is over, you can save the captions as a text file on your computer or in Google Drive. video tutorial
- 7 New Google Meet Features for Teachers. and 5 newer features www.freetech4teachers.com
* The latest control option (9/8/20) added to Google Meet lets teachers specify whether or not students can share their screens and whether or not students can use the chat function in a Google Meet. The default will still be that students can share their screens, but you'll now be able to disable that option at the start of your Google Meet events
* Google Adds Another Control for Teachers Using Google Meet Google announced the launch of another meeting control for teachers using Google Meet.The latest update to Google Meet introduces a feature that Google is calling Quick Access. This feature will let students within your G Suite for Education domain join a Google Meet without "knocking" first. Fortunately, Google is giving teachers the option to turn off the Quick Access feature. The Quick Access feature for Google Meet can be turned off or on for every meeting that you host. - Grid view option in Google Classroom without having to use a Chrome extension. That wish is starting to be granted. In Google Meet there is now an option to display all meeting participants in a grid view. The grid can be up to a 7x7 display. Enabling the grid view in Google Meet is super easy. All you have to do is start your Google Meet then once people have joined you can open the "more options" menu in the bottom, right corner of your screen to change the layout. In the layout options you'll see a grid. Watch short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Kahoot games through Google Classroom and how students can play those games right from the Announcements stream in Google Classroom.. www.freetech4teachers.com | How to use Kahoot with Google Classroom and Google Meet
- Google has now made it easier to post Google Meet links in Google Classroom. In fact, now you can now have a Google Meet link permanently assigned to each of your classrooms with Google Classroom. This means that you can have the same meeting link for an entire semester or year. I like this because no longer have to worry about remembering to post the link for each online meeting that I have with my students. Instead, we now have the same link for every meeting and I just need to post a quick reminder for my students to join the meeting at our regular meeting times. You can find the new Google Meet and Google Classroom integration in the settings in each of your Google Classrooms. Remember that if you have more than one classroom you will have a different Meet link for each of those classrooms. In the following video learn how to activate the new Google Meet and Google Classroom integration. www,freetech4teachers.com Google Meet Help Videos - Blog post link with all the videos | Google Meet, including its new Google Classroom integration www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet
- How to Schedule, Host, and Customize Google Hangouts Meet Events. www,freetech4teachers.com
- How Can I Use This Tool? You could easily use this tool live through Google Meet or through a recorded screencast.
- Choose Your Own Adventure whiteboard idea from Julia Dweck (@GiftedTawk on Twitter) Check out her example choose your own adventure story here.
- Fig-jam Start by verifying your an educator to get FREE access to all of FigJam's features: Numerous features.Best replacement for jamboard. How to use FigJam in the classroom: 20 ideas + template videos | Convert jamboards to Figjam | Using FigJam with students: A getting started guide | Figjam 101 | Visit figma.com/jamboard-edu to apply for your school/district-level FigJam licenses |This playlist has |awesome quick 1-3 min FigJam tutorials |free, interactive 1-hour course | Setting Up a Lesson in FigJam | FigJam FAQs: Here is the FigJam FAQs for Jamboard Users
- You can do class votes in a FigJam file.
- If you want to share a copy per student of a FigJam I would recommend you first PUBLISH the FigJam template.See FigJam Template Published Share with students the link to the published page. Or just use it yourself, keeps you from accidentally messing up your original!! The other trick with FigJam is to find the question mark (?) in the url and replace it (and everything after it) with /duplicate
- Try All Students on the Same Figjam. Try this, go to the template where there are 30 sections. Students join the FigJam and use the Table of Contents to jump to their own space. Try 30 Student Spaces Use this as a warmup to get students to try out essentially their own whiteboard whilst collaborating.
- timers and music in the app. You don't need to set a timer on your phone or in a separate app. Plus they have sweet ambient music so class doesn't get TOO quiet. (LOL like that would happen ...)
- Hide content with sections. You can group alike content with sections (like info for a specific lesson or topic). When it's grouped in a section, you can move the whole section around as one piece. And if you're not using it, you can hide the entire section to help students focus.
- It has washii tape and stickers. Washii tape is fun tape with designs to organize and decorate. And there are lots of packs of different types of stickers. Who doesn't love that?!?
- Collaboration is fun and effective. You can see other students' pointers when they're on the file. Everyone can see what everyone's doing. Plus the fun "emotes" let students drop quick disappearing emojis to show their feeling in the moment.
- Whiteboard Chat Create collaborative whiteboards to use with your students. It is possible to use Whiteboard Chat without an email address which makes it quick and easy to get started. There are two ways to use Whiteboard Chat. The first is to create one whiteboard that you share with all of your students. The second option is to create individual whiteboards for each student to use that you can also observe. To get started with Whiteboard Chat simply head to the site and click on the big "Start Drawing" button. Next you have the choice of "start collaborating" or "start teaching." The "start collaborating" option will launch a single whiteboard that you can invite your students to join. The "start teaching" option will launch an instructor whiteboard plus a grid of individual whiteboards that you can share with your students. When you use that option each student has his/her own whiteboard to draw on that you can also observe from your computer. Also includes polls, Templates for flowcharts and mind maps, Virtual math manipulatives, Recording audio and video notes to add to whiteboards, Inclusion of Microsoft's Immersive Reader to provide read-aloud capabilities. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Canva Whiteboard Templates whiteboard template Canva account today, you'll probably notice the new whiteboard template options too. whiteboard templates in Canva are intended to be used collaboratively. They can be used for a variety of purposes including hosting brainstorming sessions, designing flowcharts, and making KWL charts. To help you and your collaborators focus on the task at hand, Canva has added a timer option to the whiteboard templates. The timer is found in the bottom, left corner of the templates. You can set the timer of any interval that works for your group. In the short video that is embedded below I demonstrate how to use Canva's new whiteboard templates with a timer. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Make Your Ideas Come to Life with Visme's Whiteboard Feature
Visme is a fantastic free tool that you can use to create dynamic presentations, documents, videos, and more! The free Whiteboard feature has some unique tools, which can be used in many ways! For example, you could have your students use the whiteboard feature to brainstorm ideas, create a graphic describing what they learned in class, create a sketch note, or diagram a process. As a teacher, you could use Visme's whiteboard feature to create a presentation, anchor charts, and brainstorm what students know about a topic. video crash course for using Visme's Whiteboard feature - Make a Whiteboard Video in Flipgrid
Flipgrid has an option for creating whiteboard videos. That feature lets you start video using just your webcam then transition into using a built-in whiteboard function to teach a lesson. This feature has also been integrated into the Flipgrid video tools that are available in Wakelet. video Wakelet video www.freetech4teachers.com - Split Screen Videos in Flipgrid A slight relocation of the whiteboard recording tool. At the same time a new whiteboard option was added. That option is to have a split screen while recording your whiteboard videos in Flipgrid. This option allows you to display your webcam on half of your screen while the other half is used as a whiteboard. But it doesn't have to be a 50/50 split. You can choose how you want to divide your screen. You can see how that's done by watching this short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- 🎯Math Whiteboard is a fabulous, free, collaborative tool designed specifically for math education. It allows the teacher, who shares a link to a collaborative board, to see the work of every student at one time. You can import PDFs for students to work on and annotate, use the included graphing calculator, take advantage of the powerful Computer Algebra System that allows for calculations from arithmetic to calculus, and write or type math formulas and numbers.
- Whiteboard: the original, on a fixed-sized canvas (includes student MWBs)
- Infinity Whiteboard Another math whiteboard by the same teacher No login. Especially easy to upload files like a worksheet. video start at 8:23
- 🎯Lucidspark A collaborative whiteboard tool from the makers of the popular Lucidchart service. It contains tools for placing pre-made shapes, drawing with a pen tool, and adding text to the screen. There is a wide array of color options for all of the elements that you add to your whiteboard in Lucidspark. There are two elements of Lucidspark that differentiate it from some of its competitors. First, Lucidspark offers a large gallery of templates that you can apply to your whiteboard. That gallery includes templates for things like concept maps, flowcharts, empathy maps, and story maps. The sharing menu is the other area in which Lucidspark separates itself from some of its competitors. The sharing options in Lucidspark will remind many people of the options found in Google Docs. You can share your Lucidspark pages as "view only," "comment only," and "edit." You can send collaboration invitations via email or by simply posting a link in your LMS. Here's a video overview of Lucidspark www.freetech4teachers.com
- 🎯FigJam - Resource Link Online diagramming tool that is free for schools. Brainstorm ideas for projects and assignments with sticky notes, shapes, and freehand drawing. Organize thoughts and research with decision trees, diagrams, and mind maps. Collaborate with classmates and teachers in real time with feedback and comments. Plan and run group projects, presentations, and more. Create a Figma account - Help Article Verify education status - Help Article Education templates - https://www.figma.com/@education Here are some useful resources to help you get set up:Best practices and tips: Explore deep-dive guides and bite-sized reads. Virtual events: Tune in weekly for live webinars, office hours, and product demos. Tutorials and playlists: Watch and learn from 100+ videos. Ideate and brainstorm: Try FigJam, our new online whiteboard for teams to explore ideas, together.
- 🎯Whiteboard Fi With Whiteboard Fi you create an online whiteboard for your students to use to draw and type on. After they finish their drawings a submit button lets them send you their finished work, also you see them working in real time. Students don't need an account to use Whiteboard Fi. They simply go to the URL assigned to the whiteboard. You see all of your students' work on one page. Here's a little video overview of the service. www.freetech4teachers.com | Another video how to work with Whiteboard FI | With the combination of Google Meet and Whiteboard Fi you could see all of your students' whiteboards at the same time. In this video it demonstrates how that process can work.
- Whiteboards Good For Collaboration - Miro-a design thinking toolkit and real time collaboration ConceptBoard Capture ideas, brainstorm, create moodboards, plan initiatives, and map out strategies.
- Aww This will allow your students to collaborate on a board that works on any device. You can use Aww without an account, which is nice, but there are some advantages to having an account, including using Google Classroom. It has the capabilities of drawing and writing text. Now has Google Classroom integration.
- -See Think Wonder and Jamboard Based on work done by the Project Zero people over at Harvard Grad School of Education, the See Think Wonder strategy is one of those all purpose thinking routines that can be use across grade levels and content areas. The beauty of STW is that it encourages students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations. And when paired with Jamboard, it can stimulate curiosity and help set the stage for more inquiry. You can find numerous examples online. A simple Google search will connect you with everything from the original Project Zero Thinking Routines page to Teacher Pay Teacher pages. Or you can just stick with this on
- Microsoft Whiteboard is a digital smartboard that allows you to bring your ideas to fruition through a wide variety of expressive forms. You can sketch, draw, write and share your ideas using both pen and touch. Its intuitive freeform canvas enables you to sketch and draw smoothly as you would with ink and through the app's in-built inking technology your drawings and tables are automatically transformed into well-structured creations. Besides drawing and sketching, you can also type out your ideas and add sticky notes and images to bring them to life. Everything you create is saved to the cloud allowing you unlimited access wherever you are. Microsoft Whiteboard's collaborative feature is particularly ideal for distance education and for team projects. You can use it to work on the same canvas with your colleagues and in real time. You can add comments, edit each other's creation, and exchange ideas with one another. Watch the video below to learn more about Microsoft Whiteboard
- Make a Whiteboard Video in Seesaw Seesaw offers a recording tool that you can use to draw and talk at the same time. To do this just create a new announcement or assignment then select the "draw" option when attaching an item. In "draw" you'll find a microphone icon that you can click to start recording while drawing. The recording and drawing will sync together. Students can watch the recording in their Seesaw accounts. www.freetech4teachers.com
How to Use Zoom | Here's how to get started with Zoom. | more getting started tutorial video turtorial
- How to Teach with Zoom
- 4 New Zoom Features Educators Can Use to Enhance Virtual Teaching & Learning - virtual seating chart, Better support deaf & hard-of-hearing students, Enhance select presenters and group work, and More easily manage unmuting Video tutorials
- How to Teach remotely with Zoom video
- Teaching ideas for breakout rooms
- How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet | Think Pair Share | FREE collaborative templates for pairs and small groups!
- The techniques to maximize the impact of using breakout rooms in Zoom. I found out some quite interesting things. | Zoom Breakout Rooms Video | Breakout Discussion Template
- How to Save Zoom Meeting Annotations
- Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom A free iPhone and iPad app called Overviewer. Overviewer is a free app that lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a document camera during a Zoom meeting. The app essentially mirrors your iPhone or iPad camera into Zoom via Airplay or Lightning Bolt cable. Here's an overview www.freetech4teachers.com
- Five Ideas for Online Breakout Room Activities www.freetech4teachers.com
*Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room - How to Improve Audio Playback from Videos in Zoom To improve the quality of the audio when playing a video in a Zoom meeting you need to enable the option to share computer sound. By doing that you'll be broadcasting the audio as it comes out of the video instead of broadcasting the audio that is picked up by your external microphone. Making that switch can eliminate some of the echo and distortion that can occur when sharing a video in Zoom. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- 10 Golden Rules When Teaching with Zoom If you are teaching with Zoom, you will find this useful. It goes through 10 key things you must understand about the way Zoom works. This video will save you lots of heartache and covers some of the most common problems when using Zoom.
- How Google Docs works with Zoom
This is a video if you want to add more variety when teaching online. It focuses on the use of Google Docs and it includes some tricks and tips that will really help you when teaching. The video includes real examples. - Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
- How to Share Your iPhone or iPad Screen in a Zoom Meeting
- How to use the Whiteboard in Zoom | Video tutorial You may want to record the whiteboard session so students can revisit an explanation with a narration. Or use a third party whiteboard that records just the whiteboard session
- 25 Strategies to Engage Students on Your Next Zoom Meeting
- 10 Easy Games For Online Zoom Classes K - 5
- Record yourself giving a lecture using FREE Zoom
- Virtual Backgrounds:
This is an option available to Mac, Windows, and some Chromebook users. This option allows you to place any picture of your choosing in place of the background that is in your default webcam view. It’s possible to use the virtual background as a means for making a green screen video. Here’s a video on how to make a green screen video with Zoom. www.freetech4teachers.com - Create Green Screen Video With Zoom Zoom's desktop client has an option to replace your background with any picture that you want to upload to your Zoom account. The video shows how to edit the video in Spark, but you can use other video editing programs also. Video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Using YouTube to Share Lessons? - Settings and Tools You Need to Know About
- Wakelet A curation tool that allows you to save, organize, tell stories, and share content from around the web. Wakelet has recently a new resource called Templates where you can access a wide variety of useful pre-made templates to help you organize and share online content. There are Newsletter templates to help you share information with your students and colleagues, lesson plan templates.,Ice Breaker templates to use to initiate discussions with students, entry and exit ticket templates, distance learning templates, portfolio and resumes templates, personal activities templates, clubs templates (e.g., book club, book review), and many more. There is also a collection of templates created for students that includes templates for recording class notes, creating task lists, and another one for syllabus information. Crash Course on Creating a Wakelet Collection
🎯Wakelet added a new feature that let's you quickly give feedback to your students and for students to give feedback to each other. That new feature is called Reactions. With Wakelet Reactions you and your students can give feedback in the forms of thumbs-up emojis, smiles, similar positive reactions. www.freetech4teachers.com - Creating Mini-Courses - below
- Learnie is a free learning tool for teachers to create and share mini-courses. You can use this mini-course format for prework before a lesson, or even alongside simple assessments to help students review content. The high-quality interface mirrors other course creation tools, and students can move around the app to access a variety of content.Once students have finished moving through a mini-course, they can share the completed status over email, text, or even copy and paste into a Learning Management System (LMS) you already use. accesss with a mobile app or on the web.
- Microsoft Teams. See the videos on Mike Tholfsen's YouTube channel.
- Know Lounge is a complementary service to the Know Recorder app. Know Lounge lets you create an online room in which you can host tutoring sessions and record videos. The video demonstrates how to use Know Lounge as teacher. video tutorial. Know Lounge now includes a quiz function. You can create a quiz and have students take it during a live session. The results of the quiz can be shared with students or you can keep them private. The quiz function could be helpful in determining whether or not you need to reteach a topic.
- CurrikiGo lets you publish your interactive learning playlists, units, courses directly to custom micro-sites and LMSs in one step!
How to create classroom templates in Google Docs and Slides -- Creating templates with digital documents and slide presentation tools is easy. This post gets you started.
100 FREE templates to use in class tomorrow: This BRAND NEW ebook has tons and tons of templates you can use right away. There are templates for Canva, Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Forms and Genially
2 Learning Profile Templates to Help on the Personalized Learning Journey
Whether you are teaching face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid situation next school year, it is important to get to know our student's needs.Think of students as your customer. Why do they need me? I don't just teach a subject, but I serve as a guide to helping them learn and achieve goals. I might be a quick exit on their educational journey, but my actions could have long-lasting benefits or consequences in their lives. Personalizing learning can be difficult if you do not have an accurate understanding of your student's abilities and challenges; therefore, a learning profile could be a great strategy for getting to know your students better. Here are two examples of profiles that I have made for secondary students, which could easily be adapted to the elementary and middle school classrooms.
Templates for Teachers s a collection of free documents you can copy, modify, and use.
! Book Reviews Name Tents Pamphlets Newsletters Fictional Twitter ...and many more! http://templatesforteachers.com
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
Presentation Game Templates in Canva Numerous selection. One was for a game called This or That. The game is a simple icebreaker type of game that gets people talking to each other. The reason I mention it is that there's a whole category of similar game templates available in Canva. Watch short video on finding game templates www.freetech4teachers.com
The social media reply template Using social media isn't just fun. It's a communication skill. This social media reply template lets students practice posting and replying in an app they can use -- Google Slides! Plus, they can show you what they've learned through their post. In this post, you can copy/download the template to use with your students. Follow step-by-step instructions. Get ideas for using it. I even share secrets about how I made it!
Read: A social media reply Google Slides template for digital citizenship
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
12 social media-inspired Google Slides templatesSince we're talking about making class feel like social media These templates are some of my favorites! Create learning activities that feel like social media that use a tool that students have access to: Google Slides! Check out -- and download/copy -- these templates!
15 Google Forms templates for class tomorrow
How to Create a Google Slides Template directions for creating and editing master slides in Google Slides. A follow-up question regarding using those edited master slides as a template for other presentations. If you're using Google Slides in a G Suite for Education Google Workspaces for Education account, there is a fairly easy way to turn your master slides into a template for you and your students to use and re-use. This video demonstrates how that process works to create a Google Slides template.www.freetech4teachers.com
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Game Templates Family Feud, SnapChat, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? ...
Copy Docs Classes Create copies of documents per group. Make a copy of the template and list each group name on first sheet. Use the "Create Copies" menu to select a file in your Google Drive to copy.
Behavior/Incentive Tracker Templates that can be used individually or as a class. Use these tracker templates to gradually progress your students towards a common goal throughout the day.
More Interactive slides for all content areas K - 8
Breakout Discussion Template
Google Classroom Templates Google provides you with lots of great options for customizing your Google Classroom, but if you are tired of the same options, Canva has you covered. They have a whole collection of templates that you can use to customize your Google Classroom header image. This is a great way to add some personality to your class and also to personalize it so that it better meets the kind of class you teach.
Slidesgo offers a wide variety of free Google Slides and PowerPoint templates to use in your presentations. It also allows you to customize these templates the way you want. The category Education is interesting. There are thesis defense templates, workshop templates, school templates and lesson templates.
50 FREE Templates for Teachers -- You can make a copy of any of these templates and assign them to your students right away.
Displaying Student Assignment Slide Template Displaying student work on the walls of our classroom. Not really plausible when your classroom is a Zoom meeting. But it's not impossible! Virtual art gallery that you can use to create a curated space for your students artwork, videos, written products etc.... Watch this video to learn how you can quickly and easily create a virtual gallery of your students' work.
Book Creator app and website has recently introduced a new interesting feature called templates to help teachers and students design professional looking books in few easy steps. There are now two forms of books on Book Creator: template books and theme books.
Virtual Station Rotation Slide Template
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Station Rotations, here is a template created by Stephanie DeMichele. It can be downloaded for either Google Slides or PowerPoint and includes a spot where you can add an audio message to your students.
Three Secrets to a Successful Station Rotation
Need to Know Template It contains three different components: What Do I Already Know? This is a great way for students to begin thinking about what they already know about a topic. Connecting background knowledge is a great way for students to connect with their topic. What Do I Need to Know? The following section helps students develop questions on what they need to know about their topic. I love including the 5 W's and How questions.What Do You Need to Know? This portion helps students think about their audience as they construct and organize their essay. Students organize their information in a hamburger-type organizer.
Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. Also math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.
Wakelet has recently a new resource called Templates where you can access a wide variety of useful pre-made templates to help you organize and share online content. There are Newsletter templates to help you share information with your students and colleagues, lesson plan templates.,Ice Breaker templates to use to initiate discussions with students, entry and exit ticket templates, distance learning templates, portfolio and resumes templates, personal activities templates, clubs templates (e.g., book club, book review), and many more. There is also a collection of templates created for students that includes templates for recording class notes, creating task lists, and another one for syllabus information.
Digital Notebooks are the most popular tool on slidesmania.com. ● To customize tabs ○ Click Edit > Find and Replace ○ Find: Topic A ○ Replace with: Your Title ● How to Lock Content in Google Slides
Slides Toolbox Lets you to cut the clicks on repeated tasks and brings features for organizing and unifying data in Google Slides.’
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment. This add-on works just like our Google Sheets and Docs add-ons.
Paletti Color your slides at the click of a button! Inspiring colour palettes to save and edit or create your own. 200 palettes are preloaded and ready to use courtesy of COLOURLovers.com.’
Creating Visual Arguments with Google Slides: https://tinyurl.com/y457r66p
Matrix Charts for Powerpoint and Slides "...are designed to present interactions between two or more variables. Basically, they are tables made up of columns and rows that show information and crosstabulation results. The aim, of course, is to simplify the visualization of data that can be sometimes difficult to illustrate and explain."
Meme Students create meme’s to demonstrate their learning.
Recording and Inserting Audio Slide Template How to record audio and save it right in your google drive Insert the audio into your digital learning path Have your students respond to you verbally Make your emails to your parents quicker and more personalized.
Audio Slide Shows
Google Slides icon boards for low-prep, visual thinking more Icons at The Noun Project
Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room
Formative Assessment Templates for Teachers Pear Deck add-on for Google Slides provides you with a collection of pre-designed templates you can choose from to create formative assessments and engage your students in interactive learning experiences. You can choose from templates that embed activities for the start of a lesson or activities to check your students understanding during a lesson. And if you want to create an exit ticket at the end of the lesson, Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom
Hyperdocs – A Hyperdoc infuses two key components: Hyperlinks and Google Docs. (Infographic) Hyperdocs are an interactive Google Doc and provide teachers with a way of presenting information to students in a fun and engaging way. They replace the standard, passive worksheet model of instruction and increase student agency. HyperDocs are much more than Google Docs that contain hyperlinks. They are carefully crafted activities that includes all of the components of the lesson in one central location.I would also encourage you to take the time to visit the Hyperdocs online platform and browse the different templates for different subjects and situations. The process of creating a Hyperdoc is straightforward and really quite easy to follow.
Cyber Sandwich Similar to the Think Pair Share strategy but with technology guidance
Wizer Having the ability to customize a formative assessment based on a student’s learner profile without that being obvious to all students makes differentiation easier. In my opinion, only one tool does this. Because it is deceptively simple, it’s easy to not understand the complexity of this tool. Wizer is a Swiss Army knife for teaching. The creators call it a “digital worksheet” tool, but that gives too much credit to paper worksheets—this is one of the best online differentiation tools out there. It allows teachers to add video, audio, and images to interactive worksheets, making them very accessible to all students. Wizer is simple to use, and other teachers’ digital worksheets are available as well. During quarantine, I interviewed the CEO, Nira Mayorchik Sheleg, and recorded a tutorial with her. I think this free tool is a must-use, although some teachers say it is targeted to younger students.
Worksheet to Wow: 10 ways to upgrade your worksheet. Scroll down to find the embedded slide presentation on the Worksheet to Wow page. Click on a cabinet. When it pops out, click the folder you'd like to see. Want to use any of the ideas in the folders? There are links to all of them in the original Google Slides file for the slide deck. Just look in the speaker notes.
SlidesGo, SlidesMania, and SlidesCarnival These are slide template websites. Each has dozens of beautifully designed Google Slides and PowerPoint templates that are FREE to download and use. Slides Carnival - slidescarnival.com SlideModel - slidemodel.com/google-slides Google's Template Gallery - docs.google.com/presentation/u/0/?ftv=1&tgif=c
Free Guess Who template for Google Slides and PowerPoint.
Have you ever played the ‘Guess who?’ game? Well, with this template you can play the game online with a friend or use it the classroom by replacing the image placeholders with pictures of women in science, presidents, country flags, or any other set of images related to what your students are learning. To play, share a copy of the file with each player. Then each one must copy and paste their character on their slides. To rule out characters, each player can delete them or move them outside the limits of the slide. If you want to use a board with a different color, right click on the slide, click on “Apply layout” and select a different board.
20 free Google Slides and PowerPoint themes for teachers -- SlidesMania creates templates and themes for Google Slides and PowerPoint. Check out 20 of their most useful templates for the classroom -- *plus lesson ideas you can use for each one. | In the Education collection you will find the following templates: Notebook style, Manipulatives, Yearly/Weekly planners, and Choice boards and games. | By Edu for Edu' collection to access templates designed by educators.
15 FREE Google Drawings graphic organizers — and how to make your own
10 Templates of Graphic Organizers
Class Twitter Have students compose their tweets on a spreadsheet. Approve and send.Class Twitter Account: How Your Students Can Tweet tinyurl.com/tweetmyclass
Twitter Chat Moderator Structure a Twitter chat and tweet from the spreadsheet to simplify the process. alicekeeler.com/tweetmod
Rock these creative Google Slides templates in class (Google Teacher Podcast)
Google Slides Interactive Notebooks +20 Activities to Fill Them
12 Social Media-Inspired Google Slides Templates
Newspaper Templates K - 8
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.com
12 must have templates for teachers and students
20 ways to Ditch That Textbook in K-2 (with templates!)
Free PowerPoint & Google Slides Templates Wide collection of free PowerPoint & Google Slides templates, backgrounds, diagrams. Professional quality, exclusive designs.
Netflix Binge LearningTurn binge watching into binge LEARNING with this fully editable template inspired by Netflix!
30+ FREE PowerPoint education templates + how to make them
PowerPoint education templates create meaningful interactive activities for students. Find free templates and how to make your own.
20 free Google Slides and PowerPoint themes for teachers
With more than 150 free PowerPoint or Google Slides themes, you will surely find one that fits your next presentation or project. Many of these templates fit perfectly in the lessons you already teach.
100 FREE templates to use in class tomorrow: This BRAND NEW ebook has tons and tons of templates you can use right away. There are templates for Canva, Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Forms and Genially
2 Learning Profile Templates to Help on the Personalized Learning Journey
Whether you are teaching face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid situation next school year, it is important to get to know our student's needs.Think of students as your customer. Why do they need me? I don't just teach a subject, but I serve as a guide to helping them learn and achieve goals. I might be a quick exit on their educational journey, but my actions could have long-lasting benefits or consequences in their lives. Personalizing learning can be difficult if you do not have an accurate understanding of your student's abilities and challenges; therefore, a learning profile could be a great strategy for getting to know your students better. Here are two examples of profiles that I have made for secondary students, which could easily be adapted to the elementary and middle school classrooms.
- SWOT Analysis tool (Docs)
- Get a copy of the Learner Profile tool (Docs)
Templates for Teachers s a collection of free documents you can copy, modify, and use.
! Book Reviews Name Tents Pamphlets Newsletters Fictional Twitter ...and many more! http://templatesforteachers.com
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
Presentation Game Templates in Canva Numerous selection. One was for a game called This or That. The game is a simple icebreaker type of game that gets people talking to each other. The reason I mention it is that there's a whole category of similar game templates available in Canva. Watch short video on finding game templates www.freetech4teachers.com
The social media reply template Using social media isn't just fun. It's a communication skill. This social media reply template lets students practice posting and replying in an app they can use -- Google Slides! Plus, they can show you what they've learned through their post. In this post, you can copy/download the template to use with your students. Follow step-by-step instructions. Get ideas for using it. I even share secrets about how I made it!
Read: A social media reply Google Slides template for digital citizenship
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
12 social media-inspired Google Slides templatesSince we're talking about making class feel like social media These templates are some of my favorites! Create learning activities that feel like social media that use a tool that students have access to: Google Slides! Check out -- and download/copy -- these templates!
15 Google Forms templates for class tomorrow
How to Create a Google Slides Template directions for creating and editing master slides in Google Slides. A follow-up question regarding using those edited master slides as a template for other presentations. If you're using Google Slides in a G Suite for Education Google Workspaces for Education account, there is a fairly easy way to turn your master slides into a template for you and your students to use and re-use. This video demonstrates how that process works to create a Google Slides template.www.freetech4teachers.com
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Game Templates Family Feud, SnapChat, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? ...
Copy Docs Classes Create copies of documents per group. Make a copy of the template and list each group name on first sheet. Use the "Create Copies" menu to select a file in your Google Drive to copy.
Behavior/Incentive Tracker Templates that can be used individually or as a class. Use these tracker templates to gradually progress your students towards a common goal throughout the day.
More Interactive slides for all content areas K - 8
Breakout Discussion Template
Google Classroom Templates Google provides you with lots of great options for customizing your Google Classroom, but if you are tired of the same options, Canva has you covered. They have a whole collection of templates that you can use to customize your Google Classroom header image. This is a great way to add some personality to your class and also to personalize it so that it better meets the kind of class you teach.
Slidesgo offers a wide variety of free Google Slides and PowerPoint templates to use in your presentations. It also allows you to customize these templates the way you want. The category Education is interesting. There are thesis defense templates, workshop templates, school templates and lesson templates.
50 FREE Templates for Teachers -- You can make a copy of any of these templates and assign them to your students right away.
Displaying Student Assignment Slide Template Displaying student work on the walls of our classroom. Not really plausible when your classroom is a Zoom meeting. But it's not impossible! Virtual art gallery that you can use to create a curated space for your students artwork, videos, written products etc.... Watch this video to learn how you can quickly and easily create a virtual gallery of your students' work.
Book Creator app and website has recently introduced a new interesting feature called templates to help teachers and students design professional looking books in few easy steps. There are now two forms of books on Book Creator: template books and theme books.
Virtual Station Rotation Slide Template
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Station Rotations, here is a template created by Stephanie DeMichele. It can be downloaded for either Google Slides or PowerPoint and includes a spot where you can add an audio message to your students.
Three Secrets to a Successful Station Rotation
Need to Know Template It contains three different components: What Do I Already Know? This is a great way for students to begin thinking about what they already know about a topic. Connecting background knowledge is a great way for students to connect with their topic. What Do I Need to Know? The following section helps students develop questions on what they need to know about their topic. I love including the 5 W's and How questions.What Do You Need to Know? This portion helps students think about their audience as they construct and organize their essay. Students organize their information in a hamburger-type organizer.
Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. Also math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.
Wakelet has recently a new resource called Templates where you can access a wide variety of useful pre-made templates to help you organize and share online content. There are Newsletter templates to help you share information with your students and colleagues, lesson plan templates.,Ice Breaker templates to use to initiate discussions with students, entry and exit ticket templates, distance learning templates, portfolio and resumes templates, personal activities templates, clubs templates (e.g., book club, book review), and many more. There is also a collection of templates created for students that includes templates for recording class notes, creating task lists, and another one for syllabus information.
Digital Notebooks are the most popular tool on slidesmania.com. ● To customize tabs ○ Click Edit > Find and Replace ○ Find: Topic A ○ Replace with: Your Title ● How to Lock Content in Google Slides
Slides Toolbox Lets you to cut the clicks on repeated tasks and brings features for organizing and unifying data in Google Slides.’
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment. This add-on works just like our Google Sheets and Docs add-ons.
Paletti Color your slides at the click of a button! Inspiring colour palettes to save and edit or create your own. 200 palettes are preloaded and ready to use courtesy of COLOURLovers.com.’
Creating Visual Arguments with Google Slides: https://tinyurl.com/y457r66p
Matrix Charts for Powerpoint and Slides "...are designed to present interactions between two or more variables. Basically, they are tables made up of columns and rows that show information and crosstabulation results. The aim, of course, is to simplify the visualization of data that can be sometimes difficult to illustrate and explain."
Meme Students create meme’s to demonstrate their learning.
Recording and Inserting Audio Slide Template How to record audio and save it right in your google drive Insert the audio into your digital learning path Have your students respond to you verbally Make your emails to your parents quicker and more personalized.
Audio Slide Shows
Google Slides icon boards for low-prep, visual thinking more Icons at The Noun Project
Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room
Formative Assessment Templates for Teachers Pear Deck add-on for Google Slides provides you with a collection of pre-designed templates you can choose from to create formative assessments and engage your students in interactive learning experiences. You can choose from templates that embed activities for the start of a lesson or activities to check your students understanding during a lesson. And if you want to create an exit ticket at the end of the lesson, Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom
Hyperdocs – A Hyperdoc infuses two key components: Hyperlinks and Google Docs. (Infographic) Hyperdocs are an interactive Google Doc and provide teachers with a way of presenting information to students in a fun and engaging way. They replace the standard, passive worksheet model of instruction and increase student agency. HyperDocs are much more than Google Docs that contain hyperlinks. They are carefully crafted activities that includes all of the components of the lesson in one central location.I would also encourage you to take the time to visit the Hyperdocs online platform and browse the different templates for different subjects and situations. The process of creating a Hyperdoc is straightforward and really quite easy to follow.
- 20+ HyperDocs tips, ideas and templates to use right away -- Get started using HyperDocs! They're very student-centered activities that your students will love.
- Click here to see an example of a HyperDoc
- The HyperDocs Toolbox: 20 engaging example activities
- How to Make a HyperDoc More Engaging with Genially
- Novel HyperDocs: 25 ready to use units for your class interactive HyperDocs filled with paired texts, engaging media and interactive activities. Scroll down the page to see the list. If you feel inspired to create your own HyperDoc using the template
- Hyperdocs Galore If you love using interactive hyperdocs with your students for greater engagement and content mastery, then you must check out this HUGE collection. The Peterson website has hundreds, if not thousands, of hyperdocs ready for you to make a copy of and start using. A long list. But you can also access them by subject area in the categories across the top of the page (and then down the right-hand side). And you’ll find the CTRL-F shortcut very useful for searching for your topic on the page.
- the free "Teachers Give Teachers" Hyperdocs gallery. Click here to learn more!
Cyber Sandwich Similar to the Think Pair Share strategy but with technology guidance
- 10+ FREE EduProtocol templates + ideas for using them -- EduProtocols are "lesson frames" ... the idea of the lesson stays the same, but the content changes. This makes them very efficient and effective. They're fun, too! Use the templates with your students.
Wizer Having the ability to customize a formative assessment based on a student’s learner profile without that being obvious to all students makes differentiation easier. In my opinion, only one tool does this. Because it is deceptively simple, it’s easy to not understand the complexity of this tool. Wizer is a Swiss Army knife for teaching. The creators call it a “digital worksheet” tool, but that gives too much credit to paper worksheets—this is one of the best online differentiation tools out there. It allows teachers to add video, audio, and images to interactive worksheets, making them very accessible to all students. Wizer is simple to use, and other teachers’ digital worksheets are available as well. During quarantine, I interviewed the CEO, Nira Mayorchik Sheleg, and recorded a tutorial with her. I think this free tool is a must-use, although some teachers say it is targeted to younger students.
Worksheet to Wow: 10 ways to upgrade your worksheet. Scroll down to find the embedded slide presentation on the Worksheet to Wow page. Click on a cabinet. When it pops out, click the folder you'd like to see. Want to use any of the ideas in the folders? There are links to all of them in the original Google Slides file for the slide deck. Just look in the speaker notes.
SlidesGo, SlidesMania, and SlidesCarnival These are slide template websites. Each has dozens of beautifully designed Google Slides and PowerPoint templates that are FREE to download and use. Slides Carnival - slidescarnival.com SlideModel - slidemodel.com/google-slides Google's Template Gallery - docs.google.com/presentation/u/0/?ftv=1&tgif=c
Free Guess Who template for Google Slides and PowerPoint.
Have you ever played the ‘Guess who?’ game? Well, with this template you can play the game online with a friend or use it the classroom by replacing the image placeholders with pictures of women in science, presidents, country flags, or any other set of images related to what your students are learning. To play, share a copy of the file with each player. Then each one must copy and paste their character on their slides. To rule out characters, each player can delete them or move them outside the limits of the slide. If you want to use a board with a different color, right click on the slide, click on “Apply layout” and select a different board.
20 free Google Slides and PowerPoint themes for teachers -- SlidesMania creates templates and themes for Google Slides and PowerPoint. Check out 20 of their most useful templates for the classroom -- *plus lesson ideas you can use for each one. | In the Education collection you will find the following templates: Notebook style, Manipulatives, Yearly/Weekly planners, and Choice boards and games. | By Edu for Edu' collection to access templates designed by educators.
15 FREE Google Drawings graphic organizers — and how to make your own
10 Templates of Graphic Organizers
Class Twitter Have students compose their tweets on a spreadsheet. Approve and send.Class Twitter Account: How Your Students Can Tweet tinyurl.com/tweetmyclass
Twitter Chat Moderator Structure a Twitter chat and tweet from the spreadsheet to simplify the process. alicekeeler.com/tweetmod
Rock these creative Google Slides templates in class (Google Teacher Podcast)
Google Slides Interactive Notebooks +20 Activities to Fill Them
12 Social Media-Inspired Google Slides Templates
Newspaper Templates K - 8
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.com
12 must have templates for teachers and students
20 ways to Ditch That Textbook in K-2 (with templates!)
Free PowerPoint & Google Slides Templates Wide collection of free PowerPoint & Google Slides templates, backgrounds, diagrams. Professional quality, exclusive designs.
Netflix Binge LearningTurn binge watching into binge LEARNING with this fully editable template inspired by Netflix!
30+ FREE PowerPoint education templates + how to make them
PowerPoint education templates create meaningful interactive activities for students. Find free templates and how to make your own.
20 free Google Slides and PowerPoint themes for teachers
With more than 150 free PowerPoint or Google Slides themes, you will surely find one that fits your next presentation or project. Many of these templates fit perfectly in the lessons you already teach.
article “Making Online Discussions Meaningful”
Asynchronous Learning Tips for Teachers
Discussion Protocols Chart | More Discussion Protocols to help with responses
article The Pedagogy of Digital Discussion
article 30 Ways to Arrange Students for Group work
Great tips for teacher responses when teaching in online forums/discussions with a large group
TAG Framework to engage student discussions - download your own copy here!
Using chat to check for understanding: After giving lessons last spring, Paul France had his third-grade students use the Google Chat feature to ask and answer questions or type in emojis, like a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, to show whether they understood a concept. To create structure around the responses, he guided his students in creating norms around using the chat feature—they decided as a group to use only one emoji at a time, for example. France said the practice helped him check for student understanding and pushed students to engage more with the content.
Volley for asynchronous audio, video, and text discussion. Volley is kind of like Flipgrid meets Slack. You can create discussion groups in which participants can reply via video, audio, or text. The thing that I like about it is that discussions can be broken out into new directions based on how group members reply to the original discussion prompt. www.freetech4teachers.com
Flipgrid has been a go-to tool for online discussion for a few years now. The trouble that I ran into was that some kids weren’t comfortable knowing that the whole class would see their video replies to my discussion prompts. To remedy that, I created smaller subgroups that had just three to five students in them. Yes, it made a little more work for me to manage all the groups, but the benefit to students is worth it. On a related note, Flipgrid just made it a lot easier to create groups. www.freetech4teachers.com
Spaces is a digital portfolio tool that has an asynchronous breakout room capability. You can assign students to specific group Spaces to share with each other and with you. A group Spaces space is a place where students can share their work in progress and get feedback from each other as well as from their teacher. For example, last spring some of my computer science students were working on semester-long projects. I put them into group Spaces where they shared bits of their design work and bits of their programming work. They then got feedback from their classmates as well as from me in the form of video messages. www.freetech4teachers.com
Kialo Edu is a public discussion platform designed to facilitate reasoned debates about complex topics online. Its tools promote collaborative discussions, attracting millions of contributions. Kialo Edu is a version of Kialo optimized for classroom use. With clear visualization of ideas and easy to use navigation tools, Kialo is the perfect resource to promote intercollegiate collaboration, debate, and student critical thinking. tutorial
Padlet is an online bulletin board where you can display text, images, video, and more. Padlets can be embedded in blog posts. It used to be free but now there is a limit of three Padlets before you need to upgrade
Trello A collaborative tool for everything from project planning and research to class brainstorming. Easy-to-use interface makes task simple. video tutorial that covers teacher and student implementation
Vialogue is an online video with a group discussion feature. Upload a video of your own, from YouTube or one of the public videos available on Vialogue. Define the purpose of the Vialogue, provide some discussion questions, and click create to finish.
Gitmind is a free web-based tool that makes creating mindmaps and flowcharts easy to do. video
Mindmeister brainstorm graphic organizer. A nice feature is that you can access. the history of the additions to the map to see who was involved.
Answer Garden short simple brainstorming and collaboration tutorial
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Resources For Learning About The Jigsaw Instructional Strategy
Web-based Jigsaw
JigSaw Create a collaborative JigSaw activity with Google Slides
Fishbowl activities involve two groups of learners: One group is in the “Fishbowl,” while the other group is designated as “Observers.” The idea is that the Fishbowl students speak, while the Observers listen carefully and cannot respond for a specified period of time. This activity can easily be facilitated online with a threaded discussion board. To do so, divide your class into two groups, allowing group 1 (Fishbowl) to contribute the first half of the week and group 2 (Observers) to contribute the second half. Often useful for group prob.em solving
Think - Pair - Share In a remote situation it would be think, randomly group in a breakout room, and share | FREE collaborative templates for pairs and small groups!
Discussion Carousel
Group Facetime
Google Meet Backchannel Chat - Safe Secure Classroom Discussions "Backchannel Chat is a class discussion tool that was designed from the ground up to support teachers.Backchannels are great for increasing participation in classroom discussions and for informally assessing your students’ knowledge."
Mentimeter Students click on a continuum line where they stand on an issue. then they can defend their position. Good for a quick debate. Complete training in using Mentimeter There are other response capabilities also like student questions,
Parlay Teacher can organize discussion and ensure everyone participates. Can be in real time or asynchronous. A nice feature is the teacher's capability to see student notes and encourage them to participate with their ideas.
YoTeach! A multi-featured backchannel web app where teachers create and moderate chat rooms for real-time digital interaction among students. Teachers choose the Create a Room option to create searchable or private rooms. Most teachers will want to enable the admin features, which require a password to delete posts, mute students, control room access, and use the interactive features. Teachers will have to enter the password again after setting up the room in order to make these features show up during moderation.
The Queue – Free educational chat tool that mirrors Twitter and allows teachers to post questions and students to respond via the thread. Students can respond via text or video, and the tool allows “journeys” in which teachers introduce a topic via video and connect students to participating
Asynchronous Learning Tips for Teachers
Discussion Protocols Chart | More Discussion Protocols to help with responses
article The Pedagogy of Digital Discussion
article 30 Ways to Arrange Students for Group work
Great tips for teacher responses when teaching in online forums/discussions with a large group
TAG Framework to engage student discussions - download your own copy here!
Using chat to check for understanding: After giving lessons last spring, Paul France had his third-grade students use the Google Chat feature to ask and answer questions or type in emojis, like a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, to show whether they understood a concept. To create structure around the responses, he guided his students in creating norms around using the chat feature—they decided as a group to use only one emoji at a time, for example. France said the practice helped him check for student understanding and pushed students to engage more with the content.
Volley for asynchronous audio, video, and text discussion. Volley is kind of like Flipgrid meets Slack. You can create discussion groups in which participants can reply via video, audio, or text. The thing that I like about it is that discussions can be broken out into new directions based on how group members reply to the original discussion prompt. www.freetech4teachers.com
Flipgrid has been a go-to tool for online discussion for a few years now. The trouble that I ran into was that some kids weren’t comfortable knowing that the whole class would see their video replies to my discussion prompts. To remedy that, I created smaller subgroups that had just three to five students in them. Yes, it made a little more work for me to manage all the groups, but the benefit to students is worth it. On a related note, Flipgrid just made it a lot easier to create groups. www.freetech4teachers.com
Spaces is a digital portfolio tool that has an asynchronous breakout room capability. You can assign students to specific group Spaces to share with each other and with you. A group Spaces space is a place where students can share their work in progress and get feedback from each other as well as from their teacher. For example, last spring some of my computer science students were working on semester-long projects. I put them into group Spaces where they shared bits of their design work and bits of their programming work. They then got feedback from their classmates as well as from me in the form of video messages. www.freetech4teachers.com
Kialo Edu is a public discussion platform designed to facilitate reasoned debates about complex topics online. Its tools promote collaborative discussions, attracting millions of contributions. Kialo Edu is a version of Kialo optimized for classroom use. With clear visualization of ideas and easy to use navigation tools, Kialo is the perfect resource to promote intercollegiate collaboration, debate, and student critical thinking. tutorial
Padlet is an online bulletin board where you can display text, images, video, and more. Padlets can be embedded in blog posts. It used to be free but now there is a limit of three Padlets before you need to upgrade
Trello A collaborative tool for everything from project planning and research to class brainstorming. Easy-to-use interface makes task simple. video tutorial that covers teacher and student implementation
Vialogue is an online video with a group discussion feature. Upload a video of your own, from YouTube or one of the public videos available on Vialogue. Define the purpose of the Vialogue, provide some discussion questions, and click create to finish.
Gitmind is a free web-based tool that makes creating mindmaps and flowcharts easy to do. video
Mindmeister brainstorm graphic organizer. A nice feature is that you can access. the history of the additions to the map to see who was involved.
Answer Garden short simple brainstorming and collaboration tutorial
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Resources For Learning About The Jigsaw Instructional Strategy
Web-based Jigsaw
JigSaw Create a collaborative JigSaw activity with Google Slides
Fishbowl activities involve two groups of learners: One group is in the “Fishbowl,” while the other group is designated as “Observers.” The idea is that the Fishbowl students speak, while the Observers listen carefully and cannot respond for a specified period of time. This activity can easily be facilitated online with a threaded discussion board. To do so, divide your class into two groups, allowing group 1 (Fishbowl) to contribute the first half of the week and group 2 (Observers) to contribute the second half. Often useful for group prob.em solving
Think - Pair - Share In a remote situation it would be think, randomly group in a breakout room, and share | FREE collaborative templates for pairs and small groups!
Discussion Carousel
Group Facetime
Google Meet Backchannel Chat - Safe Secure Classroom Discussions "Backchannel Chat is a class discussion tool that was designed from the ground up to support teachers.Backchannels are great for increasing participation in classroom discussions and for informally assessing your students’ knowledge."
Mentimeter Students click on a continuum line where they stand on an issue. then they can defend their position. Good for a quick debate. Complete training in using Mentimeter There are other response capabilities also like student questions,
Parlay Teacher can organize discussion and ensure everyone participates. Can be in real time or asynchronous. A nice feature is the teacher's capability to see student notes and encourage them to participate with their ideas.
YoTeach! A multi-featured backchannel web app where teachers create and moderate chat rooms for real-time digital interaction among students. Teachers choose the Create a Room option to create searchable or private rooms. Most teachers will want to enable the admin features, which require a password to delete posts, mute students, control room access, and use the interactive features. Teachers will have to enter the password again after setting up the room in order to make these features show up during moderation.
The Queue – Free educational chat tool that mirrors Twitter and allows teachers to post questions and students to respond via the thread. Students can respond via text or video, and the tool allows “journeys” in which teachers introduce a topic via video and connect students to participating
Examples of how Screencasts or Recorded Videos are Being Used:
Use the Drawing Tools in Screencastify for Chromebooks
Screencastify had already made most of their features free to teachers. Now they offer all of them for free. To record a whiteboard style video with Screencastify first open a blank white Google Slide then start recording. While recording use Screencastify's built-in drawing tools to draw over that slide while you're recording your video. Short tutorial | How to Build Questions Into Screencastify Videos | How to Blur Faces in Videos With Screencastify
🎯Screencastify Makes Video Quizzes Easier with Interactive Questions Feature -
1. Microphone settings
2. Enabling/ disabling system audio.
3. Enabling drawing tools and how to use them.
4. Highlighting cursor on click.
5. Integrating more sharing options like EDpuzzle and Wakelet. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Jamboard & Screencastify to Make Whiteboard Videos
Google Screencast for ChromeOS Record all or a portion of the screen, record webcam and voice, generate a transcript of the recording, translate into a different language, and editing the video by using the transcript. video The Screencast app is available on all ChromeOS devices with Chrome version 103 or later. If you don’t see the app in the launcher, upgrade your device. For details, see Update your Chromebook's operating system.
Flipgrid Shorts A wide variety of tools to enhance screencasts. You can use whiteboard, share your screen and application. tutorial
ScreenPal | video tutorial (Now rebranded ScreenPal)The recording length limit on Screencast-o-matic's free plan is a generous fifteen minutes. And the cursor highlighting is fantastic. The ability to reposition the webcam cutout is also handy. www.freetech4teachers.com
Quicktime is a Mac-friendly tool that allows users to record just audio or create video recordings.I almost always use Quicktime on my Mac. QuickTime lets you record your full screen or just a portion of your screen for screen recording. I really like how it lets you drag the window, so it captures just one area of your screen before pressing record. Open QuickTime from your Applications folder, then choose File > New Screen Recording from the menu bar. To trim a QuickTime video clip, open the video file in the QuickTime Player application. Go to Edit/Trim in QuickTime Player. Choose the area you want to save by dragging the yellow handles; the content highlighted in the yellow rectangle will be the clip that will be saved.
RecordCast brings the functionality of Screencastify and Loom Pro, but without requiring browser add-ons or downloads. That, and its “FREE” label make it an amazing find. It has a 30-minute time limit for recordings and offers a timeline that allows you to add audio tracks and overlay text. You can also record your screen, screen and webcam, or webcam only. To use the program, you will need to create an account and verify your email.
Threadit lets you record videos with your webcam and record screencast videos. You can record multiple clips and "thread" them together as little chapters or segments in a series. The collaboration aspect is that you can invite people to join your thread and record video clips to add into the thread that you've started. Much like Google Docs, Threadit video threads can be shared with individuals or with the world at large. Threadit doesn't have the cute emojis or picture frames that Flipgrid offers. But it does offer that Flipgrid doesn't offer. The first is templates for creating threads of tutorial videos. The second is a Chrome extension that lets you record videos from your inbox. www.freetech4teachers.com
Cloud App allows you to record both your screen and your camera. Cloud App also enables you to capture your screen recording as an animated GIF. You can create GIFs that are up to 30 seconds long and share them with others through a generated link or embed them in your email or blog. Besides GIFs, Cloud App also enables you to create screenshots of your entire screen or just a portion of it. Using annotating tools, you can easily annotate your videos, GIFs and screenshots by adding lines, highlights, arrows, drawings, emojis, and text. Another useful feature of CloudApp is files 'upload and share'. You can "Upload files of any type and transform them into shareable links so you can forget the “failed to upload” error messages. Choose to protect them with a password and expiration date and keep them secure and searchable in one organized place."CloudApp will automatically upgrade your account if you're a K12 teacher or student registering with a valid educational email address. You simply need to sign up for a free account and fill out a quick prompt so it can be enabled.
Know Lounge is a complementary service to the Know Recorder app. Know Lounge lets you create an online room in which you can host tutoring sessions and record videos. The video demonstrates how to use Know Lounge as teacher. video tutorial. Know Lounge now includes a quiz function. You can create a quiz and have students take it during a live session. The results of the quiz can be shared with students or you can keep them private. The quiz function could be helpful in determining whether or not you need to reteach a topic.
Five Ways to Make Whiteboard Instructional Videos in Your Web Browser
RecordCast brings the functionality of Screencastify and Loom Pro. No browser add-ons or downloads are required. RecordCast works without a special browser add-on or extension. That, and its “FREE”. RecordCast enjoys a thirty-minute time limit for recordings. It combines the ease of use with two important factors: a timeline that allows you to add audio tracks and overlay text. You can also record your screen, screen plus webcam, or webcam only. RecordCast’s video editor shine is image import. You can import images and place them on their own track. It does not have drawing tools like some other tools. Be aware that, in order to use the program, you will need to create an account, as well as verify your email. Video tutorial (start at 1:54)
Screencastify Screen Recorder for Chrome Browser
Cross Platform Drawing
Sketchbook by Autodesk
TechSmith Capture for free to use on Windows and Mac computers. Like its predecessor Jing TechSmith Capture can be used to create screencast videos and capture screen images. www.freetech4teachers
frontcam.com/ free and pro version both have similar capabilities
WeVideo Cloud based video editing tool that allows students and teachers to get creative. Students could have fun responding to some of learning tasks as a video and can collaborate with peers on projects. WeVideo have also recently introduced screencasting.
Create Khan Academy Videos
- A video introduction or screencast for key lessons (might not be possible for all lessons).
- A screencast of whiteboard explanation
- A short welcome video each morning and/or reflection video each afternoon.
- A screencast to offer feedback on student work and progress.
- Student created screencasts to demonstrate learning.
Use the Drawing Tools in Screencastify for Chromebooks
Screencastify had already made most of their features free to teachers. Now they offer all of them for free. To record a whiteboard style video with Screencastify first open a blank white Google Slide then start recording. While recording use Screencastify's built-in drawing tools to draw over that slide while you're recording your video. Short tutorial | How to Build Questions Into Screencastify Videos | How to Blur Faces in Videos With Screencastify
- Screencastify is an excellent tool for quickly creating screencast videos. What you might not know is that you can also use Screencastify's free video editor to edit videos that you've recorded with other tools. For example, I recorded a video on my phone then transferred it to my laptop where I used Screencastify's free video editor to blur things in my video. short video The new free version of Screencastify increases the recording time for your videos from five minutes to thirty minutes. That's a huge change! The trade-off is that you now can only store ten videos in your free Screencastify account. That's also a huge change! The previous free version allowed unlimited videos as long as they were under the five minute limit. You can still export all of your videos as MP4 files. So if you find that you bump up against the ten video limit, you can export one or delete one to get back under that limit. www.freetech4teachers.com
🎯Screencastify Makes Video Quizzes Easier with Interactive Questions Feature -
- Interactive Questions to add multiple choice quizzes to your videos so you can assess student understanding
- And Viewer Analytics to see who has viewed your videos to track student engagement
- Five Interesting Ways to Use Screencastify in Your Classroom
1. Microphone settings
2. Enabling/ disabling system audio.
3. Enabling drawing tools and how to use them.
4. Highlighting cursor on click.
5. Integrating more sharing options like EDpuzzle and Wakelet. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Jamboard & Screencastify to Make Whiteboard Videos
Google Screencast for ChromeOS Record all or a portion of the screen, record webcam and voice, generate a transcript of the recording, translate into a different language, and editing the video by using the transcript. video The Screencast app is available on all ChromeOS devices with Chrome version 103 or later. If you don’t see the app in the launcher, upgrade your device. For details, see Update your Chromebook's operating system.
Flipgrid Shorts A wide variety of tools to enhance screencasts. You can use whiteboard, share your screen and application. tutorial
ScreenPal | video tutorial (Now rebranded ScreenPal)The recording length limit on Screencast-o-matic's free plan is a generous fifteen minutes. And the cursor highlighting is fantastic. The ability to reposition the webcam cutout is also handy. www.freetech4teachers.com
Quicktime is a Mac-friendly tool that allows users to record just audio or create video recordings.I almost always use Quicktime on my Mac. QuickTime lets you record your full screen or just a portion of your screen for screen recording. I really like how it lets you drag the window, so it captures just one area of your screen before pressing record. Open QuickTime from your Applications folder, then choose File > New Screen Recording from the menu bar. To trim a QuickTime video clip, open the video file in the QuickTime Player application. Go to Edit/Trim in QuickTime Player. Choose the area you want to save by dragging the yellow handles; the content highlighted in the yellow rectangle will be the clip that will be saved.
RecordCast brings the functionality of Screencastify and Loom Pro, but without requiring browser add-ons or downloads. That, and its “FREE” label make it an amazing find. It has a 30-minute time limit for recordings and offers a timeline that allows you to add audio tracks and overlay text. You can also record your screen, screen and webcam, or webcam only. To use the program, you will need to create an account and verify your email.
Threadit lets you record videos with your webcam and record screencast videos. You can record multiple clips and "thread" them together as little chapters or segments in a series. The collaboration aspect is that you can invite people to join your thread and record video clips to add into the thread that you've started. Much like Google Docs, Threadit video threads can be shared with individuals or with the world at large. Threadit doesn't have the cute emojis or picture frames that Flipgrid offers. But it does offer that Flipgrid doesn't offer. The first is templates for creating threads of tutorial videos. The second is a Chrome extension that lets you record videos from your inbox. www.freetech4teachers.com
Cloud App allows you to record both your screen and your camera. Cloud App also enables you to capture your screen recording as an animated GIF. You can create GIFs that are up to 30 seconds long and share them with others through a generated link or embed them in your email or blog. Besides GIFs, Cloud App also enables you to create screenshots of your entire screen or just a portion of it. Using annotating tools, you can easily annotate your videos, GIFs and screenshots by adding lines, highlights, arrows, drawings, emojis, and text. Another useful feature of CloudApp is files 'upload and share'. You can "Upload files of any type and transform them into shareable links so you can forget the “failed to upload” error messages. Choose to protect them with a password and expiration date and keep them secure and searchable in one organized place."CloudApp will automatically upgrade your account if you're a K12 teacher or student registering with a valid educational email address. You simply need to sign up for a free account and fill out a quick prompt so it can be enabled.
Know Lounge is a complementary service to the Know Recorder app. Know Lounge lets you create an online room in which you can host tutoring sessions and record videos. The video demonstrates how to use Know Lounge as teacher. video tutorial. Know Lounge now includes a quiz function. You can create a quiz and have students take it during a live session. The results of the quiz can be shared with students or you can keep them private. The quiz function could be helpful in determining whether or not you need to reteach a topic.
Five Ways to Make Whiteboard Instructional Videos in Your Web Browser
RecordCast brings the functionality of Screencastify and Loom Pro. No browser add-ons or downloads are required. RecordCast works without a special browser add-on or extension. That, and its “FREE”. RecordCast enjoys a thirty-minute time limit for recordings. It combines the ease of use with two important factors: a timeline that allows you to add audio tracks and overlay text. You can also record your screen, screen plus webcam, or webcam only. RecordCast’s video editor shine is image import. You can import images and place them on their own track. It does not have drawing tools like some other tools. Be aware that, in order to use the program, you will need to create an account, as well as verify your email. Video tutorial (start at 1:54)
Screencastify Screen Recorder for Chrome Browser
- Screencastify Submit lets you create an assignment for your students to complete by making videos with Screencastify. Screencastify a great way for students to send short videos to the teacher without their classmates seeing them.You can post the assignment link in Google Classroom or any other LMS and when students click the link they can instantly start recording. The ease of integration with Google Classroom and EDpuzzle is particularly nice. There are some convenient tools for drawing on your screen while recording. That function is great for emphasizing a particular item on your screen or creating a whiteboard video with Jamboard. In the free version of Screencastify's editor you can overlay text on your video.Students don't need to have the Screencastify extension installed in order to record videos via Screencastify Submit. Students' completed videos appear in a folder in your Google Drive. This video offers a good overview of the service. www.freetech4teachers.com 🎯Screencastify Makes Video Quizzes Easier with Interactive Questions Feature -
- Interactive Questions to add multiple choice quizzes to your videos so you can assess student understanding
- And Viewer Analytics to see who has viewed your videos to track student engagement
- 11-minute video walkthrough here: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2021/08/screencastify-quiz.html
- Use Screencastify with Edpuzzle
- How to Add Background Music to Screencastify Videos www.freetech4teacherscom
- Create Animated GIF's with Screencastify (Perfect for Scaffolding Instructions) "Are you noticing that your students may be skipping certain tasks because they are not fully reading your instructions? Adding animated GIF's could be a helpful idea. This may also help students who are more visual or need an additional scaffold or support for completing a task."
- 🎯Screencastify Makes Video Quizzes Easier with Interactive Questions Feature -
Interactive Questions to add multiple choice quizzes to your videos so you can assess student understanding And Viewer Analytics to see who has viewed your videos to track student engagement 11-minute video walkthrough here: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2021/08/screencastify-quiz.html
Cross Platform Drawing
Sketchbook by Autodesk
TechSmith Capture for free to use on Windows and Mac computers. Like its predecessor Jing TechSmith Capture can be used to create screencast videos and capture screen images. www.freetech4teachers
frontcam.com/ free and pro version both have similar capabilities
WeVideo Cloud based video editing tool that allows students and teachers to get creative. Students could have fun responding to some of learning tasks as a video and can collaborate with peers on projects. WeVideo have also recently introduced screencasting.
Create Khan Academy Videos
- Create Khan Academy Style Video Tutorials with ScreenChomp an iPad app
- ShowMe iPad app
- Educreations It’s similar in its features with ScreenChomp and ShowMe, though it records a longer lesson (10 minutes)
- Smoothdraw Paint program for PC
Use a screencasting software to capture narration and the progress of the process - Krita. It works on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It's designed more for painting, but it should work just fine for this.
- Microsoft Paint should already be on your Windows PC. In the search box next to Start on the taskbar, type paint and then select Paint from the list of results.
Sparkpost This app from Adobe allows teachers to add graphics and visuals to exit tickets
Fifteen Exit Ticket Questions for Almost Any Classroom www.freetech4teachers.com
Exit Ticket Builder and 10 digital tools for exit tickets in this post: 20 ideas for exit tickets in the classroom.
Collaboration Activity Wheel for Exit Questions It’s a standard online wheel spinner but has a different focus. Instead of student names, it has exit questions on it. I like the idea of using this with your own exit questions at the end of a lesson or unit for student reflection in pairs or small groups after a collaborative activity.
Ziplet There are two features of it that make itworthwhile. The first is a large catalog of interesting, premade questions that you can select and use in your activities. Second, Ziplet lets you toggle between having students respond anonymously or with their real names. Furthermore, you can reply to individual students even when they are participating in a group activity. Ziplet has added another helpful feature for teachers. That feature, as stated in the title of the post, is the ability to schedule your exit ticket questions to appear on a future date and time. short video overview of how it works. www.freetech4teachers.com
10 ideas for digital exit ticket | 24 Exit Ticket Ideas | Teaching tip: Exit class with Two Things & Google SlidesIf you want to help students lock learning in for the long-term
It's a big idea that Dr. Pooja Agarwal, one of the speakers you'll find in the Ditch Summit this December, has dedicated her work to. It's powerful! You can check out her educator resources at RetrievalPractice.org.
Bell Ringers, Exit Tickets & Attendance with Jamboard with templates
Padlet to add responses to ...AKA Shared wall
Jamboard Exit Ticket Template
Trello A collaborative tool for everything from project planning and research to class brainstorming. Easy-to-use interface makes task simple. video tutorial that covers teacher and student implementation
Loop lets you create an online classroom to post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. Those features alone don't make Loop different from lots of similar services. What Loop offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they were responding to a group survey. The purpose of that feature is to make it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. video tutorial www.freetech4teachers.com
Video responses Flipgrid
11 Exit Ticket Questions to Ask Students
20 End of the Year Teacher Reflection Questions to help you process all the craziness.
20 End of the Year Would You Rather Questions now includes a super cute set of google slides that you can use with your whole class. She also added a student answer page if you want to make it into a writing assignment. Or use it as an Easel Activity and have your students highlight their choices and explain their reasoning.
Fifteen Exit Ticket Questions for Almost Any Classroom www.freetech4teachers.com
Exit Ticket Builder and 10 digital tools for exit tickets in this post: 20 ideas for exit tickets in the classroom.
Collaboration Activity Wheel for Exit Questions It’s a standard online wheel spinner but has a different focus. Instead of student names, it has exit questions on it. I like the idea of using this with your own exit questions at the end of a lesson or unit for student reflection in pairs or small groups after a collaborative activity.
Ziplet There are two features of it that make itworthwhile. The first is a large catalog of interesting, premade questions that you can select and use in your activities. Second, Ziplet lets you toggle between having students respond anonymously or with their real names. Furthermore, you can reply to individual students even when they are participating in a group activity. Ziplet has added another helpful feature for teachers. That feature, as stated in the title of the post, is the ability to schedule your exit ticket questions to appear on a future date and time. short video overview of how it works. www.freetech4teachers.com
10 ideas for digital exit ticket | 24 Exit Ticket Ideas | Teaching tip: Exit class with Two Things & Google SlidesIf you want to help students lock learning in for the long-term
- At the end of a lesson, stop and have students write down Two Things about a specific prompt. It's easy and doable. It's something you can do at any point during classItt encourages retrieval and participation. Jotting down just two things gives students a simple way to think about what they have learned. Template:Check out our Two Things template to get students started right away. Go deeper: Our post, 10 ways to improve students' long term learning, gives you practical ideas to make feedback efficient and helpful.
It's a big idea that Dr. Pooja Agarwal, one of the speakers you'll find in the Ditch Summit this December, has dedicated her work to. It's powerful! You can check out her educator resources at RetrievalPractice.org.
- This Google Slides brain dump template was shared online by educator Meredith Akers. It includes a great 30 seconds / 1 minute / 2 minutes protocol to get lots of student ideas!
- This Google Form brain dump template was shared online by educator Debbie Campbell. It's a quick way to gather students' brain dumps so you can see what they remember.
Bell Ringers, Exit Tickets & Attendance with Jamboard with templates
Padlet to add responses to ...AKA Shared wall
Jamboard Exit Ticket Template
Trello A collaborative tool for everything from project planning and research to class brainstorming. Easy-to-use interface makes task simple. video tutorial that covers teacher and student implementation
Loop lets you create an online classroom to post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. Those features alone don't make Loop different from lots of similar services. What Loop offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they were responding to a group survey. The purpose of that feature is to make it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. video tutorial www.freetech4teachers.com
Video responses Flipgrid
11 Exit Ticket Questions to Ask Students
20 End of the Year Teacher Reflection Questions to help you process all the craziness.
20 End of the Year Would You Rather Questions now includes a super cute set of google slides that you can use with your whole class. She also added a student answer page if you want to make it into a writing assignment. Or use it as an Easel Activity and have your students highlight their choices and explain their reasoning.
Read Theory is a free educational tool. Once teachers set up a class, their students instantly gain access to thousands of leveled reading passages. Teachers have the ability to set each students initial reading level, which ensures each student starts with text that is appropriate for them. As the student progresses through the program, Read Theory adapts the student's reading level. Meaning, if a student scores 90% or higher on a quiz, their reading level goes up and passages get harder. If a student scores 70-89% on a quiz, their level remains the same, thus passages remain the same. The level will decrease if the student scores 69% or less, consequently passages will decrease in difficulty. An issue may be the lack of control over topics.
Same text at Different Levels
Welma simplifies sentences and paragraphs through the use of AI good for creating the same text at different levels
Google Practice Sets "With practice sets, in Google Classroom, educators are able to use content they already have, or come up with brand new questions from scratch, to build an assessment activity. Google's artificial intelligence then scans the questions and determines the learning skills being addressed, and finds helpful hints and resources to go along with each question in case the students need assistance".Introduction video | Details
Phonics Manipulatives
StarFall, Offers activities for kids in preschool through second grade and kids focusing on English language development, special education instruction, and homeschooling. They progress through four sections: letter recognition, games, stories, and animations that showcase letter sounds, short reading selections that emphasize vocabulary, and online books that provide fluency and comprehension practice. The free phonics-based site also offers a few math exercises.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comHelperbird Whether you need speech to text, text-to-speech, Opendyslexic font, highlight tools, note-taking, clutter removal, Immersive Reader, etc., this tool has all of your favorite accessibility tools rolled into one! video tutorial
An Active Reading Strategy for Classroom and Remote Learning
Immersive Reader has a distraction free interface where the focus is squarely on text. Users are able to change text size, font and increase spacing between lines, letters and words to enhance the visibility of text. Another useful feature is the Grammar Options which once activated enable students to " split words into syllables so words are easier to sound out". They also automatically highlight the selected parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs). Reading Preferences is another great tool embedded in Immersive Reader. It includes three main features: Line Focus (it is similar to "reading ruler that helps students reduce distractions as they scroll down the page"), a Picture Dictionary which provides graphical representations of the meanings of words in a text, and Instant Translation
Adapt digital texts to students’ reading levels by using digital platforms like
Readlee Free online tool that has students read aloud to the computer, and then generates a report for you on the student's reading progress. The basic concept of Readlee is your students complete assignments by reading to their computers then Readlee uses artificial intelligence to provide you and your students with feedback on their reading. Readlee also has a Free Read option. This means that instead of you having to assign something to students to read, they pick what they want to read. When students use the Free Read option they can read anything from an article they've found online to a passage from Adventure According to Humphrey or a classic work like The Grapes of Wrath. The Free Read option still provides you and your students with information about how many words were read, time spent reading, reading speed, and unique words read. Streaks feature keeps track of how many days in a row a student has done any reading in Readlee. Watch the video for an overview of the new Readlee features. Watch the video embedded below of a complete overview of how Readlee works from a teacher's perspective and from a student's perspective. www.freetec4teachers.com
SIX WAYS THAT NEWCOMERS CAN INTERACT WITH ONLINE TEXT
Create Your Own Rebus Activities Solving a rebus puzzle can be a great learning activity for students of any age. Because it uses non-linguistic representation of familiar things, it is one of the high-effect-size strategies. And it can help with spelling and vocabulary skills as well. You can create your own rebus at this free website. The site will let you choose between using their own images or emoji characters. You can also turn on the ability for hints about some of the drawings to be shown.
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels”
Actively Learn ( gr. 4 - 12 ) An online tool with a library of thousands of texts and Common Core-aligned lessons that both teachers and students can interact with in real-time. Teachers assign pre-existing Actively Learn materials to students or upload their own content, then track student responses and activity using the company’s data tools. Students can interact with a text by digitally highlighting and annotating, responding to embedded questions and content, and leaving feedback and comments for peers.
NCTE's Resources for Online Learning: Activities, resources, and more to support online language arts instruction (grades K-12)
Free Text to Speech Reading Tools
21 kinesthetic reading activities
Classroom Inc ( gr. 7 - 12 ) Learning game programs that help struggling readers succeed by inviting them to take on the role of the boss in a professional workplace. Students develop literacy skills, including close reading, evidence-based writing and the ability to apply these skills to make informed decisions and solve authentic workplace problems. Games include offline lessons including project-based activities, literacy lessons and more.
Get Your Very Own Frayer Model Template on Jamboard The Frayer model is a popular tool for building student vocabulary. Whether you are face-to-face or in an online environment, building student vocabulary is an important aspect of learning. The Frayer model provides students with four quadrants to fill in with definitions, characteristics, and examples of a term.
Story Mentors: Focuses specifically on struggling readers, with 25 weekly lessons. Each lesson has guides and activities using common household materials (grades K-3)
Same text at Different Levels
Welma simplifies sentences and paragraphs through the use of AI good for creating the same text at different levels
Google Practice Sets "With practice sets, in Google Classroom, educators are able to use content they already have, or come up with brand new questions from scratch, to build an assessment activity. Google's artificial intelligence then scans the questions and determines the learning skills being addressed, and finds helpful hints and resources to go along with each question in case the students need assistance".Introduction video | Details
Phonics Manipulatives
StarFall, Offers activities for kids in preschool through second grade and kids focusing on English language development, special education instruction, and homeschooling. They progress through four sections: letter recognition, games, stories, and animations that showcase letter sounds, short reading selections that emphasize vocabulary, and online books that provide fluency and comprehension practice. The free phonics-based site also offers a few math exercises.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comHelperbird Whether you need speech to text, text-to-speech, Opendyslexic font, highlight tools, note-taking, clutter removal, Immersive Reader, etc., this tool has all of your favorite accessibility tools rolled into one! video tutorial
An Active Reading Strategy for Classroom and Remote Learning
Immersive Reader has a distraction free interface where the focus is squarely on text. Users are able to change text size, font and increase spacing between lines, letters and words to enhance the visibility of text. Another useful feature is the Grammar Options which once activated enable students to " split words into syllables so words are easier to sound out". They also automatically highlight the selected parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs). Reading Preferences is another great tool embedded in Immersive Reader. It includes three main features: Line Focus (it is similar to "reading ruler that helps students reduce distractions as they scroll down the page"), a Picture Dictionary which provides graphical representations of the meanings of words in a text, and Instant Translation
Adapt digital texts to students’ reading levels by using digital platforms like
- Newsela select differentiated news related texts based on students’ reading levels. their Spanish-language text sets.
- Create Your Own Leveled Readers.
- ReadWorks is a free service that provides teachers with hundreds of lesson plans and more than two thousand reading non-fiction and fiction passages aligned to Common Core standards, and you can adjust the reading levels of text. It also includes poems and question sets. Lexile scores are listed for each article along with grade levels and Common Core standards. With a free ReadWorks account you can search for lessons and reading passages by grade level, lexile score, reading skill, subject area, and text type (fiction or non-fiction). In your ReadWorks account you can create digital binders of the lesson plans and reading passages that you want to use.
- ** ReadWorks announced a new offline mode for students. This allows students to download articles and assignments while connected to Wi-Fi at school and then use those materials on their laptops, phones, or tablets at places where they don't have Internet ReadWorks video tutorialsReadWorks Overview, Student Tools, Supporting All Learners ReadWorks’ Differentiation Tools,Importing a class in ReadWorks and creating an assignment for Google Classroom, Paired Texts for Educators, How to Use ReadWorks, Student Library for Educators, How to Do the Reading Mindset Snapshot,
- Rewordify Text-leveling tool gives every student access to complex readings
- Reading Vine Finding good reading passages that have comprehension questions and Lexile ranges can be difficult. And finding them for free is almost impossible. Reading Vine offers supplemental reading practice that can be personalized to fit a student’s or group’s exact needs. Teachers, parents, and tutors simply choose appropriate passage text/questions as desired, and then save, download, or print it out and share with the students.” The site has reading sets and reading passages for grades K-12
- CommonLit” Now Lets Teachers Create Free Virtual Classrooms
- Books That Grow has a library of texts that have each been edited to be made accessible to different reading levels. And it has some other unique features — teachers can create virtual classrooms to assign and/or monitor what students what are reading and students can click on words that are new to them to see definitions and hear how they are pronounced. They are also planning on adding comprehension questions. The texts can be read on any device.
- Tween Tribune. It provides daily news stories, with the same one edited several times for different reading levels. The stories also have self-scoring quizzes and provide decent “critical thinking” questions that students can respond to in the comments. On top of that, teachers can create virtual classrooms to monitor it all, as well as moderating student comments. And it’s all available for free!
- You have to pay for it, but Birdbrain Science and History have similar resources (they’ve changed their name to RocketLit).
- The British Council Has Excellent Leveled Reading Resources
- Kids Discover has several levels for social studies instruction – for a price that does not seem to be unreasonable.
- Simplish” Automatically Simplifies And/Or Summarizes Text
- Scholastic has a small number of audio-supported same text at different levels (they also have a few more here). In addition, their Storyworks program has many more, though it costs about $8 per student to use.
- Learn With News. It provides articles about current events, which each one having three versions at different lexile levels. They also provide questions for each article. However, they are not interactive online, so you would need to either print them out or project them. The site also says they will soon be adding audio support for the text.
- Freckle” Provides Hundreds Of Articles In “5 or more different reading levels”
- “News-O-Matic”
- TIME FOR KIDS” NOW OFFERS MATERIALS IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES, SAME ARTICLE IN DIFFERENT LEXILE LEVELS
- Graded listening is a radio program from the British Council that is provided in three “lexile” levels.
- Transforming the Resources You Have into Accessible Formats for All Students
- Brittanica Kids has all of its articles written in three different levels: Kids, Students, Scholars. There is a cost involved, but a lot of their resources are available for free. They also have a small collection of free “read aloud” books for new readers. I’m not sure what the restrictions are about what’s free and what’s for subscribers only.
- The OER Project Offers The Same Social Studies Texts In Different Lexile Levels – For Free!
- The Juice offers daily news articles at four different levels. You have to pay for it, though it’s not astronomical.
- ✅Personalized Learning Made Easy: Using the Learner Variability Navigator in the Classroom "Many of these students become marginalized when systems do not consider their learner variability. "The Learner Variability Navigator is a free online tool. It translates learning research into learner factors and teaching strategies. It is designed to be used as a supplement or support to programs. A key goal is to tailor instruction to meet individual needs. It then examines the factors that research has identified as critical to learning success and provides strategies, assessments, activities and videos to address students who may need support in an identified factor. The list is extensive and the factors are grouped into four categories – content area, cognition, social-emotional and learner background. The following video shows how to use the Learner Variability Navigator.
- Listenwise ( gr. K - 12) makes it easy to bring authentic voices and compelling non-fiction stories to the classroom. Teach your students to Listen with the Power of Public Radio. Curates the best of public radio to keep teaching connected to the real world and build student listening skills at the same time. Vast range of solid current event info and historical stories, 3- 6 minutes, from public radio let students make genuine connections. Includes a debate stories section.
- Achieve3000 is offering free access to resources for differentiated literacy instruction. Educators and parents can sign their students up for Achieve3000 Literacy at Home, for access to non-fiction articles at three reading levels with topics covering science, social studies and current events. For students without reliable or daily internet, the company is offering "Literacy Printable Packets," a set of text sets with 20 printable articles and questions for grades 1-12.
- Bookshare With a free Bookshare membership, teachers can provide individualized support and help students to read independently. With over 925,000 titles, you will find virtually any textbook or educational material and can assign them easily and remotely. Students can then access books from home or school and listen to them read aloud, follow along with highlighted text, read in braille or large font, and more. Bookshare’s easy-to-read ebooks allows students to customize their reading experience and helps them to be more independent
- Tween Tribune find content based on current events. Allows you to search by reading level.
- CommonLit A treasure trove of non-fiction literary resources that teachers can use to build lessons that target students' reading needs. Use the robust search and filter tool to explore texts by themes. Helps to scaffold and build background knowledge on a topic. The articles are short enough to be manageable. Each article has suggestions for articles related to the same topic that I could explore and use as well. It begins with a student introduction to the article and then provides annotation tasks, which vary in difficulty based on the lexile level of the article. CommonLit also asks varied questions, such as guiding questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. You can assist struggling learners with dictionary tools, read the text aloud options, translation options, and highlight tools.
Readlee Free online tool that has students read aloud to the computer, and then generates a report for you on the student's reading progress. The basic concept of Readlee is your students complete assignments by reading to their computers then Readlee uses artificial intelligence to provide you and your students with feedback on their reading. Readlee also has a Free Read option. This means that instead of you having to assign something to students to read, they pick what they want to read. When students use the Free Read option they can read anything from an article they've found online to a passage from Adventure According to Humphrey or a classic work like The Grapes of Wrath. The Free Read option still provides you and your students with information about how many words were read, time spent reading, reading speed, and unique words read. Streaks feature keeps track of how many days in a row a student has done any reading in Readlee. Watch the video for an overview of the new Readlee features. Watch the video embedded below of a complete overview of how Readlee works from a teacher's perspective and from a student's perspective. www.freetec4teachers.com
SIX WAYS THAT NEWCOMERS CAN INTERACT WITH ONLINE TEXT
Create Your Own Rebus Activities Solving a rebus puzzle can be a great learning activity for students of any age. Because it uses non-linguistic representation of familiar things, it is one of the high-effect-size strategies. And it can help with spelling and vocabulary skills as well. You can create your own rebus at this free website. The site will let you choose between using their own images or emoji characters. You can also turn on the ability for hints about some of the drawings to be shown.
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels”
Actively Learn ( gr. 4 - 12 ) An online tool with a library of thousands of texts and Common Core-aligned lessons that both teachers and students can interact with in real-time. Teachers assign pre-existing Actively Learn materials to students or upload their own content, then track student responses and activity using the company’s data tools. Students can interact with a text by digitally highlighting and annotating, responding to embedded questions and content, and leaving feedback and comments for peers.
NCTE's Resources for Online Learning: Activities, resources, and more to support online language arts instruction (grades K-12)
Free Text to Speech Reading Tools
- Immersive Reader (Microsoft)
- Dolphin Easy Reader (iOS, Android & Windows)
21 kinesthetic reading activities
Classroom Inc ( gr. 7 - 12 ) Learning game programs that help struggling readers succeed by inviting them to take on the role of the boss in a professional workplace. Students develop literacy skills, including close reading, evidence-based writing and the ability to apply these skills to make informed decisions and solve authentic workplace problems. Games include offline lessons including project-based activities, literacy lessons and more.
Get Your Very Own Frayer Model Template on Jamboard The Frayer model is a popular tool for building student vocabulary. Whether you are face-to-face or in an online environment, building student vocabulary is an important aspect of learning. The Frayer model provides students with four quadrants to fill in with definitions, characteristics, and examples of a term.
Story Mentors: Focuses specifically on struggling readers, with 25 weekly lessons. Each lesson has guides and activities using common household materials (grades K-3)
Kids Friendly News Sites
- HuffPost Teens The popular Huffington Post has this special section where it features news specifically for a young audience.
- National Geographic Kids Nat Geo Kids inspires young adventurers to explore the world through award-winning magazines, books, apps, games, toys, videos, events, and a website, and is the only kids brand with a world-class scientific organization at its core. National Geographic Kids magazine (10 issues per year) and Little Kids magazine (six issues per year) are photo-driven publications and are available on newsstands or by subscription in print and on tablets.’
- Tween Tribune. It provides daily news stories, with the same one edited several times for different reading levels. The stories also have self-scoring quizzes and provide decent “critical thinking” questions that students can respond to in the comments. On top of that, teachers can create virtual classrooms to monitor it all, as well as moderating student comments. And it’s all available for free!
- Newsela Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject…It starts with interesting articles about tons of topics—each available at 5 reading levels. Assessments are included with the articles to help readers engage with the content.’News stories adapted to different reading levels.
- News-O-Matic News-O-Matic is the first daily newspaper just for kids. It provides an exciting and engaging nonfiction experience for children, complete with valuable literacy tools for the classroom…Thanks to its unique combination of editorial and technology, News-O-Matic creates innovative solutions to help children become tomorrow’s responsible citizens. It gives young readers a window into the world — and a reason to love reading news.’
- Here There Everywhere Here There Everywhere is a news website/blog designed for elementary and older school-aged children. Its purpose is to show kids how they are connected to their world and introduce them to the people and events shaping it. It credits children with being interested in and being able to understand some of the more newsy topics (though there will be lots of the fun stuff, too!).’
FLUENCY and FITNESS LETTERS help students review essential K-2 reading topics while providing a moving break.
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Top 14 websites to download your favorite e-books for free ...
Reading Eggs Makes learning to read interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities.
Hypothesis Available as a Google Chrome browser extension, it lets users annotate publicly, and you can create private “rooms” for students. Annotating directly on a text creates what scholars call an “anchored context for conversation.” In other words, the discussion is literally anchored in the source material. If a student is struggling with vocabulary, he or she can inquire right in the text itself. Students can also enhance texts by sharing personal connections. Annotations in Hypothesis include sticky notes and highlighting, as well as options that are unique to digital, such as commenting using images, animated GIFs, or embedded videos. Students reading a poem together can react by adding images or text to a stanza, rather than on a discussion forum separate from the text. In the classroom it is often recommends “seeding the text”—adding your own conversation starters to model for students how annotative side conversations should take place. “Some people consider marking up books to be an act of love. I want my students to see some annotations when they open a text for the first time.”
Link to Text is a Chrome extension provided by Google. You can highlight a text on a web page and then create a link that you can share. When someone clicks on your link, they go to the website AND the text that you had highlighted will be highlighted for them. This is an awesome tool if you are trying to differentiate within a Google Doc or HyperDoc, but want to keep the main document simple. You can now link out to more specific information that is already highlighted for your students.
Actively Learn Promotes social reading among middle and high school students. The tool is similar to Hypothesis. Teachers upload content to the website, and students socially annotate it. Several use cases of NowComment lessons, many of which are available as playlists on the LRNG platform. One example used teacher-curated mentor texts—sets of poems from places around the country. Students read, annotate, and comment on the curated mentor text poems. “Students use these mentor texts to help them write their own poems about the places that they
NowComment is a freemium online education platform that allows students to read a book (or some other document), make comments, answer questions posed by the teacher, and even collaborate with others.
VocabBoost This extension, available for Chrome and Firefox, is designed to adapt a web page article into a quiz. VocabBoost, which is currently in beta mode, will remove various words on the page and provide a blank space in its place. The user has the option to type in the missing words or drag-and-drop from a curated list at the top. After installing the appropriate extension, you are now able to create your first test
eReading Games - highly addictive, grammar & language review games.
5 Ways You Can Use Flipgrid's New Mic Only Feature for reading and speaking
Into the Book ‘Into the Book is a reading comprehension resource for elementary students and teachers. We focus on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing.’
Boom Cards Interactive literacy activities. Capability for students to self-check their work and teacher reports. There are free and inexpensive cards. Free cards | Tutorials
Read Theory ‘Accompany your students on a journey through our vast library of reading comprehension content. ReadTheory's adaptive approach fosters improvement by automatically meeting learners at their own, individual ability levels. Signup takes seconds and no time is spent vetting assignments. Progress is shown on an intuitive report, replete with actionable, meaningful insights. Our program is completely free.
Reading Rockets Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of research-based reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. These reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
Literature
Story Shares Single Story: Students watch the TED Talk by Chimamanda Adichie called, Danger of a Single Story, and discuss it. They can then write a paragraph, essay or create a visual representation explaining the single stories that are told about them. Display writing or visuals in a virtual gallery.
Literal https://literalapp.com/
Read Along - This free website from Google helps kids learn to read independently through hundreds of leveled stories, with the help of a reading assistant, Diya, who listens to the student read out loud and helps them when they get stuck.
Create Stories for Children to Read with AI Pagemaster free. You give it a title and a one or two sentence description of your plot. Then it will almost immediately email you a short story, along with suggestions about how to use it.
Kinzoo K- 3 books online Well illustrated with traditional stories and original ones also.
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
Reading Treks offers educators a Google Maps file and a PDF instructional strategy handout to go with a book. The goal is for educators to be able to provide students with “a virtual field trip of resources about a piece of literature or text using the My Maps feature of Google Maps.” You can search by keyword and also input a low and high grade level for your sear
Quillbot text summarizer
Digital Lit Circles: A Process and Templates for Any LMS By Jennifer Rushing Explore a process that can be adapted for any grade and used in any LMS!
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Open Library with its Explore the K-12 Section of The Open Library The Open Library provides visitors with the opportunity to search for, browse through, and read eBooks. The Open Library is a collection of more than one million ebook titles. There is now a virtual bookshelf explorer that you can use to browse through books much like wandering through a library's bookshelves. Second, there is now a dedicated K-12 section of The Open Library. is a collection of more than one million free ebook titles. The collection is cataloged by a community of volunteer online librarians. The ebooks in the Open Library can be read online, downloaded to your computer, read on Kindle and other ereader devices, and embedded into other sites. Some of the ebooks, like Treasure Island, can also be listened to through the Open Library. Much like Google Books. www.freetech4teachers.com
Play a Zoom-modified game of Guess Who using your classrooms’ favorite fictional characters—or book characters you have learned about this year.
Tar Heel Reader a collection of free, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics. Each book can be speech enabled and accessed using multiple interfaces
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Magic Blox A large and growing collection of eBooks for kids 1 to 13 years old, your children get to enjoy new books all the time from award winning authors and publishers from around the world. In addition to titles you are familiar with from traditional publishers, they also have the opportunity to discover new stories from authors they've never heard of, or try out new languages they've never seen.
Story Shares Support struggling readers with age-appropriate stories
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
EPIC Choose from more than 35,000 books, and they can read them online or offline, on the Web, or on mobile devices. Many selections are by well-known authors or from major publishers, and the collection includes Spanish/English, Chinese/English, and French/English bilingual books. Users can search books by subject, genre, or age (web version only), and some are audio or read-to-me versions where kids can follow along with highlighted words.
Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages.
Wonderopolis Informational nonfiction text that is highly engaging.
Digital libraries for kids
Building Knowledge: Free Online Read Alouds for PreK-3 Browse this curated YouTube library of various Core Knowledge Language Arts Read-Alouds by grade level
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
Literature circles or book club
Virtual Literature Circles Create a Safe Space for Students Discussions that are centered in students' experiences spark more text-to-self connections and help students internalize concepts like empathy. This article provides resources and categorized booklists. OverDrive "A free service offered by your library or school that lets you borrow digital content (like ebooks and audiobooks) anytime, anywhere. Every OverDrive collection is slightly different because each library or school picks the digital content they want for their users."
Glose for Education (gr. 6-12) ."Start a virtual book club with your students, posing thoughtful questions and highlighting meaningful quotes that kids can discuss. Then teach students how to paraphrase and annotate by highlighting excerpts from books or articles, and have them practice via a discussion thread. Let students create and share their own book cards with questions or excerpts from the shared reading selection, and encourage them to react and respond to each other's cards. Support struggling writers or gauge reading fluency by asking kids to submit voice recordings -- just be aware that anyone in the class will be able to listen to them."
Novel HyperDocs: 25 ready to use units for your class interactive HyperDocs filled with paired texts, engaging media and interactive activities. Scroll down the page to see the list. If you feel inspired to create your own HyperDoc using the template
Parlay - Synchronous & asynchronous discussion platform.
Novels on Location helps readers find novels according to the story's geographical setting. When you visit Novels on Location you can find novels by clicking on the placemarks that you see or by using the location search bar in the upper, right corner of the site. If you want to contribute to Novels on Location you can do so very quickly by simply entering a location then entering the title and author of your favorite book set in that location. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comAn Ocean of Books is a Google Arts & Culture experimental site. An Ocean of Books is a concept map of authors and their books. The purpose of An Ocean of Books is to represent authors' footprints on the web and their relationships, via the web, to other authors. The size of an author's presence on the web is displayed as an island on An Ocean of Books. The authors' presences on the web isn't a reflection of social media rather it's a reflection of frequency of search and content published about them and their works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Building Knowledge: Free Online Read Alouds for PreK-3 Browse this curated YouTube library of various Core Knowledge Language Arts Read-Alouds by grade level
Hoopla & Overdrive - Access to online ebooks and audiobook with a library card.
Audible - Free audiobooks (COVID response)
Literal https://literalapp.com/
- Over 500 free books presented in an interactive format resembling text messages in a group chat.
- Characters have profile pictures that the user can edit if they want.
- The user can read the book in four modes including Auto Load, Audio Reader, Tap to Load, and Free Scroll. Also includes a dictionary and translator
- Support tools include definitions and translations for any text.
- A paid version is available with even more books and features.
Read Along - This free website from Google helps kids learn to read independently through hundreds of leveled stories, with the help of a reading assistant, Diya, who listens to the student read out loud and helps them when they get stuck.
Create Stories for Children to Read with AI Pagemaster free. You give it a title and a one or two sentence description of your plot. Then it will almost immediately email you a short story, along with suggestions about how to use it.
Kinzoo K- 3 books online Well illustrated with traditional stories and original ones also.
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
Reading Treks offers educators a Google Maps file and a PDF instructional strategy handout to go with a book. The goal is for educators to be able to provide students with “a virtual field trip of resources about a piece of literature or text using the My Maps feature of Google Maps.” You can search by keyword and also input a low and high grade level for your sear
Quillbot text summarizer
Digital Lit Circles: A Process and Templates for Any LMS By Jennifer Rushing Explore a process that can be adapted for any grade and used in any LMS!
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Open Library with its Explore the K-12 Section of The Open Library The Open Library provides visitors with the opportunity to search for, browse through, and read eBooks. The Open Library is a collection of more than one million ebook titles. There is now a virtual bookshelf explorer that you can use to browse through books much like wandering through a library's bookshelves. Second, there is now a dedicated K-12 section of The Open Library. is a collection of more than one million free ebook titles. The collection is cataloged by a community of volunteer online librarians. The ebooks in the Open Library can be read online, downloaded to your computer, read on Kindle and other ereader devices, and embedded into other sites. Some of the ebooks, like Treasure Island, can also be listened to through the Open Library. Much like Google Books. www.freetech4teachers.com
Play a Zoom-modified game of Guess Who using your classrooms’ favorite fictional characters—or book characters you have learned about this year.
Tar Heel Reader a collection of free, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics. Each book can be speech enabled and accessed using multiple interfaces
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Magic Blox A large and growing collection of eBooks for kids 1 to 13 years old, your children get to enjoy new books all the time from award winning authors and publishers from around the world. In addition to titles you are familiar with from traditional publishers, they also have the opportunity to discover new stories from authors they've never heard of, or try out new languages they've never seen.
Story Shares Support struggling readers with age-appropriate stories
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
EPIC Choose from more than 35,000 books, and they can read them online or offline, on the Web, or on mobile devices. Many selections are by well-known authors or from major publishers, and the collection includes Spanish/English, Chinese/English, and French/English bilingual books. Users can search books by subject, genre, or age (web version only), and some are audio or read-to-me versions where kids can follow along with highlighted words.
- EpicPals is a monthly, reading project that combines the use of Epic Books for Kids and Padlet. Read & respond as a whole class, use with a small group, or have students participate independently. All posts are moderated, however, we’d appreciate it if you would please work with your students to teach them how to post responsibly.
Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages.
Wonderopolis Informational nonfiction text that is highly engaging.
Digital libraries for kids
- Choosito Browse our digital library of 200,000+ sites, make a standards aligned resource collection, or track students as they search the web with enhanced reading level and subject area filters.’
- Libby puts a library's ebook and audiobook collection at users' fingertips by allowing them to use their library card to digitally borrow books. Kids can either download books, which can then be accessed offline, or they can stream them.
- Storyline Online provides opportunities for parents, children, and educators to listen to and view children’s classic storybooks read aloud by professional actors and actresses 24 hours a day. Each book is selected to appeal to the imagination and interest of children in grades pre-K to 5. The website features 30 read-aloud stories including memorable titles such as Knots on a Counting Rope, Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge and Thank You, Mr. Falker. Activity guides developed by a literacy specialist offer a summary of each story, activities to extend the read-aloud experience, and information about the author, illustrator, and the actor who performs the read-aloud.
- Storyweaver offers a wide variety of illustrated open source storybooks for kids. Most importantly, these reading materials are available in over 200 languages. Storyweaver allows users to download stories for later reading in three different formats:"a web-resolution PDF, an A4 print ready format, and a digital-friendly ePub format". Users can also save their stories to their offline library and access them anytime they want. Additionally, Storyweaver also helps students create 'their' own stories and illustrate them. StoryWeaver now makes it super-easy to write your narrative, pick your illustrations, and publish your very own story – in minutes".
- The International Children's Digital Library ICDK offers popular chidlren’s books from all over the world.’The materials in the collection, all presented in the original languages in which they were published, reflect similarities and differences in cultures, societies, interests, and lifestyles of peoples around the world.’
- Epic Epic!’s ebook library includes many of the best kids books and popular books such as Fancy Nancy, Big Nate, Warriors, Ramona, and National Geographic Kids…Epic! costs only $4.99/month with the first month FREE and supports up to 4 individual child profiles per account.’
- StoryPlace StoryPlace came about to provide children with the virtual experience of going to the Library and participating in the same types of activities the Library offers at its physical locations. First launched in 2000, StoryPlace has been newly redesigned to present favorite stories and activities in a format compatible with desktop and mobile devices. The site also now includes early literacy information for parents and caregivers.’
- Magic Blox With a large and growing collection of eBooks for kids 1 to 13 years old, your children get to enjoy new books all the time from award winning authors and publishers from around the world. In addition to titles you are familiar with from traditional publishers, they also have the opportunity to discover new stories from authors they've never heard of, or try out new languages they've never seen.’
- Bookshare Free ebooks for qualified U.S. students. Makes reading easier for people with reading barriers, allowing them to read in ways that work for them: Listen to books read aloud/follow along with audio and highlighted text Read in large print or Braille
Building Knowledge: Free Online Read Alouds for PreK-3 Browse this curated YouTube library of various Core Knowledge Language Arts Read-Alouds by grade level
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
Literature circles or book club
Virtual Literature Circles Create a Safe Space for Students Discussions that are centered in students' experiences spark more text-to-self connections and help students internalize concepts like empathy. This article provides resources and categorized booklists. OverDrive "A free service offered by your library or school that lets you borrow digital content (like ebooks and audiobooks) anytime, anywhere. Every OverDrive collection is slightly different because each library or school picks the digital content they want for their users."
Glose for Education (gr. 6-12) ."Start a virtual book club with your students, posing thoughtful questions and highlighting meaningful quotes that kids can discuss. Then teach students how to paraphrase and annotate by highlighting excerpts from books or articles, and have them practice via a discussion thread. Let students create and share their own book cards with questions or excerpts from the shared reading selection, and encourage them to react and respond to each other's cards. Support struggling writers or gauge reading fluency by asking kids to submit voice recordings -- just be aware that anyone in the class will be able to listen to them."
Novel HyperDocs: 25 ready to use units for your class interactive HyperDocs filled with paired texts, engaging media and interactive activities. Scroll down the page to see the list. If you feel inspired to create your own HyperDoc using the template
Parlay - Synchronous & asynchronous discussion platform.
Novels on Location helps readers find novels according to the story's geographical setting. When you visit Novels on Location you can find novels by clicking on the placemarks that you see or by using the location search bar in the upper, right corner of the site. If you want to contribute to Novels on Location you can do so very quickly by simply entering a location then entering the title and author of your favorite book set in that location. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comAn Ocean of Books is a Google Arts & Culture experimental site. An Ocean of Books is a concept map of authors and their books. The purpose of An Ocean of Books is to represent authors' footprints on the web and their relationships, via the web, to other authors. The size of an author's presence on the web is displayed as an island on An Ocean of Books. The authors' presences on the web isn't a reflection of social media rather it's a reflection of frequency of search and content published about them and their works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Building Knowledge: Free Online Read Alouds for PreK-3 Browse this curated YouTube library of various Core Knowledge Language Arts Read-Alouds by grade level
Hoopla & Overdrive - Access to online ebooks and audiobook with a library card.
Audible - Free audiobooks (COVID response)
Writing
Read a story and compare yourself to the main character
Write a letter to or between characters in a storyTaking the perspective of a character in a story can help students understand their motivations and better comprehend their response to events in a story. Assign a stationery template, use the Stationery backgrounds, or have students design their own. Provide a prompt that connects to the story you are reading to direct their thinking and writing
Chat GPT the new AI that could disrupt or support the modern classroom article. How Disruptive Will ChatGPT Be? article 2
Artificial Intelligence in Canva Documents Canva opened access to their highly anticipated Canva Documents tool. It includes all of the features that you'd probably expect to find in a modern document creation tool. Those include collaboration, commenting, and many formatting options. Canva Documents also includes an artificial intelligence feature that's called Magic Write. Magic Write is the artificial intelligence tool built into Canva Docs. Magic Write works in a manner that is quite similar to the ChatGPT . Watch this short video www.freetech4teachers.com
Illustrating Stories with Canva's AI Text to Image Tool - Resource link Also this tutorial explains how to integrate Canvas with Book Creator
Wordtune is a Chrome extension that provides suggestions on ways to rewrite sentences in your Google Documents, in your email (Gmail and Outlook), and in some social media accounts. Once you have Wordtune installed in Chrome you can simply highlight any sentence that you have written and click the Wordtune extension to have a list of alternate wordings suggested to you. video www.freetech4teachers.com
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comGoogle Doc Feature to Help the Teacher Comment on the Revision Process Google Docs has this excellent feature called 'Compare Document' which allows users to compare documents with a single click. As a teacher, you can use this feature to "to compare essays and track revisions, saving them time when grading." Students can also use the 'compare document' tool to help them keep track of the changes they made on a document, capture the evolution of their writing style, document new edits, and share feedback with students or colleagues.
Book Creator app and website has recently introduced a new interesting feature called templates to help teachers and students design professional looking books in few easy steps. There are now two forms of books on Book Creator: template books and theme books.
Using Google Slides to create Instagram Stories in class
The social media reply template Using social media isn't just fun. It's a communication skill. This social media reply template lets students practice posting and replying in an app they can use -- Google Slides! Plus, they can show you what they've learned through their post. In this post, you can copy/download the template to use with your students. Follow step-by-step instructions. Get ideas for using it. I even share secrets about how I made it!
Read: A social media reply Google Slides template for digital citizenship
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
12 social media-inspired Google Slides templates Since we're talking about making class feel like social media These templates are some of my favorites! Create learning activities that feel like social media that use a tool that students have access to: Google Slides! Check out -- and download/copy -- these templates!
Fake Blog Google Slides Template | Template option 2
Fake Tweet Generator to create…fake tweets.
Big Huge Labs create multiple fake items, including trading cards, magazine cards, and newspaper articles.
Fodey is also good for fake social media.
Glitterly is a handy web tool that enables you to create engaging short videos to share on your social media feed or in your email. As a teacher , you can use Glitterly to design writing prompts, discussion starters, icebreakers, short explainers, reviews and many more. No video editing experience is required, you simply upload your images or use the ones in the site's library, add animations, effects, and transitions and share your final product with your students or colleagues. Videos created through Glitter can be exported in various formats including as mp4 or GIF. Videos can not be longer than 30 seconds and do not have sound.
Random Emoji Generator writing prompter for busy teachers. Opening the page will produce an emoji that the student should write about. When he runs out of things to say, he can select “And Then” and another random emoji will be produced next to the first one to continue the story. This can go on for as long as the student likes.
Easy 1, 2, 3: Create Your Own Accessible Book with Slides
Newspaper Front Page Template – Students create the front page of newspaper to your collection. This can be used in almost any content area, as well as working on determining if a news story is fake or real.
10+ Digital Writing Activities
Writing Journal Use Google Docs for an ongoing writing journal. Google Docs Writing Journal alicekeeler.com/writingjournal
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google. Slides Add-onAdd visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
15 FREE Google Drawings graphic organizers — and how to make your own
Assistive Writing Features in Google Docs – Two assistive writing features in Google Docs that are sure to help your students.
Choice stories in Google Slides: How to + ideas for class
Self-Publishing on Amazon - Step-by-step directions on how to self-publish a book on Amazon at no cost.
Crash! Bang! Boom! How to add Google Drawings comic strips to your class
Google Docs Templates that teachers and students can use for a wide variety of purposes. The purpose is to empower you with resources that can make a difference in your overall productivity and add value to your work. Templates are readily available from Docs template gallery. There are five different resume templates in Docs gallery which you can customize and edit the way you like. For students there are templates to use for writing essays, book reports, and letters (formal, informal, and business letters). There are also templates to help students design their project proposals providing them with all the necessary steps and categories to include in their proposals (e.g., overview, goals, specifications, milestones). There are even templates for taking and organizing class notes which students can adapt for their own learning purposes. To access these and many other templates, head over to Google Docs and click to expand the template gallery. Scroll down and search for the titles cited above or browse through the collections there for inspiration.
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
Progressive Stories in Google Docs - a fun remote, writing activity.
Create Meme in Google Drawings Sample
Google Slides templates for Snapchat games in class
The New York Times Learning Network
Literature circles or book club
Brochure Google Slides template for creating a brochure. Why a Brochure?
Drawings for Writing
Rivet (available for both iOS and Android) "With a rapidly growing digital library of over 2,000 free books, Rivet makes it easy to find interesting reading material at the right level. There are engaging books covering a wide array of topics, from planets in outer space to Harriet Tubman. Every book in our library is carefully reviewed and leveled by content quality experts to ensure young readers are shown appropriate content at the right level of difficulty."
Write a letter to or between characters in a storyTaking the perspective of a character in a story can help students understand their motivations and better comprehend their response to events in a story. Assign a stationery template, use the Stationery backgrounds, or have students design their own. Provide a prompt that connects to the story you are reading to direct their thinking and writing
Chat GPT the new AI that could disrupt or support the modern classroom article. How Disruptive Will ChatGPT Be? article 2
- AI Writing Check is a free tool that was created to help teachers try to recognize writing created through the use of artificial intelligence. To use AI Writing Check copy a passage of text of 100 or more words and paste it into AI Writing Check. AI Writing Check isn't foolproof and as is pointed out on the site, students can still develop ways to get around tools designed to detect AI-generated writing. It's also worth noting that it can't handle more than 400 words at a time. www.freetech4teachers.com
- 20 ways to use this as a tool for teaching/learning | Ideas for using ChatGPT in the Classroom
- ChatGPT! "It is so helpful to not only brainstorm ideas but also to help me understand difficult contexts. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “Ask 3 before me.” Years ago I heard a presentation where a teacher said “And one of the 3 is Google.” I would like to include one of those is ask ChatGPT."
- Introducing ChatGPT to Your Classroom is from Middleweb.
- Pivoting the Conversation on AI in WritingArtificial Intelligence Writing is from The University of Central Florida.
- death of the college essay | the end of high school English | combative and generative approaches to the role of AI in writing instruction
- Using ChatGPT to Design Language Material and Exercises is from FLT Magazine.
- Don’t Ban Chat GPT, Teach With It
- Ai_in_the_classroom__10__tools_for_teachers.pdf
- Chat GPT Pluses andMinuses
- 13 Uses for Chat GPT
Artificial Intelligence in Canva Documents Canva opened access to their highly anticipated Canva Documents tool. It includes all of the features that you'd probably expect to find in a modern document creation tool. Those include collaboration, commenting, and many formatting options. Canva Documents also includes an artificial intelligence feature that's called Magic Write. Magic Write is the artificial intelligence tool built into Canva Docs. Magic Write works in a manner that is quite similar to the ChatGPT . Watch this short video www.freetech4teachers.com
Illustrating Stories with Canva's AI Text to Image Tool - Resource link Also this tutorial explains how to integrate Canvas with Book Creator
Wordtune is a Chrome extension that provides suggestions on ways to rewrite sentences in your Google Documents, in your email (Gmail and Outlook), and in some social media accounts. Once you have Wordtune installed in Chrome you can simply highlight any sentence that you have written and click the Wordtune extension to have a list of alternate wordings suggested to you. video www.freetech4teachers.com
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comGoogle Doc Feature to Help the Teacher Comment on the Revision Process Google Docs has this excellent feature called 'Compare Document' which allows users to compare documents with a single click. As a teacher, you can use this feature to "to compare essays and track revisions, saving them time when grading." Students can also use the 'compare document' tool to help them keep track of the changes they made on a document, capture the evolution of their writing style, document new edits, and share feedback with students or colleagues.
Book Creator app and website has recently introduced a new interesting feature called templates to help teachers and students design professional looking books in few easy steps. There are now two forms of books on Book Creator: template books and theme books.
Using Google Slides to create Instagram Stories in class
The social media reply template Using social media isn't just fun. It's a communication skill. This social media reply template lets students practice posting and replying in an app they can use -- Google Slides! Plus, they can show you what they've learned through their post. In this post, you can copy/download the template to use with your students. Follow step-by-step instructions. Get ideas for using it. I even share secrets about how I made it!
Read: A social media reply Google Slides template for digital citizenship
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
12 social media-inspired Google Slides templates Since we're talking about making class feel like social media These templates are some of my favorites! Create learning activities that feel like social media that use a tool that students have access to: Google Slides! Check out -- and download/copy -- these templates!
Fake Blog Google Slides Template | Template option 2
Fake Tweet Generator to create…fake tweets.
Big Huge Labs create multiple fake items, including trading cards, magazine cards, and newspaper articles.
Fodey is also good for fake social media.
Glitterly is a handy web tool that enables you to create engaging short videos to share on your social media feed or in your email. As a teacher , you can use Glitterly to design writing prompts, discussion starters, icebreakers, short explainers, reviews and many more. No video editing experience is required, you simply upload your images or use the ones in the site's library, add animations, effects, and transitions and share your final product with your students or colleagues. Videos created through Glitter can be exported in various formats including as mp4 or GIF. Videos can not be longer than 30 seconds and do not have sound.
Random Emoji Generator writing prompter for busy teachers. Opening the page will produce an emoji that the student should write about. When he runs out of things to say, he can select “And Then” and another random emoji will be produced next to the first one to continue the story. This can go on for as long as the student likes.
Easy 1, 2, 3: Create Your Own Accessible Book with Slides
Newspaper Front Page Template – Students create the front page of newspaper to your collection. This can be used in almost any content area, as well as working on determining if a news story is fake or real.
10+ Digital Writing Activities
Writing Journal Use Google Docs for an ongoing writing journal. Google Docs Writing Journal alicekeeler.com/writingjournal
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google. Slides Add-onAdd visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
15 FREE Google Drawings graphic organizers — and how to make your own
Assistive Writing Features in Google Docs – Two assistive writing features in Google Docs that are sure to help your students.
Choice stories in Google Slides: How to + ideas for class
Self-Publishing on Amazon - Step-by-step directions on how to self-publish a book on Amazon at no cost.
Crash! Bang! Boom! How to add Google Drawings comic strips to your class
Google Docs Templates that teachers and students can use for a wide variety of purposes. The purpose is to empower you with resources that can make a difference in your overall productivity and add value to your work. Templates are readily available from Docs template gallery. There are five different resume templates in Docs gallery which you can customize and edit the way you like. For students there are templates to use for writing essays, book reports, and letters (formal, informal, and business letters). There are also templates to help students design their project proposals providing them with all the necessary steps and categories to include in their proposals (e.g., overview, goals, specifications, milestones). There are even templates for taking and organizing class notes which students can adapt for their own learning purposes. To access these and many other templates, head over to Google Docs and click to expand the template gallery. Scroll down and search for the titles cited above or browse through the collections there for inspiration.
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
Progressive Stories in Google Docs - a fun remote, writing activity.
Create Meme in Google Drawings Sample
Google Slides templates for Snapchat games in class
The New York Times Learning Network
Literature circles or book club
Brochure Google Slides template for creating a brochure. Why a Brochure?
Drawings for Writing
- "Wintertime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Wintertime Magnetic Poetry Template - Google Drawing linkk
- Compose a Tweet Template - Google Drawing link
- "3 Tools for Making Memes in School" - Website link
- "Create Your Own Story Cubes with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity
Rivet (available for both iOS and Android) "With a rapidly growing digital library of over 2,000 free books, Rivet makes it easy to find interesting reading material at the right level. There are engaging books covering a wide array of topics, from planets in outer space to Harriet Tubman. Every book in our library is carefully reviewed and leveled by content quality experts to ensure young readers are shown appropriate content at the right level of difficulty."
Science
National Science Digital Library - provides high quality online educational resources for teaching and learning, with current emphasis on the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines–both formal and informal, institutional and individual, in local, state, national, and international educational settings. The NSDL collection contains structured descriptive information (metadata) about web-based educational resources held on other sites by their providers. These providers have contribute this metadata to NSDL for organized search and open access to educational resources via this website and its services.
Google Practice Sets "With practice sets, in Google Classroom, educators are able to use content they already have, or come up with brand new questions from scratch, to build an assessment activity. Google's artificial intelligence then scans the questions and determines the learning skills being addressed, and finds helpful hints and resources to go along with each question in case the students need assistance".Introduction video | Details
Easy Virtual STEM Activities for Kids - Many STEM subjects rely on in-person interactions, but these easy virtual STEM activities prove that there are no limits to learning.
AhaSlides AhaSlides transforms linear presentations into interactive ones with live polls, quizzes, word clouds, brainstorming activities, and spinner wheels. Ideal for remote learning days,
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
PhET its activity search tool now includes a filter for remote activities. Through this search tool you can locate lesson plans designed for remote instruction and learning. You can combine the remote search filter with any of the other subject, level, and language search filters. Watch this short video to see how it works. The following video demonstrate how to include PhET's science and math simulations in your Google Site. Those of you who watch the video will also notice that the simulations can also be shared via a direct Google Classroom integration. www.freetech4teachers.com
Science Journal for Kids and Teens Free reports on cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science research adapted for students and their teachers. Articles can be selected according to reading level (elementary school, lower high school, middle school, upper high school) and/or subject field (biodiversity and conservation, biology, energy and climate, food and agriculture, health and medicine, physical science, pollution, social science, technology, water resources).
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
OpenSciEd Instructional Materials
OpenSciEd is an innovative nonprofit organization that brings together world-class curriculum developers, state science administrators, teachers, and philanthropic organizations to create free, high-quality, NGSS-aligned science instructional materials and professional learning experiences. The organization offers elementary, middle school, and high school science curricula, remote learning resources, a phenomena simulation library, and phenomena videos.
The 3M Young Scientist Lab K - 8 is a website we are adding to our science distance teaching and learning resources. It provides teachers with tons of educational resources to get their students motivated and engaged in science learning in class. Among these resources are custom lesson plans that cover science topics for grades k-8; interactive activities to help students "discover the real-world science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school"; and challenge support materials.The 3M Young Scientist also offers a unique challenge for students in the form of a project-based opportunity "that gives students a chance to work one-on-one with a 3M Scientist during an exclusive summer mentorship, developing new skills and transforming their idea intro a working prototype! Encourage your scientists to enter today and use these resources to help guide them through the process." There is also a section designed for students featuring tons of science activities to help them see the real application of science in real-life. These activities "are based on classic scientific discoveries; some dating back over 200 years. Scientists have used these activities to engage audiences around the world.
Tool for Building Simulation Validating How Something Works
SageModeler is an intuitive modeling tool being developed at The Concord Consortium and the CREATE for STEM Institute at Michigan State University for middle school and high school students to build their own models and validate their model design using real-world data. Using the SageModeler tool, students can take their current ideas about how something works and design a runnable simulation without needing to write equations or do traditional coding. By making it possible to map their ideas about a phenomenon to a working computational simulation, students can test, share, evaluate, and revise their model (and their understanding of the phenomenon). SageModeler makes possible three different types of modeling, from basic diagramming of the structure of a system to creation of a static equilibriummodel or a dynamic time-based model. A step-by-step tutorial is available in English and Spanish.
Khan Academy This is probably one of the most popular resources of video content covering topics as diverse as math, chemistry, biology, economics, history, finance, and many more.
Escape Room Puzzle Ideas for the Science Classroom
Mystery Science Mystery Science is offering its popular science lessons for free for teachers as a way to support them remote teaching "All of the lessons below are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers to use. We have short mini-lessons that are completely digital and full lessons that include an activity. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that families will likely already have at home."
Neal Fun https://neal.fun/ Large collection of interactive web tools and games.Activities help the user explore concepts in science, social studies, economics, math, history, philosophy, and more.
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Arizona Science Center Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. These include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.
Discovery Education Experience Discovery Education Experience, our flexible K-12 learning platform, provides compelling high-quality content, ready-to-use digital lessons, unique collaboration tools, and professional learning resources to give you everything you need to facilitate instruction and create a lasting educational impact. Built for all learners, grade levels, subject areas, and interests, Experience brings new excitement and relevance to the topics you teach and lets you reach and engage every student wherever learning is taking place."
YouTube Channels for Learning Science Check out this collection of some of the best YouTube channels that provide educational videos covering various science topics. These include SciShow kids, Socratica, Veritasium, National Geographic Kids, and many more.
Twig Science Reporter is a free weekly science news service for kindergarten through grade 6 classrooms created in partnership with Imperial College London to connect science lessons with real-world STEM news and events through high-quality video and other learning resources to pique students’ interest. Each week Twig helps teachers boost student engagement with free stories highlighting scientific concepts focused on everything from local phenomena to global issues.
Mystery Science Mystery Science is offering its popular science lessons for free for teachers as a way to support them during this time of pandemic. "All of the lessons below are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers to use. We have short mini-lessons that are completely digital and full lessons that include an activity. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that families will likely already have at home."
National Science Teachers Association is providing free sense-making tasks called Daily Dos designed to engage students in authentic, relevant science learning.Students actively try to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design solutions to problems (engineering) using the science and engineering practices that scientists engage in as they investigate and build models and theories about the natural world, and the key set of engineering practices that engineers use as they design and build models and systems. For example, a Daily Do at the elementary level asks children, “How does air make things move?” Another, at the middle school level, asks students, “Why do we see twin mountain ranges?” A high school Daily Do invites students to ponder, “How can an ecosystem survive without sunlight?” Engaging in these practices requires that students be part of the learning community by sharing and evaluating ideas, giving and receiving critique, and reaching consensus.
Science Journal for Kids and Teens. The website includes hundreds of articles approved by scientists written for kids. While most of the articles I found were best suited for secondary students, there are a few for elementary. The site also offers a very nice filtering system, allowing you to search by reading level, scientific field, scientific methodology (a world of learning there for high school students), and more. There are even a few articles written in languages other than English.
CK-12 STEM, math and science resource with highly customizable content
Exploratorium, in San Francisco, has an online learning toolbox with free science activities for virtual education. Resources include "science snacks," which use "cheap, readily available materials" and can be done at home. The organization has also published a collection of free, Spanish-language science activities, Bocadillos científicos. https://www.exploratorium.edu/learn
Arizona Science Center Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. These include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.
The American Museum of Natural History is sharing a bunch of online content for teachers and families to use during virus days. That includes the "OLogy" science website with lessons on subjects from anthropology to zoology; online science curriculum collections; virtual visits to the museum through its YouTube channel; and massive open, online museum courses delivered through Coursera. https://www.amnh.org/explore
Open-Source Kit for Middle School Science OpenSciEd was launched to create high-quality open-source science instructional materials specifically for middle schools. The lessons are available for science teachers to access and download freely. All align with NGSS and are developed by educators and tested by teachers. The organization recently released hands-on learning content for eighth-grade science. The latest unit covers Each unit includes a set of professional learning resources, with instructional agendas, slides, and videos. A remote learning guide is also available
Discovery Education Experience "Discovery Education Experience, our flexible K-12 learning platform, provides compelling high-quality content, ready-to-use digital lessons, unique collaboration tools, and professional learning resources to give you everything you need to facilitate instruction and create a lasting educational impact. Built for all learners, grade levels, subject areas, and interests, Experience brings new excitement and relevance to the topics you teach and lets you reach and engage every student wherever learning is taking place.".
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comForensics National Science Foundation produces educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures.
Flinn Scientific has compiled numerous resources for science education, including video labs with teacher and student guides and 130 at-home activitiesfor middle and high school science students. The company is also offering broadcasts of lab experiments conducted by its own scientific staff. https://www.flinnsci.com/athomescience/at-home-lab-series/
Braingenie is an useful website for students and teachers of Math and Science. It covers most of the topics under these subjects, aided with extensive video lessons and practice questions, which help build mastery and sharpen problem-solving skills. Teachers can use Braingenie to create class groups, set goals and provide assignments to the students. They can also monitor their individual students’ and entire class’ progress. Students can use Braingenie to master a number of Math and Science skills using the available video lessons and practice exercises for each skill. They can follow their curriculum in class, and even learn at their own pace. They can also prepare for quizzes and tests and the gamified system of Braingenie, with the reward of badges and awards on progress keeps students motivated to learn Walk-Through:- Get started right away by clicking on ‘Learn and Practice’ or by going to the listed courses, but it’s best to set up an account to track your progress and compare it with your friends. So, sign-up as a student or a teacher to proceed.
NOVA Labs "A digital platform where "citizen scientists" can actively participate in the scientific process and take part in real-world investigations by visualizing, analyzing, and playing with the same data that scientists use.
Bozeman Science: More detailed explanations of science concepts. Great for expanding on a topic.
Crash Course: Another source of more detailed explanations, with more humor. The narrative is pretty fast though, so encourage students to turn on the captions.
Steve Spangler’s website is full of engaging activities that require minimal materials. In fact, most of the experiments use items that you most likely have around your home or classroom. You can find a list of experiments by clicking here.
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
Science Kids As its name indicates, Science for Kids is a website that features a treasure trove of educational science materials. These include online games, experiments, lesson plans, quizzes, science projects, free activities and many more.
National Geographic Kids Nat Geo Kids enables science lovers to explore the world of science through a collection of apps, games, magazines, toys, videos, and many other materials.
The Organic Chemistry Tutor "This channel focuses on providing tutorial videos on organic chemistry, general chemistry, physics, algebra, trigonometry, precalculus, and calculus."
Sci Show: An excellent resource from the same makers of Crash Course that explores random topics. Great for real-life connections and for students to explore science concepts they are interested.
Simulations & Interactives
Interactive Science Simulations
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work.
PhET its activity search tool now includes a filter for remote activities. Through this search tool you can locate lesson plans designed for remote instruction and learning. You can combine the remote search filter with any of the other subject, level, and language search filters. Watch this short video to see how it works. The following video demonstrate how to include PhET's science and math simulations in your Google Site. Those of you who watch the video will also notice that the simulations can also be shared via a direct Google Classroom integration. www.freetech4teachers.com
Every Place Has Its Own Climate Risk. What Is It Where You Live? An interactive from The NY Times. You click on your county, and and it will least which climate challenges face your community.
🎯Ask a Biologist K - 12 activities (includes short and long play games, simulations, and virtual field trips) , stories and images (zoom - in/virtual microscope)
Biology Simulations
Tools
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Chart It is a tool that lets you create charts.
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google Slides Add-on Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
MathType this is an equation editor which allows you to easily type and handwrite mathematical notation in your Google documents. The add-on provides you with almost the same features you would normally find on the online version. MathType also supports chemical notation which you can access through ChemType. All the chemistry-related features are activated when the chemistry toolbar is activated.
Videos
YouTube Channels for Learning Science This collection of some of the best YouTube channels that provide educational videos covering various science topics. These include SciShow kids, Socratica, Veritasium, National Geographic Kids, and many more.
Amoeba Sisters videos,
Google Practice Sets "With practice sets, in Google Classroom, educators are able to use content they already have, or come up with brand new questions from scratch, to build an assessment activity. Google's artificial intelligence then scans the questions and determines the learning skills being addressed, and finds helpful hints and resources to go along with each question in case the students need assistance".Introduction video | Details
Easy Virtual STEM Activities for Kids - Many STEM subjects rely on in-person interactions, but these easy virtual STEM activities prove that there are no limits to learning.
AhaSlides AhaSlides transforms linear presentations into interactive ones with live polls, quizzes, word clouds, brainstorming activities, and spinner wheels. Ideal for remote learning days,
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
PhET its activity search tool now includes a filter for remote activities. Through this search tool you can locate lesson plans designed for remote instruction and learning. You can combine the remote search filter with any of the other subject, level, and language search filters. Watch this short video to see how it works. The following video demonstrate how to include PhET's science and math simulations in your Google Site. Those of you who watch the video will also notice that the simulations can also be shared via a direct Google Classroom integration. www.freetech4teachers.com
Science Journal for Kids and Teens Free reports on cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science research adapted for students and their teachers. Articles can be selected according to reading level (elementary school, lower high school, middle school, upper high school) and/or subject field (biodiversity and conservation, biology, energy and climate, food and agriculture, health and medicine, physical science, pollution, social science, technology, water resources).
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
OpenSciEd Instructional Materials
OpenSciEd is an innovative nonprofit organization that brings together world-class curriculum developers, state science administrators, teachers, and philanthropic organizations to create free, high-quality, NGSS-aligned science instructional materials and professional learning experiences. The organization offers elementary, middle school, and high school science curricula, remote learning resources, a phenomena simulation library, and phenomena videos.
The 3M Young Scientist Lab K - 8 is a website we are adding to our science distance teaching and learning resources. It provides teachers with tons of educational resources to get their students motivated and engaged in science learning in class. Among these resources are custom lesson plans that cover science topics for grades k-8; interactive activities to help students "discover the real-world science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school"; and challenge support materials.The 3M Young Scientist also offers a unique challenge for students in the form of a project-based opportunity "that gives students a chance to work one-on-one with a 3M Scientist during an exclusive summer mentorship, developing new skills and transforming their idea intro a working prototype! Encourage your scientists to enter today and use these resources to help guide them through the process." There is also a section designed for students featuring tons of science activities to help them see the real application of science in real-life. These activities "are based on classic scientific discoveries; some dating back over 200 years. Scientists have used these activities to engage audiences around the world.
Tool for Building Simulation Validating How Something Works
SageModeler is an intuitive modeling tool being developed at The Concord Consortium and the CREATE for STEM Institute at Michigan State University for middle school and high school students to build their own models and validate their model design using real-world data. Using the SageModeler tool, students can take their current ideas about how something works and design a runnable simulation without needing to write equations or do traditional coding. By making it possible to map their ideas about a phenomenon to a working computational simulation, students can test, share, evaluate, and revise their model (and their understanding of the phenomenon). SageModeler makes possible three different types of modeling, from basic diagramming of the structure of a system to creation of a static equilibriummodel or a dynamic time-based model. A step-by-step tutorial is available in English and Spanish.
Khan Academy This is probably one of the most popular resources of video content covering topics as diverse as math, chemistry, biology, economics, history, finance, and many more.
Escape Room Puzzle Ideas for the Science Classroom
Mystery Science Mystery Science is offering its popular science lessons for free for teachers as a way to support them remote teaching "All of the lessons below are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers to use. We have short mini-lessons that are completely digital and full lessons that include an activity. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that families will likely already have at home."
Neal Fun https://neal.fun/ Large collection of interactive web tools and games.Activities help the user explore concepts in science, social studies, economics, math, history, philosophy, and more.
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Arizona Science Center Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. These include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.
Discovery Education Experience Discovery Education Experience, our flexible K-12 learning platform, provides compelling high-quality content, ready-to-use digital lessons, unique collaboration tools, and professional learning resources to give you everything you need to facilitate instruction and create a lasting educational impact. Built for all learners, grade levels, subject areas, and interests, Experience brings new excitement and relevance to the topics you teach and lets you reach and engage every student wherever learning is taking place."
YouTube Channels for Learning Science Check out this collection of some of the best YouTube channels that provide educational videos covering various science topics. These include SciShow kids, Socratica, Veritasium, National Geographic Kids, and many more.
Twig Science Reporter is a free weekly science news service for kindergarten through grade 6 classrooms created in partnership with Imperial College London to connect science lessons with real-world STEM news and events through high-quality video and other learning resources to pique students’ interest. Each week Twig helps teachers boost student engagement with free stories highlighting scientific concepts focused on everything from local phenomena to global issues.
Mystery Science Mystery Science is offering its popular science lessons for free for teachers as a way to support them during this time of pandemic. "All of the lessons below are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers to use. We have short mini-lessons that are completely digital and full lessons that include an activity. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that families will likely already have at home."
National Science Teachers Association is providing free sense-making tasks called Daily Dos designed to engage students in authentic, relevant science learning.Students actively try to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design solutions to problems (engineering) using the science and engineering practices that scientists engage in as they investigate and build models and theories about the natural world, and the key set of engineering practices that engineers use as they design and build models and systems. For example, a Daily Do at the elementary level asks children, “How does air make things move?” Another, at the middle school level, asks students, “Why do we see twin mountain ranges?” A high school Daily Do invites students to ponder, “How can an ecosystem survive without sunlight?” Engaging in these practices requires that students be part of the learning community by sharing and evaluating ideas, giving and receiving critique, and reaching consensus.
Science Journal for Kids and Teens. The website includes hundreds of articles approved by scientists written for kids. While most of the articles I found were best suited for secondary students, there are a few for elementary. The site also offers a very nice filtering system, allowing you to search by reading level, scientific field, scientific methodology (a world of learning there for high school students), and more. There are even a few articles written in languages other than English.
CK-12 STEM, math and science resource with highly customizable content
Exploratorium, in San Francisco, has an online learning toolbox with free science activities for virtual education. Resources include "science snacks," which use "cheap, readily available materials" and can be done at home. The organization has also published a collection of free, Spanish-language science activities, Bocadillos científicos. https://www.exploratorium.edu/learn
Arizona Science Center Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. These include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.
The American Museum of Natural History is sharing a bunch of online content for teachers and families to use during virus days. That includes the "OLogy" science website with lessons on subjects from anthropology to zoology; online science curriculum collections; virtual visits to the museum through its YouTube channel; and massive open, online museum courses delivered through Coursera. https://www.amnh.org/explore
Open-Source Kit for Middle School Science OpenSciEd was launched to create high-quality open-source science instructional materials specifically for middle schools. The lessons are available for science teachers to access and download freely. All align with NGSS and are developed by educators and tested by teachers. The organization recently released hands-on learning content for eighth-grade science. The latest unit covers Each unit includes a set of professional learning resources, with instructional agendas, slides, and videos. A remote learning guide is also available
Discovery Education Experience "Discovery Education Experience, our flexible K-12 learning platform, provides compelling high-quality content, ready-to-use digital lessons, unique collaboration tools, and professional learning resources to give you everything you need to facilitate instruction and create a lasting educational impact. Built for all learners, grade levels, subject areas, and interests, Experience brings new excitement and relevance to the topics you teach and lets you reach and engage every student wherever learning is taking place.".
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comForensics National Science Foundation produces educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures.
Flinn Scientific has compiled numerous resources for science education, including video labs with teacher and student guides and 130 at-home activitiesfor middle and high school science students. The company is also offering broadcasts of lab experiments conducted by its own scientific staff. https://www.flinnsci.com/athomescience/at-home-lab-series/
Braingenie is an useful website for students and teachers of Math and Science. It covers most of the topics under these subjects, aided with extensive video lessons and practice questions, which help build mastery and sharpen problem-solving skills. Teachers can use Braingenie to create class groups, set goals and provide assignments to the students. They can also monitor their individual students’ and entire class’ progress. Students can use Braingenie to master a number of Math and Science skills using the available video lessons and practice exercises for each skill. They can follow their curriculum in class, and even learn at their own pace. They can also prepare for quizzes and tests and the gamified system of Braingenie, with the reward of badges and awards on progress keeps students motivated to learn Walk-Through:- Get started right away by clicking on ‘Learn and Practice’ or by going to the listed courses, but it’s best to set up an account to track your progress and compare it with your friends. So, sign-up as a student or a teacher to proceed.
NOVA Labs "A digital platform where "citizen scientists" can actively participate in the scientific process and take part in real-world investigations by visualizing, analyzing, and playing with the same data that scientists use.
Bozeman Science: More detailed explanations of science concepts. Great for expanding on a topic.
Crash Course: Another source of more detailed explanations, with more humor. The narrative is pretty fast though, so encourage students to turn on the captions.
Steve Spangler’s website is full of engaging activities that require minimal materials. In fact, most of the experiments use items that you most likely have around your home or classroom. You can find a list of experiments by clicking here.
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
Science Kids As its name indicates, Science for Kids is a website that features a treasure trove of educational science materials. These include online games, experiments, lesson plans, quizzes, science projects, free activities and many more.
National Geographic Kids Nat Geo Kids enables science lovers to explore the world of science through a collection of apps, games, magazines, toys, videos, and many other materials.
The Organic Chemistry Tutor "This channel focuses on providing tutorial videos on organic chemistry, general chemistry, physics, algebra, trigonometry, precalculus, and calculus."
Sci Show: An excellent resource from the same makers of Crash Course that explores random topics. Great for real-life connections and for students to explore science concepts they are interested.
Simulations & Interactives
Interactive Science Simulations
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work.
PhET its activity search tool now includes a filter for remote activities. Through this search tool you can locate lesson plans designed for remote instruction and learning. You can combine the remote search filter with any of the other subject, level, and language search filters. Watch this short video to see how it works. The following video demonstrate how to include PhET's science and math simulations in your Google Site. Those of you who watch the video will also notice that the simulations can also be shared via a direct Google Classroom integration. www.freetech4teachers.com
Every Place Has Its Own Climate Risk. What Is It Where You Live? An interactive from The NY Times. You click on your county, and and it will least which climate challenges face your community.
🎯Ask a Biologist K - 12 activities (includes short and long play games, simulations, and virtual field trips) , stories and images (zoom - in/virtual microscope)
Biology Simulations
- Botany
- Ask a Biologist K - 12 activities (includes short and long play games, simulations, and virtual field trips) , stories and images (zoom - in/virtual microscope)
- Cell and Molecular Biology
- Development and Embryology
- Ecology and Conservation
- Evolutionary Biology
- General
- Genetics
- Human Anatomy and Physiology
- Life
- Microbiology
- Zoology
Tools
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Chart It is a tool that lets you create charts.
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google Slides Add-on Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
MathType this is an equation editor which allows you to easily type and handwrite mathematical notation in your Google documents. The add-on provides you with almost the same features you would normally find on the online version. MathType also supports chemical notation which you can access through ChemType. All the chemistry-related features are activated when the chemistry toolbar is activated.
Videos
YouTube Channels for Learning Science This collection of some of the best YouTube channels that provide educational videos covering various science topics. These include SciShow kids, Socratica, Veritasium, National Geographic Kids, and many more.
Amoeba Sisters videos,
A Model for Setting Up Group Work in Online High School Math
Math in Real Life Life is a series of 167 TED-Ed lessons and TED Talks. The "real life" context in these lessons isn't things like "how calculating percentages helps you be a frugal shopper." The "real life" context found in the videos in the Math in Real Life series is broad in nature. For example, you will find lessons about how math is used to guide ships and calculating rates of travel in space. www.freetech4teachers.com
🎯Math Whiteboard is a fabulous, free, collaborative tool designed specifically for math education. It allows the teacher, who shares a link to a collaborative board, to see the work of every student at one time. You can import PDFs for students to work on and annotate, use the included graphing calculator, take advantage of the powerful Computer Algebra System that allows for calculations from arithmetic to calculus, and write or type math formulas and numbers.
Whiteboard: the original, on a fixed-sized canvas (includes student MWBs)
Middle School Math Jamboard Collection | Algebra 1 Jamboard Collection
Worked Examples "One massive, 400+ page PowerPoint file filled to the brim with maths worked examples, based on the book Teaching math with examples by Michael Pershan. Copy+paste the slides for a worked example into your lesson, and print student copies of each one 4-to-a-page."
High School Jamboard Collection | Open Middle Math Jamboards
✅Personalized Learning Made Easy: Using the Learner Variability Navigator in the Classroom "Many of these students become marginalized when systems do not consider their learner variability. "The Learner Variability Navigator is a free online tool. It translates learning research into learner factors and teaching strategies. It is designed to be used as a supplement or support to programs. A key goal is to tailor instruction to meet individual needs. It then examines the factors that research has identified as critical to learning success and provides strategies, assessments, activities and videos to address students who may need support in an identified factor. The list is extensive and the factors are grouped into four categories – content area, cognition, social-emotional and learner background. The following video shows how to use the Learner Variability Navigator.
Mental Math - What Strategies Jamboard for some math problems to practice doing mental math. How would you simplify these expressions if you could not use paper?
Algebra Warm Ups - A year’s worth of short Algebra exercises meant to bridge the gap between Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 (but could be used by anyone) in Google Slides and Docs format.
Math Escape Rooms
Choice Boards for Math
Google Slides Always-Sometimes-Never-Polynomials
7th Grade Math Jamboard Collection | 4th Grade Math Jamboard Collections | 3rd Grade Math Jamboard Collections | Second Grade Math Jamboard Collection | 1st Grade Math Jamboard Collections
Mathigon ( gr. 6 - 12) An interactive take on the classic math textbook. There are mini-games, interactive elements, and problems to solve throughout the text to keep students engaged. Topics range from Divisibility and Primes to Differential Equations; other fun topics include Mathematical Origami. Students must often show knowledge of concepts being taught before they're able to move forward. As students enter answers, an interactive bot named Archie gives real-time feedback and positive support and hints.
Graspable Math Graspable Math, available for free for teachers, is an “algebraic notation system.” This means that you can interact on the screen with math symbols. The interactive nature changes how children interact with math, making it less abstract.
Interactive Math Simulations
PhET its activity search tool now includes a filter for remote activities. Through this search tool you can locate lesson plans designed for remote instruction and learning. You can combine the remote search filter with any of the other subject, level, and language search filters. Watch this short video to see how it works. The following video demonstrate how to include PhET's science and math simulations in your Google Site. Those of you who watch the video will also notice that the simulations can also be shared via a direct Google Classroom integration. www.freetech4teachers.com
How to Turn Math Word Problems Into Engaging Comics
Elementary students may struggle with the wording of problems, and the visual supports of comics can help them focus on the math.
Permission slips help us set our intention and focus. Share examples such as, “I give myself permission to make a mistake and try again.” Then ask students to create their own permission slip (self-management
Math Tasks Resources Broad selection of challenges and manipulatives
Bad Calculators - Dozens of fun and challenging math puzzles where you apply operations to reach a result in a certain number of moves.
MathType this is an equation editor which allows you to easily type and handwrite mathematical notation in your Google documents. The add-on provides you with almost the same features you would normally find on the online version. MathType also supports chemical notation which you can access through ChemType. All the chemistry-related features are activated when the chemistry toolbar is activated.
Empower Your MathLessons with Google Suite Incorporate, Google docs, Slides, Drawings and more to enhance math instruction
Which One Doesn't Belong?, "a website dedicated to providing thought-provoking puzzles for math teachers and students alike. There are no answers provided as there are many different, correct ways of choosing which one doesn't belong."
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
GeoGebra has many useful tools and activities for many of the hands-on geometry construction standards, and EquatIO which helps add mathematical symbols into text spaces. How to use Geogebra notes video 1 | video 2
Who Am I? A number robot offers clues about who the puzzle represents. The goal is to fill in the blanks for its digits and solve the mystery. Logical thinking is critical here. There are currently more than 200 visual, interactive mathematical puzzles or students can create their own puzzles to share with friends or the SolveMe Community. Students can play without an account or log in to keep track of their progress. And all SolveMe activities are self checking.
SolveMe Mobiles. This tool provides equations practice using mobiles. Imagine a hanging sculpture made with shapes, strings, and beams. The beams and strings are weightless, but the shapes have weight. Students can also create their own mobiles for others to solve.
SolveMe Mystery Grid is another great math logic tool. To solve a mystery grid puzzle, place all the tiles on the grid so that every row and every column contains exactly one type of tile, and so that the tiles fit the clues.
Autograph 5 is free, downloadable software for high school math teachers (and their students). It allows you to visualize math problems in 2D and 3D designs with the click of a button.
Cyberchase gr. 2 - 5 Facilitates math practice and application. Its varied videos could be used to introduce, reinforce, or apply concepts. The homepage has tabs for videos (including full episodes of the television show as well as Web shorts), games, and printable activities, and a tab to search the video and game library by topic. One drawback is that most games don't continue to progress to new levels or difficulties once they're cleared. Another drawback is that you can search for videos and games by topic or theme, but not by grade level or age, so it may take several tries to find something at the right level.
Free Math Instruction Apps from the Math Learning Center is a resource that I've shared in the past. The last time I wrote about it was a couple of years ago. Back then it offered ten free apps containing virtual manipulatives for math lessons. Since then MLC has expanded to offer twelve free apps. Ten of them are available for iOS, Android, and Chrome while two are currently Chrome-only. Math Learning Center apps are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. With the exception of the flashcards app, all of the Math Learning Center's free apps are designed to provide you and your students with virtual manipulatives. By the way, the flashcard app is available in English and Spanish.
EquatIO - Math made digital - Google Chrome "makes math digital, helping teachers and students at all levels create math expressions quickly and easily. Type or handwrite virtually any mathematical term" Review
Microsoft Math Solver - Step-by-step directions for solving math problems from Pre-Algebra to Calculus, as well as supporting videos, quizzes, worksheets, and other resources.
Splat POWERFUL, highly interactive number sense strategy that can be used at any grade level.
Matific A collection of online Mathematics activities that teach students problem solving and critical thinking through discovery...Matific’s content is completely browsable and searchable, and you can even designate any content specifically for schoolwork or homework, and all our content is aligned to your local curriculum or textbook."
CK-12 Math The math section in cK-12 offers a collection of mathe resources covering: precalculus, Algebra, Geometry, and 1st-8th grades math.
Would You Rather Math is so awesome! The two-statement scenario spurs debate, discussion, reasoning, and writing in the math classroom. The questions are separated into four grade levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12.
Open Middle (pre-K–grade 12) leaves parts of an equation blank and asks students to fill them in to make it true. “I love Open Middle for remote learning, especially paired with a Google Jamboard,” says teacher McGrath. “The problems inspire inquiry thinking, game like play, creativity, and perseverance.”| Open Middle Math Jamboards
Depth of Knowledge Matrix based on the Open Middle concept for Algebra 2 available from Robert Kaplinsky. He also has these matrices:
MashUpMath 6- 8 Middle School Try to match the puzzle with certain holidays or events.
Mental Math - What Strategies Jamboard for some math problems to practice doing mental math. How would you simplify these expressions if you could not use paper?
Using Jamboard to get students doing math together (video) | Math Jamboard Templates
Function (or Not) Puzzle with links to a Google Slides version and a Jamboard version. scroll down to see the download options
Two Kahoot Features for Math Math symbol editor is now part of the built-in features in Kahoot creator allowing you to easily add a wide variety of formulas and equations into "questions, answer alternatives and slides in your Kahoot". To open the math editor, click on f(x) and use the provided options to type in a formula or equation, once finished click on Insert. Another great feature from Kahoot that math teachers will find helpful is the ability to use images as answer alternatives in your kahoots. These can be practical when "explaining graphs and fractions in a more interactive way". You can use either your own images or select from kahoot's library. You can also mix both images with text to make your kahoot more engaging.
Zearn K - 5 An online math curriculum (coupled with live whole- and small-group instruction) for grades one through five, with supplemental skills practice activities for kindergartners. Students open up to a dashboard with tasks to be completed; these include a variety of fluency warm-ups that promote general number sense and lesson-specific skills, as well as guided practice with interactive video lessons that feature enthusiastic human teachers and school-age children ("The Zearn Squad"). Students will also find an independent practice and formative assessment activity rolled into one (called the Tower of Power) and a summative exit ticket. Teachers have quick access to the curriculum from their own dashboard, as well as a handy Pace Report to help track student progress.
LearnZillion has numerous free video math lessons that end with a quiz. Those in themselves are not that big of a deal, but three nice things about them are that they are designed by teachers, are free, and that teachers can create “virtual” classes and monitor student progress on them.
xtramath.org. It is a free site that helps kids master their math facts. Initially, the student takes an assessment quiz of what they already have mastered as indicated by a response of 3 seconds or less. Each consecutive session is based on the outcome of the previous assessments. It takes about 5 minutes a day, provides corrective feedback, visuals for goal setting, and can be used for the whole class or set up at home by a parent.
Formative for Interactive Math Worksheets | Tips for Math Teachers! | Formative Help Center | You can also use the whiteboard and observe in realtime students work and comment and provide help through text or audio.
Classkick is an interactive tool which allows teachers to create assignments and push them out to their students. Classkick allows teacher-created assignments to become interactive learning opportunities for students. Classkick offers teachers the ability to view their entire class in one screen, in real-time. It also allows teachers to provide immediate feedback on student work. Almost like a virtual whiteboard, a teacher might pose a math a few math problems on the question slides. Students can then work through those problems at their own pace and demonstrate their thinking with a variety of annotation tools. The teacher is able to monitor students’ screens from his or her own device and provide feedback directly to individual students. | How to Create a Classkick Account and Use the Online Whiteboard Tools in Math Classes
Spiral Assessment tool for teachers that incorporates real-time feedback for students. Quickfire, Clip, Team Up, and Discuss. Quickfire allows teachers to assign a quiz or ask a question. Teachers can send back inadequate responses immediately and ask students to improve and resubmit responses. Clip allows users to create interactive videos, stopping periodically to check understanding or discuss content. Team Up allows teachers to randomize or assign teams and have students create presentations that hold each member accountable. Finally, Discuss allows users to participate in interactive presentations by asking questions, sharing pictures, and responding to others. tutorial
That Quiz Quizzes on arithmetic to calculus, You can use activities provide and edit them or design your own Video tutorial
Boddle ( K -5) is an adaptive learning platform that offers access to a wide variety of interactive math games designed specifically for kids. Besides self-paced practice activities that target grades K-6 mathematics, Boddle offers you the possibility to host your own class online. You can create a classroom and invite your students to join. As students play the game, you will get access to real-time reports about their performance and tools to track their progress.Content on Boddle is standards-aligned designed. Boddle can be used in a variety of educational activities in class including as an exit ticket, a formative assessment tool, or as a supplement to your lessons. Boddle comes in two version the basic version is free and offers limited features, the pro one comes with way more services
Bringing a Collaborative Math Strategy Online "In a four-step activity called “Try It, Talk It, Color It, Check It,” students work through problems together and explain their mathematical thinking—all on Zoom."
Write interactive math stories in Google Slides
Zearn has made its K-5 math curriculum available for free to teachers. The content includes 400 hours of digital lessons with on-screen teachers and "supportive remediation," as well as paper-based materials that can be used device-free. https://about.zearn.org/distance-learning
Which One Doesn’t Belong? (pre-K–grade 12), a similar site, showcases four shapes, numbers, or graphs and asks students to describe which one doesn’t belong, using math vocabulary. “This is great for opening a synchronous discussion, as it is considered a low-floor, high-ceiling task,” says Joseph Manfre, a math specialist for the Hawaii Department of Education. High school math teacher Mary Bourassa has her calculus students identify reasons why each graph in a set of four doesn't belong by indicating graph characteristics like asymptotes and non-differentiable points, and later has her students create their own WODB sets.
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
Math Equations Allows you to take your typeset languages and convert them to images to use inside of your Google slideshow. Other features include the ability to reload a equation image and make changes and re upload to your presentation.’
Write on PDFs in Google Classroom - tool for math Provides a way students can do free-hand writing on documents shared in Google Classroom. A better option to having students take pictures of handwritten work and uploading it to Google Classroom assignments. The Chrome extension called Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF is a Chrome extension that enables students to draw on top of PDFs that you open in Chrome. After drawing on the PDF students can save the PDF as a new copy or replace the existing copy of the PDF that was sent to them in Google Classroom. video overview of how students can use Lumin PDF to write on PDFs that are assigned to them in Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
HowCan Help Students Solve Math Problems OneNote Within OneNote there is a great feature that can help students solve math problems. In the video that you can see how OneNote can help students solve math problems OneNote provides students with step-by-step outlines for solving math problems that they write in their OneNote notebooks. The way that this works is a student hand-writes or types a problem onto a page in OneNote and then highlights that problem using the lasso tool in OneNote. Once the problem is highlighted students can then select "math" in the ribbon menu and a new menu appears on the page. In that new menu students can choose to see the steps to take to solve the problem. Watch video to see how to use the math problem solution function in OneNote. Available in Windows and browser version on any computer. www.freetech4teachers.com
Division Brownies Conceptual practice of division, modeled after Jo Boaler Division Brownies in her book Mathematical Mindsets. Modeling Division of Brownies by @joboaler alicekeeler.com/boalerbrownies
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Chart It is a new tool that lets you create charts.
Drawings for Math
Khan Academy This is probably one of the most popular resources of video content covering topics as diverse as math, chemistry, biology, economics, history, finance, and many more.
Tutoring Experts As its name indicates, Tutoring Experts allows students to seek help with their math problems from tutors that are available 24/7. The process is simple and easy: students select the math area related to their problem, take a screenshot or use a picture of their problem, upload the image, add details about the problem and click on 'Start 20-min session'. There are 7 areas covered so far: Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Trigonometry, Precalculus, Calculus.
Transum Mathematics K - 6 A large collection of free interactive online activities supporting the teaching and learning of Mathematics.
Battleship Google Slides template for coordinate plane battleship Game Based Learning: Google Slides Coordinate Plane Battleship alicekeeler.com/slidesbattleship
Best Math Websites Chosen by Teachers: We Are Teachers has compiled online math resources for teachers (grades K-12)
Online Resources for Math Teachers: The National Council for Teaching Mathematics has curated these recommended resources, as well as related guidance on teaching math in the coming school year (grades K-12)
ASSISTments is a free tool for middle school level students assigning and assessing math problems and homework. Teachers can select and assign problem sets from providers like Eureka Math and Illustrative Math, the Common Core, or various textbook curricula or state assessments. Questions range from Skill Builders to Problem Sets to Exit Tickets, and all work can be assigned through Canvas or Google Classroom. Once they get an assignment, students can complete it at their own pace and with the help of hints, multiple chances, and immediate feedback. Teachers get instant results broken down by individual student or for the whole class.Teachers must initially put time into searching through the folders of content, organized by skills and concepts and identified by problem set IDs. This organization is a little odd, but once teachers have their favorite problem sets identified, things get easier. When students complete the assignments, teachers will have access to a time-stamped report that shows who answered correctly, when hints were used, and how long it took each student to complete the set.
Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. Also math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.
Webmath Webmath is a "site that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also shows the student how to arrive at the answer."
Virtual Manipulatives
Hand2mind A home learning resource for K-5 students. The "Learning at Home" program includes videos on math and literacy content taught by teachers and activities to reinforce the lessons and downloadable worksheets.
Math Playground K - 6 Math and Logic Game Thinking Blocks” and “Thinking Blocks Tool”
Solvemoji is a free website that makes math puzzles using emojis. There are ten levels of difficulty in classic, grid, or word types. You can create an account to join the leaderboard or just solve puzzles on the website. Solvemoji puzzles are great for math warmups and bell ringers.
YouTube channels for Math teachers
This is a collection of some helpful YouTube channels where you can access educational video content covering various math concepts. The channels include Math TV, Khan Academy, Techmath, Mathantics and many more
Freckle Math content covers K-8 math and ELA Common Core standards. Its math offering includes individual online practice for students, as well as group lessons that are meant to be taught at the whole-class level over multiple days. The online math practice allows teachers to assign specific activities for individual students to complete when they log on to their student accounts.
Online Math Games
Mark It Rounding game. Mark it Game alicekeeler.com/markitround10
Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
Play these fun Zoom games while social distancing to ensure you stay connected with everyone. They can be used with kids or adults.
Buzz Me In: Remote Learning Buzzers and Scoreboards
Want to gamify learning in your remote classroom in support of practice testing? Why not drop in an online buzzer or scoreboard? Find out how in this blog.
Solve It A “Frayer model for math.”alicekeeler.com/solveit
CSI: Algebra -- The Real Number System | Google slides version
Delta Math is a free program that allows teachers to combine modules of lessons. The modules cover a wide range of topics taught in Middle School math, Algebra 1 & 2, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and Computer Science. Once teachers set up their account and create their classes, they can provide students with a code to join their class. Students can work through modules at their own pace if you choose. The program includes built in graphing and statistical calculators as well as a keyboard that allows the user to write mathematical expressions. There program also shows students the steps to get the correct solution. If you want to see their work, the students have to send you a screenshot. www.freetech4teachers.com
I Know It is offering free access to its online math practice lessons for students in grades K-5. The site features over 500 graphical math activities. Animated characters guide students through math lessons, and hints and graphical explanations help them along when they need it. This tool tracks progress and scores for teachers and parents. Parents and teachers can request unlimited access in a form online.
Middle School Math Resources features video lessons covering big mathematical ideas for grades 6-8, delivered by a certified teacher. Support materials are available in both English and Spanish, and feature student activities and practice problems.
Socratic and Google Lens to take a photo of a problem or equation they need help with. Socratic and Lens provide quick access to helpful results, such as step-by-step guides to solve the problem and detailed explainers to help you better understand key concepts. There's no guarantee kids are going to use this app to learn; some will just want quick answers. Bottom Line: Used wisely, this reference tool has the capacity to amplify learning and aid students on their own time and term
MathDisk is a service that teachers can use to develop interactive mathematics worksheets. Through MathDisk's "Math Builder" tool you can design mathematics models that your students can use online. The models and worksheets you develop online can also be downloaded to use offline if you also install the MiBook software on your desktop or on your Android device. If you don't have time to create new materials, the MathDisk gallery has pages of models and worksheets that you can choose from. Everything in the gallery, like everything you create through MathDisk, can be downloaded and or embedded into your own website or blog.
Fraction Talks (grades 1–12) is a website filled with images of shapes--triangles within triangles, for example—that encourages math discussions. Simply asking students, “What do you observe?” can prompt them to share what and how many shapes they notice, while asking “How many shapes are red or shaded?” encourages students to explore and understand fractions. Once students have a basic understanding of fractions, they can start to explore more complex concepts. By prompting students to look at subsections of a shape—and what fractions they created when combined.
Five Free Virtual Dice
Visual Patterns (K–grade 12) shows the beginning of a pattern—like several boxes in a grid—then asks students to figure out the equation to fit the pattern. “Even though there is only one answer,” says Manfre, “you can ask deeper questions with these kinds of tasks, and engage students with mathematics in its more natural, visual form.”
CK-12 STEM, social studies resource with highly customizable content
Youtube Math Channels
1- MooMooMath and Science
This channel provides a wide variety of videos covering Math and Science. Some of its playlists include: vectors, equations, biochemical cycle, types of cells, galaxies, prime numbers, and many more.
2- Numberphile
Another great YouTube channel that provides video content to help students learn math.
3- Socratica
Created by a couple of Caltech grads, Socratica offers educational videos covering both Math and Science.
4- 3Blue1Brown
"3blue1brown, by Grant Sanderson, is some combination of math and entertainment, depending on your disposition. The goal is for explanations to be driven by animations and for difficult problems to be made simple with changes in perspective."
5- Maths Gotserved
"This channel offers a wide variety of math tutorials ranging from algebra, algebra 2, trigonometry, to Calculus. We offer free support to our subscribers who need help with mathematics."
6- Brian McLogan
"I teach math from the perspective of the struggling student because that was me & it could be you, too. My videos are short, to-the-point and cover everything from Algebra 1 through Calculus."
Solveme The logic of balancing mobile puzzles is the same as the logic required in solving equations and systems of equations.
Inside Mathematics Dynamic videos and printables support CCSS math practices
RossmanChance.com A secondary math specialist, had her students graph how they felt during the first week of distance learning.Applets—a simple code with a specific objective—were mentioned by a few teachers as a good resource. Emma Chiappetta's statistics students use applets from RossmanChance.com to manipulate and identify sampling distribution patterns in graphs, for example. She creates a basic guide on how to use the applet with which values to change, and then asks questions to get students thinking critically about those patterns. Chiappetta also uses applets from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her linear algebra students.
Desmos (grades 6–12), a website with interactive math activities and a graphing calculator (also available as an app on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android). Desmos is not just a graphing calculator! There are Desmos Classroom Activities for ALL levels. Check out the new whiteboard screens for distance learning. While social and emotional learning (SEL) and math may not seem to go hand in hand, teachers integrated SEL into math lessons using Desmos. In the first week of distance learning, Ashley Taplin, a secondary math specialist in San Antonio, Texas, had her students graph how they were feeling, for example. Taplin says she particularly loves that teachers can make their own activities—like this one about parabolas and this card sort, where students match cards with the name, corresponding equation, and correct graphical representation of a function.
Math in Real Life Life is a series of 167 TED-Ed lessons and TED Talks. The "real life" context in these lessons isn't things like "how calculating percentages helps you be a frugal shopper." The "real life" context found in the videos in the Math in Real Life series is broad in nature. For example, you will find lessons about how math is used to guide ships and calculating rates of travel in space. www.freetech4teachers.com
🎯Math Whiteboard is a fabulous, free, collaborative tool designed specifically for math education. It allows the teacher, who shares a link to a collaborative board, to see the work of every student at one time. You can import PDFs for students to work on and annotate, use the included graphing calculator, take advantage of the powerful Computer Algebra System that allows for calculations from arithmetic to calculus, and write or type math formulas and numbers.
Whiteboard: the original, on a fixed-sized canvas (includes student MWBs)
- Infinity Whiteboard Another math whiteboard by the same teacher No login. Especially easy to upload files like a worksheet. video start at 8:23
Middle School Math Jamboard Collection | Algebra 1 Jamboard Collection
Worked Examples "One massive, 400+ page PowerPoint file filled to the brim with maths worked examples, based on the book Teaching math with examples by Michael Pershan. Copy+paste the slides for a worked example into your lesson, and print student copies of each one 4-to-a-page."
High School Jamboard Collection | Open Middle Math Jamboards
✅Personalized Learning Made Easy: Using the Learner Variability Navigator in the Classroom "Many of these students become marginalized when systems do not consider their learner variability. "The Learner Variability Navigator is a free online tool. It translates learning research into learner factors and teaching strategies. It is designed to be used as a supplement or support to programs. A key goal is to tailor instruction to meet individual needs. It then examines the factors that research has identified as critical to learning success and provides strategies, assessments, activities and videos to address students who may need support in an identified factor. The list is extensive and the factors are grouped into four categories – content area, cognition, social-emotional and learner background. The following video shows how to use the Learner Variability Navigator.
Mental Math - What Strategies Jamboard for some math problems to practice doing mental math. How would you simplify these expressions if you could not use paper?
Algebra Warm Ups - A year’s worth of short Algebra exercises meant to bridge the gap between Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 (but could be used by anyone) in Google Slides and Docs format.
Math Escape Rooms
Choice Boards for Math
Google Slides Always-Sometimes-Never-Polynomials
7th Grade Math Jamboard Collection | 4th Grade Math Jamboard Collections | 3rd Grade Math Jamboard Collections | Second Grade Math Jamboard Collection | 1st Grade Math Jamboard Collections
Mathigon ( gr. 6 - 12) An interactive take on the classic math textbook. There are mini-games, interactive elements, and problems to solve throughout the text to keep students engaged. Topics range from Divisibility and Primes to Differential Equations; other fun topics include Mathematical Origami. Students must often show knowledge of concepts being taught before they're able to move forward. As students enter answers, an interactive bot named Archie gives real-time feedback and positive support and hints.
Graspable Math Graspable Math, available for free for teachers, is an “algebraic notation system.” This means that you can interact on the screen with math symbols. The interactive nature changes how children interact with math, making it less abstract.
Interactive Math Simulations
PhET its activity search tool now includes a filter for remote activities. Through this search tool you can locate lesson plans designed for remote instruction and learning. You can combine the remote search filter with any of the other subject, level, and language search filters. Watch this short video to see how it works. The following video demonstrate how to include PhET's science and math simulations in your Google Site. Those of you who watch the video will also notice that the simulations can also be shared via a direct Google Classroom integration. www.freetech4teachers.com
How to Turn Math Word Problems Into Engaging Comics
Elementary students may struggle with the wording of problems, and the visual supports of comics can help them focus on the math.
Permission slips help us set our intention and focus. Share examples such as, “I give myself permission to make a mistake and try again.” Then ask students to create their own permission slip (self-management
Math Tasks Resources Broad selection of challenges and manipulatives
Bad Calculators - Dozens of fun and challenging math puzzles where you apply operations to reach a result in a certain number of moves.
MathType this is an equation editor which allows you to easily type and handwrite mathematical notation in your Google documents. The add-on provides you with almost the same features you would normally find on the online version. MathType also supports chemical notation which you can access through ChemType. All the chemistry-related features are activated when the chemistry toolbar is activated.
Empower Your MathLessons with Google Suite Incorporate, Google docs, Slides, Drawings and more to enhance math instruction
Which One Doesn't Belong?, "a website dedicated to providing thought-provoking puzzles for math teachers and students alike. There are no answers provided as there are many different, correct ways of choosing which one doesn't belong."
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
GeoGebra has many useful tools and activities for many of the hands-on geometry construction standards, and EquatIO which helps add mathematical symbols into text spaces. How to use Geogebra notes video 1 | video 2
Who Am I? A number robot offers clues about who the puzzle represents. The goal is to fill in the blanks for its digits and solve the mystery. Logical thinking is critical here. There are currently more than 200 visual, interactive mathematical puzzles or students can create their own puzzles to share with friends or the SolveMe Community. Students can play without an account or log in to keep track of their progress. And all SolveMe activities are self checking.
SolveMe Mobiles. This tool provides equations practice using mobiles. Imagine a hanging sculpture made with shapes, strings, and beams. The beams and strings are weightless, but the shapes have weight. Students can also create their own mobiles for others to solve.
SolveMe Mystery Grid is another great math logic tool. To solve a mystery grid puzzle, place all the tiles on the grid so that every row and every column contains exactly one type of tile, and so that the tiles fit the clues.
Autograph 5 is free, downloadable software for high school math teachers (and their students). It allows you to visualize math problems in 2D and 3D designs with the click of a button.
Cyberchase gr. 2 - 5 Facilitates math practice and application. Its varied videos could be used to introduce, reinforce, or apply concepts. The homepage has tabs for videos (including full episodes of the television show as well as Web shorts), games, and printable activities, and a tab to search the video and game library by topic. One drawback is that most games don't continue to progress to new levels or difficulties once they're cleared. Another drawback is that you can search for videos and games by topic or theme, but not by grade level or age, so it may take several tries to find something at the right level.
Free Math Instruction Apps from the Math Learning Center is a resource that I've shared in the past. The last time I wrote about it was a couple of years ago. Back then it offered ten free apps containing virtual manipulatives for math lessons. Since then MLC has expanded to offer twelve free apps. Ten of them are available for iOS, Android, and Chrome while two are currently Chrome-only. Math Learning Center apps are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. With the exception of the flashcards app, all of the Math Learning Center's free apps are designed to provide you and your students with virtual manipulatives. By the way, the flashcard app is available in English and Spanish.
EquatIO - Math made digital - Google Chrome "makes math digital, helping teachers and students at all levels create math expressions quickly and easily. Type or handwrite virtually any mathematical term" Review
- Voice Type Math Symbols into Google Docs Sheets Slides Jamboard
- Unfortunately, while all of EquatIO's features are free for teachers, students need to have a subscription in order to access all of the features within EquatIO. Here are a couple of other Add-ons that you might consider using for inserting graphs and equations into your Google Documents and Google Forms
- Jamboard Math Activities with Equatio - Resource Link - How to use the free Equatio extension to easily add all sorts of mathematical manipulatives, symbols, and expressions to Jamboard for learning activities.
- 🎯FigJam - Resource Link Online diagramming tool that is free for schools. Brainstorm ideas for projects and assignments with sticky notes, shapes, and freehand drawing. Organize thoughts and research with decision trees, diagrams, and mind maps. Collaborate with classmates and teachers in real time with feedback and comments. Plan and run group projects, presentations, and more. Create a Figma account - Help Article Verify education status - Help Article Education templates - https://www.figma.com/@education
Microsoft Math Solver - Step-by-step directions for solving math problems from Pre-Algebra to Calculus, as well as supporting videos, quizzes, worksheets, and other resources.
Splat POWERFUL, highly interactive number sense strategy that can be used at any grade level.
Matific A collection of online Mathematics activities that teach students problem solving and critical thinking through discovery...Matific’s content is completely browsable and searchable, and you can even designate any content specifically for schoolwork or homework, and all our content is aligned to your local curriculum or textbook."
CK-12 Math The math section in cK-12 offers a collection of mathe resources covering: precalculus, Algebra, Geometry, and 1st-8th grades math.
Would You Rather Math is so awesome! The two-statement scenario spurs debate, discussion, reasoning, and writing in the math classroom. The questions are separated into four grade levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12.
Open Middle (pre-K–grade 12) leaves parts of an equation blank and asks students to fill them in to make it true. “I love Open Middle for remote learning, especially paired with a Google Jamboard,” says teacher McGrath. “The problems inspire inquiry thinking, game like play, creativity, and perseverance.”| Open Middle Math Jamboards
Depth of Knowledge Matrix based on the Open Middle concept for Algebra 2 available from Robert Kaplinsky. He also has these matrices:
- Elementary and secondary matrix (a selection from eight grade levels)
- Elementary matrix (kindergarten through 5th grade)
- Secondary matrix (6th grade through calculus)
- 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 matrices (separate matrices for each grade level)
MashUpMath 6- 8 Middle School Try to match the puzzle with certain holidays or events.
Mental Math - What Strategies Jamboard for some math problems to practice doing mental math. How would you simplify these expressions if you could not use paper?
Using Jamboard to get students doing math together (video) | Math Jamboard Templates
Function (or Not) Puzzle with links to a Google Slides version and a Jamboard version. scroll down to see the download options
Two Kahoot Features for Math Math symbol editor is now part of the built-in features in Kahoot creator allowing you to easily add a wide variety of formulas and equations into "questions, answer alternatives and slides in your Kahoot". To open the math editor, click on f(x) and use the provided options to type in a formula or equation, once finished click on Insert. Another great feature from Kahoot that math teachers will find helpful is the ability to use images as answer alternatives in your kahoots. These can be practical when "explaining graphs and fractions in a more interactive way". You can use either your own images or select from kahoot's library. You can also mix both images with text to make your kahoot more engaging.
Zearn K - 5 An online math curriculum (coupled with live whole- and small-group instruction) for grades one through five, with supplemental skills practice activities for kindergartners. Students open up to a dashboard with tasks to be completed; these include a variety of fluency warm-ups that promote general number sense and lesson-specific skills, as well as guided practice with interactive video lessons that feature enthusiastic human teachers and school-age children ("The Zearn Squad"). Students will also find an independent practice and formative assessment activity rolled into one (called the Tower of Power) and a summative exit ticket. Teachers have quick access to the curriculum from their own dashboard, as well as a handy Pace Report to help track student progress.
LearnZillion has numerous free video math lessons that end with a quiz. Those in themselves are not that big of a deal, but three nice things about them are that they are designed by teachers, are free, and that teachers can create “virtual” classes and monitor student progress on them.
xtramath.org. It is a free site that helps kids master their math facts. Initially, the student takes an assessment quiz of what they already have mastered as indicated by a response of 3 seconds or less. Each consecutive session is based on the outcome of the previous assessments. It takes about 5 minutes a day, provides corrective feedback, visuals for goal setting, and can be used for the whole class or set up at home by a parent.
Formative for Interactive Math Worksheets | Tips for Math Teachers! | Formative Help Center | You can also use the whiteboard and observe in realtime students work and comment and provide help through text or audio.
Classkick is an interactive tool which allows teachers to create assignments and push them out to their students. Classkick allows teacher-created assignments to become interactive learning opportunities for students. Classkick offers teachers the ability to view their entire class in one screen, in real-time. It also allows teachers to provide immediate feedback on student work. Almost like a virtual whiteboard, a teacher might pose a math a few math problems on the question slides. Students can then work through those problems at their own pace and demonstrate their thinking with a variety of annotation tools. The teacher is able to monitor students’ screens from his or her own device and provide feedback directly to individual students. | How to Create a Classkick Account and Use the Online Whiteboard Tools in Math Classes
Spiral Assessment tool for teachers that incorporates real-time feedback for students. Quickfire, Clip, Team Up, and Discuss. Quickfire allows teachers to assign a quiz or ask a question. Teachers can send back inadequate responses immediately and ask students to improve and resubmit responses. Clip allows users to create interactive videos, stopping periodically to check understanding or discuss content. Team Up allows teachers to randomize or assign teams and have students create presentations that hold each member accountable. Finally, Discuss allows users to participate in interactive presentations by asking questions, sharing pictures, and responding to others. tutorial
That Quiz Quizzes on arithmetic to calculus, You can use activities provide and edit them or design your own Video tutorial
Boddle ( K -5) is an adaptive learning platform that offers access to a wide variety of interactive math games designed specifically for kids. Besides self-paced practice activities that target grades K-6 mathematics, Boddle offers you the possibility to host your own class online. You can create a classroom and invite your students to join. As students play the game, you will get access to real-time reports about their performance and tools to track their progress.Content on Boddle is standards-aligned designed. Boddle can be used in a variety of educational activities in class including as an exit ticket, a formative assessment tool, or as a supplement to your lessons. Boddle comes in two version the basic version is free and offers limited features, the pro one comes with way more services
Bringing a Collaborative Math Strategy Online "In a four-step activity called “Try It, Talk It, Color It, Check It,” students work through problems together and explain their mathematical thinking—all on Zoom."
Write interactive math stories in Google Slides
Zearn has made its K-5 math curriculum available for free to teachers. The content includes 400 hours of digital lessons with on-screen teachers and "supportive remediation," as well as paper-based materials that can be used device-free. https://about.zearn.org/distance-learning
Which One Doesn’t Belong? (pre-K–grade 12), a similar site, showcases four shapes, numbers, or graphs and asks students to describe which one doesn’t belong, using math vocabulary. “This is great for opening a synchronous discussion, as it is considered a low-floor, high-ceiling task,” says Joseph Manfre, a math specialist for the Hawaii Department of Education. High school math teacher Mary Bourassa has her calculus students identify reasons why each graph in a set of four doesn't belong by indicating graph characteristics like asymptotes and non-differentiable points, and later has her students create their own WODB sets.
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
Math Equations Allows you to take your typeset languages and convert them to images to use inside of your Google slideshow. Other features include the ability to reload a equation image and make changes and re upload to your presentation.’
Write on PDFs in Google Classroom - tool for math Provides a way students can do free-hand writing on documents shared in Google Classroom. A better option to having students take pictures of handwritten work and uploading it to Google Classroom assignments. The Chrome extension called Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF is a Chrome extension that enables students to draw on top of PDFs that you open in Chrome. After drawing on the PDF students can save the PDF as a new copy or replace the existing copy of the PDF that was sent to them in Google Classroom. video overview of how students can use Lumin PDF to write on PDFs that are assigned to them in Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
HowCan Help Students Solve Math Problems OneNote Within OneNote there is a great feature that can help students solve math problems. In the video that you can see how OneNote can help students solve math problems OneNote provides students with step-by-step outlines for solving math problems that they write in their OneNote notebooks. The way that this works is a student hand-writes or types a problem onto a page in OneNote and then highlights that problem using the lasso tool in OneNote. Once the problem is highlighted students can then select "math" in the ribbon menu and a new menu appears on the page. In that new menu students can choose to see the steps to take to solve the problem. Watch video to see how to use the math problem solution function in OneNote. Available in Windows and browser version on any computer. www.freetech4teachers.com
Division Brownies Conceptual practice of division, modeled after Jo Boaler Division Brownies in her book Mathematical Mindsets. Modeling Division of Brownies by @joboaler alicekeeler.com/boalerbrownies
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Chart It is a new tool that lets you create charts.
Drawings for Math
- 11 Ways to Teach Math with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Help Guide - "Teaching Math with Google Drawings" - Google Document link
- Training video - "Teaching Math with Google Drawings" - YouTube Video
- Blog post - "Interactive Clock Face with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Interactive Clock Face template - Google Drawing link
- Blog post - "Creating Fractions in Google Slides and Drawings" - Website link
- Blog post - "Pattern Block Templates and Activities with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Choral Counting Using Interactive Slides This interactive Choral Counting routine gives a place for student responses and visuals to show patterns.
- Which One Doesn’t Belong Get kids to compare and contrast to find the box that doesn’t belong in any subject area. Give each student a voice with open rationale writing space.
- Proportionate Pokemon Learn how to use POKEMON to teach kids about measurement (with non-standard units) and proportions.
- Which One Doesn’t Belong This classic strategy allows students to consider a rule for which one doesn’t belong.
Khan Academy This is probably one of the most popular resources of video content covering topics as diverse as math, chemistry, biology, economics, history, finance, and many more.
Tutoring Experts As its name indicates, Tutoring Experts allows students to seek help with their math problems from tutors that are available 24/7. The process is simple and easy: students select the math area related to their problem, take a screenshot or use a picture of their problem, upload the image, add details about the problem and click on 'Start 20-min session'. There are 7 areas covered so far: Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Trigonometry, Precalculus, Calculus.
Transum Mathematics K - 6 A large collection of free interactive online activities supporting the teaching and learning of Mathematics.
Battleship Google Slides template for coordinate plane battleship Game Based Learning: Google Slides Coordinate Plane Battleship alicekeeler.com/slidesbattleship
Best Math Websites Chosen by Teachers: We Are Teachers has compiled online math resources for teachers (grades K-12)
Online Resources for Math Teachers: The National Council for Teaching Mathematics has curated these recommended resources, as well as related guidance on teaching math in the coming school year (grades K-12)
ASSISTments is a free tool for middle school level students assigning and assessing math problems and homework. Teachers can select and assign problem sets from providers like Eureka Math and Illustrative Math, the Common Core, or various textbook curricula or state assessments. Questions range from Skill Builders to Problem Sets to Exit Tickets, and all work can be assigned through Canvas or Google Classroom. Once they get an assignment, students can complete it at their own pace and with the help of hints, multiple chances, and immediate feedback. Teachers get instant results broken down by individual student or for the whole class.Teachers must initially put time into searching through the folders of content, organized by skills and concepts and identified by problem set IDs. This organization is a little odd, but once teachers have their favorite problem sets identified, things get easier. When students complete the assignments, teachers will have access to a time-stamped report that shows who answered correctly, when hints were used, and how long it took each student to complete the set.
Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. Also math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.
Webmath Webmath is a "site that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also shows the student how to arrive at the answer."
Virtual Manipulatives
- The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives This website features interactive, grade-level-specific sets of manipulatives. You can click on tiles of students and teacher interacting to see what’s available.
- The Math Center is filled with virtual simulations and manipulatives, which can help students master important skills and concepts. Here are some of my favorite tools: There is also an IOS app.
- Math Virtual Manipulative Collection K-6 Wonderful collection of free virtual math manipulatives. It’s been put together by Julie Smith, the Techie Teacher, and can also be shared with students in Google Classroom, Seesaw, Canvas, or any other LMS you’re using with this link: https://bit.ly/TechieTeacherMath.
- MathBots Includes manipulatives, question generators, puzzles, printables, and more. I really the Starters section which offers bell ringer activities to get kids warmed up and ready to learn. It also has a great Tools section where you’ll find more than 25 different digital math resources perfect for exploratory learning or for teacher-led instruction. MathsBot include in Manipulatives, for instance, Coordinate Pegboard, Algebra Discs, Counters, Equation Solvers, Dice, Geoboard, and many more. Math tools offered include: Fraction Grids, Multim-Number Line, Number Bonds, Place Value Chart, Venn Diagrams, Scaled Times Tables, Percentage Trails, among others. There are also over 14 printable resources like Pyramids, Polygon Names, Angle Names, Axes, Dotty Grids, Basic Angle Rules, Pie Charts, etc. You can browse through the resources on MathsBot using the top menu or you can use the search box in the top right corner to search for specific items. Besides these resources, MathsBot also offers a timer, an advanced calculator, a set of mathematical symbols to copy, and a camera to take screenshots. All of these tools are located on the top left corner.
- Math Manipulatives for K - 5 Wide variety of tools. Clicxk on each one and it will link you to the tool
- Didax Virtual Manipulatives for Math $ Didax’s website offers web-based manipulatives you can use at no cost. They also offer video tutorials for how to use their virtual manipulatives.
- Whiteboard Chat Create collaborative whiteboards to use with your students. Virtual mathmanipulatives,. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Glencoe Math includes K - 5 tools and algebra tiles
- Decimal Blocks - Resource Link - Interactive tool for visualizing, building, describing, comparing, and exploring place value with decimals.
- Constructions - Resource Link - Interactive tool to perform constructions with a digital compass, ruler, protractor, and more.Exterior Angles - Resource Link - Interactive tool to create polygons and explore the sum of the exterior angles.
- Measure Up - Resource Link - Measure spaces and objects around you in augmented reality with this experiment for Chrome on Android.
- Math Tasks Resources scroll down to see manipulatives
- MathsPad - Interactive online tools including activities for constructions, graphing, decimal blocks, exterior angles, and more.
- Virtual Math Manipulatives K - 5
- Create Angles Google Drawing with a transparent protractor. Math: Creating Angles in a Google Drawing
- Mathigon’s Polypad Appearing in a tweet from Tony Vincent, Polypad offers some incredible digital manipulatives. You can add fraction bars, change the colors of objects, and much more.
- Toy Theater K - 5 This is a rich digital manipulative website. You can find a lot to explore. Before you ask yourself “How can I use this with my students?” watch Jessica Oldham explain how. Her audience is her students, and we can learn from her efforts.
- Make Your Own with Google SlidesThe K-5 Math Teaching Resources site offers a fascinating suggestion: have students work with digital manipulatives in Google Slides. They offer tips on how to best organize the lesson and provide several Google Slides templates. The templates include Five Frame, Ten Frame, Number Line 0-10, and Hundreds, Tens and Ones Mat among others.
- Money pieces
- Mathsbot K- 5 also algebra tiles bar modeling counters counting stick Cuisenaire rods Dienes blocks fraction wall geoboard number frame pentominoes place value counters unit box
- Math manipulatives templates ■ Clock Fractions ■ Money Fractions ■ Using Google Draw for Virtual Manipulatives ■ Teaching Math with Google Drawings
Hand2mind A home learning resource for K-5 students. The "Learning at Home" program includes videos on math and literacy content taught by teachers and activities to reinforce the lessons and downloadable worksheets.
Math Playground K - 6 Math and Logic Game Thinking Blocks” and “Thinking Blocks Tool”
Solvemoji is a free website that makes math puzzles using emojis. There are ten levels of difficulty in classic, grid, or word types. You can create an account to join the leaderboard or just solve puzzles on the website. Solvemoji puzzles are great for math warmups and bell ringers.
YouTube channels for Math teachers
This is a collection of some helpful YouTube channels where you can access educational video content covering various math concepts. The channels include Math TV, Khan Academy, Techmath, Mathantics and many more
Freckle Math content covers K-8 math and ELA Common Core standards. Its math offering includes individual online practice for students, as well as group lessons that are meant to be taught at the whole-class level over multiple days. The online math practice allows teachers to assign specific activities for individual students to complete when they log on to their student accounts.
Online Math Games
Mark It Rounding game. Mark it Game alicekeeler.com/markitround10
- Make 100 game Based on game from youcubed.org to help develop number sense for students. alicekeeler.com/make100
- Topmarks Math Games Topmarks has this resourceful section packed full of math games for kids 3 to 14 years old. Some of the math concepts covered by these games include: multiplication and division, addition and subtraction, counting, odd and even, sequencing numbers and many more.
- Math Games A site fo math games that lets teachers create virtual classrooms and monitor student progress.
- MathQuiz.io Elementary Grades
MathQuiz.io is a math game developed by a student. It's a relatively simple site that presents you with a series of math problems to solve in your head then enter an answer. The problems are presented in sets of ten consecutive questions. You can play in an "easy" mode which is mostly simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication or you can plan in the "medium" mode which incorporates problems with fractions, division, and negative numbers. - Math Escape Rooms
- Neal Fun https://neal.fun/ Large collection of interactive web tools and games.Activities help the user explore concepts in science, social studies, economics, math, history, philosophy, and more.
- PBS Kids Math Games This page from PBS Kids features a number of interactive math games for kids. Some of these games are also available in other languages than English. Make sure your browser has Java installed for you will need it to play most of the games here.
- MathQuiz.io is a new math game developed by a student. It's a relatively simple site that presents you with a series of math problems to solve in your head then enter an answer. The problems are presented in sets of ten consecutive questions. You can play in an "easy" mode which is mostly simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication or you can plan in the "medium" mode which incorporates problems with fractions, division, and negative numbers. www.freetech4teqchers.com
- Fun Brain Math Games This is another excellent website that provides interactive games for teaching Math and reading. The math section includes games such as Math Arcade, Math Baseball, Connect the Dots and many more.
- Cool math Games This is {a} brain-training site, for everyone, where logic & thinking meets fun & games. These games have no violence, no empty action, just a lot of challenges that will make you forget you're getting a mental workout!
Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
Play these fun Zoom games while social distancing to ensure you stay connected with everyone. They can be used with kids or adults.
Buzz Me In: Remote Learning Buzzers and Scoreboards
Want to gamify learning in your remote classroom in support of practice testing? Why not drop in an online buzzer or scoreboard? Find out how in this blog.
Solve It A “Frayer model for math.”alicekeeler.com/solveit
CSI: Algebra -- The Real Number System | Google slides version
Delta Math is a free program that allows teachers to combine modules of lessons. The modules cover a wide range of topics taught in Middle School math, Algebra 1 & 2, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and Computer Science. Once teachers set up their account and create their classes, they can provide students with a code to join their class. Students can work through modules at their own pace if you choose. The program includes built in graphing and statistical calculators as well as a keyboard that allows the user to write mathematical expressions. There program also shows students the steps to get the correct solution. If you want to see their work, the students have to send you a screenshot. www.freetech4teachers.com
I Know It is offering free access to its online math practice lessons for students in grades K-5. The site features over 500 graphical math activities. Animated characters guide students through math lessons, and hints and graphical explanations help them along when they need it. This tool tracks progress and scores for teachers and parents. Parents and teachers can request unlimited access in a form online.
Middle School Math Resources features video lessons covering big mathematical ideas for grades 6-8, delivered by a certified teacher. Support materials are available in both English and Spanish, and feature student activities and practice problems.
Socratic and Google Lens to take a photo of a problem or equation they need help with. Socratic and Lens provide quick access to helpful results, such as step-by-step guides to solve the problem and detailed explainers to help you better understand key concepts. There's no guarantee kids are going to use this app to learn; some will just want quick answers. Bottom Line: Used wisely, this reference tool has the capacity to amplify learning and aid students on their own time and term
MathDisk is a service that teachers can use to develop interactive mathematics worksheets. Through MathDisk's "Math Builder" tool you can design mathematics models that your students can use online. The models and worksheets you develop online can also be downloaded to use offline if you also install the MiBook software on your desktop or on your Android device. If you don't have time to create new materials, the MathDisk gallery has pages of models and worksheets that you can choose from. Everything in the gallery, like everything you create through MathDisk, can be downloaded and or embedded into your own website or blog.
Fraction Talks (grades 1–12) is a website filled with images of shapes--triangles within triangles, for example—that encourages math discussions. Simply asking students, “What do you observe?” can prompt them to share what and how many shapes they notice, while asking “How many shapes are red or shaded?” encourages students to explore and understand fractions. Once students have a basic understanding of fractions, they can start to explore more complex concepts. By prompting students to look at subsections of a shape—and what fractions they created when combined.
Five Free Virtual Dice
Visual Patterns (K–grade 12) shows the beginning of a pattern—like several boxes in a grid—then asks students to figure out the equation to fit the pattern. “Even though there is only one answer,” says Manfre, “you can ask deeper questions with these kinds of tasks, and engage students with mathematics in its more natural, visual form.”
CK-12 STEM, social studies resource with highly customizable content
Youtube Math Channels
1- MooMooMath and Science
This channel provides a wide variety of videos covering Math and Science. Some of its playlists include: vectors, equations, biochemical cycle, types of cells, galaxies, prime numbers, and many more.
2- Numberphile
Another great YouTube channel that provides video content to help students learn math.
3- Socratica
Created by a couple of Caltech grads, Socratica offers educational videos covering both Math and Science.
4- 3Blue1Brown
"3blue1brown, by Grant Sanderson, is some combination of math and entertainment, depending on your disposition. The goal is for explanations to be driven by animations and for difficult problems to be made simple with changes in perspective."
5- Maths Gotserved
"This channel offers a wide variety of math tutorials ranging from algebra, algebra 2, trigonometry, to Calculus. We offer free support to our subscribers who need help with mathematics."
6- Brian McLogan
"I teach math from the perspective of the struggling student because that was me & it could be you, too. My videos are short, to-the-point and cover everything from Algebra 1 through Calculus."
Solveme The logic of balancing mobile puzzles is the same as the logic required in solving equations and systems of equations.
Inside Mathematics Dynamic videos and printables support CCSS math practices
RossmanChance.com A secondary math specialist, had her students graph how they felt during the first week of distance learning.Applets—a simple code with a specific objective—were mentioned by a few teachers as a good resource. Emma Chiappetta's statistics students use applets from RossmanChance.com to manipulate and identify sampling distribution patterns in graphs, for example. She creates a basic guide on how to use the applet with which values to change, and then asks questions to get students thinking critically about those patterns. Chiappetta also uses applets from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her linear algebra students.
Desmos (grades 6–12), a website with interactive math activities and a graphing calculator (also available as an app on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android). Desmos is not just a graphing calculator! There are Desmos Classroom Activities for ALL levels. Check out the new whiteboard screens for distance learning. While social and emotional learning (SEL) and math may not seem to go hand in hand, teachers integrated SEL into math lessons using Desmos. In the first week of distance learning, Ashley Taplin, a secondary math specialist in San Antonio, Texas, had her students graph how they were feeling, for example. Taplin says she particularly loves that teachers can make their own activities—like this one about parabolas and this card sort, where students match cards with the name, corresponding equation, and correct graphical representation of a function.
Teaching History with Hamilton K - 12
Distance Learning with the National Archives <[email protected]>All of the program recordings are now available on YouTube:
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
Google Practice Sets "With practice sets, in Google Classroom, educators are able to use content they already have, or come up with brand new questions from scratch, to build an assessment activity. Google's artificial intelligence then scans the questions and determines the learning skills being addressed, and finds helpful hints and resources to go along with each question in case the students need assistance".Introduction video | Details
Untold Short two minute history related videos
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
Civic Engagement and the Federal Judicial System
The Supreme Court Historical Society offers both students and teachers opportunities to invest in their social studies and civic programs, such as The Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers, and a new program, “The Supreme Court and My Hometown,” which will bring young people into courthouses in their communities to study Supreme Court cases that originated in (or near) their hometowns.
National History Museum "Becoming US " Educational resource for high school teachers and students to learn immigration and migration history in a more accurate and inclusive way."
Teaching Tools to Support a Global ClassroomWorld Savvy works with educators to make classrooms more inclusive, relevant, and engaging. The organization’s standards-aligned educational resources, curriculum, and teaching tools support the integration of global competence into teaching and learning. All content is free and accessible to anyone interested in globalizing their classroom or learning environment. A library of resources includes case studies (student-inquiry approach), knowledge-to-action (design thinking), multilingual learner toolkit, and student projects.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comLearning for Justice has plenty of online articles, videos, and other resources for teaching social studies in an inclusive and informed way.
News Evaluator website is a new interactive designed to help students develop information literacy skills.
Current Events and Media Literacy
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
5 ways that Google Jamboard can save your Social Studies Bacon
Breaking News Google Slide template foe students to pretend they are a newscaster and have some Breaking News!
Circle-Based Visuals with Circly Circly is a free web-based tool that allows you to create simpler ways of looking at complex topics. The teacher or students can drag-and-drop circles anywhere on the screen to create connections between ideas or topics. The tool is extremely colorful and simple to use.
Achieve3000 is offering free access to resources for differentiated literacy instruction. Educators and parents can sign their students up for Achieve3000 Literacy at Home, for access to non-fiction articles at three reading levels with topics covering science, social studies and current events. For students without reliable or daily internet, the company is offering "Literacy Printable Packets," a set of text sets with 20 printable articles and questions for grades 1-12.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comHow to Engage Students in Historical Thinking Using Everyday Objects Asking students to examine their own possessions from the perspective of a historian in the future helps them sharpen their analytical skills.
Create Meme in Google Drawings Sample
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Wikipedia Timeline Generator. This free tool will take a Wikipedia article and generate a timeline based on that article. That's not all it does. You can edit the entries on the timeline to correct dates, to edit the information associated with the dates, delete entries on the timeline, and add new dates to the timeline. Timelines created with the Wikipedia Timeline Generator can be embedded into web pages and or shared with the unique URL assigned to your timeline. www.freetech4teachers.com short video Other useful tools at ClassTools.net,
C-SPAN Classroom Bell Ringers are short video clips accompanied by a few discussion questions and a list of key vocabulary terms. Bell Ringers are intended to be warm-up or introductory activities that you can complete with your students in five to ten minutes.
Facing History: Facing History has compiled their remote learning resources, training opportunities, and more in this online resource center (grades 3-12)
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
Bouncy Maps - Animated world maps that change the relative sizes of countries based on data including population, energy, economy, religion, health, and more.
This Would Be An Interesting Social Studies Assignment: Choose The Best & Worst Years In History
5 Ways to Use Jamboard Teaching Social Studies Subject Areas
Learn With Google Arts and Culture. Learn With Google Arts and Culture is a collection of lesson plans, Street View imagery, and virtual tours based around the content found in Google Arts and Culture. www.freetech4teachers.com
DOGONews: Thousands of news articles and new original content added daily in ELA, science, and social studies (grade 3+)
Newsela: Authentic content from the most trusted names with leveled articles. ELA, social studies, science, and SEL collections (grades 2-5+)
The New York Times Learning Network,
Tween Tribune find content based on current events. Allows you to search by reading level.
KidsPost is a current events website which features games, news, contests, puzzles, and fun activities. The articles relate to elementary - middle school range of students. Once a site user clicks on an article, the readability is appropriate for middle elementary aged students. Children will also find the photography area interesting since the captions underneath are written as mini-stories. For those students who are looking for reading recommendations, this section of the website is extremely helpful.
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Anti-Social Studies High School American History podcasts along with teaching materials, sample essays, and two very handy planning documents that are excellent. You get both face to face and online teaching tools and strategies, ideas for direct and indirect instruction, and assorted other best practices.
Teaching with Current Events gr 6 - 12
Brochure Google Slides template for creating a brochure. Why a Brochure?
The Core Knowledge free PDFs They cover many of the key elements of any World History or U.S. History curriculum. Each PDF includes both teacher lessons and the student book. However, the teacher lessons are in portrait view but the student book isn’t – you would have to go to something like the free PDF go to “rotate” the student pages so they wouldn’t have to bend their heads to read them online
Virtual Field Trips
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Wonderopolis. Informational nonfiction text that is highly engaging.
History Mysteries: Historical Inquiry for Elementary Classrooms is a site created with Library of Congress / Teaching with Primary Sources money. Two teachers, Kelley Brown and Laurie Risler, partnered to develop Google Slides, student materials, and teacher guides that all focus on historical thinking skills and the use of primary sources. History Mysteries provides a ton of ready to use presentations, intro videos, handouts, and teacher resources, all designed to make the life of an elementary teacher as easy as possible.
Zoom In "is a free, Web-based platform that helps students build literacy and historical thinking skills through “deep dives” into primary and secondary sources."
The Image Annotator is a tool from Class Tools that allows you to…annotate images.
Media Literacy and Current Events
C-SPAN Classroom provides free video-based materials, including lesson plans, for social studies teachers. https://www.c-span.org/classroom/
DocsTeach is the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives. Teachers can access primary source-based learning activities and assign them to students to complete online. Students can complete activities and research primary sources on a variety of topics spanning American history. Learn more at: www.docsteach.org/resources/getting-started
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google Slides Add-on Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
Social Studies Remote Learning Resources
Civics Renewal Network brings together resources from partner organizations such as the National Archives, iCivics, National Constitution Center, the Center for Civic Education, and more.
Make your own VR Field Trip If you can’t find the exact field trip you are looking for on Google Expeditions, consider creating your own! There are two DIY virtual reality tools that I like. Tour Creator is another Google product, which allows you to use any Google Maps image or take your own pictures using an app called Google Cardboard Camera, and create a custom VR tour. Within these tours you can add multiple scenes, audio narration, and points of interest. Consider creating a tour of your school, city, or any other area that is specific to your needs.
Co-Spaces is another VR tool. It differs from Google's tours in that the VR spaces you create are all animated — so the sky isn’t even the limit!
Consider having students create their own VR tours on Tour Creator or CoSpaces. Make custom activities for your. classroom: quizzes, match ups, word games, and more
Teach the Headlines this fall with lessons from the Zinn Education Project about the climate crisis, immigration, Black Lives Matter, voter suppression, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more
Distance Learning with the National Archives <[email protected]>All of the program recordings are now available on YouTube:
- How to Lead a DocsTeach Activity Remotely: https://youtu.be/PAwG07ac7cA
- How to Create and Share Primary Source Sets: https://youtu.be/sXJzAPiWcNM
- How to Pair and Share DocsTeach Activity Sets: https://youtu.be/iHc_Wjp615o
- How to Analyze Primary Sources Online with DocsTeach: https://youtu.be/iIwrnpdk4-A
- The Smithsonian Learning Lab Mini Exhibits is a resource for social studies and language arts teachers. One of its many features is an option to create and share collections of artifacts from the Smithsonian and external sources. And every month the Smithsonian Learning Lab sends out an email with ideas for activities for students. Mini Exhibits about household items.
- Smithsonian History Explorer. provides seven types of resource types: artifacts, primary sources, lessons and activities, worksheets, reference materials, reviewed websites, and interactives and media. The staff from the Smithsonian Museum of American History has added so many new resources, lessons, activities, and themes, I guarantee you’ll walk away with all sorts of stuff you can incorporate into your instruction tomorrow. Start by using the search tool on the home page. Insert key words, select your resource type, grade level, era, and potential cross curricular connection. Hit return. You’ll get results from a couple thousand ready to use lesson plans and activities
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
Google Practice Sets "With practice sets, in Google Classroom, educators are able to use content they already have, or come up with brand new questions from scratch, to build an assessment activity. Google's artificial intelligence then scans the questions and determines the learning skills being addressed, and finds helpful hints and resources to go along with each question in case the students need assistance".Introduction video | Details
Untold Short two minute history related videos
EfficienTEACH Teach Better and Save Time for What Matters Most Teachers are leaving the education field in droves. Really, really good teachers. Maybe you're one that's considering it.EfficienTEACH.com How can we help empower teachers like YOU to do your best work -- and get home at a reasonable hour for the important stuff? This project provides you with research-based teaching practices you can use in class tomorrow to save time AND teach better.
Civic Engagement and the Federal Judicial System
The Supreme Court Historical Society offers both students and teachers opportunities to invest in their social studies and civic programs, such as The Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers, and a new program, “The Supreme Court and My Hometown,” which will bring young people into courthouses in their communities to study Supreme Court cases that originated in (or near) their hometowns.
National History Museum "Becoming US " Educational resource for high school teachers and students to learn immigration and migration history in a more accurate and inclusive way."
Teaching Tools to Support a Global ClassroomWorld Savvy works with educators to make classrooms more inclusive, relevant, and engaging. The organization’s standards-aligned educational resources, curriculum, and teaching tools support the integration of global competence into teaching and learning. All content is free and accessible to anyone interested in globalizing their classroom or learning environment. A library of resources includes case studies (student-inquiry approach), knowledge-to-action (design thinking), multilingual learner toolkit, and student projects.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comLearning for Justice has plenty of online articles, videos, and other resources for teaching social studies in an inclusive and informed way.
News Evaluator website is a new interactive designed to help students develop information literacy skills.
Current Events and Media Literacy
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
5 ways that Google Jamboard can save your Social Studies Bacon
Breaking News Google Slide template foe students to pretend they are a newscaster and have some Breaking News!
Circle-Based Visuals with Circly Circly is a free web-based tool that allows you to create simpler ways of looking at complex topics. The teacher or students can drag-and-drop circles anywhere on the screen to create connections between ideas or topics. The tool is extremely colorful and simple to use.
Achieve3000 is offering free access to resources for differentiated literacy instruction. Educators and parents can sign their students up for Achieve3000 Literacy at Home, for access to non-fiction articles at three reading levels with topics covering science, social studies and current events. For students without reliable or daily internet, the company is offering "Literacy Printable Packets," a set of text sets with 20 printable articles and questions for grades 1-12.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comHow to Engage Students in Historical Thinking Using Everyday Objects Asking students to examine their own possessions from the perspective of a historian in the future helps them sharpen their analytical skills.
Create Meme in Google Drawings Sample
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Wikipedia Timeline Generator. This free tool will take a Wikipedia article and generate a timeline based on that article. That's not all it does. You can edit the entries on the timeline to correct dates, to edit the information associated with the dates, delete entries on the timeline, and add new dates to the timeline. Timelines created with the Wikipedia Timeline Generator can be embedded into web pages and or shared with the unique URL assigned to your timeline. www.freetech4teachers.com short video Other useful tools at ClassTools.net,
C-SPAN Classroom Bell Ringers are short video clips accompanied by a few discussion questions and a list of key vocabulary terms. Bell Ringers are intended to be warm-up or introductory activities that you can complete with your students in five to ten minutes.
Facing History: Facing History has compiled their remote learning resources, training opportunities, and more in this online resource center (grades 3-12)
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
Bouncy Maps - Animated world maps that change the relative sizes of countries based on data including population, energy, economy, religion, health, and more.
This Would Be An Interesting Social Studies Assignment: Choose The Best & Worst Years In History
5 Ways to Use Jamboard Teaching Social Studies Subject Areas
Learn With Google Arts and Culture. Learn With Google Arts and Culture is a collection of lesson plans, Street View imagery, and virtual tours based around the content found in Google Arts and Culture. www.freetech4teachers.com
DOGONews: Thousands of news articles and new original content added daily in ELA, science, and social studies (grade 3+)
Newsela: Authentic content from the most trusted names with leveled articles. ELA, social studies, science, and SEL collections (grades 2-5+)
The New York Times Learning Network,
Tween Tribune find content based on current events. Allows you to search by reading level.
KidsPost is a current events website which features games, news, contests, puzzles, and fun activities. The articles relate to elementary - middle school range of students. Once a site user clicks on an article, the readability is appropriate for middle elementary aged students. Children will also find the photography area interesting since the captions underneath are written as mini-stories. For those students who are looking for reading recommendations, this section of the website is extremely helpful.
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Anti-Social Studies High School American History podcasts along with teaching materials, sample essays, and two very handy planning documents that are excellent. You get both face to face and online teaching tools and strategies, ideas for direct and indirect instruction, and assorted other best practices.
Teaching with Current Events gr 6 - 12
Brochure Google Slides template for creating a brochure. Why a Brochure?
The Core Knowledge free PDFs They cover many of the key elements of any World History or U.S. History curriculum. Each PDF includes both teacher lessons and the student book. However, the teacher lessons are in portrait view but the student book isn’t – you would have to go to something like the free PDF go to “rotate” the student pages so they wouldn’t have to bend their heads to read them online
Virtual Field Trips
- Virtual Field Trips from Around the World
- 6 Resources for Virtual Field Trips
- Discovery Education has compiled a large database of interactive field trips that you can search and filter by topic. They also offer tech tips and a variety of field trips that go beyond the standard museum visit. Unique interactive tours
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Wonderopolis. Informational nonfiction text that is highly engaging.
History Mysteries: Historical Inquiry for Elementary Classrooms is a site created with Library of Congress / Teaching with Primary Sources money. Two teachers, Kelley Brown and Laurie Risler, partnered to develop Google Slides, student materials, and teacher guides that all focus on historical thinking skills and the use of primary sources. History Mysteries provides a ton of ready to use presentations, intro videos, handouts, and teacher resources, all designed to make the life of an elementary teacher as easy as possible.
Zoom In "is a free, Web-based platform that helps students build literacy and historical thinking skills through “deep dives” into primary and secondary sources."
The Image Annotator is a tool from Class Tools that allows you to…annotate images.
Media Literacy and Current Events
C-SPAN Classroom provides free video-based materials, including lesson plans, for social studies teachers. https://www.c-span.org/classroom/
DocsTeach is the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives. Teachers can access primary source-based learning activities and assign them to students to complete online. Students can complete activities and research primary sources on a variety of topics spanning American history. Learn more at: www.docsteach.org/resources/getting-started
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google Slides Add-on Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
Social Studies Remote Learning Resources
Civics Renewal Network brings together resources from partner organizations such as the National Archives, iCivics, National Constitution Center, the Center for Civic Education, and more.
Make your own VR Field Trip If you can’t find the exact field trip you are looking for on Google Expeditions, consider creating your own! There are two DIY virtual reality tools that I like. Tour Creator is another Google product, which allows you to use any Google Maps image or take your own pictures using an app called Google Cardboard Camera, and create a custom VR tour. Within these tours you can add multiple scenes, audio narration, and points of interest. Consider creating a tour of your school, city, or any other area that is specific to your needs.
Co-Spaces is another VR tool. It differs from Google's tours in that the VR spaces you create are all animated — so the sky isn’t even the limit!
Consider having students create their own VR tours on Tour Creator or CoSpaces. Make custom activities for your. classroom: quizzes, match ups, word games, and more
Teach the Headlines this fall with lessons from the Zinn Education Project about the climate crisis, immigration, Black Lives Matter, voter suppression, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more
Online Games
🎯Wordwall allows you to create interactive resources online for use in class or at home. Activities are often games, but you can use it to bring more standard coursebook activities to life such as matching tasks. It’s very straightforward to create a resource – there are a variety of templates available, most of which are intuitive and require no more than 10 minutes to set up. There are also a zillion other games created by teachers that you can search for and use. Also available as Android app. Advanced Training in Wordwall | Make multiple games with one button click
Article: Using online games to connect with students
LearningApps.org "...is a free online platform that allows educators to create a wide variety of online learning activities: Where is what?, fill-in-the-blanks, Voting Group puzzle, The Millionaire game, maps, and ordering, to name just a few (for more information, see the chart with all available apps at the end of this article). The platform has templates for most standard exercises and some creative templates with elements of gamification which makes it perfect for all types of learners. "
Neal Fun https://neal.fun/ Large collection of interactive web tools and games.Activities help the user explore concepts in science, social studies, economics, math, history, philosophy, and more.
Game show classroom: Comparing Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live and Gimkit
Kahoot Starter Guide
Taboo.AI.The game “Taboo” – or a variation of it – is often used in ELL classrooms (see here for lots of ways it’s used). The latest very creative version of it is called Taboo.AI. In it, you pick a category, and are then shown words in that category. You are challenged to write a question/prompt that will get the AI to come up with that word.Even better, you can submit your own category and word list that they will consider uploading to the site.
Online Game Templates Family Feud, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Jeopardy, Snapchat Games, Guess Who, Categories, Which is It? and more for Google Slides and Powerpoint.
Giant Steps From the creators of Padlet, this is a gamified digital learning experience designed for student collaboration and independent practice.Create your own or use ones from the site's collection
TinyTap is an iPad app and Android app and computer option for building fun and interactive review games. You can create games based on pictures, diagrams, videos, and icons. Students can play your games on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. Speaking of playing games, TinyTap recently published a game that features sixteen ways to use TinyTap in your classroom.
Educaplay K - 6 Make classroom learning games for students. In addition to easy game creation (16 types of games you can make) , sending the games to Google Classroom was easy, as was student work, automatic grading, and engagement. Area of knowledge section has pre-made games
BookWidgets - Create Unique Online Activities for Your Students www.freetech4teachers.com
Kahoot student-response tool for all platforms, allows teachers to run game-like multiple-choice answer quizzes. Teachers can either create their own quizzes or find, use, and/or remix public quizzes. Questions, along with answer choices, are projected onto a classroom screen while students submit responses using an internet-connected device (computer, tablet, or phone). Questions and polls can contain images and video to help further appeal to all learners. Classic mode and Team mode take place in real time, but Challenge mode enables students to take quizzes within a set time frame, such as for homework. video tutorial
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics www.freetech4teachers.com
Quizlet Live Similar to Kahoot and Quizizz but its stand out feature is the collaboartive framework where each group member contributes to deciding on the answer. Instead of students answering individual questions on their individual devices, Quizlet puts students in groups. All possible answers are divided amongst the devices of all students participating. Think of three students with 12 possible answers … they’re divided up with four on each devices, so the answer may or may not be on your device. How to start a Quizlet Live game in 60 seconds + tips and tricks | Quizlet Guide || Adaptive question banks that would mean students would see different questions in their quizzes based on their previous answers. Capability for creators to add questions that require participants to draw the answer – they can use their mouse or finger on a smartphone or tablet.
Quizalize is a relatively new addition to The Best Ways To Create Online Tests. It’s very similar to Kahoot. My big critique of both Quizalize and Kahoot has been the. competitive nature of their format. Although Kahoot has a challenge option for students to play at their own pace.. That’s why I’ve featured an alternative called Quizizz Quizizz takes the excitement of a gameshow-style review game and puts the whole experience in the students’ hands. With a traditional Kahoot! game, everyone sees the question and possible answers on the projector and answer simultaneously. Quizizz is different because the questions and possible answers are displayed individually on student devices.
Games and Choice Boards from Slidesmania for Google Slides and Powerpoint
“Quiz Game Master” Is A Nice Tool For Creating Online Learning Games
PuzzGrid - Play or create your own online word puzzles where you try to identify four sets of linked words and determine what they have in common.
Make An Amazing Number Of Different Learning Games With “GameBuilder”
More Create Your Own Games
Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
10 Easy Games For Online Zoom Classes K - 5
Legends of Learning The site has multiple games for each standard in grades 1-8th Math and Science?
Flippity Make numerous games, flashcards, and timelines easily with Google Sheets. Use for a variety of purposes like assessing, tracking progress and review games. Recently, Flippity introduced a new template for making your own online board game through Google Sheets. With Flippity's new board game template you can create a game that includes up to eight players, has up to three dice to roll, and interactive game squares. Your game can also include videos, pictures, Google Drawings, and graphs. And your students can play your game without an email address or having to create any kind of online account. DO NOT forget to publish to the Web. Short video to see how you can create and play your own online board game. www.freetech4teachers.com. | How to Use Pictures in Flippity Template
Factile is a site that has been around for a while. I started using it years ago when it was still called Jeopardy Rocks (it turns out that trademark and copyright concerns make it hard to use "Jeopardy" in a product name). Factile lets you create games and save them in your account to use whenever you need them. When you create your game you can include images in the answer display. The games in Factile can be played individually or in teams. You control the board and award points when students answer correctly.
Google Slides & PowerPoint
It's possible to create your own Jeopardy-style games using Google Slides or PowerPoint. You can do this by creating a table in your first slide then creating a series of slides that have your answers and questions on them. The Q&A slides are then hyperlinked back to the points listed in the table in your first slide. In this video I demonstrate how to make a Jeopardy-style game in Google Slides. The Slides Carnival website also has a template available to use in PowerPoint and Google Slides.
Template for Snapchat Games
Baamboozle For students to study, self-assess, or play a Jeopardy-like group game! Whether you want students to study, provide direct instruction, or play a group review game, Baamboozle has a feature for you. No two games are the same! Questions are never in the same order and are pulled from a bank of questions created by the creator of the game. You can customize your game to your student's needs! Need a timer? Want to give students a chance to pass on a question they don't know? Do you want to change your team names? There is no need to prepare! There are thousands of games created by other educators available to play at your fingertips. Limited on student devices? No worries. Students do not need accounts or codes to play! You can easily create my own games within minutes! If you want to check out how to play and create your own games on Baamboozle, tutorial video
Educandy A convenient aspect of the service is that once you’ve created a list of vocabulary words it will automatically be applied to multiple game formats for you. In other words, write one word list and you’ll get three games that your students can play. Your students can play the games without needing to create an account www.freetech4teachers.com
Buzz Me In: Remote Learning Buzzers and Scoreboards Want to gamify learning in your remote classroom in support of practice testing? Why not drop in an online buzzer or scoreboard?
“Playbuzz” For Creating Learning Games
Gamified Syllabus: Help students get really excited about your classroom and get to know each other with an interactive and gamified syllabus. Rather than reviewing rules and procedures on Day 1, turn onboarding into a game-based race that weaves icebreakers and rules into an immersive, hands-on experience. Read about it at EDreneline Rush and grab the template to make your own
Student Created Review Game With Kahoot Here's the template, and there's a video on the post that will show you how.
Play & Create Games With “Tiny Tap”
Letterbox is a free game that follows the common structure of providing several letters and then challenges the player to create words out of them in a short period of time. Letterbox’s twist, though, is that it provides a url address for you to share so that you can play with your friends, which can work quite well in a classroom.
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics is from Richard Byrne.
Drawpoly is Pictionary-like online game where you can play with your friends and classmates.
“Learning Apps” Is One Of The Top Educational Websites Of The Year!
Scattergories A possible choice for a brain brake
60+ Game Templates Includes breakout/escape rooms, logic, ELs. social studies,math, science, TV genre quiz shows, social media and more review games.
Apps 4 EFL. The site has a huge variety of ready-to-use interactives and games for English Language Learners. In addition, teachers can use the site’s tools to create their own. Even better, teachers can create free virtual classrooms where students can enroll.
Sploder which allows students to develop their own simple games easily and then Sploder hosts their creation. Students have to write instructions on how to play the game for players to read. They can then play each other’s games, and then write comments about what they liked about it (the instructions and comments are hosted by Sploder).
Review Game Zone lets teachers, and anyone, input academic questions and have them turned into a games that students can use for review. It’s free, and teachers can also monitor student use of at least some types of the games.
POINTING AND CLICKING FOR ESL: Using Video Games To Promote English Language Development).
Room Escape Maker that lets anybody create their own….escape the room games.
Easily Make Reviews into Gameshows!
Factile is a site that has been around for a while. I started using it years ago when it was still called Jeopardy Rocks (it turns out that trademark and copyright concerns make it hard to use "Jeopardy" in a product name). Factile lets you create games and save them in your account to use whenever you need them. When you create your game you can include images in the answer display. The games in Factile can be played individually or in teams. You control the board and award points when students answer correctly.
Flip Quiz is an easy site that lets you create an online Jeopardy-like game board that students can play.
“Quizizz” Is A Game-Playing & Game-Creating Site For Classes!
“SuperTeacherTools” Site For Creating Online Learning Games
eQuiz Show lets you easily create online Jeopardy-like games without requiring registration. There are already a number of similar tools on the list, but you can never have too many because who knows what School District content filters will block and what they will let through.
Teachers-Direct They have two styles of games you can create without registering. One is called Quiz-Busters. The other is sort of interesting. I’m not a big fan of Word Searches, and view them as basically busy work. At this site, you can create a Word Search – with a twist. Instead of listing the words students have to find, you list sentences with a blank and the students have to come up with the word and find it. I wouldn’t spend any teacher time on creating one, but I could see having students use it to create ones for classmates to play now-and-then.
Class Tools is an excellent resource. Teachers and students can create lots of learning activities using formats from popular 1980’s arcade games.
Philologus is also on my list. It’s very similar to Class Tools. However, it uses more recent television games shows as templates for teacher and student created exercises.
Jeopardy Labs lets teachers and students create their own online games of Jeopardy. No registration is required, and each game has its own unique url address. Most other apps to create Jeopardy games require a software download, which makes Jeopardy Labs really stand-out since none is required.
QuizBreak! lets teachers easily create Jeopardy-like games for free that will be hosted online. What makes it really top-notch is that you can add images, video and audio to the questions, too. It’s one of several excellent and free online apps that is made available to teachers by The Center For Language Education and Research at Michigan State University.
Article: Using online games to connect with students
LearningApps.org "...is a free online platform that allows educators to create a wide variety of online learning activities: Where is what?, fill-in-the-blanks, Voting Group puzzle, The Millionaire game, maps, and ordering, to name just a few (for more information, see the chart with all available apps at the end of this article). The platform has templates for most standard exercises and some creative templates with elements of gamification which makes it perfect for all types of learners. "
Neal Fun https://neal.fun/ Large collection of interactive web tools and games.Activities help the user explore concepts in science, social studies, economics, math, history, philosophy, and more.
Game show classroom: Comparing Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live and Gimkit
Kahoot Starter Guide
Taboo.AI.The game “Taboo” – or a variation of it – is often used in ELL classrooms (see here for lots of ways it’s used). The latest very creative version of it is called Taboo.AI. In it, you pick a category, and are then shown words in that category. You are challenged to write a question/prompt that will get the AI to come up with that word.Even better, you can submit your own category and word list that they will consider uploading to the site.
Online Game Templates Family Feud, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Jeopardy, Snapchat Games, Guess Who, Categories, Which is It? and more for Google Slides and Powerpoint.
Giant Steps From the creators of Padlet, this is a gamified digital learning experience designed for student collaboration and independent practice.Create your own or use ones from the site's collection
TinyTap is an iPad app and Android app and computer option for building fun and interactive review games. You can create games based on pictures, diagrams, videos, and icons. Students can play your games on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. Speaking of playing games, TinyTap recently published a game that features sixteen ways to use TinyTap in your classroom.
- How to Create Your Own Educational Games With TinyTap - Getting Started. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Making Your Educational Games Look Good With TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
- Student Created Review Game With Kahoot Here's the template, and there's a video on the post that will show you how.
Play & Create Games With “Tiny Tap” - How to Make a Puzzle Game in TinyTap video. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Use TinyTap to Create Interactive Lessons and Games With Soundboards
- Build Talk or Type Educational Games on TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
- Say Something - A Fun and Easy TinyTap Activity. www.freetech4teachers.com
- More Puzzle Games Inspiration and a Tutorial
A collection of puzzle games that anyone can try right now. Letters and Picture Word Puzzle. Matching numbers to ten.Matching numbers to amounts.A Winter Picture Puzzle (created using the automated shapes cutouts).Body parts puzzle with Mr. Potato Head.Counting Trains.Fruits & Vegetables. - Use TinyTap to Create Online Courses Featuring Your Favorite Games www.freetech4teachers.com
Educaplay K - 6 Make classroom learning games for students. In addition to easy game creation (16 types of games you can make) , sending the games to Google Classroom was easy, as was student work, automatic grading, and engagement. Area of knowledge section has pre-made games
BookWidgets - Create Unique Online Activities for Your Students www.freetech4teachers.com
Kahoot student-response tool for all platforms, allows teachers to run game-like multiple-choice answer quizzes. Teachers can either create their own quizzes or find, use, and/or remix public quizzes. Questions, along with answer choices, are projected onto a classroom screen while students submit responses using an internet-connected device (computer, tablet, or phone). Questions and polls can contain images and video to help further appeal to all learners. Classic mode and Team mode take place in real time, but Challenge mode enables students to take quizzes within a set time frame, such as for homework. video tutorial
- Teaching Online with Kahoot
- Challenge option allow students two play at their own pace. Good for remote and stations
- Blind Kahoot Strategy | Template
- Watch this video to see how the BookWidgets Google Classroom add-on works. www,freetech4teachers.com
- Save yourself time with the Kahoot library The Kahoot! library has more than 100 million existing public kahoots ready for your students to play.Can’t find exactly the one you want? Remix a Kahoot! game. It’s easy! When you make a copy of a kahoot, you can edit it – changing questions, adding images to answers, modifying as you need. Browse:Check out page 7 of this Kahoot getting started guide to learn how to find high quality Kahoot! games. Go deeper: Game show classroom: Comparing Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live and Gimkit - Ditch That Textbook
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics www.freetech4teachers.com
Quizlet Live Similar to Kahoot and Quizizz but its stand out feature is the collaboartive framework where each group member contributes to deciding on the answer. Instead of students answering individual questions on their individual devices, Quizlet puts students in groups. All possible answers are divided amongst the devices of all students participating. Think of three students with 12 possible answers … they’re divided up with four on each devices, so the answer may or may not be on your device. How to start a Quizlet Live game in 60 seconds + tips and tricks | Quizlet Guide || Adaptive question banks that would mean students would see different questions in their quizzes based on their previous answers. Capability for creators to add questions that require participants to draw the answer – they can use their mouse or finger on a smartphone or tablet.
Quizalize is a relatively new addition to The Best Ways To Create Online Tests. It’s very similar to Kahoot. My big critique of both Quizalize and Kahoot has been the. competitive nature of their format. Although Kahoot has a challenge option for students to play at their own pace.. That’s why I’ve featured an alternative called Quizizz Quizizz takes the excitement of a gameshow-style review game and puts the whole experience in the students’ hands. With a traditional Kahoot! game, everyone sees the question and possible answers on the projector and answer simultaneously. Quizizz is different because the questions and possible answers are displayed individually on student devices.
- Quizizz just added a great feature — the ability to assign these quizzes as homework, work at their own pace, and to have teachers track student progress. Quizizz Homework Via Google Classroom | directions for homework
- Quizizz Adds Feature Letting Students Respond With Audio Or Video Response
- Lessons feature – the ability to create a slideshow that you can present to your students live or assign as homework. For those of you who are familiar with Nearpod, it’s basically a very simplified version of it, with far fewer bells and whistles.
- Using Live Whiteboard for Instructor-paced Lessons
- Room Recess has online games that reinforce important skills vital to students in gradesK-6. It was developed entirely by an elementary school teacher with the goal of reinforcing fundamental learning concepts in math, reading, spelling, language arts, typing, and problem solving. Because their learning games are free, students do not have to register or have an account to use the site.
* PowerUp feature adjusts to achievement level
* The Fast and the Curious Strategy
* Student Created. Quizzes
Games and Choice Boards from Slidesmania for Google Slides and Powerpoint
“Quiz Game Master” Is A Nice Tool For Creating Online Learning Games
PuzzGrid - Play or create your own online word puzzles where you try to identify four sets of linked words and determine what they have in common.
Make An Amazing Number Of Different Learning Games With “GameBuilder”
More Create Your Own Games
Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
10 Easy Games For Online Zoom Classes K - 5
Legends of Learning The site has multiple games for each standard in grades 1-8th Math and Science?
Flippity Make numerous games, flashcards, and timelines easily with Google Sheets. Use for a variety of purposes like assessing, tracking progress and review games. Recently, Flippity introduced a new template for making your own online board game through Google Sheets. With Flippity's new board game template you can create a game that includes up to eight players, has up to three dice to roll, and interactive game squares. Your game can also include videos, pictures, Google Drawings, and graphs. And your students can play your game without an email address or having to create any kind of online account. DO NOT forget to publish to the Web. Short video to see how you can create and play your own online board game. www.freetech4teachers.com. | How to Use Pictures in Flippity Template
Factile is a site that has been around for a while. I started using it years ago when it was still called Jeopardy Rocks (it turns out that trademark and copyright concerns make it hard to use "Jeopardy" in a product name). Factile lets you create games and save them in your account to use whenever you need them. When you create your game you can include images in the answer display. The games in Factile can be played individually or in teams. You control the board and award points when students answer correctly.
Google Slides & PowerPoint
It's possible to create your own Jeopardy-style games using Google Slides or PowerPoint. You can do this by creating a table in your first slide then creating a series of slides that have your answers and questions on them. The Q&A slides are then hyperlinked back to the points listed in the table in your first slide. In this video I demonstrate how to make a Jeopardy-style game in Google Slides. The Slides Carnival website also has a template available to use in PowerPoint and Google Slides.
Template for Snapchat Games
Baamboozle For students to study, self-assess, or play a Jeopardy-like group game! Whether you want students to study, provide direct instruction, or play a group review game, Baamboozle has a feature for you. No two games are the same! Questions are never in the same order and are pulled from a bank of questions created by the creator of the game. You can customize your game to your student's needs! Need a timer? Want to give students a chance to pass on a question they don't know? Do you want to change your team names? There is no need to prepare! There are thousands of games created by other educators available to play at your fingertips. Limited on student devices? No worries. Students do not need accounts or codes to play! You can easily create my own games within minutes! If you want to check out how to play and create your own games on Baamboozle, tutorial video
Educandy A convenient aspect of the service is that once you’ve created a list of vocabulary words it will automatically be applied to multiple game formats for you. In other words, write one word list and you’ll get three games that your students can play. Your students can play the games without needing to create an account www.freetech4teachers.com
Buzz Me In: Remote Learning Buzzers and Scoreboards Want to gamify learning in your remote classroom in support of practice testing? Why not drop in an online buzzer or scoreboard?
“Playbuzz” For Creating Learning Games
Gamified Syllabus: Help students get really excited about your classroom and get to know each other with an interactive and gamified syllabus. Rather than reviewing rules and procedures on Day 1, turn onboarding into a game-based race that weaves icebreakers and rules into an immersive, hands-on experience. Read about it at EDreneline Rush and grab the template to make your own
Student Created Review Game With Kahoot Here's the template, and there's a video on the post that will show you how.
Play & Create Games With “Tiny Tap”
- Making Your Educational Games Look Good With TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Make a Puzzle Game in TinyTap video. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Say Something - A Fun and Easy TinyTap Activity. www.freetech4teachers.com
Letterbox is a free game that follows the common structure of providing several letters and then challenges the player to create words out of them in a short period of time. Letterbox’s twist, though, is that it provides a url address for you to share so that you can play with your friends, which can work quite well in a classroom.
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics is from Richard Byrne.
Drawpoly is Pictionary-like online game where you can play with your friends and classmates.
“Learning Apps” Is One Of The Top Educational Websites Of The Year!
Scattergories A possible choice for a brain brake
60+ Game Templates Includes breakout/escape rooms, logic, ELs. social studies,math, science, TV genre quiz shows, social media and more review games.
Apps 4 EFL. The site has a huge variety of ready-to-use interactives and games for English Language Learners. In addition, teachers can use the site’s tools to create their own. Even better, teachers can create free virtual classrooms where students can enroll.
Sploder which allows students to develop their own simple games easily and then Sploder hosts their creation. Students have to write instructions on how to play the game for players to read. They can then play each other’s games, and then write comments about what they liked about it (the instructions and comments are hosted by Sploder).
Review Game Zone lets teachers, and anyone, input academic questions and have them turned into a games that students can use for review. It’s free, and teachers can also monitor student use of at least some types of the games.
POINTING AND CLICKING FOR ESL: Using Video Games To Promote English Language Development).
Room Escape Maker that lets anybody create their own….escape the room games.
Easily Make Reviews into Gameshows!
Factile is a site that has been around for a while. I started using it years ago when it was still called Jeopardy Rocks (it turns out that trademark and copyright concerns make it hard to use "Jeopardy" in a product name). Factile lets you create games and save them in your account to use whenever you need them. When you create your game you can include images in the answer display. The games in Factile can be played individually or in teams. You control the board and award points when students answer correctly.
Flip Quiz is an easy site that lets you create an online Jeopardy-like game board that students can play.
“Quizizz” Is A Game-Playing & Game-Creating Site For Classes!
“SuperTeacherTools” Site For Creating Online Learning Games
eQuiz Show lets you easily create online Jeopardy-like games without requiring registration. There are already a number of similar tools on the list, but you can never have too many because who knows what School District content filters will block and what they will let through.
Teachers-Direct They have two styles of games you can create without registering. One is called Quiz-Busters. The other is sort of interesting. I’m not a big fan of Word Searches, and view them as basically busy work. At this site, you can create a Word Search – with a twist. Instead of listing the words students have to find, you list sentences with a blank and the students have to come up with the word and find it. I wouldn’t spend any teacher time on creating one, but I could see having students use it to create ones for classmates to play now-and-then.
Class Tools is an excellent resource. Teachers and students can create lots of learning activities using formats from popular 1980’s arcade games.
Philologus is also on my list. It’s very similar to Class Tools. However, it uses more recent television games shows as templates for teacher and student created exercises.
Jeopardy Labs lets teachers and students create their own online games of Jeopardy. No registration is required, and each game has its own unique url address. Most other apps to create Jeopardy games require a software download, which makes Jeopardy Labs really stand-out since none is required.
QuizBreak! lets teachers easily create Jeopardy-like games for free that will be hosted online. What makes it really top-notch is that you can add images, video and audio to the questions, too. It’s one of several excellent and free online apps that is made available to teachers by The Center For Language Education and Research at Michigan State University.
Breakout escape rooms can focus on concepts, skills, review of material, a book the students have all read, math problem solving, historical investigations, etc...
Why Use Digital Escape Rooms?
Digital Escape Room Planning Guide | Google Slides Edible Version (For PowerPoint, go to File > Download as > PPTX.) | Getting Started with Digital Escape Rooms
Math Escape Rooms
Click here for Web sites
Creating a Simple Google Form Digital Breakout (Digital Escape Room) Using a Google Form you can create a Digital Escape Room that has your students solve problems, riddles, locate items etc and type their responses into your Form.
Escape Room Puzzle Ideas for the Science Classroom
Create Your Own Breakout EDU Games Breakout EDU games for in-person and online classrooms. A couple of these games were actually designed, built, and shared by teachers and not by Breakout EDU staff. Breakout EDU offers an extensive collection of tutorials and materials for designing, building, and publishing your own games. Watching the game design tutorial videos is probably the best first step if you're interested in creating your own Breakout EDU games. Those six videos walk you through the overall concept of game design then the five steps of building and publishing your game. After watching the game design tutorial videos you'll be ready to build your first Breakout EDU game. All of the templates and artwork that you need to get started are available on this Breakout EDU resources page. The templates are in Google Docs format so that you can quickly copy and save them in your Google Workspace account. www,freetech4teachers.comGenially Escape Room Tutorial Simple to make with a sophisticated looking design
How to make an escape room step by step (with a FREE planning guide)
Puzzles to Use in Escape Rooms
Breakoutedu Sandbox Free teacher. created digital breakout rooms. If the answer to the clues are not provide for the teacher, the creator's email is available to contact. Breakoutedu's main site also has some free ones and valuable tutorials. www.freetech4teachers.com
Numerous Free Digital Escape Rooms at all grade levels
3rd Grade Math Review Escape Room
The Missing Ice Cream | Distance Learning ( gr. 3-4) Your family loves "I Scream" Ice Cream Truck. It has the best ice cream in the city. One day your family went to the truck and you were told that the ice cream is missing! No one knows where it is. To find the ice cream, you have to solve different puzzles and problems which break open the locks. You can add an interactive layer to this PDF and assign it to your students through Google Classroom
Henrico County Public Schools ES Digital Breakouts - Richmond, VA
Wilson Digital BreakoutEDU First Grade St. Patrick's Day Spreadsheet
Tom's Digital Breakout
Teaching and Learning (Digital Breakouts) - Brittany Shifflett
Star Wars Digital Breakout - Author Unknown
Let's Explore Breakouts - Alicia McGee and Doug Wickham
EJD Digital Breakout - Mr. Dalgety & Mr. LaRosa
Owl Digital Escape Room ( gr. 3-5) Informational text passages on owls and the fun drag and drop activities in Google Slides.
Escape the Classroom: A Pirate Adventure! (Digital Breakout, Escape Room) ( gr. 4 - 9) Critical thinking.
Insects - Digital Breakout! (Escape Room, Scavenger Hunt) (gr. 3 - 8)Get students excited about INSECTS with this digital breakout! This breakout is purely digital, no kits necessary! Works through Google Forms! And it is editable
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE ESCAPE ROOM CHALLENGE | DISTANCE LEARNING ( gr. 6 - 10) Have your students show their understanding of metaphor, simile, personification, and onomatopoeia.
Puzzles to Use in Escape Rooms
AP Human Geography Languages Digital Breakout, Role Play, Escape Room Challenge! Imagine you are the only hope to save a major world city. A mad terrorist planted a bomb with a timer and your knowledge about languages, and problem solving skills, is the only thing to keep
Science (gr. 6 - 12 science Add interactivity
World Geography Digital Breakout Escape. (gr. 7 - 11) Teach Human-Environment Interaction in Europe and Russia? This is how you do it. Have students pretend to be a Cold War spy who needs to escape
Why Use Digital Escape Rooms?
Digital Escape Room Planning Guide | Google Slides Edible Version (For PowerPoint, go to File > Download as > PPTX.) | Getting Started with Digital Escape Rooms
Math Escape Rooms
Click here for Web sites
- 40+ FREE escape rooms you can start using right now
- Another Collection - Includes Digital Citizenship Dilemma, Computer Science, Animal Adaptation, Book: A boy Called Bat, Book Stella Diaz Has Something to Say, Book The Wild Robot, Multiplication Mayhem, Revolutionary War, Olympic Games, National Parks, St. Patrick's Day, 3 Halloween Rooms, ,
- A quick digital escape room you can try out yourself
Creating a Simple Google Form Digital Breakout (Digital Escape Room) Using a Google Form you can create a Digital Escape Room that has your students solve problems, riddles, locate items etc and type their responses into your Form.
Escape Room Puzzle Ideas for the Science Classroom
Create Your Own Breakout EDU Games Breakout EDU games for in-person and online classrooms. A couple of these games were actually designed, built, and shared by teachers and not by Breakout EDU staff. Breakout EDU offers an extensive collection of tutorials and materials for designing, building, and publishing your own games. Watching the game design tutorial videos is probably the best first step if you're interested in creating your own Breakout EDU games. Those six videos walk you through the overall concept of game design then the five steps of building and publishing your game. After watching the game design tutorial videos you'll be ready to build your first Breakout EDU game. All of the templates and artwork that you need to get started are available on this Breakout EDU resources page. The templates are in Google Docs format so that you can quickly copy and save them in your Google Workspace account. www,freetech4teachers.comGenially Escape Room Tutorial Simple to make with a sophisticated looking design
How to make an escape room step by step (with a FREE planning guide)
Puzzles to Use in Escape Rooms
- CSI: Algebra -- The Real Number System | Google slides version
- Mapping Puzzles
- PDF Escape - convert pdfs into interactive worksheets
- Forensics National Science Foundation produces educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures.
- Puzz Grid is a newer game that I found that was fun to try and also fun for students to create their own. To promote collaboration, try using breakout rooms and have students work together to create their own PuzzGrid game. It is kind of like “connect four” and helps students to practice the vocabulary and collaborate! I had students use my email address to send the grid to me so that we always had access to the link to be edited if needed. The game offered a more engaging way for practice that pushes students to not only think about what the words mean but to think more closely about their connection. Click Submit to create your own
Breakoutedu Sandbox Free teacher. created digital breakout rooms. If the answer to the clues are not provide for the teacher, the creator's email is available to contact. Breakoutedu's main site also has some free ones and valuable tutorials. www.freetech4teachers.com
Numerous Free Digital Escape Rooms at all grade levels
3rd Grade Math Review Escape Room
The Missing Ice Cream | Distance Learning ( gr. 3-4) Your family loves "I Scream" Ice Cream Truck. It has the best ice cream in the city. One day your family went to the truck and you were told that the ice cream is missing! No one knows where it is. To find the ice cream, you have to solve different puzzles and problems which break open the locks. You can add an interactive layer to this PDF and assign it to your students through Google Classroom
Henrico County Public Schools ES Digital Breakouts - Richmond, VA
Wilson Digital BreakoutEDU First Grade St. Patrick's Day Spreadsheet
Tom's Digital Breakout
Teaching and Learning (Digital Breakouts) - Brittany Shifflett
Star Wars Digital Breakout - Author Unknown
Let's Explore Breakouts - Alicia McGee and Doug Wickham
EJD Digital Breakout - Mr. Dalgety & Mr. LaRosa
Owl Digital Escape Room ( gr. 3-5) Informational text passages on owls and the fun drag and drop activities in Google Slides.
Escape the Classroom: A Pirate Adventure! (Digital Breakout, Escape Room) ( gr. 4 - 9) Critical thinking.
Insects - Digital Breakout! (Escape Room, Scavenger Hunt) (gr. 3 - 8)Get students excited about INSECTS with this digital breakout! This breakout is purely digital, no kits necessary! Works through Google Forms! And it is editable
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE ESCAPE ROOM CHALLENGE | DISTANCE LEARNING ( gr. 6 - 10) Have your students show their understanding of metaphor, simile, personification, and onomatopoeia.
Puzzles to Use in Escape Rooms
- CSI: Algebra -- The Real Number System | Google slides version
- Mapping Puzzles
- PDF Escape - convert pdfs into interactive worksheets
- Forensics National Science Foundation produces educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures.
AP Human Geography Languages Digital Breakout, Role Play, Escape Room Challenge! Imagine you are the only hope to save a major world city. A mad terrorist planted a bomb with a timer and your knowledge about languages, and problem solving skills, is the only thing to keep
Science (gr. 6 - 12 science Add interactivity
World Geography Digital Breakout Escape. (gr. 7 - 11) Teach Human-Environment Interaction in Europe and Russia? This is how you do it. Have students pretend to be a Cold War spy who needs to escape
How to Teach Social-Emotional Learning When Students Aren't in School
How to Explain Constructive CriticismShort video focuses on the skills that contribute to successful teamwork. One of the most essential is how teams communicate criticism and feedback.
Connect, Extend, Challenge downloadable activity slide to help your students reflect on a piece of their work and record their thoughts about it through the lens of Connect, Extend, Challenge!
Using Explicit Instruction to Foster SEL Many students struggle to master crucial skills like resiliency and problem-solving. Here’s a four-step plan for teaching these skills.Along Strong, supportive human relationships are the foundation of effective learning. The Along platorm is a free digital reflection tool that can help foster better student-teacher connections and establish a system for regular contact.
Child-Friendly Social–Emotional Video Series
A team of school psychologists and researchers at the University of Connecticut has developed a free program to get students to express their feelings or reduce anxiety. The science-backed program uses puppets in short videos to explain concepts and includes kits for students to create their own puppets.
Student Thriving Index Measure well-being of students. Example questions are In you school do you feel like you fit on? In you school, is there an adult you can turn to for support or advice? How happy have you been feeling these days? Do you feel that you can succeed in you classes if you tried?
Kikori App & Website- Social Emotional Learning Activities for All Ages
The app and the web versions of Kikori work the same way. On Kikori you can search for social emotional learning activities according to age, energy level, skill development goal, group structure, and materials that are needed or not needed for the activity. Kikori App is a new mobile app and website that offers a large library of social emotional learning activities for students of all ages. The mobile app (Android and iOS) Kikori offers a monthly calendar of SEL activities. This month Kikori's free SEL calendar is arranged around the theme of Earth Month. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
Check in SEL Templates K - 8)
20 Ways to build classroom communities
How to Motivate Students to Work in Collaborative Teams
Beyond All About Me: Community building activities you can use tomorrow
Classcraft ( gr. 4 - 12 )is an online and app-based fantasy-themed behavior and learning-management platform with a role-playing game (RPG) theme. Classcraft integrates easily with everyday classroom activities, encouraging teamwork and collaboration while giving students instant feedback on soft skills, such as attendance, cooperation, homework completion, and classroom behavior.
3-2-1 self reflection -- We often use 3-2-1 as an exit ticket for class and it works well to reflect on a lesson, day or even an entire unit. We can use that same protocol to encourage student self reflection too. Using this idea students will identify (three things they did well, two concepts they need to practice more, and ask 1 question of their teacher. You can modify this 3-2-1 reflection template to fit your class or use it as it.
5-Minute Written Check-Ins
How to Create Community in a Virtual Classroom
Winter SEL Guide contains 19 pages of social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies, resources, and activities to help educators, administrators, and families get the new year off to a good start. The 2023 Winter SEL Guide’s theme is SEL Strategies to Keep Spirits Bright. The guide offers SEL challenges that teachers and families can do with students
Self-awareness strategies
The PERFECT Mid-Year Review Activity (with Templates) There are two templates, one designed for 3rd-5th graders and another for 6th-12th graders This activity is effective but will not take up too much class time.
Upgrading the KWL Chart educators can integrate opportunities to reflect throughout a lesson. I shared the following KWHLAQ chart in Disruptive Thinking, which educators can adapt as needed.
Self-management strategies As students understand themselves on a deeper level, they’re more likely to be successful in developing their self-management skills.
Remote Learning Free SEL Resources
Social Emotional Learning Activity Templates for Google Jamboard
Meeting the needs of introverted students with e-learning
Mood Meter is a tool from Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence that helps students (and everyone else) boost their emotional intelligence (EQ) through developing self-awareness and self-reflection skills. Mood Meter helps students develop the ability to recognize their inner feelings, understand nuances of emotions, and develop a rich emotional vocabulary.
Collaboration Activity Wheel for Exit Questions It’s a standard online wheel spinner but has a different focus. Instead of student names, it has exit questions on it. I like the idea of using this with your own exit questions at the end of a lesson or unit for student reflection in pairs or small groups after a collaborative activity.
Using Padlet for Self Reflection in K-2 www.freetech4teachers.comHow Administrators, and Teachers View Social - Emotional Learning
Nurturing a Classroom Community During Distance Learning Strategies like using a variety of groupings and having students meet each other during online office hours can help build strong relationships.
Social Media Test Drive Simulation games that can prepare students for real life in the digital world.
A Tool to Help Students Make Good Decisions Some students need help when it comes to weighing pros and cons, and this simple decision-making matrix will help them sort things out. Implementation article
20 ways to build classroom community and relationships
Jamboard Templates for Attendance, Lunch Count, and Social-Emotional Learning (gr. K - 5)
Home Room EDU: This is a project that Carrie Baughcum and I co-created last year. It is five weeks of journaling and doodling prompts that cover getting to know you, goal-setting, self-care, self-regulation, organization, time management, and more.
Better Together Activities for Collaboration
New Tech CF: Discover a protocol that provides students a ways to critique their work and projects with an emphasis on reflection, critique, and revision
provided by the amazing New Tech School Network. You can learn more about the Critical Friends (Tuning Protocol) from this video at PBLWorks.
Well-Being & Connection Survey: Surveys can be used to monitor the needs and well-being of remote learners. SEL Check-in: Taking the temperature of your students’ emotions is a great way to begin class and find out which students may need extra care. Try one of these Google Form Daily Check-ins or create your own from this list of 130 Questions to Ask Students. Also see the next link below.
20 ways to build classroom community and relationships
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
Emotional Check-ins K- 12 "The emotional check-in gets every student’s voice into the room at the start of each class. Although students can always say “pass” instead of sharing, each student has the opportunity to be heard every class session. The check-in is also a great opportunity to practice active listening, turn-taking, and following group norms."
5 Strategies to Improve Students’ Listening SkillsSchool students not listening is a common complaint, but listening is a skill like any other—it can be improved with practice.
SEL templates from Pear Deck
Social Emotional Learning Activity Templates for Google Jamboard
Five Quick Ways to Integrate Social-Emotional Learning
Helping Students with Social-Emotional Challenges
Empowering Students Through Digital Citizenship and Social-Emotional Learning
Behavior/Incentive Tracker Templates that can be used individually or as a class. Use these tracker templates to gradually progress your students towards a common goal throughout the day.
Questions to Build Relationships
Engagement and Community Building with Jamboard includes templates
Virtual Team Building Activities
Who am I? comes from Facing History. You’ll need this excerpt from The House on Mango Street to do it.
Click here to download the Growth Mindset Activity Bundle through Google Drive or download zip bundle here
Collaboration with Jamboard includes templates
Empathy Maps for Educators Pulling together information about a student into what’s known as an empathy map can help teachers provide better instruction. Template included
Khan Academy Kids "A free, fun, educational program designed to inspire young children to become learners for life. The robust Khan Academy Kids curriculum and original content make learning engaging and fun for children ages two to seven."
Strategies for Dealing With Struggling Students Middle and High School
20 End of the Year Teacher Reflection Questions to help you process all the craziness.
20 End of the Year Would You Rather Questions now includes a super cute set of google slides that you can use with your whole class. She also added a student answer page if you want to make it into a writing assignment. Or use it as an Easel Activity and have your students highlight their choices and explain their reasoning.
Smekens Education, always-free video "mini-lessons" for K-12 students on reading, writing and social-emotional learning. The lessons are divided by grade bands, K-1, 2-3, 4-6 and 7-12. Videos are available on both YouTube and Vimeo. https://www.smekenseducation.com/literacy-lessons.html
WorryWoo Monsters which focuses on social-emotional learning, has compiled a resource page with creative writing and art lessons plans as well as downloadable coloring pages, exploring themes on subjects such as worry, frustration, loneliness, confusion, innocence, insecurity and envy. https://www.worrywoos.com/worrywoo-sel-resources.html
Committee for Children's Second Step has free social-emotional learning resources for educators, students ages 5 to 13 and their families. Those include a five-lesson unit that can be used to help rebuild students' connections to school. https://www.secondstep.org/covid19support
Quandry is a free learning game on ethical decision making. The game is designed for flexible use and includes educator resources such as lesson plans and curriculum guides.
Wisdom: The World of Emotions is an adaptive social–emotional learning game offered by Better Kids for children aged 4–8. The app, available for iOS and Android devices, includes an SEL curriculum, SEL transitions, and SEL activities to support students’ emotional wellbeing.
Team Building Resources | Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room
Virtual Getting to Know you Activities
Stop, Breathe, Think has hundreds of lesson ideas and activities for students.
Click Use Template to copy and edit this Calming Space #1
Click Use Template to copy and edit this Calming Room by PCSD. #2
LearnStorm "Khan Academy's Back-to-school and Fall program that gives teachers an engaging way to help students gain skills, foster growth mindsets, and build teamwork."
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Grades K-2)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Grades 3-5)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Middle School)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (High School)
Self Reflection Resources
Student Self-Assessment Activities.
How to Explain Constructive CriticismShort video focuses on the skills that contribute to successful teamwork. One of the most essential is how teams communicate criticism and feedback.
Connect, Extend, Challenge downloadable activity slide to help your students reflect on a piece of their work and record their thoughts about it through the lens of Connect, Extend, Challenge!
Using Explicit Instruction to Foster SEL Many students struggle to master crucial skills like resiliency and problem-solving. Here’s a four-step plan for teaching these skills.Along Strong, supportive human relationships are the foundation of effective learning. The Along platorm is a free digital reflection tool that can help foster better student-teacher connections and establish a system for regular contact.
Child-Friendly Social–Emotional Video Series
A team of school psychologists and researchers at the University of Connecticut has developed a free program to get students to express their feelings or reduce anxiety. The science-backed program uses puppets in short videos to explain concepts and includes kits for students to create their own puppets.
Student Thriving Index Measure well-being of students. Example questions are In you school do you feel like you fit on? In you school, is there an adult you can turn to for support or advice? How happy have you been feeling these days? Do you feel that you can succeed in you classes if you tried?
Kikori App & Website- Social Emotional Learning Activities for All Ages
The app and the web versions of Kikori work the same way. On Kikori you can search for social emotional learning activities according to age, energy level, skill development goal, group structure, and materials that are needed or not needed for the activity. Kikori App is a new mobile app and website that offers a large library of social emotional learning activities for students of all ages. The mobile app (Android and iOS) Kikori offers a monthly calendar of SEL activities. This month Kikori's free SEL calendar is arranged around the theme of Earth Month. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
Check in SEL Templates K - 8)
20 Ways to build classroom communities
How to Motivate Students to Work in Collaborative Teams
Beyond All About Me: Community building activities you can use tomorrow
Classcraft ( gr. 4 - 12 )is an online and app-based fantasy-themed behavior and learning-management platform with a role-playing game (RPG) theme. Classcraft integrates easily with everyday classroom activities, encouraging teamwork and collaboration while giving students instant feedback on soft skills, such as attendance, cooperation, homework completion, and classroom behavior.
3-2-1 self reflection -- We often use 3-2-1 as an exit ticket for class and it works well to reflect on a lesson, day or even an entire unit. We can use that same protocol to encourage student self reflection too. Using this idea students will identify (three things they did well, two concepts they need to practice more, and ask 1 question of their teacher. You can modify this 3-2-1 reflection template to fit your class or use it as it.
5-Minute Written Check-Ins
How to Create Community in a Virtual Classroom
Winter SEL Guide contains 19 pages of social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies, resources, and activities to help educators, administrators, and families get the new year off to a good start. The 2023 Winter SEL Guide’s theme is SEL Strategies to Keep Spirits Bright. The guide offers SEL challenges that teachers and families can do with students
Self-awareness strategies
The PERFECT Mid-Year Review Activity (with Templates) There are two templates, one designed for 3rd-5th graders and another for 6th-12th graders This activity is effective but will not take up too much class time.
Upgrading the KWL Chart educators can integrate opportunities to reflect throughout a lesson. I shared the following KWHLAQ chart in Disruptive Thinking, which educators can adapt as needed.
Self-management strategies As students understand themselves on a deeper level, they’re more likely to be successful in developing their self-management skills.
Remote Learning Free SEL Resources
Social Emotional Learning Activity Templates for Google Jamboard
Meeting the needs of introverted students with e-learning
Mood Meter is a tool from Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence that helps students (and everyone else) boost their emotional intelligence (EQ) through developing self-awareness and self-reflection skills. Mood Meter helps students develop the ability to recognize their inner feelings, understand nuances of emotions, and develop a rich emotional vocabulary.
Collaboration Activity Wheel for Exit Questions It’s a standard online wheel spinner but has a different focus. Instead of student names, it has exit questions on it. I like the idea of using this with your own exit questions at the end of a lesson or unit for student reflection in pairs or small groups after a collaborative activity.
Using Padlet for Self Reflection in K-2 www.freetech4teachers.comHow Administrators, and Teachers View Social - Emotional Learning
Nurturing a Classroom Community During Distance Learning Strategies like using a variety of groupings and having students meet each other during online office hours can help build strong relationships.
Social Media Test Drive Simulation games that can prepare students for real life in the digital world.
A Tool to Help Students Make Good Decisions Some students need help when it comes to weighing pros and cons, and this simple decision-making matrix will help them sort things out. Implementation article
20 ways to build classroom community and relationships
Jamboard Templates for Attendance, Lunch Count, and Social-Emotional Learning (gr. K - 5)
Home Room EDU: This is a project that Carrie Baughcum and I co-created last year. It is five weeks of journaling and doodling prompts that cover getting to know you, goal-setting, self-care, self-regulation, organization, time management, and more.
Better Together Activities for Collaboration
New Tech CF: Discover a protocol that provides students a ways to critique their work and projects with an emphasis on reflection, critique, and revision
provided by the amazing New Tech School Network. You can learn more about the Critical Friends (Tuning Protocol) from this video at PBLWorks.
Well-Being & Connection Survey: Surveys can be used to monitor the needs and well-being of remote learners. SEL Check-in: Taking the temperature of your students’ emotions is a great way to begin class and find out which students may need extra care. Try one of these Google Form Daily Check-ins or create your own from this list of 130 Questions to Ask Students. Also see the next link below.
20 ways to build classroom community and relationships
The Achievery The Achievery features clips from popular movies, TV shows, and cartoons from Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, paired with lessons and learning activities Available subjects include Social-Emotional Learning, English Language Arts (ELA), Science, Social Studies, Math, Technology and Engineering and Digital Literacy. The lesson plans come with recommendations and exercises related to the content of the clips.https://www.theachievery.com/
Emotional Check-ins K- 12 "The emotional check-in gets every student’s voice into the room at the start of each class. Although students can always say “pass” instead of sharing, each student has the opportunity to be heard every class session. The check-in is also a great opportunity to practice active listening, turn-taking, and following group norms."
5 Strategies to Improve Students’ Listening SkillsSchool students not listening is a common complaint, but listening is a skill like any other—it can be improved with practice.
SEL templates from Pear Deck
Social Emotional Learning Activity Templates for Google Jamboard
Five Quick Ways to Integrate Social-Emotional Learning
Helping Students with Social-Emotional Challenges
Empowering Students Through Digital Citizenship and Social-Emotional Learning
Behavior/Incentive Tracker Templates that can be used individually or as a class. Use these tracker templates to gradually progress your students towards a common goal throughout the day.
Questions to Build Relationships
Engagement and Community Building with Jamboard includes templates
Virtual Team Building Activities
Who am I? comes from Facing History. You’ll need this excerpt from The House on Mango Street to do it.
Click here to download the Growth Mindset Activity Bundle through Google Drive or download zip bundle here
- Growth Mindset Videos Playlist on Youtube
- How to Use Remote Survey Data Documenting and codifying survey responses turns those responses into actionable data for flagging students in need, informing current and future supports, and gaining visibility into Tier 1 needs. Refer to our guiding questions to get started using those data impactfully. Questions
- How to Use Remote Progress Monitoring Data Many districts are weighing the option of progress monitoring with remote learners. Regarding students with IEPs, OSEP’s guidance is to continue progress monitoring remotely when it can be done reasonably and when the IEP includes progress monitoring to document a goal. However, if it can be reasonably administered remotely, progress monitoring all students who are receiving interventions can also help educators plan for the fall. As with an onsite environment,
- Responding to New, Common Student Needs One of the ways we can use data today is to flag new, common student needs as we see them arise. This helps us align resources throughout the spring and summer, as well as prepare to accelerate our support responses in the fall. Analyzing new student needs can help teams to think proactively about the professional learning, resources, and supports that staff may require next year. Here are some example groups that your team may want to consider.
Collaboration with Jamboard includes templates
- 20 Jamboard templates on reflection that you can start using right away with students. Make a copy. Adjust. Then assign. They include: -Stop Start Continue: A way for students to evaluate their work - Struggle / Work at / Good at: A three-part self evaluation - Reflection questions: Including "Where can I improve my learning?" and "What are my learning strengths?" - ✅Don't use Jamboard? No problem. You can download any of these templates as an image file. Add it to Slides, PowerPoint, Docs, Word, etc. and assign to students.
Empathy Maps for Educators Pulling together information about a student into what’s known as an empathy map can help teachers provide better instruction. Template included
Khan Academy Kids "A free, fun, educational program designed to inspire young children to become learners for life. The robust Khan Academy Kids curriculum and original content make learning engaging and fun for children ages two to seven."
Strategies for Dealing With Struggling Students Middle and High School
20 End of the Year Teacher Reflection Questions to help you process all the craziness.
20 End of the Year Would You Rather Questions now includes a super cute set of google slides that you can use with your whole class. She also added a student answer page if you want to make it into a writing assignment. Or use it as an Easel Activity and have your students highlight their choices and explain their reasoning.
Smekens Education, always-free video "mini-lessons" for K-12 students on reading, writing and social-emotional learning. The lessons are divided by grade bands, K-1, 2-3, 4-6 and 7-12. Videos are available on both YouTube and Vimeo. https://www.smekenseducation.com/literacy-lessons.html
WorryWoo Monsters which focuses on social-emotional learning, has compiled a resource page with creative writing and art lessons plans as well as downloadable coloring pages, exploring themes on subjects such as worry, frustration, loneliness, confusion, innocence, insecurity and envy. https://www.worrywoos.com/worrywoo-sel-resources.html
Committee for Children's Second Step has free social-emotional learning resources for educators, students ages 5 to 13 and their families. Those include a five-lesson unit that can be used to help rebuild students' connections to school. https://www.secondstep.org/covid19support
Quandry is a free learning game on ethical decision making. The game is designed for flexible use and includes educator resources such as lesson plans and curriculum guides.
Wisdom: The World of Emotions is an adaptive social–emotional learning game offered by Better Kids for children aged 4–8. The app, available for iOS and Android devices, includes an SEL curriculum, SEL transitions, and SEL activities to support students’ emotional wellbeing.
Team Building Resources | Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room
Virtual Getting to Know you Activities
Stop, Breathe, Think has hundreds of lesson ideas and activities for students.
Click Use Template to copy and edit this Calming Space #1
Click Use Template to copy and edit this Calming Room by PCSD. #2
LearnStorm "Khan Academy's Back-to-school and Fall program that gives teachers an engaging way to help students gain skills, foster growth mindsets, and build teamwork."
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Grades K-2)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Grades 3-5)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Middle School)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (High School)
Self Reflection Resources
Student Self-Assessment Activities.
Click to set custom HTML
Starter Guide
Difference between hybrid learning and blended learning
Tips for Implementing Blended Learning
The blended learning models that can help schools reopen
Designing and Facilitating Learning for an Alternating A-B Hybrid Schedule (Links to an external site.)
Tips for Navigating a Concurrent Classroom | The Concurrent Classroom: Using Blended Learning Models to Teach Students In-Person and Online Simultaneously
Making Thinking Visible: - This is a site from Harvard’s Project Zero that provides routines to promote thinking and understanding. These concepts can be expanded into the Blended environment. You may want to visit this site that provides some of these routines in a virtual kind of way. You may want to look at this site that provides tech apps that work with different routines, or this other site that provides a look at Google Slides and Routines.
✅Tract is a service that offers fun lessons for elementary school, middle school, high school students taught by high school and college students. The lessons and corresponding activities cover a wide array of fun and interesting topics. On Tract you will find lessons about photography, gaming, cooking, music, sports, and much more. Students can earn digital and physical prizes for completing the lessons and their corresponding activities.
High school students can contribute to Tract by creating their own video lessons for others to learn from. Take a look at this video for a teacher and student perspective of how Tract works.
Benefits for Students
There are numerous potential benefits for students using Tract as part of their remote and hybrid learning experiences. Perhaps the biggest benefit is getting to pursue the topics that interest them. Tract learning paths cover a huge array of topics ranging from fun things like musical animals to serious things like investing in different sectors of the stock market to lots of interesting things between those extremes. In short, there is not a shortage of fun and interesting things for students to learn through Tract’s student-created learning paths. Tract doesn’t limit students to just watching and completing learning paths. Students are also encouraged to participate in producing their own learning paths. www.freetech4teachers.com
Explore Boards
An Educator’s Guide to Remote Learning Get some ideas, tools and templates here.
Student-created Kahoot! Questions Teachers who love Kahoot! can encourage their students to design Kahoot! questions that the teacher can use to create a variety of review activities. When students develop the questions, they must think critically about the content they’ve covered and craft questions designed to target essential vocabulary and concepts.
Blended learning tip: This is ideal for a small group collaborative activity as part of a station rotation or whole group rotation lesson. Ask groups of 4-6 students to work together to craft a collection of questions on a digital slide deck, like the one I’ve included below. Then the teacher can review the questions and answers, selecting the best ones to include in future Kahoot! review games.
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comIs Class Participation Too Arbitrary to Grade Fairly?
Institute for Habits of the Mind: - This is a resource filled with multiple ideas that promote student cognition to promote deeper understanding. Check out their many resources including favorite rubrics, be sure to take a look. How might this rubric be incorporated as virtual exits tickets, online self assessment, and classroom online discussions?
5 Strategies to Engage Learners Around Flipped Instruction
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comClassroomscreen was designed by teachers to help students focus on their immediate tasks and activities, and it works like an educational multitool. It provides 13 different widgets for free, including a timer, traffic light, random name picker, sound level monitor, drawing tool, poll, and work condition symbols (i.e work together, ask neighbor, whisper, or silence).
Teacher Suggestions for a Hybrid Classroom Advice from teacher’s who’ve been using this model,
Hybrid Classroom Set up
Resources for the Shift to Online/Blended Learning
Blended Learning Playlist "The playlist concept stems from the Individual Rotation Model in which each student works from an individual playlist of activities. I’ve used playlists for formal writing, grammar, and projects. The goal of the playlist model is to allow students some control over the pace and path of their learning."
Teaching in a Hybrid Model is a Google Slides Presentation by Sarah M. Rich (thanks to Chantal Shabazz).
Using a Flip Flop Design for the Concurrent Classroom is by Catlin Tucker.
Juggling ‘Roomers’ and ‘Zoomers’? How Teachers Make Hybrid Learning Work appeared in Ed Surge
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
The Do’s & Don’ts of Hybrid TeachingMaking Hybrid Teaching Work for Educators & Students
Hybrid Teaching Is Multitasking to the Umpteenth Degree More Do's and Don'ts
It’s Like ‘Teaching Two Classes at Once’ Suggestions from teachers 3xperiences in a hybrid classroom
Three Tools for Creating Audio Slideshow VideosBlended, Flipped, and Remote Learning: What’s the Difference?
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
The Concurrent Classroom: Using Blended Learning Models to Teach Students In-person and Online Simultaneously
FOUR LEARNING MODELS THAT ARE WORKING IN REMOTE (AND CONCURRENT)
Station rotation - Hybrid Learning
Station rotation
Difference between hybrid learning and blended learning
Tips for Implementing Blended Learning
The blended learning models that can help schools reopen
Designing and Facilitating Learning for an Alternating A-B Hybrid Schedule (Links to an external site.)
Tips for Navigating a Concurrent Classroom | The Concurrent Classroom: Using Blended Learning Models to Teach Students In-Person and Online Simultaneously
Making Thinking Visible: - This is a site from Harvard’s Project Zero that provides routines to promote thinking and understanding. These concepts can be expanded into the Blended environment. You may want to visit this site that provides some of these routines in a virtual kind of way. You may want to look at this site that provides tech apps that work with different routines, or this other site that provides a look at Google Slides and Routines.
✅Tract is a service that offers fun lessons for elementary school, middle school, high school students taught by high school and college students. The lessons and corresponding activities cover a wide array of fun and interesting topics. On Tract you will find lessons about photography, gaming, cooking, music, sports, and much more. Students can earn digital and physical prizes for completing the lessons and their corresponding activities.
High school students can contribute to Tract by creating their own video lessons for others to learn from. Take a look at this video for a teacher and student perspective of how Tract works.
Benefits for Students
There are numerous potential benefits for students using Tract as part of their remote and hybrid learning experiences. Perhaps the biggest benefit is getting to pursue the topics that interest them. Tract learning paths cover a huge array of topics ranging from fun things like musical animals to serious things like investing in different sectors of the stock market to lots of interesting things between those extremes. In short, there is not a shortage of fun and interesting things for students to learn through Tract’s student-created learning paths. Tract doesn’t limit students to just watching and completing learning paths. Students are also encouraged to participate in producing their own learning paths. www.freetech4teachers.com
Explore Boards
- What is an Explore Board? The purpose of an Explore Board Is to create a board of learning choices that help students develop background knowledge that fuels comprehension. It is meant to be a before activity. It is filled with links to a set of different forms of media surrounding a common topic, theme or issue. one-minute video explanation HERE. Read more about it HERE. Download HERE | Watch an Explore Board in Action HERE | To get started, here is a TEMPLATE you can populate for yourself - though any Explore Board can be changed and customized.
- How is an Explore Board different from a Choice Board? Simple. A choice board is used to give students choice in how they respond to a prompt or project. It is used for giving students a choice in how they show learning. It's an "outro" activity. An Explore board, on the other hand. is an "intro" activity - meant to help get students the background knowledge they need that will help them understand concepts and ideas better. It can also be used as a resource as they progress in the learning unit.
An Educator’s Guide to Remote Learning Get some ideas, tools and templates here.
Student-created Kahoot! Questions Teachers who love Kahoot! can encourage their students to design Kahoot! questions that the teacher can use to create a variety of review activities. When students develop the questions, they must think critically about the content they’ve covered and craft questions designed to target essential vocabulary and concepts.
Blended learning tip: This is ideal for a small group collaborative activity as part of a station rotation or whole group rotation lesson. Ask groups of 4-6 students to work together to craft a collection of questions on a digital slide deck, like the one I’ve included below. Then the teacher can review the questions and answers, selecting the best ones to include in future Kahoot! review games.
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comIs Class Participation Too Arbitrary to Grade Fairly?
Institute for Habits of the Mind: - This is a resource filled with multiple ideas that promote student cognition to promote deeper understanding. Check out their many resources including favorite rubrics, be sure to take a look. How might this rubric be incorporated as virtual exits tickets, online self assessment, and classroom online discussions?
5 Strategies to Engage Learners Around Flipped Instruction
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comClassroomscreen was designed by teachers to help students focus on their immediate tasks and activities, and it works like an educational multitool. It provides 13 different widgets for free, including a timer, traffic light, random name picker, sound level monitor, drawing tool, poll, and work condition symbols (i.e work together, ask neighbor, whisper, or silence).
Teacher Suggestions for a Hybrid Classroom Advice from teacher’s who’ve been using this model,
Hybrid Classroom Set up
Resources for the Shift to Online/Blended Learning
Blended Learning Playlist "The playlist concept stems from the Individual Rotation Model in which each student works from an individual playlist of activities. I’ve used playlists for formal writing, grammar, and projects. The goal of the playlist model is to allow students some control over the pace and path of their learning."
Teaching in a Hybrid Model is a Google Slides Presentation by Sarah M. Rich (thanks to Chantal Shabazz).
Using a Flip Flop Design for the Concurrent Classroom is by Catlin Tucker.
Juggling ‘Roomers’ and ‘Zoomers’? How Teachers Make Hybrid Learning Work appeared in Ed Surge
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
The Do’s & Don’ts of Hybrid TeachingMaking Hybrid Teaching Work for Educators & Students
Hybrid Teaching Is Multitasking to the Umpteenth Degree More Do's and Don'ts
It’s Like ‘Teaching Two Classes at Once’ Suggestions from teachers 3xperiences in a hybrid classroom
Three Tools for Creating Audio Slideshow VideosBlended, Flipped, and Remote Learning: What’s the Difference?
Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom Teaching effectively and meaningfully in the hybrid classroom is difficult. Here are some instructional models and best practices to help.
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
The Concurrent Classroom: Using Blended Learning Models to Teach Students In-person and Online Simultaneously
FOUR LEARNING MODELS THAT ARE WORKING IN REMOTE (AND CONCURRENT)
Station rotation - Hybrid Learning
Station rotation
General Tools
10 Templates of Graphic Organizers | Circly - Free tool for creating interactive, collaborative graphic organizers using circles for grouping concepts.
Miro Brainstorming Tools - Mind mapping tools help students working together in colaboration to inquire, brainstorm, and look for answers. Miro has some free capbilities that you might find useful. Some of the tools include KWL, 5W's, and Mind Mapping to name a few. You might want to even look at examples and find a way to duplicate these in Google Draw or Docs.
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Social Media Templates Yelp
3 Tricks for Inserting Audio Into Google Slides | Polls in Google Slides Poll Everywhere integrate it into Google Slides. how to video | Easy Polls is a free service where you can set up polls in a matter of seconds and have them published on your website, facebook, twitter, or simply share the link to the poll with your audience. |
Use Google Slides where each student gets their own copy The link takes you to a sheet doc. Follow the direction using the sheets' menubar at the top to install add-on
Ten Skills Students Can Learn from Google's Applied Digital Skills Lessons www.freetech4teachers.com
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
Cut Up Google Slides - alicekeeler.com/cutupslides Take a Google Slides and put it into smaller Google Slides presentations. This does NOT cut up your original, it stays the same. However, this Add-on allows you easily copy Google Slides from one Slides presentation to multiple slides presentations.
Speech to Text There is a dictation feature built in to many devices that will allow you to dictate into any place where text can be typed. There is also a speech-to-text feature built right into Google Docs. Simply click “tools” and “voice typing” in a Google Doc, and you will see a microphone icon. Below that is a dropdown menu to select the language in which you plan to dictate.
Slip-in-SlideWith the Slip-in-Slide add-on, you can effortlessly insert slides into multiple student presentations at one time. You can choose to send one or many slides from your presentation to an assignment folder in Google Classroom. This makes distribution of new material quick and easy. It integrates with the folder structure of Google Classroom to send your slides directly into student’s existing presentations. A tutorial on how to use Slip-in-Slide here.
Doc to Slides View Doc to Slides on YouTube It magically takes whatever is in your Google Doc and converts is to Google Slides! Not only does it create slides from a doc there are also other capabilities, e.g., creating slides for individual students quickly and directing a slide you already have to each student. Install Doc to Slides
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Classroomscreen is a service that lets you create a homescreen on which you can place reusable countdown timers, stopwatches, noise meters, random name selectors, and more helpful classroom management tools. The noise meter lets you set a sensitivity level and have an alarm sound when the room gets too noisy. The random name selector lets you enter a list of names and save it for unlimited reuse. The countdown timers are easy to adjust for time allotment and appearance. In addition to the timers, noise meters, and random name pickers, Classroomscreen also offers handy tools like a digital whiteboard, a calendar, a task list, and a QR code to share the whole screen with your students. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.com
Three Tools for Creating Audio Slideshow VideosNoteledge iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. It is a digital notebook that allows you to visualize your thoughts and organize your notes in a single place. It offers three helpful functionalities that enable you to capture, organize, and create new ideas and inspiration. Students can use it to curate content from the web by clipping images, text, and/or screenshots and add their notes to clipped content. They can also clip videos from popular video hosting services such as YouTube and Vimeo and annotate them the way they want. Using the app's annotating tools, students can draw, outline, sketch, and create collages by cutting out images and arranging layers. They can also add their own audio recordings and photos and insert videos into their notes. Additionally, notes can be organized into mood boards or idea boards and be shared with others in various formats. They can be exported as PDFs with audio and video included or be shared as slideshows. Noteledge has both a basic free version and a premium version.
GoSoapBox Engage your students and knockdown participation barriers with GoSoapBox, A free web-based student response system. Set up an event, or GoSoapBox space, for your class. Students enter the SoapBox through a unique code, and only the instructor can view the student names. Accessible through a computer or mobile device, GoSoapBox offers many tools for some creative Q&A in your classroom. The confusion barometer allows the teacher to assess the students' understanding of the topic. The poll and quiz tools provide a formative assessment option. Post questions or topics for your students using the GoSoapBox discussion tool. An option to post anonymously is available as well as many other settings for using the Social Q&A tool. Students can post questions for their peers or the teacher to answer.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comCanva Graphic Organizer Templates Graphic organizers are a staple part of most classrooms. However, they are not known for their amazing design aesthetic. Thankfully, Canva has a huge variety of graphic organizer templates that you can customize for your students
Helperbird Whether you need speech to text, text-to-speech, Opendyslexic font, highlight tools, note-taking, clutter removal, Immersive Reader, etc., this tool has all of your favorite accessibility tools rolled into one! video tutorial
Use the Talking Points app to communicate with ALL families.Talking points allows you to communicate with your families. You write your message in your home language, families respond in theirs and it is translated automatically. Teachers can use the web-browser or mobile app, families can use text messages or a mobile app.
TeacherMade - Quickly Create a Variety of Online Activities A tool that lets you easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities into online activities to share with your students. According to developer Laura, “My goal with TeacherMade was to create a way for us to make online worksheets that are easier than Google Slides. You can use TeacherMade to turn your PDFs, Word docs, Google Docs, and pictures into online activities. And if you choose to make your activity a graded one, TeacherMade will automatically score responses for you. short video tutorial
Wizer is a site that is for creating online assignments/worksheets. These assignments can contain all types of media (i.e. audio, video, images) as well as being able to share w/ others. The assignments on Wizer allow for student tracking so a educator can assess how well a student is doing. | Wizer released a Google Drive add-on that lets you quickly convert PDFs that are in your Google Drive into online worksheets on Wizer. With the add-on installed you can simply select any PDF in your Google Drive then choose "open with Wizer" to use that PDF in Wizer where you can then add interactive elements. You can see an overview of Wizer's Google Drive add-on in this video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bublup allows you to save and organize your digital content in visually attractive ways. Bublup combines the functionalities of a cloud storage site and content bookmarking tools. Organize your resources in visual folders like photos, videos, pictures, notes and many more. Bublup has collaborative features. Users can also create beautiful stories (also known as rolls) out of their stored content and share through a generated webpage link. Additionally, the site provides you with smart suggestions of content to similar content as the one you have saved in your folders. Student researchers can use it to collaborate on shared research projects. Teachers can design a space on Bublup where they share with their students resources related to the content they learn in class.
How to Create Your Own Search Engine It might sound complicated, but it’s not. In fact, it’s no more difficult than completing a Google Form. To create your own search engine head to Google.com/CSE. There you’ll select “add new search engine” and on the next screen all you have to do is enter a list of websites that you want your search engine to index. When your list is complete you’ll be given a URL for sharing your unique search engine. A demonstration of the whole, five minute process can be watched here. www.freetech4teachers.com
5 Ways to Improve the Odds of Students Actually Watching Instructional Videos
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
Brainstormer Online is a fun tool that helps teams to come up with ideas together remotely. The brainstormers will be guided through the steps of coming up with ideas, voting and reviewing ideas. No signup needed. Just create a session and start brainstorming. Voting capabilities also.
PresentationTube is a non-profit that has provided a free service to teachers for many years. That service is the ability to record video presentations based on PowerPoint files and PDFs. Recently, PresentationTube released a Chrome extension that lets you create video lessons in your web browser. PresentationTube's Chrome extension will let you record while talking over your PowerPoint slides or a PDF. You can record with your webcam turned on or you can choose to just record your voice talking over your slides or PDF. While you're recording you can draw on the screen, add text notes to the screen, and highlight text on the screen. When you have finished recording a presentation with PresentationTube's Chrome extension you can upload it directly to the PresentationTube website where you can then publish it publicly or keep it unlisted. www.freetech4teachers.com
Weava is a tool that allows you to annotate websites and PDFs. Students can easily highlight sections in PDFs and websites and add notes to contextualize and enhance their learning. Using Weava Workspace, students can easily review and edit their highlights. They can also add more highlights and organize everything into a single place. Highlights can be organized and categorized into collections and sub-folders. Weava enables students to collaborate on their research, share highlights and engage in meaningful discussions. Most important of all, Weava enables you to instantly generate bibliographical entries from your highlights in MLA, APA, Chicago, and Harvard styles. Weava is available as a Chrome extension.
Page Marker Page Marker is a Chrome extension that enables you to easily annotate live web pages. You can draw on any section on the webpage using your mouse or touchscreen. You can also highlight lines of text using your preferred colour.The eraser tool lets you delete parts you don't like and with a single click you can customize the thickness or change the default color. Students can use these extensions to draw on live webpages, add shapes and arrows, and share their annotated content with each other.
Web Paint Another excellent tool to annotate and draw on web pages. You can add text, notes, shapes, lines, and arrows and share your annotated content with others. Web Paint offers the added screenshot functionality allowing you to create screen captures of your annotated web pages. Students can use these extensions to draw on live webpages, add shapes and arrows, and share their annotated content with each other.
Mobile Phone Scanners Good for scanning documents and worksheets
CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help | Digital Learning Design Guide | Creating Virtual Reality activities in your remote teaching is easy and FREE with CurrikiStudio. No coding necessary. Take a static photo and turn it into a virtual tour to post to your website or LMS video tutorial | Excellent guide that maps out 5 easy ways you can use CurrikiStudio tools to give those remote lessons a reboot!
Recording and Inserting Audio How to record audio and save it right in your google drive Insert the audio into your digital learning path Have your students respond to you verbally Make your emails to your parents quicker and more personalized.
Classroomscreen was designed by teachers to help students focus on their immediate tasks and activities, and it works like an educational multitool. It provides 13 different widgets for free, including a timer, traffic light, random name picker, sound level monitor, drawing tool, poll, and work condition symbols (i.e work together, ask neighbor, whisper, or silence).
Google Tools for Struggling Students
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Discover QFT at The Right Question Institute (https://rightquestion.org/) - QFT, known as Question Formation Protocol is a simple way of promoting inquiring through collaborative groups of students. It incorporates the simple steps below and will allow your students to own the inquiry process while reflecting on their questions. Pay special attention to the templates that are provided for you to bring students to the blended world. They are free.
Quickly and easily take a printed PDF or worksheet, upload its text to Google Docs, and make it readable for your students. video
Talk and Comment Create voice notes inside any service on the web, including Google Docs, Google Classroom, Twitter, Facebook comments, Gmail, YouTube, Reddit, Slack, and more! Simply record your voice from the widget inside your browser, and paste the generated voice link anywhere you want.This extension makes it super easy to create quizzes that include oral directions or support.Watch this video to see just how easy it is to use and to get started with it yourself.
Guide for helping kids with special needs enhance their learning through the use of Google's technology. The guide entitled "Guardian's Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers
GoNoodle is an online resource that provides teachers with a library of “brain break” videos to use in their classrooms. The videos - ranging in length from two to ten minutes - are geared toward students in kindergarten through sixth grade, and they cover a variety of activities, such as exercise, song, dance, mindfulness, and coordination
Make Common Craft-style videos This video demonstrates how to use Google Slides and Screencastify to make Common Craft-style videos, but you could accomplish the same thing with PowerPoint and Screencast-o-matic.
Desmos is a FREE interactive tool used to graph, model, collect data, and question students over collection of higher math concepts Example activities
Using an easily accessed feature on your computer enlarge or highlight your mouse, so that students can more easily see where you are clicking. Most computers have this feature built into their accessibility tools, but you can also use a Chrome extension like Custom Cursor for Chrome to add additional fun. You can choose from a number of colors, shapes, and even cursors like SpongeBob, Harry Potter Cat, and a chicken nugget in the shape of a dinosaur.
Convert Handwritten Notes Into Google Documents When you snap a picture and upload it to Google Drive you can then have it converted into a Google Document that you can edit and share just like any other Google Doc. In the following video see how easy it is to use Google Drive to convert physical notes into Google Docs.
Circle-Based Visuals with Circly Circly is a free web-based tool that allows you to create simpler ways of looking at complex topics. The teacher or students can drag-and-drop circles anywhere on the screen to create connections between ideas or topics. The tool is extremely colorful and simple to use.
Applications for Creating eMail Newsletters
Talk and Comment is a chrome extension that enables you to record voice notes and share them almost anywhere on the web. As a teacher, you may want to install and use it to share audio feedback in the form of voice comments on students work. This is especially helpful if you have a classroom blog or website. Each audio note you create has a generated link that you can easily copy and paste online. Students can also use it to collaborate on joint projects and to engage in discussions around topics of interest. The way Talk and Comment works is simple and easy. First, install the extension from Chrome web store. Next open the webpage or head over to the platform where you want to share your audio comment and click on the extension's widget and start recording your comment. Once done, copy and paste the generated link. video tutorial
SceneVR "An engaging way to tell stories from an entirely new perspective. It turns your collection of panoramic and VR-ready photos into a slideshow of navigable scenes, allowing you to create unique 360° narratives." You can add text also.
Awesome Table makes your Google Sheet data visual. Take your website to the next level by presenting their Google Sheets data in beautiful, dynamic displays. Awesome Table is a great add-on to use on your Google Sheets to turn your spreadsheets into interactive visualizations. No coding knowledge is required to operate it, it is simple and easy to use. Tutorials and overview
Tools to Help You Convert Handwritten Notes into Digitized Text
AutoDraw matches your online doodles with professional drawings using any device. Begin a picture, and as you add to the image, AutoDraw's algorithms offer possible matches for your attempt. Click on any of the matching images to replace your doodle with a completed drawing. Use the site's tools to add text, change outline and fill colors, and add shapes. When finished, download your creation as a PNG file to your device.
3 Easy Ways Students Can Voice Type Their Documents
Mozilla Hubs A virtual reality space similar to the mega-popular Nintendo game Animal Crossing. With Mozilla Hubs, you can invite students to socialize in a space where they can move around and interact as avatars, which might be an interesting divergence from regular video conferencing.
Wizkids CAS is another Google Docs Add-on that offers a graphing calculator feature. Wizkids CAS offers tools for solve=ing equations and plotting graphs, finding numerical and exact solutions, and simplifying and factoring expressions with variables. The video embedded below provides an overview of the features in Wizkids CAS.
DIFFERENTIATED TEACHING
Having the ability to customize a formative assessment based on a student’s learner profile without that being obvious to all students makes differentiation easier. Wizer is a Swiss Army knife for teaching. The creators call it a “digital multimedia worksheet” tool, but that gives too much credit to paper worksheets—this is one of the best online differentiation tools out there. It allows teachers to add video, audio, and images to interactive worksheets, making them very accessible to all students. Wizer is simple to use, and other teachers’ digital worksheets are available as well. recorded a tutorial with her. I think this free tool is a must-use, although some teachers say it is targeted to younger students. You can distribute to students through a variety of means including Google Classroom. One of its better features is the option to add questions directly on top of images and diagrams. A variety of question formats are supported including open response, multiple choice, and matching questions. Years ago I made this video about how to use Wizer. The interface has changed a little since then but the tools are the same. www.freetech4teachers.com
needing to organize their ideas into useful outlines.
JotForm Report Builder is a useful tool for virtual learning. It takes the data you collect from online forms and turns it into visuals. You can use these presentation-ready reports to share any data you collect. In a distance learning environment, you can gather information remotely and share it in a variety of formats. So if you are presenting information on data you’ve collected to your school community, this will come in handy.
Class Charts Helps organize students into appropriate learning groups and minimizes school behavior issues.’
Tools to schedule conferences with students, parents and peers
Otter is a web tool and mobile app that allows you to record audio and generate live transcriptions of your recordings. Otter provides automated meeting notes for popular video conferencing services including Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Students can use Otter to" take notes during lectures, transcribe research interviews, capture notes from group study sessions, and process public audio data for research purposes." Otter has collaborative features. Otter users can invite each other to edit, highlight and work on their notes collaboratively. They can also 'start a recording inside a group to share the transcript live'. Other equally interesting features provided by Otter include: the ability to import and transcribe audio recordings, arrange notes into folders, generate word clouds from recorded notes, export notes as PDF, TXT, MP3, and many more.
Background Removal Tools for Photos and Videos Three online tools for background removal from photos and images. They are all simple to use.
Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
Classdojo Build productive classroom communities with parents and students.
Split Your Browser Screen into Two with Dualless
Classting Social media approach draws families into the daily classroom It allows easy communication and updates with families. The flexibility in options is a plus, allowing teachers to share photos, videos, messages, and homework. Homework, updates, and photos are all part of the platform, insuring successful connection with families. Continuous communication throughout the school year creates a positive environment.
Remind Teachers' text reminders keep students -- and parents -- up to speed. With over 70 languages and options to share files and links, it's easy to keep students and parents informed and involved
Bloomz Android | IOS Full-featured parent-teacher communication platform
Create Green Screen Video With Zoom Zoom's desktop client has an option to replace your background with any picture that you want to upload to your Zoom account. The video shows how to edit the video in Spark, but you can use other video editing programs also. Seamless method to create newscasts, for example. Video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom A free iPhone and iPad app called Overviewer. Overviewer is a free app that lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a document camera during a Zoom meeting. The app essentially mirrors your iPhone or iPad camera into Zoom via Airplay or Lightning Bolt cable. Here's an overview www.freetech4teachers.com
Classtag Flexible user-friendly tool gets teachers and families in sync
Distance Learning with ESL
- Reading Rockets templates These include a Hamburger Paragraph, Persuasion Map, Pros and Cons 'T' table and finally Sequence Chart (helps students flesh out the procedural steps required to, for instance solve a math problem, record a video tutorial, etc).
- National Geographic use the search bar to search for specific graphic organizer. Some of the featured types include: Graphs, Grids, Multiple Causes and Multiple Effects Diagram, Cause-and-Effect Diagram, Four-Column Chart, Web, Two-Column Chart, Research Chart, KWL Chart, Venn Diagram, Scientific Method Chart, Goal-and-Outcome Diagram, Steps in a Process Diagram, Classification Chart, Three-Column Chart, Decision Matrix, Sequence Chain, Cycle Diagram, Spider, T Chart, and many more.
- HMH structure writing projects and help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research, and brainstorming." These templates are organized into the following categories : Sequence of Events, Main Topic and Key Details, Compare/Contrast, Story Planning, and Other Graphic Organizers. For instance, in the Sequence of Events category you will find templates like Timeline, Flow Chart, Step-by-Step Chart, Sequence Chart, and Time-Order Chart,
- Education Oasis Some of the templates provided are fillable allowing students to fill them out before they print them. Categories: Close Reading Graphic Organizers; Central Idea Graphic Organizer; Cause and Effect Graphic Organizers; Character and Story Graphic Organizers; Compare and Contrast Graphic Organizers; Sequence, Cycle, Timeline, Cluster, Hierarchy, and Chain of Events Graphic Organizers; Vocabulary Development and Concept Graphic Organizers; and Miscellaneous Graphic Organizers.
- Freeology Each template comes with a short description of what the graphic organizer is used for. Some of the graphic organizer templates featured in the site's library include: Character Details Organizer, Vocabulary Boxes, Beehive Flow Chart, Weekly Learning Log, Fact Opinion Worksheet, Book Review, Short Story Overview, Character Compare/ Contrast Graphic Organizer, Note Taking Organizer, New Year's Reflection, Annotations Bookmark, and many more.
Miro Brainstorming Tools - Mind mapping tools help students working together in colaboration to inquire, brainstorm, and look for answers. Miro has some free capbilities that you might find useful. Some of the tools include KWL, 5W's, and Mind Mapping to name a few. You might want to even look at examples and find a way to duplicate these in Google Draw or Docs.
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Social Media Templates Yelp
3 Tricks for Inserting Audio Into Google Slides | Polls in Google Slides Poll Everywhere integrate it into Google Slides. how to video | Easy Polls is a free service where you can set up polls in a matter of seconds and have them published on your website, facebook, twitter, or simply share the link to the poll with your audience. |
- Create Your Own Chatbot for Surveys and Quiz Practice Acquainted is a free polling tool Acquainted is a conversational polling tool. What that means is that people who take your poll get an instant response from you regarding their selections of poll options. Your responses are written into Acquainted and programmed to appear to poll respondents as they make answer choices. Watch my short demonstration video www.freeech4teachers.com
Use Google Slides where each student gets their own copy The link takes you to a sheet doc. Follow the direction using the sheets' menubar at the top to install add-on
Ten Skills Students Can Learn from Google's Applied Digital Skills Lessons www.freetech4teachers.com
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
Cut Up Google Slides - alicekeeler.com/cutupslides Take a Google Slides and put it into smaller Google Slides presentations. This does NOT cut up your original, it stays the same. However, this Add-on allows you easily copy Google Slides from one Slides presentation to multiple slides presentations.
Speech to Text There is a dictation feature built in to many devices that will allow you to dictate into any place where text can be typed. There is also a speech-to-text feature built right into Google Docs. Simply click “tools” and “voice typing” in a Google Doc, and you will see a microphone icon. Below that is a dropdown menu to select the language in which you plan to dictate.
Slip-in-SlideWith the Slip-in-Slide add-on, you can effortlessly insert slides into multiple student presentations at one time. You can choose to send one or many slides from your presentation to an assignment folder in Google Classroom. This makes distribution of new material quick and easy. It integrates with the folder structure of Google Classroom to send your slides directly into student’s existing presentations. A tutorial on how to use Slip-in-Slide here.
Doc to Slides View Doc to Slides on YouTube It magically takes whatever is in your Google Doc and converts is to Google Slides! Not only does it create slides from a doc there are also other capabilities, e.g., creating slides for individual students quickly and directing a slide you already have to each student. Install Doc to Slides
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Classroomscreen is a service that lets you create a homescreen on which you can place reusable countdown timers, stopwatches, noise meters, random name selectors, and more helpful classroom management tools. The noise meter lets you set a sensitivity level and have an alarm sound when the room gets too noisy. The random name selector lets you enter a list of names and save it for unlimited reuse. The countdown timers are easy to adjust for time allotment and appearance. In addition to the timers, noise meters, and random name pickers, Classroomscreen also offers handy tools like a digital whiteboard, a calendar, a task list, and a QR code to share the whole screen with your students. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.com
Three Tools for Creating Audio Slideshow VideosNoteledge iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. It is a digital notebook that allows you to visualize your thoughts and organize your notes in a single place. It offers three helpful functionalities that enable you to capture, organize, and create new ideas and inspiration. Students can use it to curate content from the web by clipping images, text, and/or screenshots and add their notes to clipped content. They can also clip videos from popular video hosting services such as YouTube and Vimeo and annotate them the way they want. Using the app's annotating tools, students can draw, outline, sketch, and create collages by cutting out images and arranging layers. They can also add their own audio recordings and photos and insert videos into their notes. Additionally, notes can be organized into mood boards or idea boards and be shared with others in various formats. They can be exported as PDFs with audio and video included or be shared as slideshows. Noteledge has both a basic free version and a premium version.
GoSoapBox Engage your students and knockdown participation barriers with GoSoapBox, A free web-based student response system. Set up an event, or GoSoapBox space, for your class. Students enter the SoapBox through a unique code, and only the instructor can view the student names. Accessible through a computer or mobile device, GoSoapBox offers many tools for some creative Q&A in your classroom. The confusion barometer allows the teacher to assess the students' understanding of the topic. The poll and quiz tools provide a formative assessment option. Post questions or topics for your students using the GoSoapBox discussion tool. An option to post anonymously is available as well as many other settings for using the Social Q&A tool. Students can post questions for their peers or the teacher to answer.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comCanva Graphic Organizer Templates Graphic organizers are a staple part of most classrooms. However, they are not known for their amazing design aesthetic. Thankfully, Canva has a huge variety of graphic organizer templates that you can customize for your students
Helperbird Whether you need speech to text, text-to-speech, Opendyslexic font, highlight tools, note-taking, clutter removal, Immersive Reader, etc., this tool has all of your favorite accessibility tools rolled into one! video tutorial
Use the Talking Points app to communicate with ALL families.Talking points allows you to communicate with your families. You write your message in your home language, families respond in theirs and it is translated automatically. Teachers can use the web-browser or mobile app, families can use text messages or a mobile app.
TeacherMade - Quickly Create a Variety of Online Activities A tool that lets you easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities into online activities to share with your students. According to developer Laura, “My goal with TeacherMade was to create a way for us to make online worksheets that are easier than Google Slides. You can use TeacherMade to turn your PDFs, Word docs, Google Docs, and pictures into online activities. And if you choose to make your activity a graded one, TeacherMade will automatically score responses for you. short video tutorial
- To get started using TeacherMade you can sign-up with your G Suite account or register with any other email address and password of your choice. Signing up with G-suite is a good idea if you use Google Classroom, because TeacherMade is focusing on creating a deep integration with Google Classroom.
- The best way to discover all that TeacherMade can do is to upload a PDF that has a variety of question types on it. For example, a PDF that has a multiple choice question, a fill-in-the-blank question, and an identification question. (Quick tip if you don’t have a PDF: you can quickly create one by using the “download as PDF” option in Google Docs or the “save as PDF” option in Word). www.freetech4teachers.com
- Adding audio to PDFs and integrating Google Classroom into my TeacherMade account. video, adding audio to TeacherMade activities can be a good way to make directions more accessible to students. It's also a good way to add audio-based prompts. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Canva offers nearly two thousand worksheet templates for teachers to copy and modify. All of the templates can be downloaded as PDFs. You could print them and give them to your students to complete. But who wants another thing to have to print and keep track of? So instead of printing worksheets made with Canva's templates, download the PDF and then upload it to TeacherMade where you can quickly turn that PDF into an online activity. Watchvideo Free account for Educators www.freetech4teachers.com Five Features of Canva Presentations You Might be Overlooking | video Find learning templates | 21 Canva Tutorials for Teachers | How to Create a Video With Canva www.freetech4teachers.com
Wizer is a site that is for creating online assignments/worksheets. These assignments can contain all types of media (i.e. audio, video, images) as well as being able to share w/ others. The assignments on Wizer allow for student tracking so a educator can assess how well a student is doing. | Wizer released a Google Drive add-on that lets you quickly convert PDFs that are in your Google Drive into online worksheets on Wizer. With the add-on installed you can simply select any PDF in your Google Drive then choose "open with Wizer" to use that PDF in Wizer where you can then add interactive elements. You can see an overview of Wizer's Google Drive add-on in this video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bublup allows you to save and organize your digital content in visually attractive ways. Bublup combines the functionalities of a cloud storage site and content bookmarking tools. Organize your resources in visual folders like photos, videos, pictures, notes and many more. Bublup has collaborative features. Users can also create beautiful stories (also known as rolls) out of their stored content and share through a generated webpage link. Additionally, the site provides you with smart suggestions of content to similar content as the one you have saved in your folders. Student researchers can use it to collaborate on shared research projects. Teachers can design a space on Bublup where they share with their students resources related to the content they learn in class.
How to Create Your Own Search Engine It might sound complicated, but it’s not. In fact, it’s no more difficult than completing a Google Form. To create your own search engine head to Google.com/CSE. There you’ll select “add new search engine” and on the next screen all you have to do is enter a list of websites that you want your search engine to index. When your list is complete you’ll be given a URL for sharing your unique search engine. A demonstration of the whole, five minute process can be watched here. www.freetech4teachers.com
5 Ways to Improve the Odds of Students Actually Watching Instructional Videos
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
Brainstormer Online is a fun tool that helps teams to come up with ideas together remotely. The brainstormers will be guided through the steps of coming up with ideas, voting and reviewing ideas. No signup needed. Just create a session and start brainstorming. Voting capabilities also.
PresentationTube is a non-profit that has provided a free service to teachers for many years. That service is the ability to record video presentations based on PowerPoint files and PDFs. Recently, PresentationTube released a Chrome extension that lets you create video lessons in your web browser. PresentationTube's Chrome extension will let you record while talking over your PowerPoint slides or a PDF. You can record with your webcam turned on or you can choose to just record your voice talking over your slides or PDF. While you're recording you can draw on the screen, add text notes to the screen, and highlight text on the screen. When you have finished recording a presentation with PresentationTube's Chrome extension you can upload it directly to the PresentationTube website where you can then publish it publicly or keep it unlisted. www.freetech4teachers.com
Weava is a tool that allows you to annotate websites and PDFs. Students can easily highlight sections in PDFs and websites and add notes to contextualize and enhance their learning. Using Weava Workspace, students can easily review and edit their highlights. They can also add more highlights and organize everything into a single place. Highlights can be organized and categorized into collections and sub-folders. Weava enables students to collaborate on their research, share highlights and engage in meaningful discussions. Most important of all, Weava enables you to instantly generate bibliographical entries from your highlights in MLA, APA, Chicago, and Harvard styles. Weava is available as a Chrome extension.
Page Marker Page Marker is a Chrome extension that enables you to easily annotate live web pages. You can draw on any section on the webpage using your mouse or touchscreen. You can also highlight lines of text using your preferred colour.The eraser tool lets you delete parts you don't like and with a single click you can customize the thickness or change the default color. Students can use these extensions to draw on live webpages, add shapes and arrows, and share their annotated content with each other.
Web Paint Another excellent tool to annotate and draw on web pages. You can add text, notes, shapes, lines, and arrows and share your annotated content with others. Web Paint offers the added screenshot functionality allowing you to create screen captures of your annotated web pages. Students can use these extensions to draw on live webpages, add shapes and arrows, and share their annotated content with each other.
Mobile Phone Scanners Good for scanning documents and worksheets
- Microsoft Office Lens Office Lens is especially good if you use Microsoft Office, but it’s a solid option for anyone who wants free scanning with (mostly) properly formatted OCR results. Apple App Store | Google Play
- Adobe Scan straightforward, Adobe Scan is the good app if all you need is clean PDFs and reliable text recognition. Google Play | Apple App Store
CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help | Digital Learning Design Guide | Creating Virtual Reality activities in your remote teaching is easy and FREE with CurrikiStudio. No coding necessary. Take a static photo and turn it into a virtual tour to post to your website or LMS video tutorial | Excellent guide that maps out 5 easy ways you can use CurrikiStudio tools to give those remote lessons a reboot!
Recording and Inserting Audio How to record audio and save it right in your google drive Insert the audio into your digital learning path Have your students respond to you verbally Make your emails to your parents quicker and more personalized.
- Cloud Audio Recorder Option to save directly to Google Drive
- Padlet - for student audio responses
- Audio Email - for more personal emails
Classroomscreen was designed by teachers to help students focus on their immediate tasks and activities, and it works like an educational multitool. It provides 13 different widgets for free, including a timer, traffic light, random name picker, sound level monitor, drawing tool, poll, and work condition symbols (i.e work together, ask neighbor, whisper, or silence).
Google Tools for Struggling Students
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Discover QFT at The Right Question Institute (https://rightquestion.org/) - QFT, known as Question Formation Protocol is a simple way of promoting inquiring through collaborative groups of students. It incorporates the simple steps below and will allow your students to own the inquiry process while reflecting on their questions. Pay special attention to the templates that are provided for you to bring students to the blended world. They are free.
Quickly and easily take a printed PDF or worksheet, upload its text to Google Docs, and make it readable for your students. video
Talk and Comment Create voice notes inside any service on the web, including Google Docs, Google Classroom, Twitter, Facebook comments, Gmail, YouTube, Reddit, Slack, and more! Simply record your voice from the widget inside your browser, and paste the generated voice link anywhere you want.This extension makes it super easy to create quizzes that include oral directions or support.Watch this video to see just how easy it is to use and to get started with it yourself.
Guide for helping kids with special needs enhance their learning through the use of Google's technology. The guide entitled "Guardian's Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers
GoNoodle is an online resource that provides teachers with a library of “brain break” videos to use in their classrooms. The videos - ranging in length from two to ten minutes - are geared toward students in kindergarten through sixth grade, and they cover a variety of activities, such as exercise, song, dance, mindfulness, and coordination
Make Common Craft-style videos This video demonstrates how to use Google Slides and Screencastify to make Common Craft-style videos, but you could accomplish the same thing with PowerPoint and Screencast-o-matic.
Desmos is a FREE interactive tool used to graph, model, collect data, and question students over collection of higher math concepts Example activities
- online substitute for a graphing calculator.
- tool for showing students dynamic relationshipGoogle's Teach from Home is a resource you to keep handy. It features a wide variety of materials, tools, and guides to "help teachers and families manage and support children's use of technology".
- I want to draw your attention to this excellent guide we uncovered from Teach from Home which is particularly ideal for helping kids with special needs enhance their learning through the use of Google's technology. The guide entitled "Guardian's Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
- Change font size, text spacing, and background color.
- Split up words into syllables.
- Highlight verbs, nouns, adjectives and sub-clauses.
- Choose between two fonts optimized to help with reading.
- Read out text aloud, and change the speed of reading.
Using an easily accessed feature on your computer enlarge or highlight your mouse, so that students can more easily see where you are clicking. Most computers have this feature built into their accessibility tools, but you can also use a Chrome extension like Custom Cursor for Chrome to add additional fun. You can choose from a number of colors, shapes, and even cursors like SpongeBob, Harry Potter Cat, and a chicken nugget in the shape of a dinosaur.
Convert Handwritten Notes Into Google Documents When you snap a picture and upload it to Google Drive you can then have it converted into a Google Document that you can edit and share just like any other Google Doc. In the following video see how easy it is to use Google Drive to convert physical notes into Google Docs.
Circle-Based Visuals with Circly Circly is a free web-based tool that allows you to create simpler ways of looking at complex topics. The teacher or students can drag-and-drop circles anywhere on the screen to create connections between ideas or topics. The tool is extremely colorful and simple to use.
Applications for Creating eMail Newsletters
Talk and Comment is a chrome extension that enables you to record voice notes and share them almost anywhere on the web. As a teacher, you may want to install and use it to share audio feedback in the form of voice comments on students work. This is especially helpful if you have a classroom blog or website. Each audio note you create has a generated link that you can easily copy and paste online. Students can also use it to collaborate on joint projects and to engage in discussions around topics of interest. The way Talk and Comment works is simple and easy. First, install the extension from Chrome web store. Next open the webpage or head over to the platform where you want to share your audio comment and click on the extension's widget and start recording your comment. Once done, copy and paste the generated link. video tutorial
SceneVR "An engaging way to tell stories from an entirely new perspective. It turns your collection of panoramic and VR-ready photos into a slideshow of navigable scenes, allowing you to create unique 360° narratives." You can add text also.
Awesome Table makes your Google Sheet data visual. Take your website to the next level by presenting their Google Sheets data in beautiful, dynamic displays. Awesome Table is a great add-on to use on your Google Sheets to turn your spreadsheets into interactive visualizations. No coding knowledge is required to operate it, it is simple and easy to use. Tutorials and overview
Tools to Help You Convert Handwritten Notes into Digitized Text
AutoDraw matches your online doodles with professional drawings using any device. Begin a picture, and as you add to the image, AutoDraw's algorithms offer possible matches for your attempt. Click on any of the matching images to replace your doodle with a completed drawing. Use the site's tools to add text, change outline and fill colors, and add shapes. When finished, download your creation as a PNG file to your device.
3 Easy Ways Students Can Voice Type Their Documents
Mozilla Hubs A virtual reality space similar to the mega-popular Nintendo game Animal Crossing. With Mozilla Hubs, you can invite students to socialize in a space where they can move around and interact as avatars, which might be an interesting divergence from regular video conferencing.
Wizkids CAS is another Google Docs Add-on that offers a graphing calculator feature. Wizkids CAS offers tools for solve=ing equations and plotting graphs, finding numerical and exact solutions, and simplifying and factoring expressions with variables. The video embedded below provides an overview of the features in Wizkids CAS.
DIFFERENTIATED TEACHING
Having the ability to customize a formative assessment based on a student’s learner profile without that being obvious to all students makes differentiation easier. Wizer is a Swiss Army knife for teaching. The creators call it a “digital multimedia worksheet” tool, but that gives too much credit to paper worksheets—this is one of the best online differentiation tools out there. It allows teachers to add video, audio, and images to interactive worksheets, making them very accessible to all students. Wizer is simple to use, and other teachers’ digital worksheets are available as well. recorded a tutorial with her. I think this free tool is a must-use, although some teachers say it is targeted to younger students. You can distribute to students through a variety of means including Google Classroom. One of its better features is the option to add questions directly on top of images and diagrams. A variety of question formats are supported including open response, multiple choice, and matching questions. Years ago I made this video about how to use Wizer. The interface has changed a little since then but the tools are the same. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Wizer released a Google Drive add-on that lets you quickly convert PDFs that are in your Google Drive into online worksheets on Wizer. With the add-on installed you can simply select any PDF in your Google Drive then choose "open with Wizer" to use that PDF in Wizer where you can then add interactive elements.
needing to organize their ideas into useful outlines.
JotForm Report Builder is a useful tool for virtual learning. It takes the data you collect from online forms and turns it into visuals. You can use these presentation-ready reports to share any data you collect. In a distance learning environment, you can gather information remotely and share it in a variety of formats. So if you are presenting information on data you’ve collected to your school community, this will come in handy.
Class Charts Helps organize students into appropriate learning groups and minimizes school behavior issues.’
Tools to schedule conferences with students, parents and peers
Otter is a web tool and mobile app that allows you to record audio and generate live transcriptions of your recordings. Otter provides automated meeting notes for popular video conferencing services including Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Students can use Otter to" take notes during lectures, transcribe research interviews, capture notes from group study sessions, and process public audio data for research purposes." Otter has collaborative features. Otter users can invite each other to edit, highlight and work on their notes collaboratively. They can also 'start a recording inside a group to share the transcript live'. Other equally interesting features provided by Otter include: the ability to import and transcribe audio recordings, arrange notes into folders, generate word clouds from recorded notes, export notes as PDF, TXT, MP3, and many more.
Background Removal Tools for Photos and Videos Three online tools for background removal from photos and images. They are all simple to use.
Guide to Tools for Children with Disabilities during Distance Learning" features accessibility tips and tools that can help your kids learn on their own pace and in the way they like. It covers accessibility features found in G Suite (e.g. Classroom, Docs, Meet, Slides etc) and Chromebooks.
Classdojo Build productive classroom communities with parents and students.
Split Your Browser Screen into Two with Dualless
Classting Social media approach draws families into the daily classroom It allows easy communication and updates with families. The flexibility in options is a plus, allowing teachers to share photos, videos, messages, and homework. Homework, updates, and photos are all part of the platform, insuring successful connection with families. Continuous communication throughout the school year creates a positive environment.
Remind Teachers' text reminders keep students -- and parents -- up to speed. With over 70 languages and options to share files and links, it's easy to keep students and parents informed and involved
Bloomz Android | IOS Full-featured parent-teacher communication platform
Create Green Screen Video With Zoom Zoom's desktop client has an option to replace your background with any picture that you want to upload to your Zoom account. The video shows how to edit the video in Spark, but you can use other video editing programs also. Seamless method to create newscasts, for example. Video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom A free iPhone and iPad app called Overviewer. Overviewer is a free app that lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a document camera during a Zoom meeting. The app essentially mirrors your iPhone or iPad camera into Zoom via Airplay or Lightning Bolt cable. Here's an overview www.freetech4teachers.com
Classtag Flexible user-friendly tool gets teachers and families in sync
Distance Learning with ESL
Routines
Weekly Interactive Lesson Planers Template 1 | Template 2 Second slide may be tutorials for you and can be deleted
Establishing Norms for Remote Learning Establishing norms will ensure a successful start for your remote learning classroom. Discover how to include your students in the creation process.
Mood Meter and model the process of reflection by explaining where you place yourself on the graph. As you identify the color on the Mood Meter that represents how you are feeling, do a “think aloud” to explain how the square represents your state of mind and what might be causing you to feel this way. Next, pose the question to the class: Where would you place yourself right now? First, have students write their color in the chat. Then have them write their coordinates. Finally, ask them to name their emotion. If time allows, create breakout groups and have each group come up with a strategy that could help someone improve their energy and mood. Groups can share their ideas in the chat, on a virtual whiteboard, in a shared Google Doc, or verbally.
Building Classroom Community collection of ideas K - 5
Slides to the deck of conversation starters Additional check-in or icebreaker questions to begin class or work in breakout rooms. | Students complete a “check in” on how they are feeling (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Icebreakers.io. Icebreakers.io offers lists of icebreaker questions. The questions are arranged in categories for small groups, for introverts, for adults, for work, and for fun. All of the questions can be viewed individually and copied. You can also download the lists of questions in convenient PDFs. www.freetech4teachers,com
15 Ideas for Building Community in Your Virtual Classroom is from The Teaching Channel.
Here are two options (out of many!) to begin a week of distance learning. On Mondays ask students to respond in writing to a series of questions – the first couple are more reflective on the past week, while the next ones are more SEL-oriented.Here’s a downloadable example.
Synchronous Lesson Routine Tips
Brain Dumps to lock it in long-term memory. Three-step protocol with Slides Template:
Allow the norms to develop organically
Support Online Learning with Powerful Thinking Routines includes Google Slides to use with students
Distance Learning Morning Meeting
Emoji Emotions Share your screen to project a Google Slide or Doc with emojis that reflect a range of emotions. Take into account representation (race, ethnicity, gender, ability) when choosing the emoticons and give each one a title. Students will use the chat window to participate, so model the activity by sharing the emoji that represents how you are feeling (or its name, if the conferencing platform does not support emojis) in the chat. Explain verbally or in writing why you chose your emoji and what is impacting your feelings. Then ask each student to do the same. Time permitting, debrief by gathering in breakout groups, by having students raise their (virtual) hand to speak, or by asking students to write in the chat window. Ask them to brainstorm strategies or words of encouragement that might help other students who are not feeling positive emotions.
Movement Breaks for Better Learning Collection of movement break resources
ActivEd is offering free access to its "Walkabouts," platform with web-based lessons for students in grades pre-K-2 students that integrate movement with language arts, math and reading content and correlate to state learning standards. Students, teachers, and parents can access grade-level content. http://info.activedinc.com/covid
Brain Breaks strategy for getting students refocused and priming their brains for learning. Also look at GoNoodle and Teachers Pay Teachers has some free ones
10 New Focused Attention Brain Breaks
Sworkit Kids is a free app or website that provides prompts for one to five minute physical activities that kids can do in their classrooms or at home relatively small spaces. These activities are great for short brain breaks. Recently, I discovered that you can use Sworkit Kids without installing the app on your phone. Whether you use Sworkit on your phone or in your web browser at https://app.sworkit.com/collections/kids-workouts the content is the same. You can choose from nineteen categories of activities. The categories are arranged by age group and activity type. www.freetech4teachers.com
Picture This Share your screen to project an intriguing image. Don’t reveal the title or context. Then provide students with a link to an “Intriguing Image: See, Think, Wonder” Padlet or a Google Doc with three columns or text boxes. Model the strategy by examining the image and typing a few ideas into the Padlet or document. Then lead students through the strategy, giving them about two minutes for each step. Let them review what everyone wrote, and send them into small breakout groups to create their own title for the image. When they return, have one person from each group type their title in the chat or report it to the class before revealing details about the image.
Thinking Routines
Remind yourself that social time is as important as academic time: If you are teaching online, deliberately use some of your precious time for social connection. For example, begin your class time with a social ritual: try a short “mental stretch” break; offer some monitored hangout time before class starts; or create small groups that meet socially asynchronously. This isn’t wasted class time—it’s an investment to help keep them motivated and present for the long haul.
Three Good Things if your school’s tech policy allows, have students use their personal devices to scroll through some posts with the hashtag #threegoodthings on Twitter or Instagram. Then instruct students to write or sketch in their journals a list of their own three good things and then reflect in writing on the one that feels most significant at this moment. Students can share one of their good things in the chat or in a remote Wraparound activity by unmuting when called on. Alternatively, create a “Three Good Things” Padlet or Flipgrid where students can reflect and share their ideas rather than doing so in their journals.
Brightful Meeting Games offers online games that can be used with video conference platforms
Weekly Schedule Sharing a simplified version of your overall plan of learning activities and method for teaching at the beginning of each week with parents, will help make supporting their child easier. Indicative timetables, even for activities that can be done flexibly, will help provide a structure to the week.
Expectation Slides Gain student participation, online behavior, and norms through expectation slides. | Sample expectations | More Samples
Pear Deck check-ins before each lesson. Use the Pear Deck add-on for Google Slides or add-in PowerPoint to check-in on your students before, during, and after any presentation. Pear Deck even has a classroom climate feature that allows you to gather feedback on how your students are feeling.Click here to get a "Check in with Students" lesson that you can copy and add to your Google Drive | Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom
Students complete a “check in” on how they are feeling (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Emotional Check-ins K- 12 "The emotional check-in gets every student’s voice into the room at the start of each class. Although students can always say “pass” instead of sharing, each student has the opportunity to be heard every class session. The check-in is also a great opportunity to practice active listening, turn-taking, and following group norms."
Virtual Team Building Activities
Try Good, OK, Bad with Jamboard. Using this template will help you to know about where your students are at and allow you the opportunity to follow up with any issues. Now more than ever, it is important to be mindful of our students social emotional health! This template works best if you complete their activity as a class. Check out this template plus 9 others in 10 Jamboard templates for distance learning
🎯Is there anything else you think it would be helpful for your teacher to know about how you or your family are doing?
Daily Check-in With Google Forms A Google (or Microsoft) form makes it simple and easy to get started connecting with all of your students. Ask your students to fill out the form as they are logging in for the day. You can review their answers while they complete a digital warm-up or between video calls.| More (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Each morning start with a question that everyone answers. There’s always a Would you rather? question of the day, as well as a survey question. What was your favorite field trip? What was your favorite subject this year? What was your favorite specials class? Something like that.
Talking points allows you to communicate with your families. You write your message in your home language, families respond in theirs and it is translated automatically. Teachers can use the web-browser or mobile app, families can use text messages or a mobile app.
Video Conferencing: Establishing Routines and Structuring Online Time with Students
Establishing Norms for Remote Learning Establishing norms will ensure a successful start for your remote learning classroom. Discover how to include your students in the creation process.
Mood Meter and model the process of reflection by explaining where you place yourself on the graph. As you identify the color on the Mood Meter that represents how you are feeling, do a “think aloud” to explain how the square represents your state of mind and what might be causing you to feel this way. Next, pose the question to the class: Where would you place yourself right now? First, have students write their color in the chat. Then have them write their coordinates. Finally, ask them to name their emotion. If time allows, create breakout groups and have each group come up with a strategy that could help someone improve their energy and mood. Groups can share their ideas in the chat, on a virtual whiteboard, in a shared Google Doc, or verbally.
Building Classroom Community collection of ideas K - 5
Slides to the deck of conversation starters Additional check-in or icebreaker questions to begin class or work in breakout rooms. | Students complete a “check in” on how they are feeling (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Icebreakers.io. Icebreakers.io offers lists of icebreaker questions. The questions are arranged in categories for small groups, for introverts, for adults, for work, and for fun. All of the questions can be viewed individually and copied. You can also download the lists of questions in convenient PDFs. www.freetech4teachers,com
15 Ideas for Building Community in Your Virtual Classroom is from The Teaching Channel.
Here are two options (out of many!) to begin a week of distance learning. On Mondays ask students to respond in writing to a series of questions – the first couple are more reflective on the past week, while the next ones are more SEL-oriented.Here’s a downloadable example.
- A little different – A simple Google Form with a handful of questions. Posting weekly survey asking students to2 rate how they're feeling, if they're having tech issues, etc . Students often like it, The "problem" is if you ask, you have to respond. And there are a lot of needs out there.
- A few minutes before class starts play some music in the background that is in the pop culture. The music can keep playing as the student play ia warm up game
- Bell Ringer Resources
- Bell Ringers, Exit Tickets & Attendance with Jamboard - includes templates | Weekly exit ticket for Jamboard
- See Think Wonder and Jamboard Based on work done by the Project Zero people over at Harvard Grad School of Education, the See Think Wonder strategy is one of those all purpose thinking routines that can be use across grade levels and content areas. The beauty of STW is that it encourages students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations. And when paired with Jamboard, it can stimulate curiosity and help set the stage for more inquiry. You can find numerous examples online. A simple Google search will connect you with everything from the original Project Zero Thinking Routines page to Teacher Pay Teacher pages. Or you can just stick with this one
- 20 Bell Ringers to Kickstart Class - Ditch that Textbook
- Bell Ringer Exercises - Edutopia
- 17 Bell Ringer Activities For Remote Learning
- 40+ BELL WORK IDEAS FOR Various Subject Areas
- Virtual Improv Activities for Remote Learning
- C-SPAN Classroom Bell Ringers are short video clips accompanied by a few discussion questions and a list of key vocabulary terms. Bell Ringers are intended to be warm-up or introductory activities that you can complete with your students in five to ten minutes.
- 50 Distance Learning Icebreakers and Games
- 21 Social Distance Friendly and Virtual Icebreakers
Synchronous Lesson Routine Tips
Brain Dumps to lock it in long-term memory. Three-step protocol with Slides Template:
- Step 1. General: What generally do you remember?
- Step 2. Deep dive: What's everything you remember from ONE thing from step 1?
- Step 3. Teacher suggestions: What's everything you remember about these subtopics the teacher lists for you?
Allow the norms to develop organically
Support Online Learning with Powerful Thinking Routines includes Google Slides to use with students
Distance Learning Morning Meeting
Emoji Emotions Share your screen to project a Google Slide or Doc with emojis that reflect a range of emotions. Take into account representation (race, ethnicity, gender, ability) when choosing the emoticons and give each one a title. Students will use the chat window to participate, so model the activity by sharing the emoji that represents how you are feeling (or its name, if the conferencing platform does not support emojis) in the chat. Explain verbally or in writing why you chose your emoji and what is impacting your feelings. Then ask each student to do the same. Time permitting, debrief by gathering in breakout groups, by having students raise their (virtual) hand to speak, or by asking students to write in the chat window. Ask them to brainstorm strategies or words of encouragement that might help other students who are not feeling positive emotions.
Movement Breaks for Better Learning Collection of movement break resources
ActivEd is offering free access to its "Walkabouts," platform with web-based lessons for students in grades pre-K-2 students that integrate movement with language arts, math and reading content and correlate to state learning standards. Students, teachers, and parents can access grade-level content. http://info.activedinc.com/covid
Brain Breaks strategy for getting students refocused and priming their brains for learning. Also look at GoNoodle and Teachers Pay Teachers has some free ones
10 New Focused Attention Brain Breaks
Sworkit Kids is a free app or website that provides prompts for one to five minute physical activities that kids can do in their classrooms or at home relatively small spaces. These activities are great for short brain breaks. Recently, I discovered that you can use Sworkit Kids without installing the app on your phone. Whether you use Sworkit on your phone or in your web browser at https://app.sworkit.com/collections/kids-workouts the content is the same. You can choose from nineteen categories of activities. The categories are arranged by age group and activity type. www.freetech4teachers.com
Picture This Share your screen to project an intriguing image. Don’t reveal the title or context. Then provide students with a link to an “Intriguing Image: See, Think, Wonder” Padlet or a Google Doc with three columns or text boxes. Model the strategy by examining the image and typing a few ideas into the Padlet or document. Then lead students through the strategy, giving them about two minutes for each step. Let them review what everyone wrote, and send them into small breakout groups to create their own title for the image. When they return, have one person from each group type their title in the chat or report it to the class before revealing details about the image.
Thinking Routines
- Project Zero’s Thinking Routine Toolbox
- Inquisitive A Teacher’s Guide to Visible Thinking Activities
- Thinking Routines
Remind yourself that social time is as important as academic time: If you are teaching online, deliberately use some of your precious time for social connection. For example, begin your class time with a social ritual: try a short “mental stretch” break; offer some monitored hangout time before class starts; or create small groups that meet socially asynchronously. This isn’t wasted class time—it’s an investment to help keep them motivated and present for the long haul.
Three Good Things if your school’s tech policy allows, have students use their personal devices to scroll through some posts with the hashtag #threegoodthings on Twitter or Instagram. Then instruct students to write or sketch in their journals a list of their own three good things and then reflect in writing on the one that feels most significant at this moment. Students can share one of their good things in the chat or in a remote Wraparound activity by unmuting when called on. Alternatively, create a “Three Good Things” Padlet or Flipgrid where students can reflect and share their ideas rather than doing so in their journals.
Brightful Meeting Games offers online games that can be used with video conference platforms
Weekly Schedule Sharing a simplified version of your overall plan of learning activities and method for teaching at the beginning of each week with parents, will help make supporting their child easier. Indicative timetables, even for activities that can be done flexibly, will help provide a structure to the week.
Expectation Slides Gain student participation, online behavior, and norms through expectation slides. | Sample expectations | More Samples
Pear Deck check-ins before each lesson. Use the Pear Deck add-on for Google Slides or add-in PowerPoint to check-in on your students before, during, and after any presentation. Pear Deck even has a classroom climate feature that allows you to gather feedback on how your students are feeling.Click here to get a "Check in with Students" lesson that you can copy and add to your Google Drive | Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom
Students complete a “check in” on how they are feeling (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Emotional Check-ins K- 12 "The emotional check-in gets every student’s voice into the room at the start of each class. Although students can always say “pass” instead of sharing, each student has the opportunity to be heard every class session. The check-in is also a great opportunity to practice active listening, turn-taking, and following group norms."
Virtual Team Building Activities
Try Good, OK, Bad with Jamboard. Using this template will help you to know about where your students are at and allow you the opportunity to follow up with any issues. Now more than ever, it is important to be mindful of our students social emotional health! This template works best if you complete their activity as a class. Check out this template plus 9 others in 10 Jamboard templates for distance learning
🎯Is there anything else you think it would be helpful for your teacher to know about how you or your family are doing?
Daily Check-in With Google Forms A Google (or Microsoft) form makes it simple and easy to get started connecting with all of your students. Ask your students to fill out the form as they are logging in for the day. You can review their answers while they complete a digital warm-up or between video calls.| More (link to free check in forms on Google Forms)
Each morning start with a question that everyone answers. There’s always a Would you rather? question of the day, as well as a survey question. What was your favorite field trip? What was your favorite subject this year? What was your favorite specials class? Something like that.
Talking points allows you to communicate with your families. You write your message in your home language, families respond in theirs and it is translated automatically. Teachers can use the web-browser or mobile app, families can use text messages or a mobile app.
Video Conferencing: Establishing Routines and Structuring Online Time with Students
eLearning Activities & Projects
5E Model for Creating Online Lessons Have you heard of the 5Es framework? It’s an instructional model that’s been around for 20+ years. Using the model, teaching and learning progresses through five phases: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. Chart | Tips for Designing an Online Lesson Using the 5 Es Instructional Model.
70 elearning activities, templates and tutorials
Primarily Google resources for little ones on her website
Explore Boards
Choice Boards. | More boards | And More boards | Guide to creating your own | A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR YOUR CLASSROOM: CHOICE BOARDS | Choice Board template for Jamboard | SlidesMania offers engaging choice board templates that can be used for PowerPoint or Google Slides. This article includes more templates, links, and instructions on how to make your own choice boards.
Digital Notebooks are the most popular tool on slidesmania.com. ● To customize tabs ○ Click Edit > Find and Replace ○ Find: Topic A ○ Replace with: Your Title ● How to Lock Content in Google Slides
✅Tract is a service that offers fun lessons for elementary school, middle school, high school students taught by high school and college students. The lessons and corresponding activities cover a wide array of fun and interesting topics. On Tract you will find lessons about photography, gaming, cooking, music, sports, and much more. Students can earn digital and physical prizes for completing the lessons and their corresponding activities.
High school students can contribute to Tract by creating their own video lessons for others to learn from. Take a look at this video for a teacher and student perspective of how Tract works.
Benefits for Students
There are numerous potential benefits for students using Tract as part of their remote and hybrid learning experiences. Perhaps the biggest benefit is getting to pursue the topics that interest them. Tract learning paths cover a huge array of topics ranging from fun things like musical animals to serious things like investing in different sectors of the stock market to lots of interesting things between those extremes. In short, there is not a shortage of fun and interesting things for students to learn through Tract’s student-created learning paths. Tract doesn’t limit students to just watching and completing learning paths. Students are also encouraged to participate in producing their own learning paths. www.freetech4teachers.com30+ Ready-to-use Interactive Lessons
BrainVentures, an initiative of the University of Michigan Center for Digital Curricula, is making daily learning adventures free. These are crafted by classroom teachers to give students choices of learning activities; they accommodate different learning preferences and engage the learner in constructing animations, videos, photo albums and stories while taking them on field trips and having them play games and run simulations. https://cdc.engin.umich.edu/daily-brain-venture/
Canva for Education is offering teachers forever-free is offering teachers forever-free access to the pro edition of its online design platform. The program, which is optimized for Chromebook, includes drag-and-drop tools to simplify visual communication. Students can create and co-create presentations, infographics, websites, reports, worksheets, posters, flyers and signage. The program includes access to tens of thousands of templates, images, icons, illustrations and fonts. Once teachers fill out the form, the company will verify the application. https://www.canva.com/education/ | 30+ Ways to Use FREE Templates from Canva in Your Classroom (Part 1) | 30+ Ways to Use FREE Templates from Canva in Your Classroom (Part 2) | Five Features of Canva Presentations You Might be Overlooking
MockoFUN is a virtual platform for innovative image design. You can create backgrounds, business cards, greeting cards, Facebook posts, and flyers. Each category is replete with templates that you can start with and make your own. Want to design an infographic with a different look? MockoFUN is your creative design buddy. MockoFUN provides free access to digital design tools you can create with. Those tools include the following with quick tutorials to show them off: Photo editor. Logo maker. Text editorEven better than other tools you may use, the free account gives you full access to everything you need. Here is a collection of YouTube videos featuring MockoFUN tutorials:
Write a Letter to the Teacher Slide Presentation
Create a Guessing Game this lesson teaches students how to make their own quizzes in Google Forms, and asks them to make a quiz about themselves for their teacher or classmates to take. This lesson would be a strategy to set your students up for creating their own content-based quizzes later in the year.
Station Rotation in an Era of Social Distancing
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
Posters and Memes: Students have fun using this resource and it’s a really good way to challenge students in a creative way. Having students create a meme or poster to illustrate a concept simplifies the meaning for the student with a related image or picture, highlights a main point, and also can illustrate new terms or complex concepts. imgflip.com has a meme and poster generator. This approach is probably better for older students to ensure appropriateness.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.com
List Of The Best Resources For Using Google Jamboards With English Language Learners – Please Add Your Own!
Caption This! What was that person thinking? What would he/she have said? Use photos and historic art with speech/thought bubbles to answer those questions. It's visual and fun! Click here!
Brain Breaks Strategy for getting students refocused and priming their brains for learning. Also look at GoNoodle and Teachers Pay Teachers has some free ones
50 Interactive Ideas to Engage Students Online is from Pamela Broussard.
Three Ways to Add Some Educational Fun to Your Virtual and Hybrid Classes
Student collaboration in shared Google Slides
Digital gallery walk: Collaboration on their feet
- Better Lesson:This article provides information on the Gallery Walk protocol including ways to promote it in the Blended Learning environment. Do you want more ideas on using the Gallery Walk Protocol in the classroom? Check out this video for some great possibilities.
Add and pass: A fun activity to get them moving AND creating
Online lessons: a menu of ideas is from The British Council.
Infinity Infinity provides you with the tools to take your project management skills to the next level. Some of its features include: project planning templates to help you "break down your projects into smaller tasks, assign them to the right people, set due dates, and even keep track of everyone's progress; combine custom attributes to create any type of data; adapt the system to your needs with versatile customization options; import your data easily or integrate your favorite apps with Infinity"
7 sites with ready to use remote learning lessons and 9 perfect primary source icebreakers
Opening Up the Textbook (OUT) for Online Learning ( high School) "Opening Up the Textbook (OUT) lessons offer teachers and students more opportunities to break away from textbook-driven history classes and provide students with additional source material to contest, complicate, expand, or vivify the textbook narrative. For more information about OUTs, watch this video or read this article. "
8 Ideas Designed to Engage Students In Active Learning Online ( gr. 5 - 12) Sort It Out, Online Fishbowl, Expert Group Investigations, Collaborative Annotations, Google Map Adventures, Spotify Playlist, Scavenger Hunts, and Online Discussions. TAG Framework to engage student discussions - download your own copy here!
Brainstorming Tools
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Moving station brainstorming online
CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.”
Interactive Digital Posters Forget the glue sticks, markers and magazines to cut for pictures. Create interactive posters with Google Drawings.
10 Strategies Designed to Engage Elementary Students Online Create Virtual Word Wall , Virtual Jigsaw Activity, Subject-specific Scavenger Hunts During Virtual Conferencing Sessions, Digital Choice Boards, Storytime + Graphic Organizers, Tell Me How on Seesaw or FlipGrid, I Do, We Do, You Do in Virtual Conferencing Sessions, Online Learning Stations, Acrostic Poem, and Online Fishbowl Discussion or Problem Solving Session
Play “Would You Rather”
One of my favorite in-person games to play is “would you rather,” where students move to different sides of the room depending on their answer. To adapt this for a virtual class you could use Google Jamboard, which has draggable features, so students can move their icon to the side of the screen they agree with most.
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity
Spot the Troll Spot the Troll was developed by Clemson University's Media Forensics Lab as a way to educate people about deceptive social media accounts. Spot the Troll presents players with eight social media profiles. Based on the clues in the profiles players have to decide if the social media profile is genuine or a fake designed to spread misinformation. Players get instant feedback after making a guess at whether each account is real or fake. Whether or not the player is correct or incorrect Spot the Troll provides an explanation the signs that that the account was real or fake. www.freetech4teachers.com
Virtual Field Trips You can always do a search to find more options.
Activities for home learning Kids Activities features a special section called Stuck at Home where you can access learning activities that helps keep your house-bound kids busy and motivated. These include free activities, kids shows, quarantine journals, and many more. The 'Learn' section features over 600 educational activities. "Many of our learning activities are used in classrooms and homeschool lessons. The Reading, writing, STEM, Science and so many other things can be learned through play. What makes it even more fun is thay make the perfect after school, rainy day or "mom I'm bored" activity too!t kids of different ages can learn and play together.
Using Morning Messages to Start the Day in Distance Learning The morning message is a popular way to help elementary students transition into school—and it can be adapted for home learning.
Ken Burns in the Classroom is a repository for film clips, documents, images, and even lesson plans.
STEAM At Home
Engineering at Home or On the Go "Explore engineering as a family! These activities promote team work, critical thinking and problem solving. Use the steps of the Engineering Design Process to design a unique solution to a problem. Families that engineer together will build valuable skills and will gain the confidence necessary to tackle problems with an engineering mindset."
FIRST has compiled a roster of "free and flexible" pre-K-12 STEM activities, divided by grade bands, remote learning resources and career explorations. https://www.firstinspires.org/community/home-learning
WideOpenSchool.org Combines in one place the educational resources for publishers, nonprofits and education companies. This free resource includes content from the American Federation of Teachers, Amplify, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Head Start, Khan Academy, National Geographic, Noggin, PBS, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Time for Kids, XQ Institute and even YouTube.All the content offered through Wide Open School is freely available. Not just a list of helpful websites. Instead, Wide Open School actually programs a full school day for the child by grade level, to ensure they’re getting a mix of educational material that aligns with what their day would have been when attending school.
Distance Learning with ELLs from Larry Ferlazzo's book
Bringing Number Talks to the Online Classroom Elementary school teachers use number talks to guide students to engage deeply with concepts, and they can work online, with a little creativity.
The PBS Teacher Planning Kit for New School Routines is an eight-week planning kit designed for PreK-12 teachers everywhere to help navigate this year’s new and changing school routines. Making the most of PBS LearningMedia, these kits are intended to be used whether or not you’re delivering instruction in person, and whether or not your students have internet access.Planning sheets are divided into three sections: Watch, Teach, Explore. “Watch” includes broadcast and/or online media. “Teach” connects activities, games and lessons directly to the featured media. “Explore” provides additional resources so teachers can plan a comprehensive lesson on a particular topic or theme.
List of children’s books that explore race and racism
Resource that Supports at Home Science Learning Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. Thee include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.Arizona Science Center also offers "more than 175 new online learning resources, including weekly lesson plans, videos, articles and activities. Sari on Science interprets what is happening in the changing environment.
Remote Math Lessons for Grades 6-10 Maneuvering the Middle seeks to support teachers through hands-on resources, standards-aligned curriculum, and practical teaching ideas.
The Best Sites Where Students Can Participate In Citizen Science Projects.
Smithsonian Magazine has just published SEVENTY-FIVE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROJECTS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ONLINE
10 Ways to Use QR Codes in Online Education
How to Create Labeling Activities With Google Drawings and Classroom The video demonstrates how to use Google Drawings to create a labeling activity and then distribute it to students through Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Current Event Sites for K - 12
Diffen is a nice resource for those times when you need a quick comparison of two things. Let's say you need a chart to highlight the differences between latitude and longitude, Diffen has that. Or perhaps you need a comparison of Medicare and Medicaid, Diffen has that too. If you can't find the comparison that you need, you can create your own on Diffen. Diffen is a community site. Anyone who registers on Diffen can contribute to the comparisons on the site. Comparisons are not limited to text. Images can be added to the comparison charts on Diffen. An embed code is available for each chart.
70 elearning activities, templates and tutorials
Primarily Google resources for little ones on her website
Explore Boards
- What is an Explore Board? The purpose of an Explore Board Is to create a board of learning choices that help students develop background knowledge that fuels comprehension. It is meant to be a before activity. It is filled with links to a set of different forms of media surrounding a common topic, theme or issue. one-minute video explanation HERE. Read more about it HERE. Download HERE | Watch an Explore Board in Action HERE | To get started, here is a TEMPLATE you can populate for yourself - though any Explore Board can be changed and customized.
- How is an Explore Board different from a Choice Board? Simple. A choice board is used to give students choice in how they respond to a prompt or project. It is used for giving students a choice in how they show learning. It's an "outro" activity. An Explore board, on the other hand. is an "intro" activity - meant to help get students the background knowledge they need that will help them understand concepts and ideas better. It can also be used as a resource as they progress in the learning unit.
Choice Boards. | More boards | And More boards | Guide to creating your own | A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR YOUR CLASSROOM: CHOICE BOARDS | Choice Board template for Jamboard | SlidesMania offers engaging choice board templates that can be used for PowerPoint or Google Slides. This article includes more templates, links, and instructions on how to make your own choice boards.
- Fortnite Menu This digital choice menu provides students numerous choices to show their learning and understanding. You provide the instruction, rubric, and content, and your students will choose how to showcase their learning with any of the provided digital and non-digital tools.
- Choice board template for Google Slides Besides the slides for 6 activities or choices There is an added section where students can write about what they learned, or maybe you want them to write about something else, your choice.The good thing about these “students” slides is that they can all work on the same file. If you are teaching synchronously, you can see them work as they type, just change the view to grid. (Scroll down to see slides to download)
- Choice Boards for Math
- SchoolStack, you can easily create choice boards for students.
- Progressive Choice Boards provide choice without seeming overwhelming. This hyper doc provides background and templates
- Create Choice Boards in Google Docs
- Choice Board Add-on google slides | Check out the YouTube video. Install Hyperlink Slides Choice Board to quickly engage students with a choice board in Google Slides.
- Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Google Slides Choice Board Template View YouTube video with instructions.
- Student-created Review and Practice Choice Board Asking students to create a dynamic review and practice choice board for their peers is a cognitively challenging task. They have to think about the learning cycle or unit and identify key vocabulary, concepts, and skills that may be needed to be successful on an assessment. Then they have to design various activities that are likely to appeal to different types of students to ensure their peers have meaningful choices. This is a rigorous task, so I encourage teachers to strategically group students for this activity and give them time to engage with each other to produce a meaningful product. Click to copy
- Novel Study Choice Board Gr. 6 - 12
- Social Emotional Art Choice Board
- Student Game Board Choice Board Click on this link and make yourself a copy of this template. Edit and change any of the blocks to best meet your instruction and/or curriculum. Push out to your students via Google Classroom as their own template to complete. Easy for self check and student paced work.
- Digital Restaurant Menu Choice Board This is a fun choice menu for student creation that is split into Entrees, Desserts, Appetizers, Sides, and Beverages. Check out example of the 1893 World's Fair menu. | Another template
- Listen, Do, and Watch Choice Board (feel free to use for your own copy) to provide students with different options for learning about a concept. Brain research suggests that students need multiple representations of new concepts in order to solidify its meaning. The following activity capitalizes on using video, audio, and hands-on learning activities. Plus it provides opportunities to reflect on their learning.
- Creative Book Trailer Choice Board
- Free time choice board template
- Chromebook App Hub – Resources about teaching with Chromebooks. Wonderful part of it is that it has an idea section called Idea Sparks. These are already-created lessons from other educators that work great on a Chromebook. You can also filter them by category, subject area, age range, and general learning goal.
- Wealth of examples and best practices when using choice boards with students. Includes boards for specfic subject areas. They even have choice boards for administrators, choice board templates, and choice board assessment ideas
- Tic-Tac-Toe Click here to make your own copy | Another option
- Gamified Choice Board accrue a certain number of points to complete the task. The more the points, the more difficult the task! If you take this approach, it is important to make sure that students understand your expectations and how they will be assessed. It might be helpful to use a tool like Orange Slice to create a custom rubric. Click here for your own copy!
- Choice Board with Jamboard make a copy clock on choices to edit. Student drags his/her choice to select
- Station rotation - Hybrid Learning
- 10 Tips for Station Rotation Model
- Station rotation at. the Secondary Level
- Tools to Use With a Station Rotation Model
Digital Notebooks are the most popular tool on slidesmania.com. ● To customize tabs ○ Click Edit > Find and Replace ○ Find: Topic A ○ Replace with: Your Title ● How to Lock Content in Google Slides
- Design a Choose Your Own Adventure Learning Experience includes sample template
✅Tract is a service that offers fun lessons for elementary school, middle school, high school students taught by high school and college students. The lessons and corresponding activities cover a wide array of fun and interesting topics. On Tract you will find lessons about photography, gaming, cooking, music, sports, and much more. Students can earn digital and physical prizes for completing the lessons and their corresponding activities.
High school students can contribute to Tract by creating their own video lessons for others to learn from. Take a look at this video for a teacher and student perspective of how Tract works.
Benefits for Students
There are numerous potential benefits for students using Tract as part of their remote and hybrid learning experiences. Perhaps the biggest benefit is getting to pursue the topics that interest them. Tract learning paths cover a huge array of topics ranging from fun things like musical animals to serious things like investing in different sectors of the stock market to lots of interesting things between those extremes. In short, there is not a shortage of fun and interesting things for students to learn through Tract’s student-created learning paths. Tract doesn’t limit students to just watching and completing learning paths. Students are also encouraged to participate in producing their own learning paths. www.freetech4teachers.com30+ Ready-to-use Interactive Lessons
BrainVentures, an initiative of the University of Michigan Center for Digital Curricula, is making daily learning adventures free. These are crafted by classroom teachers to give students choices of learning activities; they accommodate different learning preferences and engage the learner in constructing animations, videos, photo albums and stories while taking them on field trips and having them play games and run simulations. https://cdc.engin.umich.edu/daily-brain-venture/
Canva for Education is offering teachers forever-free is offering teachers forever-free access to the pro edition of its online design platform. The program, which is optimized for Chromebook, includes drag-and-drop tools to simplify visual communication. Students can create and co-create presentations, infographics, websites, reports, worksheets, posters, flyers and signage. The program includes access to tens of thousands of templates, images, icons, illustrations and fonts. Once teachers fill out the form, the company will verify the application. https://www.canva.com/education/ | 30+ Ways to Use FREE Templates from Canva in Your Classroom (Part 1) | 30+ Ways to Use FREE Templates from Canva in Your Classroom (Part 2) | Five Features of Canva Presentations You Might be Overlooking
MockoFUN is a virtual platform for innovative image design. You can create backgrounds, business cards, greeting cards, Facebook posts, and flyers. Each category is replete with templates that you can start with and make your own. Want to design an infographic with a different look? MockoFUN is your creative design buddy. MockoFUN provides free access to digital design tools you can create with. Those tools include the following with quick tutorials to show them off: Photo editor. Logo maker. Text editorEven better than other tools you may use, the free account gives you full access to everything you need. Here is a collection of YouTube videos featuring MockoFUN tutorials:
Write a Letter to the Teacher Slide Presentation
Create a Guessing Game this lesson teaches students how to make their own quizzes in Google Forms, and asks them to make a quiz about themselves for their teacher or classmates to take. This lesson would be a strategy to set your students up for creating their own content-based quizzes later in the year.
Station Rotation in an Era of Social Distancing
Watch2Gether- Watch Videos Together in Real Time Watch2Gether is a platform that allows you to watch videos with a group remotely. You can also interact with each other via text and video chat. You don't even have to create an account to start the watching experience. Watch2Gether supports webcam video and screen sharing. You can hold video chats with everyone in the room, share your screen and browse the web together. It is also great for flipped classroom learning and remote instruction. They can comment, share feedback, ask questions, etc. As a teacher, you can keep students focused by asking comprehension questions and monitoring their discussion in real time.
Posters and Memes: Students have fun using this resource and it’s a really good way to challenge students in a creative way. Having students create a meme or poster to illustrate a concept simplifies the meaning for the student with a related image or picture, highlights a main point, and also can illustrate new terms or complex concepts. imgflip.com has a meme and poster generator. This approach is probably better for older students to ensure appropriateness.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Adapting think-pair-share to Zoom | Think Pair Share Jamboard Template for Remote Learning | FREE collaborative templates for pairs and small groups!
- 10+ FREE EduProtocol templates + ideas for using them -- EduProtocols are "lesson frames" ... the idea of the lesson stays the same, but the content changes. This makes them very efficient and effective. They're fun, too! Use the templates with your students.
List Of The Best Resources For Using Google Jamboards With English Language Learners – Please Add Your Own!
Caption This! What was that person thinking? What would he/she have said? Use photos and historic art with speech/thought bubbles to answer those questions. It's visual and fun! Click here!
Brain Breaks Strategy for getting students refocused and priming their brains for learning. Also look at GoNoodle and Teachers Pay Teachers has some free ones
50 Interactive Ideas to Engage Students Online is from Pamela Broussard.
Three Ways to Add Some Educational Fun to Your Virtual and Hybrid Classes
Student collaboration in shared Google Slides
Digital gallery walk: Collaboration on their feet
- Better Lesson:This article provides information on the Gallery Walk protocol including ways to promote it in the Blended Learning environment. Do you want more ideas on using the Gallery Walk Protocol in the classroom? Check out this video for some great possibilities.
Add and pass: A fun activity to get them moving AND creating
Online lessons: a menu of ideas is from The British Council.
Infinity Infinity provides you with the tools to take your project management skills to the next level. Some of its features include: project planning templates to help you "break down your projects into smaller tasks, assign them to the right people, set due dates, and even keep track of everyone's progress; combine custom attributes to create any type of data; adapt the system to your needs with versatile customization options; import your data easily or integrate your favorite apps with Infinity"
7 sites with ready to use remote learning lessons and 9 perfect primary source icebreakers
Opening Up the Textbook (OUT) for Online Learning ( high School) "Opening Up the Textbook (OUT) lessons offer teachers and students more opportunities to break away from textbook-driven history classes and provide students with additional source material to contest, complicate, expand, or vivify the textbook narrative. For more information about OUTs, watch this video or read this article. "
8 Ideas Designed to Engage Students In Active Learning Online ( gr. 5 - 12) Sort It Out, Online Fishbowl, Expert Group Investigations, Collaborative Annotations, Google Map Adventures, Spotify Playlist, Scavenger Hunts, and Online Discussions. TAG Framework to engage student discussions - download your own copy here!
Brainstorming Tools
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Moving station brainstorming online
CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.”
Interactive Digital Posters Forget the glue sticks, markers and magazines to cut for pictures. Create interactive posters with Google Drawings.
10 Strategies Designed to Engage Elementary Students Online Create Virtual Word Wall , Virtual Jigsaw Activity, Subject-specific Scavenger Hunts During Virtual Conferencing Sessions, Digital Choice Boards, Storytime + Graphic Organizers, Tell Me How on Seesaw or FlipGrid, I Do, We Do, You Do in Virtual Conferencing Sessions, Online Learning Stations, Acrostic Poem, and Online Fishbowl Discussion or Problem Solving Session
Play “Would You Rather”
One of my favorite in-person games to play is “would you rather,” where students move to different sides of the room depending on their answer. To adapt this for a virtual class you could use Google Jamboard, which has draggable features, so students can move their icon to the side of the screen they agree with most.
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity
Spot the Troll Spot the Troll was developed by Clemson University's Media Forensics Lab as a way to educate people about deceptive social media accounts. Spot the Troll presents players with eight social media profiles. Based on the clues in the profiles players have to decide if the social media profile is genuine or a fake designed to spread misinformation. Players get instant feedback after making a guess at whether each account is real or fake. Whether or not the player is correct or incorrect Spot the Troll provides an explanation the signs that that the account was real or fake. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Can You Spot the Deceptive Facebook Post? is an interactive quiz from The New York Times.
- Cognitive Bias Video Thinking you know something you don't
- Factitious is a game that is designed to help students practice identifying real and fake news stories.
- An Engaging Word Game Helps Students Grasp Implicit Bias A simple fill-in-the-blank exercise helped students understand the power of words and the way they might convey unspoken beliefs.
- Can You Spot the Problem With These Headlines? is a TED-Ed lesson that walks students through the dissection of a couple of hypothetical news headlines. By watching the video students can begin to understand how headlines are written to entice readers and how misleading headlines are created.
- Everyone Has Invisible Bias. This Lesson Shows Students How to Recognize It, Whiting describes how she removed words from a New York Times opinion essay to create a new, highly engaging activity for a 10th-grade class.
- Checkology offers interactive modules for students to complete. Each of the modules is comprised of between twenty and forty-seven instructional video clips and interactive comprehension checks. The four modules are titled Info Zones, Democracy's Watchdog, Practicing Quality Journalism, and Misinformation. The contents of the modules gets progressively more difficult as each section is completed. www.freetech4teachers.com
Virtual Field Trips You can always do a search to find more options.
- 6 Free Resources for Virtual Field Trips is from Edutopia.
- Virtual Fieldtrip Collection - A comprehensiv spreadsheet filled with authentic virtual PBL fieldtrip possibilities. How might you build these into a blended lesson that allows students to leave the classroom and their home? You will find a wonderful collection from museums, zoos, parks, industry, business, and even Skype sessions with experts. These examples just scratch the surface of possibilities.
- The Best Resources For Finding And Creating Virtual Field Trips.
Activities for home learning Kids Activities features a special section called Stuck at Home where you can access learning activities that helps keep your house-bound kids busy and motivated. These include free activities, kids shows, quarantine journals, and many more. The 'Learn' section features over 600 educational activities. "Many of our learning activities are used in classrooms and homeschool lessons. The Reading, writing, STEM, Science and so many other things can be learned through play. What makes it even more fun is thay make the perfect after school, rainy day or "mom I'm bored" activity too!t kids of different ages can learn and play together.
Using Morning Messages to Start the Day in Distance Learning The morning message is a popular way to help elementary students transition into school—and it can be adapted for home learning.
Ken Burns in the Classroom is a repository for film clips, documents, images, and even lesson plans.
STEAM At Home
Engineering at Home or On the Go "Explore engineering as a family! These activities promote team work, critical thinking and problem solving. Use the steps of the Engineering Design Process to design a unique solution to a problem. Families that engineer together will build valuable skills and will gain the confidence necessary to tackle problems with an engineering mindset."
FIRST has compiled a roster of "free and flexible" pre-K-12 STEM activities, divided by grade bands, remote learning resources and career explorations. https://www.firstinspires.org/community/home-learning
WideOpenSchool.org Combines in one place the educational resources for publishers, nonprofits and education companies. This free resource includes content from the American Federation of Teachers, Amplify, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Head Start, Khan Academy, National Geographic, Noggin, PBS, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Time for Kids, XQ Institute and even YouTube.All the content offered through Wide Open School is freely available. Not just a list of helpful websites. Instead, Wide Open School actually programs a full school day for the child by grade level, to ensure they’re getting a mix of educational material that aligns with what their day would have been when attending school.
Distance Learning with ELLs from Larry Ferlazzo's book
Bringing Number Talks to the Online Classroom Elementary school teachers use number talks to guide students to engage deeply with concepts, and they can work online, with a little creativity.
The PBS Teacher Planning Kit for New School Routines is an eight-week planning kit designed for PreK-12 teachers everywhere to help navigate this year’s new and changing school routines. Making the most of PBS LearningMedia, these kits are intended to be used whether or not you’re delivering instruction in person, and whether or not your students have internet access.Planning sheets are divided into three sections: Watch, Teach, Explore. “Watch” includes broadcast and/or online media. “Teach” connects activities, games and lessons directly to the featured media. “Explore” provides additional resources so teachers can plan a comprehensive lesson on a particular topic or theme.
List of children’s books that explore race and racism
Resource that Supports at Home Science Learning Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. Thee include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.Arizona Science Center also offers "more than 175 new online learning resources, including weekly lesson plans, videos, articles and activities. Sari on Science interprets what is happening in the changing environment.
Remote Math Lessons for Grades 6-10 Maneuvering the Middle seeks to support teachers through hands-on resources, standards-aligned curriculum, and practical teaching ideas.
The Best Sites Where Students Can Participate In Citizen Science Projects.
Smithsonian Magazine has just published SEVENTY-FIVE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROJECTS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ONLINE
10 Ways to Use QR Codes in Online Education
How to Create Labeling Activities With Google Drawings and Classroom The video demonstrates how to use Google Drawings to create a labeling activity and then distribute it to students through Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Current Event Sites for K - 12
Diffen is a nice resource for those times when you need a quick comparison of two things. Let's say you need a chart to highlight the differences between latitude and longitude, Diffen has that. Or perhaps you need a comparison of Medicare and Medicaid, Diffen has that too. If you can't find the comparison that you need, you can create your own on Diffen. Diffen is a community site. Anyone who registers on Diffen can contribute to the comparisons on the site. Comparisons are not limited to text. Images can be added to the comparison charts on Diffen. An embed code is available for each chart.
Formative Assessment Tools
Strategies for Assessing Students Remotely
🏻 The finger scale: Instead of using a thumbs up/thumbs down scale, use a 1 finger to 4 finger scale:
7 Ways to Do Formative Assessments in Your Virtual Class
5 Metacognitive Questions For Students Learning New Material
8 Quick Checks for Understanding Formative assessment is a proven technique for improving student learning, and the strategies shared here work both in the classroom and remotely.
Summative Assessment in Distance Learning
Formative Assessment Evaluation Tool Guide
Research cheat sheet on reflection
The Dos and Don'ts of Rubrics Part 1
Here Is How to Create Grading Rubrics in Google Classroom
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comQuick Method to Pull Up Students' Writings at Once in Docs Updated Pull the Paragraph Opening up a Google Doc per student is a nemesis. No thank you. I have coded alicekeeler.com/pulltheparagraph, and it will truly save you HOURS of time giving feedback. Choose the folder in Google Drive that has student Google Doc files. Use the Add-on menu to find Pull the Paragraph. Read all student documents in one place. Add feedback and send to students WITHOUT opening any of their documents.
Formative I highly recommend this assessment application over others like Kahoot and Quizlet because the teacher can observe the students work in real time with the Show Your Work option and converse with the student if an intervention is needed video | Give Instant Written Feedback Tutorial | feedback text tutorial Tutorials | You can now link existing classes to your Google Classroom.
ClassKick – This tool allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Teachers and students can monitor their progress. You Can see in real time each student’s work. Classkick gives you the ability to provide voice messages to individual students as the work, and they can respond. Also a teacher can write messages, feedback or support. Students can also help each other. Also you can integrate with Google Classroom. Other features are video embedding and interactive links. With the audio feature you can narrate directions or explanations and students can respond.
CurrikiStudio Can be Integrated with Schoology, Canvas, and Google Cloassroom CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. No coding required! Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help
🎯Ziplet - A Great Way to Gather Feedback from Students Ziplet is an online tool that lets you post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. What Ziplet offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they are responding to a group survey. Makes it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. Ziplet fits in a gap between tools like Kahoot and Google Classroom. A good tool for engaging students in discussions about assignments, course topics, or the general feeling of the class. Ziplet does offer a Google Classroom integration as well as an Office 365 integration. Students can respond to Ziplet prompts in the web browser on their computers or by using the free Ziplet mobile apps. Ziplet offers lots of pre-made exit ticket questions and warm-up questions that you can use if you don't want to write your own questions.www.freetech4teacers.com a video about how to use Ziplet.
TinyTap is an iPad app and Android app and computer option for building fun and interactive review games. You can create games based on pictures, diagrams, videos, and icons. Students can play your games on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. Speaking of playing games, TinyTap recently published a game that features sixteen ways to use TinyTap in your classroom.
Demonstration of Learning with Jamboard includes templates | Secondary Jamboard Templates
Floop Collaborative feedback platform helps teachers target students response and revise. Streamlines the process of giving targeted feedback to students and lets them collaborate to improve learning outcomes.
Talk and Comment is a chrome extension that enables you to record voice notes and share them almost anywhere on the web. As a teacher, you may want to install and use it to share audio feedback in the form of voice comments on students work. Each audio note you create has a generated link that you can easily copy and paste online. Students can also use it to collaborate on joint projects and to engage in discussions around topics of interest. The way Talk and Comment works is simple and easy. First, install the extension from Chrome web store. Next open the webpage or head over to the platform where you want to share your audio comment and click on the extension's widget and start recording your comment. Once done, copy and paste the generated link.Talk and Comment works on several digital platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Gmail, Reddit, Slack and many more. Watch the video
The One Pager Strategy is an excellent strategy for combing language with nonverbal objects and imagery. infographic to help you design your own! As a side note, you might want to check out the COSTA level framework for questions. How do you create a One Pager? Whether you are using paper or a tool, like Jamboard, it is very simple and shouldn't take too long. Check out video tutorial.
How to Add Answer Feedback to Quizzes in Google Forms & How Students video. In the video you will see: How to create a quiz in Google Forms. How to add answer feedback to quizzes in Google Forms. How students can instantly view feedback. How to leave comments on a quiz students take in Google Form. www.freetech4teachers.com
5 Time-Efficient Ways of Adding Feedback in Google Classroom
Mote: voice notes & feedback - Chrome Web Store "the faster, friendlier way to comment and feedback. Welcome to mote: the first Chrome extension that lets you easily add voice comments and feedback to shared documents." Hack for infusing both Mote and text instructions into your Google Classroom. tutorial video | Check video for more! Mote is a Chrome extension that became popular because it made it easy for teachers and students to add voice recordings to Google Slides, Google Classroom, and Google Forms. The latest update to Mote, released today, lets you add voice recordings not only to the questions in your Google Forms but also to the answer choices and feedback section in Google Forms. The updated version lets you also add voice recordings into the answer choices (for multiple choice questions) and into the feedback section of the answer key that you create for quizzes in Google Forms. All of those things are demonstrated in this short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Loop lets you create an online classroom to post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. Those features alone don't make Loop different from lots of similar services. What Loop offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they were responding to a group survey. The purpose of that feature is to make it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. video tutorial www.freetech4teachers.com
Knowt's teacher platform enables you to turn documents into flashcards and quizzes to share with your students in an online classroom. You can create online classrooms in Knowt by importing Gameplay is flashy, fun, and competitive. Students will want to plow through questions. Some of the game modes are busy and can be distracting, though.
Blooket could be a fun option for content review facts, if what you need students to review will fit in a multiple-choice format. Students get instant feedback on their devices and the class screen. Basic multiple choice is the only question type, however, limiting the learning potential. .
Student Self-Assessment Activities
Best Practices With Rubrics
Five Tools for Leaving Audio Notes in Google
Online Rubric is a Google Sheets add-on to create rubrics. It's a good add-on for those who use Google Sheets but might not use Google Classroom. Those who do use Google Classroom can create within Google Classroom. This short video explains that process. www,freetech4teachers.com
Group Work Rubrics and Checklists Quick Rubric Just click and type – it even calculates points for you.
Orange Slice Rubric Maker for Google Docs | video tutorial
Rubric Maker. Allows you to create customized rubrics "on the fly" for any subject or project. You can print the rubrics directly from the website. You choose the age level (primary, elementary, middle, or high school) and input the name of your rubric. Then a blank rubric appears for you to fill in the details. The blank rubric includes space for the criteria, plus a range to rate (gradations) the quality of the students' work. There are also ready-made rubrics you can print out. The website provides explicit direction about how to use the website
Rubistar is easy to use and you can find several rubrics created by other educators. If you know how to write a strong rubric that leads students to the desired outcome it can be a great tool.
Answer Garden short simple brainstorming and collaboration
Edulastic.The tool has numerous types of options like graphic organizers, graphs, ... You can provide feedback, but unlike Formative it is not in real time. Edulastic has a plethora of pre-made questions that can be customized or create your own. Upload File Question Type
A new "Upload File" question type encourages students to upload a picture or file of their work in response to a teacher's prompt. You'll see this new option when you go to "Author New Question". Learn more.
Spiral Spiral is a multi-use platform that allows teachers to create interactive learning experiences, pre-planned or on the fly. Basic account setup is easy and free, and it stops short of trying to do too much by offering just four types of activities: Quickfire, Clip, Team Up, and Discuss. Quickfire allows teachers to assign a quiz or ask a question. Teachers can send back inadequate responses immediately and ask students to improve and resubmit responses. Clip allows users to create interactive videos, stopping periodically to check understanding or discuss content. Team Up allows teachers to randomize or assign teams and have students create presentations that hold each member accountable. Finally, Discuss allows users to participate in interactive presentations by asking questions, sharing pictures, and responding to others.
Google Forms Access from Google Drive Excellent student response data. tutorial | 13 Google Forms Tutorials for Beginners and Experienced Users | Add audio to your Google Form | How to Give Partial Credit in Google Forms | An Overview of Google Forms Quiz Settings |
2 Learning Profile Templates to Help on the Personalized Learning Journey
Whether you are teaching face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid situation next school year, it is important to get to know our student's needs.Think of students as your customer. Why do they need me? I don't just teach a subject, but I serve as a guide to helping them learn and achieve goals. I might be a quick exit on their educational journey, but my actions could have long-lasting benefits or consequences in their lives. Personalizing learning can be difficult if you do not have an accurate understanding of your student's abilities and challenges; therefore, a learning profile could be a great strategy for getting to know your students better. Here are two examples of profiles that I have made for secondary students, which could easily be adapted to the elementary and middle school classrooms.
Edji provides teachers a means to have students read and analyze text, images or PDFs. The students are able to interact with their medium by highlighting text or adding tags to the images or PDFs. Their interactions can be text comments, emojis, or audio recordings. The teacher can also add open-ended questions to the activity. Initially, the students are only seeing their interactions with the medium. Then the true power of Edji comes to light, ‘Heat Vision’. This feature allows the teacher to activate all interactions as visible to all students. Replying to interactions is also a feature which the teacher can decide to activate. Teacher tools tutorial | Groups tutorial
Insert Training Insert instructional content on any web page.
TeacherMade - Quickly Create a Variety of Online Activities A tool that lets you easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities into online activities to share with your students. According to developer Laura, “My goal with TeacherMade was to create a way for us to make online worksheets that are easier than Google Slides. You can use TeacherMade to turn your PDFs, Word docs, Google Docs, and pictures into online activities. And if you choose to make your activity a graded one, TeacherMade will automatically score responses for you. short video tutorial
Live Worksheets are interactive worksheets. Teachers create an account and go to the website to upload a worksheet pdf, then drag text entry boxes on top of the worksheet. Student then enter the answers online. Questions can be fill in the blank, multiple choice, matching, drag and drop, join with arrows, recording audio, word search, and more, with new activities frequently added. Teacher enter in correct answers when they create the text boxes, which the program uses to give students instant feedback (correct answers are green and incorrect answers are red) with total score for the worksheet visible for each student.
Google Forms Access from Google Drive or. Google Classroom forms getting started tutorials | interactive Google Forms
Peergrade A platform that allows teachers to create assignments and upload rubrics. Students upload work and are anonymously assigned peer work to review according the rubric.
Padlet is an online bulletin board where you can display text, images, video, and more. Padlets can be embedded in blog posts. It used to be free but now there is a limit of three Padlets before you need to upgrade. Teachers Step by Step Guide to Padlet | video tutorials | How to Remake and Reuse a Padlet Wall
AnswerGarden – A tool for online brainstorming or polling, educators can use this real-time tool to see student feedback on questions.
InsertLearning was founded by two high school teachers who wanted to create a richer learning experience for their students. Their aim is to help teachers turn the internet into an interactive learning experience. InsertLearning lets users take any page on the internet and turn it into a lesson. Suppose, for example, a teacher finds a great article from a website that he or she would like students to read and would also like to ask them a few questions about the content, as well as add their own commentary or insert a related video.
Pear Deck Design lessons with interactive questions, polls, quizzes, and formative assessments. Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom Works with Google Slides.
Ways to use Pear Deck are:
● Starting the class with a social-emotional check-in with a draggable item on a
scale.
● During the class, doing check-ins on a scale to see how they feel they are
comprehending.
● At the end of the lesson, adding a one minute summarization of what they
learned through a short-answer written response (this is such powerful data!)
● My last Pear Deck slide is ALWAYS an “Express Yourself” slide. This is a blank
white background with the drawing feature enabled, so students can write or
draw anything they want (as long as it is school appropriate) in about one
minute. Then I always share everyone’s work with the entire class.
Chatzy – Use Chatzy to support backchannel conversations in a private setting. These live chats make great companions to classroom discussion, provide exit tickets, or keep a discussion going after the class is over.
ClassKick – This tool allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Students can monitor their progress and work. You Can see in real time each student’s work. Classkick gives you the ability to provide voice messages to individual students as the work and they can respond. Also a teacher can write messages, feedback or support. Students can also help each other. Also you can integrate with Google Classroom. Other features are video embedding and interactive links. With the audio feature you can narrate directions or explanations and students can respond.
Socrative Exercises and games that engage students using smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
The Answer Pad – Allows teachers to capture data from students using the web or the app and is touted as being ideal for the flipped or blended classroom.
AudioNote – A combination of a voice recorder and notepad that captures both audio and notes for student collaboration
🏻 The finger scale: Instead of using a thumbs up/thumbs down scale, use a 1 finger to 4 finger scale:
- One finger: I don't understand.
- Two fingers: I'm starting to understand, but I'm still confused.
- Three fingers: I can do it on my own.
- Four fingers: I feel confident. I can teach my classmates.
7 Ways to Do Formative Assessments in Your Virtual Class
5 Metacognitive Questions For Students Learning New Material
8 Quick Checks for Understanding Formative assessment is a proven technique for improving student learning, and the strategies shared here work both in the classroom and remotely.
Summative Assessment in Distance Learning
Formative Assessment Evaluation Tool Guide
Research cheat sheet on reflection
- 5 reflection best practices, including structured reflection activities
- 21 reflection prompts to give students ("This challenged me because ..." "I wonder how it would go if I tried ...")
- 6 reflection activity ideas, including the "What? So what? Now what?" protocol
- ... and more research-based insights.
The Dos and Don'ts of Rubrics Part 1
Here Is How to Create Grading Rubrics in Google Classroom
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comQuick Method to Pull Up Students' Writings at Once in Docs Updated Pull the Paragraph Opening up a Google Doc per student is a nemesis. No thank you. I have coded alicekeeler.com/pulltheparagraph, and it will truly save you HOURS of time giving feedback. Choose the folder in Google Drive that has student Google Doc files. Use the Add-on menu to find Pull the Paragraph. Read all student documents in one place. Add feedback and send to students WITHOUT opening any of their documents.
Formative I highly recommend this assessment application over others like Kahoot and Quizlet because the teacher can observe the students work in real time with the Show Your Work option and converse with the student if an intervention is needed video | Give Instant Written Feedback Tutorial | feedback text tutorial Tutorials | You can now link existing classes to your Google Classroom.
ClassKick – This tool allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Teachers and students can monitor their progress. You Can see in real time each student’s work. Classkick gives you the ability to provide voice messages to individual students as the work, and they can respond. Also a teacher can write messages, feedback or support. Students can also help each other. Also you can integrate with Google Classroom. Other features are video embedding and interactive links. With the audio feature you can narrate directions or explanations and students can respond.
CurrikiStudio Can be Integrated with Schoology, Canvas, and Google Cloassroom CurrikiStudio "It is a "one-stop shop" with 49+ built-in customizable interactive learning activities such as interactive video, quizzes, virtual tours, flash cards and more. No coding required! Watch how CurrikiStudio can help you." Getting Started help
🎯Ziplet - A Great Way to Gather Feedback from Students Ziplet is an online tool that lets you post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. What Ziplet offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they are responding to a group survey. Makes it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. Ziplet fits in a gap between tools like Kahoot and Google Classroom. A good tool for engaging students in discussions about assignments, course topics, or the general feeling of the class. Ziplet does offer a Google Classroom integration as well as an Office 365 integration. Students can respond to Ziplet prompts in the web browser on their computers or by using the free Ziplet mobile apps. Ziplet offers lots of pre-made exit ticket questions and warm-up questions that you can use if you don't want to write your own questions.www.freetech4teacers.com a video about how to use Ziplet.
TinyTap is an iPad app and Android app and computer option for building fun and interactive review games. You can create games based on pictures, diagrams, videos, and icons. Students can play your games on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. Speaking of playing games, TinyTap recently published a game that features sixteen ways to use TinyTap in your classroom.
- How to Create Your Own Educational Games With TinyTap - Getting Started. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Making Your Educational Games Look Good With TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
- Build Talk or Type Educational Games on TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
Demonstration of Learning with Jamboard includes templates | Secondary Jamboard Templates
Floop Collaborative feedback platform helps teachers target students response and revise. Streamlines the process of giving targeted feedback to students and lets them collaborate to improve learning outcomes.
Talk and Comment is a chrome extension that enables you to record voice notes and share them almost anywhere on the web. As a teacher, you may want to install and use it to share audio feedback in the form of voice comments on students work. Each audio note you create has a generated link that you can easily copy and paste online. Students can also use it to collaborate on joint projects and to engage in discussions around topics of interest. The way Talk and Comment works is simple and easy. First, install the extension from Chrome web store. Next open the webpage or head over to the platform where you want to share your audio comment and click on the extension's widget and start recording your comment. Once done, copy and paste the generated link.Talk and Comment works on several digital platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Gmail, Reddit, Slack and many more. Watch the video
The One Pager Strategy is an excellent strategy for combing language with nonverbal objects and imagery. infographic to help you design your own! As a side note, you might want to check out the COSTA level framework for questions. How do you create a One Pager? Whether you are using paper or a tool, like Jamboard, it is very simple and shouldn't take too long. Check out video tutorial.
How to Add Answer Feedback to Quizzes in Google Forms & How Students video. In the video you will see: How to create a quiz in Google Forms. How to add answer feedback to quizzes in Google Forms. How students can instantly view feedback. How to leave comments on a quiz students take in Google Form. www.freetech4teachers.com
- QR Code for Google Forms video tutorial
- You can now save your work in progress when answering questions in Google Forms!
- Google Forms Tip- Collect Responses in A Separate Spreadsheet | Score Quizzes That Have More Than One Correct Answer } How to Require Complete Sentences | How to Combine Google Forms
- How to Create QR Codes for Google Forms
- How to Give Partial Credit in Google Forms www.freetech4teachers..com
5 Time-Efficient Ways of Adding Feedback in Google Classroom
Mote: voice notes & feedback - Chrome Web Store "the faster, friendlier way to comment and feedback. Welcome to mote: the first Chrome extension that lets you easily add voice comments and feedback to shared documents." Hack for infusing both Mote and text instructions into your Google Classroom. tutorial video | Check video for more! Mote is a Chrome extension that became popular because it made it easy for teachers and students to add voice recordings to Google Slides, Google Classroom, and Google Forms. The latest update to Mote, released today, lets you add voice recordings not only to the questions in your Google Forms but also to the answer choices and feedback section in Google Forms. The updated version lets you also add voice recordings into the answer choices (for multiple choice questions) and into the feedback section of the answer key that you create for quizzes in Google Forms. All of those things are demonstrated in this short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Record and Embed Audio in Google Docs ability to record audio and embed it directly into your Google Documents. When you do this you're able to play the audio without having to exit the document. This is a huge improvement over simply including a link to a hosted audio file in your doucment then having to listen to it in a separate browser window.
Watch this short video to learn how to use Mote to record and embed audio into Google Docs. By the way, Mote calls these "hypermotes. www.freetech4teachers.com
Loop lets you create an online classroom to post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. Those features alone don't make Loop different from lots of similar services. What Loop offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they were responding to a group survey. The purpose of that feature is to make it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. video tutorial www.freetech4teachers.com
Knowt's teacher platform enables you to turn documents into flashcards and quizzes to share with your students in an online classroom. You can create online classrooms in Knowt by importing Gameplay is flashy, fun, and competitive. Students will want to plow through questions. Some of the game modes are busy and can be distracting, though.
- When you sign into a free Knowt account you have the option to browse for notes, flashcards, and quizzes according to subject area. There is also a gallery of notes, quizzes, and flashcards based on popular textbooks. All of the notes, quizzes, and flashcards found through the public galleries in Knowt can be copied directly into your account where you can modify them as you like.
- Here's Knowt's promo video for their new galleries of notes, quizzes, and flashcards. And here's my overview of how to use Knowt to create your own notes, quizzes, and flashcards by importing a document into your account. www.freetech4teachers.com
Blooket could be a fun option for content review facts, if what you need students to review will fit in a multiple-choice format. Students get instant feedback on their devices and the class screen. Basic multiple choice is the only question type, however, limiting the learning potential. .
Student Self-Assessment Activities
Best Practices With Rubrics
Five Tools for Leaving Audio Notes in Google
Online Rubric is a Google Sheets add-on to create rubrics. It's a good add-on for those who use Google Sheets but might not use Google Classroom. Those who do use Google Classroom can create within Google Classroom. This short video explains that process. www,freetech4teachers.com
Group Work Rubrics and Checklists Quick Rubric Just click and type – it even calculates points for you.
Orange Slice Rubric Maker for Google Docs | video tutorial
Rubric Maker. Allows you to create customized rubrics "on the fly" for any subject or project. You can print the rubrics directly from the website. You choose the age level (primary, elementary, middle, or high school) and input the name of your rubric. Then a blank rubric appears for you to fill in the details. The blank rubric includes space for the criteria, plus a range to rate (gradations) the quality of the students' work. There are also ready-made rubrics you can print out. The website provides explicit direction about how to use the website
Rubistar is easy to use and you can find several rubrics created by other educators. If you know how to write a strong rubric that leads students to the desired outcome it can be a great tool.
Answer Garden short simple brainstorming and collaboration
Edulastic.The tool has numerous types of options like graphic organizers, graphs, ... You can provide feedback, but unlike Formative it is not in real time. Edulastic has a plethora of pre-made questions that can be customized or create your own. Upload File Question Type
A new "Upload File" question type encourages students to upload a picture or file of their work in response to a teacher's prompt. You'll see this new option when you go to "Author New Question". Learn more.
Spiral Spiral is a multi-use platform that allows teachers to create interactive learning experiences, pre-planned or on the fly. Basic account setup is easy and free, and it stops short of trying to do too much by offering just four types of activities: Quickfire, Clip, Team Up, and Discuss. Quickfire allows teachers to assign a quiz or ask a question. Teachers can send back inadequate responses immediately and ask students to improve and resubmit responses. Clip allows users to create interactive videos, stopping periodically to check understanding or discuss content. Team Up allows teachers to randomize or assign teams and have students create presentations that hold each member accountable. Finally, Discuss allows users to participate in interactive presentations by asking questions, sharing pictures, and responding to others.
Google Forms Access from Google Drive Excellent student response data. tutorial | 13 Google Forms Tutorials for Beginners and Experienced Users | Add audio to your Google Form | How to Give Partial Credit in Google Forms | An Overview of Google Forms Quiz Settings |
- You can now save your work in progress when answering questions in Google Forms! www.freetech4teachers.com
2 Learning Profile Templates to Help on the Personalized Learning Journey
Whether you are teaching face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid situation next school year, it is important to get to know our student's needs.Think of students as your customer. Why do they need me? I don't just teach a subject, but I serve as a guide to helping them learn and achieve goals. I might be a quick exit on their educational journey, but my actions could have long-lasting benefits or consequences in their lives. Personalizing learning can be difficult if you do not have an accurate understanding of your student's abilities and challenges; therefore, a learning profile could be a great strategy for getting to know your students better. Here are two examples of profiles that I have made for secondary students, which could easily be adapted to the elementary and middle school classrooms.
Edji provides teachers a means to have students read and analyze text, images or PDFs. The students are able to interact with their medium by highlighting text or adding tags to the images or PDFs. Their interactions can be text comments, emojis, or audio recordings. The teacher can also add open-ended questions to the activity. Initially, the students are only seeing their interactions with the medium. Then the true power of Edji comes to light, ‘Heat Vision’. This feature allows the teacher to activate all interactions as visible to all students. Replying to interactions is also a feature which the teacher can decide to activate. Teacher tools tutorial | Groups tutorial
Insert Training Insert instructional content on any web page.
TeacherMade - Quickly Create a Variety of Online Activities A tool that lets you easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities into online activities to share with your students. According to developer Laura, “My goal with TeacherMade was to create a way for us to make online worksheets that are easier than Google Slides. You can use TeacherMade to turn your PDFs, Word docs, Google Docs, and pictures into online activities. And if you choose to make your activity a graded one, TeacherMade will automatically score responses for you. short video tutorial
- To get started using TeacherMade you can sign-up with your G Suite account or register with any other email address and password of your choice. Signing up with G-suite is a good idea if you use Google Classroom, because TeacherMade is focusing on creating a deep integration with Google Classroom.
- The best way to discover all that TeacherMade can do is to upload a PDF that has a variety of question types on it. For example, a PDF that has a multiple choice question, a fill-in-the-blank question, and an identification question. (Quick tip if you don’t have a PDF: you can quickly create one by using the “download as PDF” option in Google Docs or the “save as PDF” option in Word). www.freetech4teachers.com
- You can preview the student view of the online activities that you make
Live Worksheets are interactive worksheets. Teachers create an account and go to the website to upload a worksheet pdf, then drag text entry boxes on top of the worksheet. Student then enter the answers online. Questions can be fill in the blank, multiple choice, matching, drag and drop, join with arrows, recording audio, word search, and more, with new activities frequently added. Teacher enter in correct answers when they create the text boxes, which the program uses to give students instant feedback (correct answers are green and incorrect answers are red) with total score for the worksheet visible for each student.
Google Forms Access from Google Drive or. Google Classroom forms getting started tutorials | interactive Google Forms
- 13 Google Forms Tutorials for Beginners and Experienced Users
- Over the years Google has added handy little features that have made my job easier when it's time to make a quiz. Unfortunately, not all of those features are obvious when you start using Google Forms. Here are five little features of Google Forms that are often overlooked. video tutorial
- Changing default point values.
- Create a Question Bank and Import Questions in Google Forms
- Using the confirmation message as a prompt for students.
- Automatic shuffling of question order.
- How to Give Partial Credit in Google Forms www.freetech4teachers..com
- Automatic shuffling of answer choices.
- Enforcing a minimum response length on short answer questions.
- How to Direct Students to Videos Based on Answer Choices in Google Forms short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Give Self-grading Quizzes to Students Who Don't Have Email Addresses www.freetech4teachers.com
- ✅ Awesome Table Provides you with ready made templates that you can use to create various apps, each app offers a unique visualization functionality to apply to the data in your spreadsheet. Below are the eight view models you can create, click on each of one of them to access a step by step tutorial on how use create the model in question: Some of the features offered by Awesome Table include the ability to "add interactive and intuitive filters and full text search, directly from the spreadsheet"; easily customize the apps templates the way you want Offers a metrics dashboard that allows you to track your apps stats,; embed your apps anywhere online and many more
- Flipgrid option for writing comments in response to videos within a discussion topic. This is in addition to the written feedback option that teachers have had for quite a while in Flipgrid. Now students and teachers can write comments in response to students' video submissions within a Flipgrid discussion topic. These comments are automatically reviewed by Flipgrid for potentially insensitive comments. That's a feature in addition to the manual topic moderation that you can enable on all of your Flipgrid topics. www.freetech4teachers.com
- 20+ Ways to use 10 BIG Flipgrid Updates
- Split Screen Videos in Flipgrid A slight relocation of the whiteboard recording tool. At the same time a new whiteboard option was added. That option is to have a split screen while recording your whiteboard videos in Flipgrid. This option allows you to display your webcam on half of your screen while the other half is used as a whiteboard. But it doesn't have to be a 50/50 split. You can choose how you want to divide your screen. You can see how that's done by watching this short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- 5 Ways You Can Use Flipgrid's New Mic Only Feature
Peergrade A platform that allows teachers to create assignments and upload rubrics. Students upload work and are anonymously assigned peer work to review according the rubric.
Padlet is an online bulletin board where you can display text, images, video, and more. Padlets can be embedded in blog posts. It used to be free but now there is a limit of three Padlets before you need to upgrade. Teachers Step by Step Guide to Padlet | video tutorials | How to Remake and Reuse a Padlet Wall
AnswerGarden – A tool for online brainstorming or polling, educators can use this real-time tool to see student feedback on questions.
InsertLearning was founded by two high school teachers who wanted to create a richer learning experience for their students. Their aim is to help teachers turn the internet into an interactive learning experience. InsertLearning lets users take any page on the internet and turn it into a lesson. Suppose, for example, a teacher finds a great article from a website that he or she would like students to read and would also like to ask them a few questions about the content, as well as add their own commentary or insert a related video.
Pear Deck Design lessons with interactive questions, polls, quizzes, and formative assessments. Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom Works with Google Slides.
Ways to use Pear Deck are:
● Starting the class with a social-emotional check-in with a draggable item on a
scale.
● During the class, doing check-ins on a scale to see how they feel they are
comprehending.
● At the end of the lesson, adding a one minute summarization of what they
learned through a short-answer written response (this is such powerful data!)
● My last Pear Deck slide is ALWAYS an “Express Yourself” slide. This is a blank
white background with the drawing feature enabled, so students can write or
draw anything they want (as long as it is school appropriate) in about one
minute. Then I always share everyone’s work with the entire class.
Chatzy – Use Chatzy to support backchannel conversations in a private setting. These live chats make great companions to classroom discussion, provide exit tickets, or keep a discussion going after the class is over.
ClassKick – This tool allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Students can monitor their progress and work. You Can see in real time each student’s work. Classkick gives you the ability to provide voice messages to individual students as the work and they can respond. Also a teacher can write messages, feedback or support. Students can also help each other. Also you can integrate with Google Classroom. Other features are video embedding and interactive links. With the audio feature you can narrate directions or explanations and students can respond.
Socrative Exercises and games that engage students using smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
The Answer Pad – Allows teachers to capture data from students using the web or the app and is touted as being ideal for the flipped or blended classroom.
AudioNote – A combination of a voice recorder and notepad that captures both audio and notes for student collaboration
Interactive Presentation Tools
Video: How to Create Interactive Slides
Nearpod Diverse interactive presentation application that teachers can utilize synchronously or asynchronously. Plethora of interactive activities. The application also offers developed presentations that you can customize. video tutorial
Quizizz Lessons feature – the ability to create a slideshow that you can present to your students live or assign as homework. For those of you who are familiar with Nearpod, it’s basically a very simplified version of it, with far fewer bells and whistles. Quizizz users are now able to 'transform their quizzes into interactive lessons' that include a wide variety of multimedia materials. You can include slides, polls, questions and several other elements.
Buncee is a web-based tool for creating interactive multimedia presentations. The product was created to bring all sources and types of content into one space. Educators can create interactive quizzes and grade student submissions, differentiate lessons, flip the classroom, and send home beautiful newsletters and notes at a moment’s notice. Some limitations on free version. Web, IOS an Android versions. Free version has text reader and integrattes Microsoft's immersion reader. video tutorial The tutorial starts with using templates and then goes into interactive presentations)
Thinglink ThingLink is an interactive image tool offering a unique way to link "things" within images. Teachers and students should register using the EDU area. Although the example on the home page uses Facebook to share a ThingLink, you do not have to use Facebook at all. Start with an image from upload, online URL, or Flickr. Select specific items within your image (called "things") and link them to resources or other websites.
- Drawings for Interactive Images (Googlinks) Using Google Drawings like a Thinglink - Website link
- Pear Deck Engagement tool that helps teachers to engage and monitor students through interactive lessons, polls, feedback, dashboards, questions, draggable objects and more. The instant feedback capabilities are important as students and teachers and interact. Slide Show tutorial | Video tutorial | Hard Copy Tutorial | Adding Audio to Pear Deck Google Slides Activities" - Website link | Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom | Training video - "Adding Audio to Pear Deck Google Slides Activities" -YouTube Video | "21 New Free Interactive Pear Deck Templates for Google Slides" - Website link | "New Pear Deck Critical Thinking Templates for Google Slides" Website link | "9 Awesome Add-ons to Supercharge Google Slides" - Website link | interactive Charts and Diagrams in Slides | Use Google Slides where each student gets their own copy The link takes you to a sheet doc. Follow the direction using the shheets' menubar at the top to install add-on
- Continuum - Synchronous Online Teaching Strategy "A continuum can be used in every subject area. Get discussions started with this interactive activity."
- ✅ Interactive Google Slide Template
- Create Virtual Manipulatives Activity in Google Slides The presentation shows how to create a measurement manipulative, but the concept has numerous applications. The following Google Slides presentation asks to guess how many ounces are in a pound, then they are asked to drag the one-ounce boxes into the one-pound container. When they are finished, they will record their answer in the answer box. Feel free to access your own copy of this | Create authentic looking manipulative | Another example with fixed background
- Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
- Drag and Drop Slides | Creating Drag and Drop Activities in Google Slides (YouTube)
- Easy 1, 2, 3: Create Your Own Accessible Book with Slides You may also include other interactive components from this list
- 30 interactive Google Slides activities for classroom excitement: Google Slides isn't just for delivering presentations to an audience. Here are 30 activities that bring interactive learning to students.
- Doc to Slides View Doc to Slides on YouTube It magically takes whatever is in your Google Doc and converts is to Google Slides! Not only does it create slides from a doc there are also other capabilities, e.g., creating slides for individual students quickly and directing a slide you already have to each student. Install Doc to Slides
- Record to Slides - Chrome extension that makes it super easy to record video from your webcam or screen share, and then insert that into Google Slides.
- Slip-in-Slide With the Slip-in-Slide add-on, you can effortlessly insert slides into multiple student presentations at one time. You can choose to send one or many slides from your presentation to an assignment folder in Google Classroom. This makes distribution of new material quick and easy. It integrates with the folder structure of Google Classroom to send your slides directly into student’s existing presentations. A tutorial on how to use Slip-in-Slide here.
- 10+ Creative Google Slides Activities
- 🎯Slido is a polling tool that has recently launched a Google Slides add-on and a corresponding Chrome extension. With Slido installed you can create polls directly in the Google Slides editor. The poll will appear as a slide in your presentation. The poll slide includes your question and the directions for your audience to respond to your poll. video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Three Ways to Conduct Polls in Google Slides Use Poll Everywhere in Google Slides to conduct my polls because I like the word cloud output option. Slido and the native Q&A function in Google Slides can also be used for polling. How to use Poll Everywhere in Google Slides. | How to use Slido in Google Slides. | How to use the Q&A function in Google Slides. www.freetech4teachrs.com
- 6 ways to share Google Slides Share Google slides to students directly and monitor their contribution to editing the slides or send a public link for anonymous mode.
- An easier Way to Add Audio to Slides Mote is a new Chrome extension that allows you to quickly record audio and have it inserted into your Google Slides with just one click. www.freetech4teachrs.com
- How to Add Captions to Slides
- How to make transparent collaborative virtual manipulatives
- Own A Space Give all students a voice by using the Own A Space strategy.
- Respond and Code Students respond simultaneously, then categorize their and their peers’ responses.
- Interactive Gallery Walks Give your students choice and voice with an interactive gallery walk.
- Bar Model in Google slides Use tables to create bar models and color them like fraction bars
- Learn how to make a magnifying glass reveal text.
- Tweet Boards Tweet boards are used as a brain dump for students to quickly and collectively share their ideas. Watch Tweet Board Sort
This activity is done after a Tweet Board and requires students to categorize the topics collected during the brain dump. - Visual Polling with Emojis Get input from kids using emojis directly on your goals and objectives slide.
- Virtual Parking Lot Give students a place to record important questions, and answer them at an appropriate time.
- Using Shapes as text boxes for Graphic Organizers Learn how to use various shapes to jazz up your text boxes when using graphic organizers
- Successes and Celebrations Learn how to use this simple routine to build strong classroom communities.
- Student Led Slides Synchronous Online learning can be student-centered when students are creating the slides.
- Expectation Slides Gain student participation, online behavior, and norms through expectation slides.
- How to Lock Google Slides Learn how to lock your slides so that kids can’t move the template around.
- Google Translate Hack Take Google translate one step further and embed clickable directions in your slides.
Sutori is a “collaborative instructional and presentation tool for the classroom.” It can be used as an alternative to traditional presentations such as PowerPoint or Prezi. The stories can be viewed one panel at a time, like a slideshow, or scrolled through, like a timeline. Sutori is made for student-centered classrooms, since it requires students to be engaged in putting many resources together. Also, teachers can use Sutori to create linear presentations that students will view in class or at their own pace.
BookWidgets - Create Unique Online Activities for Your Students www.freetech4teachers.com
Create Your Own Bitmoji Virtual Classroom in 10-Minutes (Chrome extension )Although this tool is great for remote learning situations, it can be helpful in hybrid and face-to-face learning situations too. The idea behind a Bitmoji classroom is to replicate your own classroom and make resources, news, and tools available to students in virtual settings. Click here to see example and here for tutorial. To create your own bitmoji: IOS app | Android Or you can use the bitmojis already available through the extension | How to create a Virtual Bitmoji Classroom in Slides or Powerpoint | self-paced Bitmoji Educator course. This five-module course includes lots of videos showing you exactly how to create your own Bitmoji avatar and then add it to your virtual space. Upon completion, you’ll have ideas on how to use your Bitmoji for teaching and learning
- Bitmoji chrome Tip That Mst People Do Not Know About - In the search box type pose to get figures without text
Here are several considerations to keep in mind when designing your own virtual classroom:
1. Use the Bitmoji extension to add an animated version of you!
2. Consider adding links to homework, resources, tutorials, and classroom news!
3. Don't forget about navigation! Use icons or pictures to link to slides. It might be helpful to add an icon to return back to your "home" screen or classroom.
4. Make sure that you publish your classroom to the web! This makes it easier to access regardless of device.
Free Bitmoji Classroom Templates (TPT)
Bitmoji Virtual Locker Template (Google)
Bitmoji Educator
Blurry Bitmoji? Upscale It! Educators are using Bitmojis to make personalized cartoon characters. The thing is, Bitmojis are low resolution and look fuzzy when enlarged. Upscaling is a magical process that can convert a Bitmoji to high definition by increasing the number of pixels and adding details. Click to read the entire post.
Alternative to Bitmoji Classroom High school teacher Emily Huff didn’t want to do the “cutesy” Bitmoji classroom for her older students. So she created a Netflix-like landing page for her Spanish class. She downloaded the original template from this blog and then changed it up to better fit what her students are familiar with
20+ interactive PowerPoint activities to add awesome to classes: PowerPoint lets students collaborate and display ideas effectively. Create animation, story books, video galleries and more. Here are 20 ideas for using PowerPoint in your classroom.
Annotation Tools
Hypothesis This is a tool for collaborative annotations. It lets you annotate the web in groups and collaborate privately with others.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comNowComment promotes social reading among middle and high school students. The tool is similar to Hypothesis. Teachers upload content to the website, and students socially annotate it.
Lightshot Take snapshots and then copy-and-paste or insert them into Google Docs or other programs. Lightshot, a Chrome extension and/or program you can load on your computer. It makes it easy to snap pictures of my screen and annotate them. Also the option to save to the clipboard and then paste. You can see it reviewed in this video. Find it online.
Lumin PDF before A digital PDF editing software. Using their suite of intuitive tools, you can store, edit and annotate PDF documents in the cloud. It doesn’t take up any extra space on your computer and makes it easy to locate and manage all of your documents in one place.With Lumin PDF, you can make annotations straight into a document using a selection of tools. Users have access to a freehand tool, the ability to add shapes to a document — and the option to add text. These are just a few of the options in the suite of digital tools you can use with Lumin PDF’s Premium Professional Plan. Lumin PDF also offers organizations the ability to collaborate with your entire network (schools, districts, etc.) using their tools.
Kami. A PDF and document annotation app for schools. Students can digitally write on e-books, PDFs, worksheets, collaborate with their peers, and draw freely. Teachers will be asked to complete a form to request access.
Actively Learn is a freemium online education platform that allows students to read a book (or some other document), make comments, answer questions posed by the teacher, and even collaborate with others.
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Scribble Provides you with a number of tools to save, manage, annotate and share web content. You can mark-up web pages and uploaded PDFs right in your browser and share your annotated content with others.
Edji provides teachers a means to have students read and analyze text, images or PDFs. The students are able to interact with their medium by highlighting text or adding tags to the images or PDFs. Their interactions can be text comments, emojis, or audio recordings. The teacher can also add open-ended questions to the activity. Initially, the students are only seeing their interactions with the medium. Then the true power of Edji comes to light, ‘Heat Vision’. This feature allows the teacher to activate all interactions as visible to all students. Replying to interactions is also a feature which the teacher can decide to activate. pdf annotation tutorial www.youtube.com/results?search_query=edji
Annotate PDFs Collaboratively Using Google Drive
Thinkio It lets teachers easily make their PDFs interactive and lets you assign them to your students and see their work.
Annotate Webpages With Edge Microsoft Edge has a bunch of neat features built into it including Immersive Reader and tools for annotation. To use these tools just click the pen icon in the upper-right corner of the Edge browser and you'll see a menu of drawing and text tools appear. After adding your highlights and notes you can share them from the same menu where you found the drawing tools. Take a look at this short video to see how to use the annotation tools in Edge. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate PDFs With Kami Kami is a service that enables users to annotate and comment on PDFs. You can do this directly on the Kami website or in Google Drive with Kami's Chrome extension. Kami also works with Word and Pages files. Here's a little video overview of Kami. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate Webpages With Seesaw Seesaw has become a very popular digital portfolio tool because of the many things that you and your students can do with it. One of those things is to annotate webpages with Seesaw's Chrome extension. With SeeSaw's free Chrome extension installed students can save an entire webpage or select a portion of the page to save. Once they've made a selection of what to save the Chrome extension will automatically open SeeSaw in a new browser tab where students can then highlight, draw, and type on the saved page. Students can also record themselves talking about the pages they've clipped. Take a look at this video to see how it works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Write on PDFs in Google Classroom Provides a way students can do free-hand writing on documents shared in Google Classroom. A better option to having students take pictures of handwritten work and uploading it to Google Classroom assignments. The Chrome extension called Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF is a Chrome extension that enables students to draw on top of PDFs that you open in Chrome. After drawing on the PDF students can save the PDF as a new copy or replace the existing copy of the PDF that was sent to them in Google Classroom. video overview of how students can use Lumin PDF to write on PDFs that are assigned to them in Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate in OneNote OneNote has lots of useful features for students and teachers. One of the features is the ability to create a shared notebook in which students add notes to PDFs and Word documents. Upload a PDF to a page in a notebook and then use the drawing tools and text tools to add notes to it to share. Here's a quick video overview of how to do that. www.freetech4teachers.com
Google Classroom, here's how to use PDFs in Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Read&Write for Google Chrome Gives you access to a number of powerful tools to do much more than just web annotations. You can use it to ‘ collect highlights from text in documents or the web for summarizing and research; create and listen to voice notes directly inside of Google Docs; simplify and summarize text on web pages to remove ads and other copy that can be distracting’…and many more.
Evernote Web Clipper You can use this one to quickly clip web pages and save them to your Evernote account. Some of the annotative features it provides include the ability to add text and callouts and highlight key text from any website or article. Clipped content can be shared though email or URL
Take Webpage Screenshots Entirely This Chrome extension lets you make whole web page screenshots which you can edit and save in PDF, JPEG, GIF or PNG format.You can annotate your screenshots with text, shapes, arrows, add blurs and apply several other effects.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comNowComment promotes social reading among middle and high school students. The tool is similar to Hypothesis. Teachers upload content to the website, and students socially annotate it.
Lightshot Take snapshots and then copy-and-paste or insert them into Google Docs or other programs. Lightshot, a Chrome extension and/or program you can load on your computer. It makes it easy to snap pictures of my screen and annotate them. Also the option to save to the clipboard and then paste. You can see it reviewed in this video. Find it online.
Lumin PDF before A digital PDF editing software. Using their suite of intuitive tools, you can store, edit and annotate PDF documents in the cloud. It doesn’t take up any extra space on your computer and makes it easy to locate and manage all of your documents in one place.With Lumin PDF, you can make annotations straight into a document using a selection of tools. Users have access to a freehand tool, the ability to add shapes to a document — and the option to add text. These are just a few of the options in the suite of digital tools you can use with Lumin PDF’s Premium Professional Plan. Lumin PDF also offers organizations the ability to collaborate with your entire network (schools, districts, etc.) using their tools.
Kami. A PDF and document annotation app for schools. Students can digitally write on e-books, PDFs, worksheets, collaborate with their peers, and draw freely. Teachers will be asked to complete a form to request access.
Actively Learn is a freemium online education platform that allows students to read a book (or some other document), make comments, answer questions posed by the teacher, and even collaborate with others.
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Scribble Provides you with a number of tools to save, manage, annotate and share web content. You can mark-up web pages and uploaded PDFs right in your browser and share your annotated content with others.
Edji provides teachers a means to have students read and analyze text, images or PDFs. The students are able to interact with their medium by highlighting text or adding tags to the images or PDFs. Their interactions can be text comments, emojis, or audio recordings. The teacher can also add open-ended questions to the activity. Initially, the students are only seeing their interactions with the medium. Then the true power of Edji comes to light, ‘Heat Vision’. This feature allows the teacher to activate all interactions as visible to all students. Replying to interactions is also a feature which the teacher can decide to activate. pdf annotation tutorial www.youtube.com/results?search_query=edji
Annotate PDFs Collaboratively Using Google Drive
Thinkio It lets teachers easily make their PDFs interactive and lets you assign them to your students and see their work.
Annotate Webpages With Edge Microsoft Edge has a bunch of neat features built into it including Immersive Reader and tools for annotation. To use these tools just click the pen icon in the upper-right corner of the Edge browser and you'll see a menu of drawing and text tools appear. After adding your highlights and notes you can share them from the same menu where you found the drawing tools. Take a look at this short video to see how to use the annotation tools in Edge. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate PDFs With Kami Kami is a service that enables users to annotate and comment on PDFs. You can do this directly on the Kami website or in Google Drive with Kami's Chrome extension. Kami also works with Word and Pages files. Here's a little video overview of Kami. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate Webpages With Seesaw Seesaw has become a very popular digital portfolio tool because of the many things that you and your students can do with it. One of those things is to annotate webpages with Seesaw's Chrome extension. With SeeSaw's free Chrome extension installed students can save an entire webpage or select a portion of the page to save. Once they've made a selection of what to save the Chrome extension will automatically open SeeSaw in a new browser tab where students can then highlight, draw, and type on the saved page. Students can also record themselves talking about the pages they've clipped. Take a look at this video to see how it works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Write on PDFs in Google Classroom Provides a way students can do free-hand writing on documents shared in Google Classroom. A better option to having students take pictures of handwritten work and uploading it to Google Classroom assignments. The Chrome extension called Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF is a Chrome extension that enables students to draw on top of PDFs that you open in Chrome. After drawing on the PDF students can save the PDF as a new copy or replace the existing copy of the PDF that was sent to them in Google Classroom. video overview of how students can use Lumin PDF to write on PDFs that are assigned to them in Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Annotate in OneNote OneNote has lots of useful features for students and teachers. One of the features is the ability to create a shared notebook in which students add notes to PDFs and Word documents. Upload a PDF to a page in a notebook and then use the drawing tools and text tools to add notes to it to share. Here's a quick video overview of how to do that. www.freetech4teachers.com
Google Classroom, here's how to use PDFs in Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
Read&Write for Google Chrome Gives you access to a number of powerful tools to do much more than just web annotations. You can use it to ‘ collect highlights from text in documents or the web for summarizing and research; create and listen to voice notes directly inside of Google Docs; simplify and summarize text on web pages to remove ads and other copy that can be distracting’…and many more.
Evernote Web Clipper You can use this one to quickly clip web pages and save them to your Evernote account. Some of the annotative features it provides include the ability to add text and callouts and highlight key text from any website or article. Clipped content can be shared though email or URL
Take Webpage Screenshots Entirely This Chrome extension lets you make whole web page screenshots which you can edit and save in PDF, JPEG, GIF or PNG format.You can annotate your screenshots with text, shapes, arrows, add blurs and apply several other effects.
Video Tools
Loom This is a lightweight application that lets you record and share annotated videos. You can record videos using a combination of camera, microphone and computer screen. You can record the whole screen or simply the current tab you are on.
Resources to Help You Make The Best of YouTube in Your Distance Teaching
iSL Collective may be the most helpful online site teachers, and it’s easy to use the zillions of interactive videos they have or make your own. See A Look Back: Another Reason iSLCollective Is One Of Top Sites For ELLs – Their New Online Homework Feature! for details.
TED-Ed makes it super-easy to create questions for any video you choose, and students don’t have to register to see them and answer the questions. Teachers automatically receive reports on student progress. Its features are not as “interactive” as the other sites on this list (students watch the entire video and then answer questions), but its ease-of-use is a big advantage.
ESL Video like TED-Ed, its “interactivity” comes after the video is watched instead of during it, as is the case with the iSL Collective and EDPuzzle, the next one on this list. See “ESL Video” Improvements Turn Good Site Into Great One.
EDPuzzle is probably the most popular one on this list. Richard Byrne just published an excellent guide for using it at How to Create Video Lessons Without Making Your Own Recordings. | Use Screencastify with Edpuzzle
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Vialogue is an online video with a group discussion feature. Upload a video of your own, from YouTube or one of the public videos available on Vialogue. Define the purpose of the Vialogue, provide some discussion questions, and click create to finish.
Final is a web tool that facilitates collaboration on video and audio files. It allows you and your collaborators to exchange feedback on your video and audio files. The way Final works is simple: log in to your Final account, upload a video or audio file and share it with collaborators using a generated link. Collaborators can add real-time feedback on your videos and audio clips.
Narakeet Turns PowerPoint presentations into narrated videos. video tutorial
Five Helpful PowerPoint Features You Might Be OverlookingType Studio A Unique Way to Edit narrated videos. In Type Studio I simply select a few words from the transcript of my video and hit the delete key on my keyboard to remove a section of my video. If I do not have a transcript Type Studio creates a transcript for you when you upload your video into their editor. Depending on the length of the video this can just a few minutes or can be quite a bit longer than that. Once the transcript is created it appears your Type Studio editor alongside your original video. Then to cut a section of your video all you have to do is select the words or sentences you want to remove and Type Studio will remove the corresponding section of the video itself. Type Studio currently supports fifteen languages. In addition to providing tools for clipping and cutting your videos, Type Studio provides a subtitling service. You could use Type Studio just to create subtitles and transcripts without having to actually do any editing of your video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bookmark It is a free Chrome extension that can solve a problem many people face when trying to show students just a specific part of a video. That problem is having to scroll along the timeline of a YouTube video to find the spot that you want to share. Bookmark It lets you add timestamped bookmarks and notes to the timeline of a video. video www.freetech4teachers.com/
PlayPosit – An interactive video and assessment tool that allows teachers to add formative assessment features (pauses and questions) to survey what students know about the topic. Teachers choose from a library of video content from popular sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and others.
WeVideo Cloud based video editing tool that allows students and teachers to get creative. Students could have fun responding to some of learning tasks as a video and can collaborate with peers on projects. WeVideo have also recently introduced screencasting.
Tools to show YouTube videos without displaying the "related" content that appears next to and below videos on YouTube. The first two tools that came to mind were Watchkin and SafeShare.tv. Another option is to put the video into Google Slides or PowerPoint to display. And a fourth option is to use the browser extension called Quietube. Tutorial short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Resources to Help You Make The Best of YouTube in Your Distance Teaching
iSL Collective may be the most helpful online site teachers, and it’s easy to use the zillions of interactive videos they have or make your own. See A Look Back: Another Reason iSLCollective Is One Of Top Sites For ELLs – Their New Online Homework Feature! for details.
TED-Ed makes it super-easy to create questions for any video you choose, and students don’t have to register to see them and answer the questions. Teachers automatically receive reports on student progress. Its features are not as “interactive” as the other sites on this list (students watch the entire video and then answer questions), but its ease-of-use is a big advantage.
ESL Video like TED-Ed, its “interactivity” comes after the video is watched instead of during it, as is the case with the iSL Collective and EDPuzzle, the next one on this list. See “ESL Video” Improvements Turn Good Site Into Great One.
EDPuzzle is probably the most popular one on this list. Richard Byrne just published an excellent guide for using it at How to Create Video Lessons Without Making Your Own Recordings. | Use Screencastify with Edpuzzle
Zigazoo (gr. K - 5) is a TikTok-style video sharing app for posting short videos of kids completing a variety of kid-appropriate challenges. Teachers can use Zigazoo to inspire their students to think about new topics and explore the world around them through project-based learning. Teachers will likely want to start by browsing the project ideas to find ones that might be relevant for their students. They can also make their own challenges. With a bit of creativity, teachers could make video assignments to match virtually any topic they're covering in class. Challenges can introduce a topic to establish what students already know, occur midway through to see what they're learning, or occur at the end of a unit to assess comprehension and open discussion for deeper learning or connections to other topics.
Vialogue is an online video with a group discussion feature. Upload a video of your own, from YouTube or one of the public videos available on Vialogue. Define the purpose of the Vialogue, provide some discussion questions, and click create to finish.
Final is a web tool that facilitates collaboration on video and audio files. It allows you and your collaborators to exchange feedback on your video and audio files. The way Final works is simple: log in to your Final account, upload a video or audio file and share it with collaborators using a generated link. Collaborators can add real-time feedback on your videos and audio clips.
Narakeet Turns PowerPoint presentations into narrated videos. video tutorial
Five Helpful PowerPoint Features You Might Be OverlookingType Studio A Unique Way to Edit narrated videos. In Type Studio I simply select a few words from the transcript of my video and hit the delete key on my keyboard to remove a section of my video. If I do not have a transcript Type Studio creates a transcript for you when you upload your video into their editor. Depending on the length of the video this can just a few minutes or can be quite a bit longer than that. Once the transcript is created it appears your Type Studio editor alongside your original video. Then to cut a section of your video all you have to do is select the words or sentences you want to remove and Type Studio will remove the corresponding section of the video itself. Type Studio currently supports fifteen languages. In addition to providing tools for clipping and cutting your videos, Type Studio provides a subtitling service. You could use Type Studio just to create subtitles and transcripts without having to actually do any editing of your video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Bookmark It is a free Chrome extension that can solve a problem many people face when trying to show students just a specific part of a video. That problem is having to scroll along the timeline of a YouTube video to find the spot that you want to share. Bookmark It lets you add timestamped bookmarks and notes to the timeline of a video. video www.freetech4teachers.com/
PlayPosit – An interactive video and assessment tool that allows teachers to add formative assessment features (pauses and questions) to survey what students know about the topic. Teachers choose from a library of video content from popular sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and others.
WeVideo Cloud based video editing tool that allows students and teachers to get creative. Students could have fun responding to some of learning tasks as a video and can collaborate with peers on projects. WeVideo have also recently introduced screencasting.
Tools to show YouTube videos without displaying the "related" content that appears next to and below videos on YouTube. The first two tools that came to mind were Watchkin and SafeShare.tv. Another option is to put the video into Google Slides or PowerPoint to display. And a fourth option is to use the browser extension called Quietube. Tutorial short video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Explore is a recently released app that will help you tap into the functional potential of Chromebooks. This is a built-in app that acts as "your compass for navigating your Chromebook. It's an evolved form of Get Help". Explore will help you learn more about the embedded features and functionalities in your Chromebook. You will get access to tutorials, visual guides, answers to frequently asked questions, how-to guides and several other helpful resources.
Virtual Classrooms
Google Classroom
- Google Classroom Cheat Sheets for Teachers and Students
- Google Meet Teacher Center
- Easy To Copy ALL The Google Classroom Assignments From A Previous Year At One Time The instructions from Google on how to do it are here. Basically, you click on the three dots and then click on “copy”. It doesn’t copy student work. It also doesn’t seem to copy materials, which is unfortunate.
- 5 Chrome Extensions that Make Google Classroom Even More Awesome!
- Create and use comment banks for delivering feedback. You can do that in Google Classroom by following these directions. www.freetech4teachhers.com
Google Classroom Templates Google provides you with lots of great options for customizing your Google Classroom, but if you are tired of the same options, Canva has you covered. They have a whole collection of templates that you can use to customize your Google Classroom header image. This is a great way to add some personality to your class and also to personalize it so that it better meets the kind of class you teach.
- New Google Classroom and Google Meet Updates to Note | more Google Meet New Features | ç
- More New Feature updates 2021 Classroom add-ons | Set up classes in advance with SIS roster syncing | Track student engagement | Offline workc| Originality reports in new languages
- Smart Chips in Google Docs- A New Way to Hyperlink Documents
- How to Assign group work in Google Classroom | How to create Google Meet breakout rooms for differentiated learning Check out the Help
- How to Make Sure Students Aren't Unsupervised in Google Meet Video Calls www.freetech4teachers.com
Center for more details |Google Meet help videos - Currently 21 videos total | Google Classroom help videos - Currently 11 videos total Classroom Add-ons - Google's Teach from Home is a resource you to keep handy. It features a wide variety of materials, tools, and guides to "help teachers and families manage and support children's use of technology".
- 5 Time-Efficient Ways of Adding Feedback in Google Classroom
- How to Poll Your Students in Google Meet
- Using Originality Reports in Google Classroom - How you and your students can check their writing for possible plagiarism and needed citations. With Originality Reports in Google Classroom, You can compare their written work against billions of webpages and millions of books to identify possible areas of plagiarism or passages that may need proper citation. This can help students catch problems before they submit their work, and allow you to easily check student writing while grading.
- 5 Google Classroom Tips You Might Have Overlooked The following slideshow highlights some helpful little features that might have been overlooked or forgotten about. Featured in the slideshow: Posting announcements to multiple classrooms at the same time. | Scheduling announcements to appear at a later date. | Creating topics to organize assignments. | Scheduling assignments. | Using Google Classroom to send bulk email to students and parents.
- 20 tips to use Google Classroom effectively and efficiently
- ADD-ON for Google Classroom
*Share to Classroom Need to get everyone on the same page? Use this add-on to push web pages to any of your Google Classrooms. This makes it easy for you to share content (e.g. announcements, assignments, web pages) with them. Students can also use this add-on to share websites back to their teachers.
* Online Rubric is a Google Sheets add-on to create rubrics. It's a good add-on for those who use Google Sheets but might not use Google Classroom. Those who do use Google Classroom can create within Google Classroom. This short video explains that process. www,freetech4teachers.com - 10 Google Classroom time savers for teachers
- Differentiate Assignments and Discussions
- 30 Ways to Arrange Students for Group work
- Three Tips to Make better Google Classroom Assignments Details on Break out Emojis!, Don't get too attached! and Screencast to save your voice and hair!. Also students to make a copy of a Google Doc
- How to Create Timed Quizzes in Google Classroom
- The process of uploading folders into Google Drive is a straight-forward one. In the following video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Google Classroom Help Videos - Blog post link with all the videos
- Tutorial: Connecting Google Classroom To Your Calendar So Students Can Make Appointments
- Video Series: How to Use Google Classroom - 9 short videos on using Google Classroom for instruction and more.
- ️ Video Series: How to Use Google Hangouts Meet - 13 short videos on using Google Meet for video conferencing with students and more!
- The Google Chat Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Google Hangouts Meet, Chat, and More)
- How to Create and Use a Digital Sign-out Sheet in Google Classroom to keep much better records of when students leave your classroom use a Google Form posted as a material in Google Classroom. video www.freetech4teachers.com
- 6 End-Of-Year Google Classroom Clean-up Tips - Helpful steps to close out your current Google Classrooms and be prepared for a fresh start next school year!
- Video demonstrates how to distribute
- Google Drive Collaborative Features to Help Your Virtual Teaching - Send a comment to a specific person, Transfer ownership of a file, Chat with others, Enable or limit what others can do with your shared, and Share multiple files
- Dedicated Question Space in Google Classroom A best practice in many online courses is to have a dedicated space for students to ask questions and receive responses. It may be helpful to have a discussion question designed for students to ask your questions and where you can provide feedback. Often if one student is confused, there are often other students with similar questions. This dedicated question space can also benefit students who are too shy to ask, because they are able to see your responses to other students. video tutorial | Question Guide
- Apps That Integrate. With Google Classroom
- Google Classroom Quick Tip: Use Private Comments for Reflection
- How to Share Your Videos in Google Classroom - With and Without YouTube
- How to Share Audio and Video in Google Classroom Without YouTube or SoundCloud
- Aww now has Google Classroom integration. This will allow your students to collaborate on a board that works on any device. You can use Aww without an account, which is nice, but there are some advantages to having an account, including using Google Classroom.
- Video to demonstrate how Google Classroom assignments look to students.
- How to Use Kahoot in Google Classroom
Google Meet
- Complete Guide to Google Meet Tools **Tips to keep kids on task in breakout rooms
- New Google Classroom and Google Meet Updates to Note
- Q&A feature in Google Meet is a useful way for your attendees to be able to submit questions and vote on which questions are most important to them. It also allows you an easy way to keep track of the questions, see what is most popular, and then check off the questions as you work through them in your session. The official Q&A feature is only available for people who are using the Enterprise version of the Google suite of tools. If your school does not pay for the Google tools it is not available.
- Google Meet Add-Ons and Updates – Explore a few Chrome extensions that can improve your Google Meet experience, especially for classroom learning.
- How toMonitor Breakout Rooms
- Teaching ideas for breakout rooms
- Five Ideas for Online Breakout Room Activities www.freetech4teachers.com
- Google Meet Add-Ons and Updates A few Chrome extensions can improve your Google Meet experience, especially for classroom learning.
- How to Annotate Your Screen in Google Meet The way to do that is to use a free Chrome extension called Annotate Meet. Annotate Meet lets you draw on top of any tab or window that you share during a Google Meet. Annotate Meet will let you save your drawings as image files. So if you were using Annotate Meet to conduct a math lesson you could save all of your work as an image that you then share with your students in Google Classroom. video a short demonstration of how to use Annotate Meet.
- 🎯Draw or Type on Your Screen in Google Meet Annotate Meet is a Chrome extension that lets you draw on your screen during a Google Meet call. Annotate Meet provides you with a small set of tools that you can use to draw or type on your screen while hosting a Google Meet. To use the extension simply start a Google Meet then share your screen. www.freettech4teachers.com
- CaptionSaver Pro for Google Meet Chrome extension that does two important things for Google Meet users. First, it will automatically turn on captions when you start or join a Google Meet call. Second, it will automatically create a text file containing the captions. That text file can then be downloaded to your computer or sent to your Google Drive. The free version of CaptionSaver Pro for Google Meet will capture the transcript of the captions and then you have to manually save the transcript. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Background blurring and New Meeting Controls With background blurring enabled everything behind me is blurred. With the meeting controls I can specify whether or not students can screen share and whether or not they can use the chat function during a meeting. video tutorials www.freetech4teachers.com
- Here is how to create and moderate polls in Google Meet as explained in Meet Help center Also see the edu-pal below
- Quickly Create Polls and Quizzes in Google Meet With Edu-pal Provides an easy way to quickly create multiple choice, true/false, and free response questions to distribute to your students to answer during a Google Meet call. You can create your question at anytime during your call by simply selecting it from the Edu-pal menu that appears in your Google Meet when you have the extension activated. Students receive a notification in Google Meet that you've posted a question for them to answer. You can see their answers in real-time in Google Meet.
For Edu-pal to work you and your students need to have it installed in Chrome. And it will only work if when using the browser version of Google Meet and not the Google Meet mobile apps. - Tactiq is a new Google Chrome extension that lets you record the captions generated by the automatic captioning tool in Google Meet. You can use it to record and save all captions or select just some captions to save. When the conversation in Google Meet is over, you can save the captions as a text file on your computer or in Google Drive. video tutorial
- 7 New Google Meet Features for Teachers. and 5 newer features www.freetech4teachers.com
* The latest control option (9/8/20) added to Google Meet lets teachers specify whether or not students can share their screens and whether or not students can use the chat function in a Google Meet. The default will still be that students can share their screens, but you'll now be able to disable that option at the start of your Google Meet events
* Google Adds Another Control for Teachers Using Google Meet Google announced the launch of another meeting control for teachers using Google Meet.The latest update to Google Meet introduces a feature that Google is calling Quick Access. This feature will let students within your G Suite for Education domain join a Google Meet without "knocking" first. Fortunately, Google is giving teachers the option to turn off the Quick Access feature. The Quick Access feature for Google Meet can be turned off or on for every meeting that you host. - Grid view option in Google Classroom without having to use a Chrome extension. That wish is starting to be granted. In Google Meet there is now an option to display all meeting participants in a grid view. The grid can be up to a 7x7 display. Enabling the grid view in Google Meet is super easy. All you have to do is start your Google Meet then once people have joined you can open the "more options" menu in the bottom, right corner of your screen to change the layout. In the layout options you'll see a grid. Watch short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- Kahoot games through Google Classroom and how students can play those games right from the Announcements stream in Google Classroom.. www.freetech4teachers.com | How to use Kahoot with Google Classroom and Google Meet
- Google has now made it easier to post Google Meet links in Google Classroom. In fact, now you can now have a Google Meet link permanently assigned to each of your classrooms with Google Classroom. This means that you can have the same meeting link for an entire semester or year. I like this because no longer have to worry about remembering to post the link for each online meeting that I have with my students. Instead, we now have the same link for every meeting and I just need to post a quick reminder for my students to join the meeting at our regular meeting times. You can find the new Google Meet and Google Classroom integration in the settings in each of your Google Classrooms. Remember that if you have more than one classroom you will have a different Meet link for each of those classrooms. In the following video learn how to activate the new Google Meet and Google Classroom integration. www,freetech4teachers.com Google Meet Help Videos - Blog post link with all the videos | Google Meet, including its new Google Classroom integration www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet
- How to Schedule, Host, and Customize Google Hangouts Meet Events. www,freetech4teachers.com
- How Can I Use This Tool? You could easily use this tool live through Google Meet or through a recorded screencast. You can easily share your Jamboard with students, much like a Google Doc or Slideshow, to make it collaborative too
- Choose Your Own Adventure Jamboard idea from Julia Dweck (@GiftedTawk on Twitter) Check out her example choose your own adventure story here.
Whiteboards
- 🎯Whiteboard Chat Create collaborative whiteboards to use with your students. It is possible to use Whiteboard Chat without an email address which makes it quick and easy to get started. There are two ways to use Whiteboard Chat. The first is to create one whiteboard that you share with all of your students. The second option is to create individual whiteboards for each student to use that you can also observe. To get started with Whiteboard Chat simply head to the site and click on the big "Start Drawing" button. Next you have the choice of "start collaborating" or "start teaching." The "start collaborating" option will launch a single whiteboard that you can invite your students to join. The "start teaching" option will launch an instructor whiteboard plus a grid of individual whiteboards that you can share with your students. When you use that option each student has his/her own whiteboard to draw on that you can also observe from your computer. Also includes polls, Templates for flowcharts and mind maps, Virtual math manipulatives, Recording audio and video notes to add to whiteboards, Inclusion of Microsoft's Immersive Reader to provide read-aloud capabilities. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Make a Whiteboard Video in Flipgrid
Flipgrid has an option for creating whiteboard videos. That feature lets you start video using just your webcam then transition into using a built-in whiteboard function to teach a lesson. This feature has also been integrated into the Flipgrid video tools that are available in Wakelet. video Wakelet video www.freetech4teachers.com - Split Screen Videos in Flipgrid A slight relocation of the whiteboard recording tool. At the same time a new whiteboard option was added. That option is to have a split screen while recording your whiteboard videos in Flipgrid. This option allows you to display your webcam on half of your screen while the other half is used as a whiteboard. But it doesn't have to be a 50/50 split. You can choose how you want to divide your screen. You can see how that's done by watching this short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- 🎯Math Whiteboard is a fabulous, free, collaborative tool designed specifically for math education. It allows the teacher, who shares a link to a collaborative board, to see the work of every student at one time. You can import PDFs for students to work on and annotate, use the included graphing calculator, take advantage of the powerful Computer Algebra System that allows for calculations from arithmetic to calculus, and write or type math formulas and numbers.
- 🎯Lucidspark A collaborative whiteboard tool from the makers of the popular Lucidchart service. It contains tools for placing pre-made shapes, drawing with a pen tool, and adding text to the screen. There is a wide array of color options for all of the elements that you add to your whiteboard in Lucidspark. There are two elements of Lucidspark that differentiate it from some of its competitors. First, Lucidspark offers a large gallery of templates that you can apply to your whiteboard. That gallery includes templates for things like concept maps, flowcharts, empathy maps, and story maps. The sharing menu is the other area in which Lucidspark separates itself from some of its competitors. The sharing options in Lucidspark will remind many people of the options found in Google Docs. You can share your Lucidspark pages as "view only," "comment only," and "edit." You can send collaboration invitations via email or by simply posting a link in your LMS. Here's a video overview of Lucidspark www.freetech4teachers.com
- 🎯Whiteboard Fi With Whiteboard Fi you create an online whiteboard for your students to use to draw and type on. After they finish their drawings a submit button lets them send you their finished work, also you see them working in real time. Students don't need an account to use Whiteboard Fi. They simply go to the URL assigned to the whiteboard. You see all of your students' work on one page. Here's a little video overview of the service. www.freetech4teachers.com | Another video how to work with Whiteboard FI | With the combination of Google Meet and Whiteboard Fi you could see all of your students' whiteboards at the same time. In this video it demonstrates how that process can work.
- Whiteboards Good For Collaboration - Miro-a design thinking toolkit and real time collaboration ConceptBoard Capture ideas, brainstorm, create moodboards, plan initiatives, and map out strategies.
- Aww This will allow your students to collaborate on a board that works on any device. You can use Aww without an account, which is nice, but there are some advantages to having an account, including using Google Classroom. It has the capabilities of drawing and writing text. Now has Google Classroom integration.
- Jamboard Jamboard It is a free web application that you can use as an interactive whiteboard. You can access Jamboard through the Apps launcher, visiting Jamboard.google.com, or accessing the iOS or Android App. With a simplistic interface,
- Users have a variety of tools at their disposal, such as:Pen, marker, highlighter tool, eraser, Virtual post-it notes (much like Padlet), Upload images. Laser pointer, announced that Jamboard is now integrated into Google Meet. | Video What makes it different? Knowing that can help you use it effectively. | How to Duplicate and Sort Jamboards www.freetech4teachers.com | weekly exit ticket for Jamboard
- See Think Wonder and Jamboard Based on work done by the Project Zero people over at Harvard Grad School of Education, the See Think Wonder strategy is one of those all purpose thinking routines that can be use across grade levels and content areas. The beauty of STW is that it encourages students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations. And when paired with Jamboard, it can stimulate curiosity and help set the stage for more inquiry. You can find numerous examples online. A simple Google search will connect you with everything from the original Project Zero Thinking Routines page to Teacher Pay Teacher pages. Or you can just stick with this one
🎯Five Jamboard Features You Should Know How to Use Video Tutorial 1. How to use version history in Jamboard and how to name versions. 2. How to quickly duplicate objects and why that's helpful. 3. How to export Jamboards as PDFs. 4. How to set custom backgrounds in Jamboard. 5. How to create and distribute Jamboard templates.
🎯Secondary Jamboard Templates
🎯How to Use Jambord & Screencastify to Make Whiteboard Videos www.freetech4teachers.com
🎯How to Make Whiteboard Videos With Loom & Jamboard www.freetech4teachers.com
🎯How to add Venn diagrams, number lines, maps and more images for students to interact with in Jamboard
🎯Collaboration with Jamboard includes templates
🎯How to Make Jamboard Templates
🎯Map Labeling Activities
I like to use Jamboard to create templates for activities for students to complete. Last summer I made a mapping template to show a colleague how Jamboard can be used in a geography lesson. The process for using Jamboard to create mapping activities can be seen in this video. www.freetech4teachers.com
🎯Philosphical Chairs
The idea is to have students move their avatars around the Jamboard to indicate their positions on a given discussion topic. Here's a video explanation of how the activity works. www.freetech4teachers.com
***Version History and sticky Notes in Jamboard work around
***Choice Board with Jamboard make a copy clock on choices to edit. Student drags his/her choice to select
- How Can I Use This Tool? You could easily use this tool live through Google Meet or through a recorded screencast. You can easily share your Jamboard with students, much like a Google Doc or Slideshow, to make it collaborative too
- How to create a Jamboard. (video
- Getting started with Google Jamboard (video)
- Google Jamboard is my Jam (video)
- Adding a picture in the background (video) good for worksheets and image labeling
- 20+ Tips for using Jamboard (goes beyond Math
- Using Jamboard to get students doing math together (video)
- Make a Game with Google Jamboard (video)
- List Of The Best Resources For Using Google Jamboards With English Language Learners
- Interactive Activities with templates
- Choose Your Own Adventure Jamboard idea from Julia Dweck (@GiftedTawk on Twitter) Check out her example choose your own adventure story here.
- 10 Jamboard Templates for Distance Learning
- Ultimate Collection of Jamboard Templates
***Use Jamboard & Screencastify to Make Whiteboard Videos
- Microsoft Whiteboard is a digital smartboard that allows you to bring your ideas to fruition through a wide variety of expressive forms. You can sketch, draw, write and share your ideas using both pen and touch. Its intuitive freeform canvas enables you to sketch and draw smoothly as you would with ink and through the app's in-built inking technology your drawings and tables are automatically transformed into well-structured creations. Besides drawing and sketching, you can also type out your ideas and add sticky notes and images to bring them to life. Everything you create is saved to the cloud allowing you unlimited access wherever you are. Microsoft Whiteboard's collaborative feature is particularly ideal for distance education and for team projects. You can use it to work on the same canvas with your colleagues and in real time. You can add comments, edit each other's creation, and exchange ideas with one another. Watch the video below to learn more about Microsoft Whiteboard
- Make a Whiteboard Video in Seesaw Seesaw offers a recording tool that you can use to draw and talk at the same time. To do this just create a new announcement or assignment then select the "draw" option when attaching an item. In "draw" you'll find a microphone icon that you can click to start recording while drawing. The recording and drawing will sync together. Students can watch the recording in their Seesaw accounts. www.freetech4teachers.com
Zoom
How to Use Zoom | Here's how to get started with Zoom. | more getting started tutorial video turtorial
- How to Teach with Zoom
- 4 New Zoom Features Educators Can Use to Enhance Virtual Teaching & Learning - virtual seating chart, Better support deaf & hard-of-hearing students, Enhance select presenters and group work, and More easily manage unmuting Video tutorials
- How to Teach remotely with Zoom video
- Teaching ideas for breakout rooms
- How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet | Think Pair Share Jamboard Template for Remote Learning | FREE collaborative templates for pairs and small groups!
- The techniques to maximize the impact of using breakout rooms in Zoom. I found out some quite interesting things. | Zoom Breakout Rooms Video | Breakout Discussion Template
- How to Save Zoom Meeting Annotations
- Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom A free iPhone and iPad app called Overviewer. Overviewer is a free app that lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a document camera during a Zoom meeting. The app essentially mirrors your iPhone or iPad camera into Zoom via Airplay or Lightning Bolt cable. Here's an overview www.freetech4teachers.com
- Five Ideas for Online Breakout Room Activities www.freetech4teachers.com
*Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room - How to Improve Audio Playback from Videos in Zoom To improve the quality of the audio when playing a video in a Zoom meeting you need to enable the option to share computer sound. By doing that you'll be broadcasting the audio as it comes out of the video instead of broadcasting the audio that is picked up by your external microphone. Making that switch can eliminate some of the echo and distortion that can occur when sharing a video in Zoom. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
- 10 Golden Rules When Teaching with Zoom If you are teaching with Zoom, you will find this useful. It goes through 10 key things you must understand about the way Zoom works. This video will save you lots of heartache and covers some of the most common problems when using Zoom.
- How Google Docs works with Zoom
This is a video if you want to add more variety when teaching online. It focuses on the use of Google Docs and it includes some tricks and tips that will really help you when teaching. The video includes real examples. - Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
- How to Share Your iPhone or iPad Screen in a Zoom Meeting
- How to use the Whiteboard in Zoom | Video tutorial You may want to record the whiteboard session so students can revisit an explanation with a narration. Or use a third party whiteboard that records just the whiteboard session
- 25 Strategies to Engage Students on Your Next Zoom Meeting
- 10 Easy Games For Online Zoom Classes K - 5
- Record yourself giving a lecture using FREE Zoom
- Virtual Backgrounds:
This is an option available to Mac, Windows, and some Chromebook users. This option allows you to place any picture of your choosing in place of the background that is in your default webcam view. It’s possible to use the virtual background as a means for making a green screen video. Here’s a video on how to make a green screen video with Zoom. www.freetech4teachers.com - Create Green Screen Video With Zoom Zoom's desktop client has an option to replace your background with any picture that you want to upload to your Zoom account. The video shows how to edit the video in Spark, but you can use other video editing programs also. Video www.freetech4teachers.com
More Virtual ClassroomTools
- Using YouTube to Share Lessons? - Settings and Tools You Need to Know About
- Wakelet A curation tool that allows you to save, organize, tell stories, and share content from around the web. Wakelet has recently a new resource called Templates where you can access a wide variety of useful pre-made templates to help you organize and share online content. There are Newsletter templates to help you share information with your students and colleagues, lesson plan templates.,Ice Breaker templates to use to initiate discussions with students, entry and exit ticket templates, distance learning templates, portfolio and resumes templates, personal activities templates, clubs templates (e.g., book club, book review), and many more. There is also a collection of templates created for students that includes templates for recording class notes, creating task lists, and another one for syllabus information. Crash Course on Creating a Wakelet Collection
🎯Wakelet added a new feature that let's you quickly give feedback to your students and for students to give feedback to each other. That new feature is called Reactions. With Wakelet Reactions you and your students can give feedback in the forms of thumbs-up emojis, smiles, similar positive reactions. www.freetech4teachers.com - Creating Mini-Courses - below
- Learnie is a free learning tool for teachers to create and share mini-courses. You can use this mini-course format for prework before a lesson, or even alongside simple assessments to help students review content. The high-quality interface mirrors other course creation tools, and students can move around the app to access a variety of content.Once students have finished moving through a mini-course, they can share the completed status over email, text, or even copy and paste into a Learning Management System (LMS) you already use. accesss with a mobile app or on the web.
- Microsoft Teams. See the videos on Mike Tholfsen's YouTube channel.
- Know Lounge is a complementary service to the Know Recorder app. Know Lounge lets you create an online room in which you can host tutoring sessions and record videos. The video demonstrates how to use Know Lounge as teacher. video tutorial. Know Lounge now includes a quiz function. You can create a quiz and have students take it during a live session. The results of the quiz can be shared with students or you can keep them private. The quiz function could be helpful in determining whether or not you need to reteach a topic.
- CurrikiGo lets you publish your interactive learning playlists, units, courses directly to custom micro-sites and LMSs in one step!
Templates
How to create classroom templates in Google Docs and Slides -- Creating templates with digital documents and slide presentation tools is easy. This post gets you started.
2 Learning Profile Templates to Help on the Personalized Learning Journey
Whether you are teaching face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid situation next school year, it is important to get to know our student's needs.Think of students as your customer. Why do they need me? I don't just teach a subject, but I serve as a guide to helping them learn and achieve goals. I might be a quick exit on their educational journey, but my actions could have long-lasting benefits or consequences in their lives. Personalizing learning can be difficult if you do not have an accurate understanding of your student's abilities and challenges; therefore, a learning profile could be a great strategy for getting to know your students better. Here are two examples of profiles that I have made for secondary students, which could easily be adapted to the elementary and middle school classrooms.
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
The social media reply template Using social media isn't just fun. It's a communication skill. This social media reply template lets students practice posting and replying in an app they can use -- Google Slides! Plus, they can show you what they've learned through their post. In this post, you can copy/download the template to use with your students. Follow step-by-step instructions. Get ideas for using it. I even share secrets about how I made it!
Read: A social media reply Google Slides template for digital citizenship
12 social media-inspired Google Slides templatesSince we're talking about making class feel like social media These templates are some of my favorites! Create learning activities that feel like social media that use a tool that students have access to: Google Slides! Check out -- and download/copy -- these templates!
How to Create a Google Slides Template directions for creating and editing master slides in Google Slides. A follow-up question regarding using those edited master slides as a template for other presentations. If you're using Google Slides in a G Suite for Education Google Workspaces for Education account, there is a fairly easy way to turn your master slides into a template for you and your students to use and re-use. This video demonstrates how that process works to create a Google Slides template.www.freetech4teachers.com
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Game Templates Family Feud, SnapChat, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? ...
Copy Docs Classes Create copies of documents per group. Make a copy of the template and list each group name on first sheet. Use the "Create Copies" menu to select a file in your Google Drive to copy.
Behavior/Incentive Tracker Templates that can be used individually or as a class. Use these tracker templates to gradually progress your students towards a common goal throughout the day.
More Interactive slides for all content areas K - 8
10 Jamboard Templates for Distance Learning
Breakout Discussion Template
Google Classroom Templates Google provides you with lots of great options for customizing your Google Classroom, but if you are tired of the same options, Canva has you covered. They have a whole collection of templates that you can use to customize your Google Classroom header image. This is a great way to add some personality to your class and also to personalize it so that it better meets the kind of class you teach.
Slidesgo offers a wide variety of free Google Slides and PowerPoint templates to use in your presentations. It also allows you to customize these templates the way you want. The category Education is interesting. There are thesis defense templates, workshop templates, school templates and lesson templates.
50 FREE Templates for Teachers -- You can make a copy of any of these templates and assign them to your students right away.
Displaying Student Assignment Slide Template Displaying student work on the walls of our classroom. Not really plausible when your classroom is a Zoom meeting. But it's not impossible! Virtual art gallery that you can use to create a curated space for your students artwork, videos, written products etc.... Watch this video to learn how you can quickly and easily create a virtual gallery of your students' work.
Book Creator app and website has recently introduced a new interesting feature called templates to help teachers and students design professional looking books in few easy steps. There are now two forms of books on Book Creator: template books and theme books.
Virtual Station Rotation Slide Template
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Station Rotations, here is a template created by Stephanie DeMichele. It can be downloaded for either Google Slides or PowerPoint and includes a spot where you can add an audio message to your students.
Three Secrets to a Successful Station Rotation
Need to Know Template It contains three different components: What Do I Already Know? This is a great way for students to begin thinking about what they already know about a topic. Connecting background knowledge is a great way for students to connect with their topic. What Do I Need to Know? The following section helps students develop questions on what they need to know about their topic. I love including the 5 W's and How questions.What Do You Need to Know? This portion helps students think about their audience as they construct and organize their essay. Students organize their information in a hamburger-type organizer.
Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. Also math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.
Wakelet has recently a new resource called Templates where you can access a wide variety of useful pre-made templates to help you organize and share online content. There are Newsletter templates to help you share information with your students and colleagues, lesson plan templates.,Ice Breaker templates to use to initiate discussions with students, entry and exit ticket templates, distance learning templates, portfolio and resumes templates, personal activities templates, clubs templates (e.g., book club, book review), and many more. There is also a collection of templates created for students that includes templates for recording class notes, creating task lists, and another one for syllabus information.
Digital Notebooks are the most popular tool on slidesmania.com. ● To customize tabs ○ Click Edit > Find and Replace ○ Find: Topic A ○ Replace with: Your Title ● How to Lock Content in Google Slides
Slides Toolbox Lets you to cut the clicks on repeated tasks and brings features for organizing and unifying data in Google Slides.’
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment. This add-on works just like our Google Sheets and Docs add-ons.
Paletti Color your slides at the click of a button! Inspiring colour palettes to save and edit or create your own. 200 palettes are preloaded and ready to use courtesy of COLOURLovers.com.’
Creating Visual Arguments with Google Slides: https://tinyurl.com/y457r66p
Matrix Charts for Powerpoint and Slides "...are designed to present interactions between two or more variables. Basically, they are tables made up of columns and rows that show information and crosstabulation results. The aim, of course, is to simplify the visualization of data that can be sometimes difficult to illustrate and explain."
Meme Students create meme’s to demonstrate their learning.
Recording and Inserting Audio Slide Template How to record audio and save it right in your google drive Insert the audio into your digital learning path Have your students respond to you verbally Make your emails to your parents quicker and more personalized.
Google Slides icon boards for low-prep, visual thinking more Icons at The Noun Project
Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room
Formative Assessment Templates for Teachers Pear Deck add-on for Google Slides provides you with a collection of pre-designed templates you can choose from to create formative assessments and engage your students in interactive learning experiences. You can choose from templates that embed activities for the start of a lesson or activities to check your students understanding during a lesson. And if you want to create an exit ticket at the end of the lesson, Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom
Hyperdocs – A Hyperdoc infuses two key components: Hyperlinks and Google Docs. (Infographic) Hyperdocs are an interactive Google Doc and provide teachers with a way of presenting information to students in a fun and engaging way. They replace the standard, passive worksheet model of instruction and increase student agency. HyperDocs are much more than Google Docs that contain hyperlinks. They are carefully crafted activities that includes all of the components of the lesson in one central location.I would also encourage you to take the time to visit the Hyperdocs online platform and browse the different templates for different subjects and situations. The process of creating a Hyperdoc is straightforward and really quite easy to follow.
Cyber Sandwich Similar to the Think Pair Share strategy but with technology guidance
Wizer Having the ability to customize a formative assessment based on a student’s learner profile without that being obvious to all students makes differentiation easier. In my opinion, only one tool does this. Because it is deceptively simple, it’s easy to not understand the complexity of this tool. Wizer is a Swiss Army knife for teaching. The creators call it a “digital worksheet” tool, but that gives too much credit to paper worksheets—this is one of the best online differentiation tools out there. It allows teachers to add video, audio, and images to interactive worksheets, making them very accessible to all students. Wizer is simple to use, and other teachers’ digital worksheets are available as well. During quarantine, I interviewed the CEO, Nira Mayorchik Sheleg, and recorded a tutorial with her. I think this free tool is a must-use, although some teachers say it is targeted to younger students.
SlidesGo, SlidesMania, and SlidesCarnival These are slide template websites. Each has dozens of beautifully designed Google Slides and PowerPoint templates that are FREE to download and use.
Slides presentation templates For Google Docs and click to expand the template gallery. Scroll down and search for the titles cited above or browse through the collections there for inspiration.Google Docs templates that teachers and students can use for a wide variety of purposes. The purpose is to empower you with resources that can make a difference in your overall productivity and add value to your work.
20 free Google Slides and PowerPoint themes for teachers -- SlidesMania creates templates and themes for Google Slides and PowerPoint. Check out 20 of their most useful templates for the classroom -- *plus lesson ideas you can use for each one. | In the Education collection you will find the following templates: Notebook style, Manipulatives, Yearly/Weekly planners, and Choice boards and games. | By Edu for Edu' collection to access templates designed by educators.
15 FREE Google Drawings graphic organizers — and how to make your own
10 Templates of Graphic Organizers
Class Twitter Have students compose their tweets on a spreadsheet. Approve and send.Class Twitter Account: How Your Students Can Tweet tinyurl.com/tweetmyclass
Twitter Chat Moderator Structure a Twitter chat and tweet from the spreadsheet to simplify the process. alicekeeler.com/tweetmod
Rock these creative Google Slides templates in class (Google Teacher Podcast)
Choice Board with Jamboard make a copy clock on choices to edit. Student drags his/her choice to select
Google Slides Interactive Notebooks +20 Activities to Fill Them
12 Social Media-Inspired Google Slides Templates
Newspaper Templates K - 8
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.com12 must have templates for teachers and students
20 ways to Ditch That Textbook in K-2 (with templates!)
Free PowerPoint & Google Slides Templates Wide collection of free PowerPoint & Google Slides templates, backgrounds, diagrams. Professional quality, exclusive designs.
30+ FREE PowerPoint education templates + how to make them
PowerPoint education templates create meaningful interactive activities for students. Find free templates and how to make your own.
20 free Google Slides and PowerPoint themes for teachers
With more than 150 free PowerPoint or Google Slides themes, you will surely find one that fits your next presentation or project. Many of these templates fit perfectly in the lessons you already teach.
2 Learning Profile Templates to Help on the Personalized Learning Journey
Whether you are teaching face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid situation next school year, it is important to get to know our student's needs.Think of students as your customer. Why do they need me? I don't just teach a subject, but I serve as a guide to helping them learn and achieve goals. I might be a quick exit on their educational journey, but my actions could have long-lasting benefits or consequences in their lives. Personalizing learning can be difficult if you do not have an accurate understanding of your student's abilities and challenges; therefore, a learning profile could be a great strategy for getting to know your students better. Here are two examples of profiles that I have made for secondary students, which could easily be adapted to the elementary and middle school classrooms.
- SWOT Analysis tool (Docs)
- Get a copy of the Learner Profile tool (Docs)
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
The social media reply template Using social media isn't just fun. It's a communication skill. This social media reply template lets students practice posting and replying in an app they can use -- Google Slides! Plus, they can show you what they've learned through their post. In this post, you can copy/download the template to use with your students. Follow step-by-step instructions. Get ideas for using it. I even share secrets about how I made it!
Read: A social media reply Google Slides template for digital citizenship
12 social media-inspired Google Slides templatesSince we're talking about making class feel like social media These templates are some of my favorites! Create learning activities that feel like social media that use a tool that students have access to: Google Slides! Check out -- and download/copy -- these templates!
How to Create a Google Slides Template directions for creating and editing master slides in Google Slides. A follow-up question regarding using those edited master slides as a template for other presentations. If you're using Google Slides in a G Suite for Education Google Workspaces for Education account, there is a fairly easy way to turn your master slides into a template for you and your students to use and re-use. This video demonstrates how that process works to create a Google Slides template.www.freetech4teachers.com
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Game Templates Family Feud, SnapChat, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? ...
Copy Docs Classes Create copies of documents per group. Make a copy of the template and list each group name on first sheet. Use the "Create Copies" menu to select a file in your Google Drive to copy.
Behavior/Incentive Tracker Templates that can be used individually or as a class. Use these tracker templates to gradually progress your students towards a common goal throughout the day.
More Interactive slides for all content areas K - 8
10 Jamboard Templates for Distance Learning
Breakout Discussion Template
Google Classroom Templates Google provides you with lots of great options for customizing your Google Classroom, but if you are tired of the same options, Canva has you covered. They have a whole collection of templates that you can use to customize your Google Classroom header image. This is a great way to add some personality to your class and also to personalize it so that it better meets the kind of class you teach.
Slidesgo offers a wide variety of free Google Slides and PowerPoint templates to use in your presentations. It also allows you to customize these templates the way you want. The category Education is interesting. There are thesis defense templates, workshop templates, school templates and lesson templates.
50 FREE Templates for Teachers -- You can make a copy of any of these templates and assign them to your students right away.
Displaying Student Assignment Slide Template Displaying student work on the walls of our classroom. Not really plausible when your classroom is a Zoom meeting. But it's not impossible! Virtual art gallery that you can use to create a curated space for your students artwork, videos, written products etc.... Watch this video to learn how you can quickly and easily create a virtual gallery of your students' work.
Book Creator app and website has recently introduced a new interesting feature called templates to help teachers and students design professional looking books in few easy steps. There are now two forms of books on Book Creator: template books and theme books.
Virtual Station Rotation Slide Template
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Station Rotations, here is a template created by Stephanie DeMichele. It can be downloaded for either Google Slides or PowerPoint and includes a spot where you can add an audio message to your students.
Three Secrets to a Successful Station Rotation
Need to Know Template It contains three different components: What Do I Already Know? This is a great way for students to begin thinking about what they already know about a topic. Connecting background knowledge is a great way for students to connect with their topic. What Do I Need to Know? The following section helps students develop questions on what they need to know about their topic. I love including the 5 W's and How questions.What Do You Need to Know? This portion helps students think about their audience as they construct and organize their essay. Students organize their information in a hamburger-type organizer.
Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. Also math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.
Wakelet has recently a new resource called Templates where you can access a wide variety of useful pre-made templates to help you organize and share online content. There are Newsletter templates to help you share information with your students and colleagues, lesson plan templates.,Ice Breaker templates to use to initiate discussions with students, entry and exit ticket templates, distance learning templates, portfolio and resumes templates, personal activities templates, clubs templates (e.g., book club, book review), and many more. There is also a collection of templates created for students that includes templates for recording class notes, creating task lists, and another one for syllabus information.
Digital Notebooks are the most popular tool on slidesmania.com. ● To customize tabs ○ Click Edit > Find and Replace ○ Find: Topic A ○ Replace with: Your Title ● How to Lock Content in Google Slides
Slides Toolbox Lets you to cut the clicks on repeated tasks and brings features for organizing and unifying data in Google Slides.’
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment. This add-on works just like our Google Sheets and Docs add-ons.
Paletti Color your slides at the click of a button! Inspiring colour palettes to save and edit or create your own. 200 palettes are preloaded and ready to use courtesy of COLOURLovers.com.’
Creating Visual Arguments with Google Slides: https://tinyurl.com/y457r66p
Matrix Charts for Powerpoint and Slides "...are designed to present interactions between two or more variables. Basically, they are tables made up of columns and rows that show information and crosstabulation results. The aim, of course, is to simplify the visualization of data that can be sometimes difficult to illustrate and explain."
Meme Students create meme’s to demonstrate their learning.
Recording and Inserting Audio Slide Template How to record audio and save it right in your google drive Insert the audio into your digital learning path Have your students respond to you verbally Make your emails to your parents quicker and more personalized.
Google Slides icon boards for low-prep, visual thinking more Icons at The Noun Project
Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room
Formative Assessment Templates for Teachers Pear Deck add-on for Google Slides provides you with a collection of pre-designed templates you can choose from to create formative assessments and engage your students in interactive learning experiences. You can choose from templates that embed activities for the start of a lesson or activities to check your students understanding during a lesson. And if you want to create an exit ticket at the end of the lesson, Pear Deck- Full Review and Ways to Use it In Classroom
Hyperdocs – A Hyperdoc infuses two key components: Hyperlinks and Google Docs. (Infographic) Hyperdocs are an interactive Google Doc and provide teachers with a way of presenting information to students in a fun and engaging way. They replace the standard, passive worksheet model of instruction and increase student agency. HyperDocs are much more than Google Docs that contain hyperlinks. They are carefully crafted activities that includes all of the components of the lesson in one central location.I would also encourage you to take the time to visit the Hyperdocs online platform and browse the different templates for different subjects and situations. The process of creating a Hyperdoc is straightforward and really quite easy to follow.
- 20+ HyperDocs tips, ideas and templates to use right away -- Get started using HyperDocs! They're very student-centered activities that your students will love.
- Click here to see an example of a HyperDoc
- The HyperDocs Toolbox: 20 engaging example activities
- How to Make a HyperDoc More Engaging with Genially
- Novel HyperDocs: 25 ready to use units for your class interactive HyperDocs filled with paired texts, engaging media and interactive activities. Scroll down the page to see the list. If you feel inspired to create your own HyperDoc using the template
- Hyperdocs Galore If you love using interactive hyperdocs with your students for greater engagement and content mastery, then you must check out this HUGE collection. The Peterson website has hundreds, if not thousands, of hyperdocs ready for you to make a copy of and start using. A long list. But you can also access them by subject area in the categories across the top of the page (and then down the right-hand side). And you’ll find the CTRL-F shortcut very useful for searching for your topic on the page.
- the free "Teachers Give Teachers" Hyperdocs gallery. Click here to learn more!
Cyber Sandwich Similar to the Think Pair Share strategy but with technology guidance
- 10+ FREE EduProtocol templates + ideas for using them -- EduProtocols are "lesson frames" ... the idea of the lesson stays the same, but the content changes. This makes them very efficient and effective. They're fun, too! Use the templates with your students.
Wizer Having the ability to customize a formative assessment based on a student’s learner profile without that being obvious to all students makes differentiation easier. In my opinion, only one tool does this. Because it is deceptively simple, it’s easy to not understand the complexity of this tool. Wizer is a Swiss Army knife for teaching. The creators call it a “digital worksheet” tool, but that gives too much credit to paper worksheets—this is one of the best online differentiation tools out there. It allows teachers to add video, audio, and images to interactive worksheets, making them very accessible to all students. Wizer is simple to use, and other teachers’ digital worksheets are available as well. During quarantine, I interviewed the CEO, Nira Mayorchik Sheleg, and recorded a tutorial with her. I think this free tool is a must-use, although some teachers say it is targeted to younger students.
SlidesGo, SlidesMania, and SlidesCarnival These are slide template websites. Each has dozens of beautifully designed Google Slides and PowerPoint templates that are FREE to download and use.
Slides presentation templates For Google Docs and click to expand the template gallery. Scroll down and search for the titles cited above or browse through the collections there for inspiration.Google Docs templates that teachers and students can use for a wide variety of purposes. The purpose is to empower you with resources that can make a difference in your overall productivity and add value to your work.
20 free Google Slides and PowerPoint themes for teachers -- SlidesMania creates templates and themes for Google Slides and PowerPoint. Check out 20 of their most useful templates for the classroom -- *plus lesson ideas you can use for each one. | In the Education collection you will find the following templates: Notebook style, Manipulatives, Yearly/Weekly planners, and Choice boards and games. | By Edu for Edu' collection to access templates designed by educators.
15 FREE Google Drawings graphic organizers — and how to make your own
10 Templates of Graphic Organizers
Class Twitter Have students compose their tweets on a spreadsheet. Approve and send.Class Twitter Account: How Your Students Can Tweet tinyurl.com/tweetmyclass
Twitter Chat Moderator Structure a Twitter chat and tweet from the spreadsheet to simplify the process. alicekeeler.com/tweetmod
Rock these creative Google Slides templates in class (Google Teacher Podcast)
Choice Board with Jamboard make a copy clock on choices to edit. Student drags his/her choice to select
Google Slides Interactive Notebooks +20 Activities to Fill Them
12 Social Media-Inspired Google Slides Templates
Newspaper Templates K - 8
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.com12 must have templates for teachers and students
20 ways to Ditch That Textbook in K-2 (with templates!)
Free PowerPoint & Google Slides Templates Wide collection of free PowerPoint & Google Slides templates, backgrounds, diagrams. Professional quality, exclusive designs.
30+ FREE PowerPoint education templates + how to make them
PowerPoint education templates create meaningful interactive activities for students. Find free templates and how to make your own.
20 free Google Slides and PowerPoint themes for teachers
With more than 150 free PowerPoint or Google Slides themes, you will surely find one that fits your next presentation or project. Many of these templates fit perfectly in the lessons you already teach.
Synchronous Collaboration and Asynchronous Chat
article “Making Online Discussions Meaningful”
Asynchronous Learning Tips for Teachers
Discussion Protocols Chart | More Discussion Protocols to help with responses
article The Pedagogy of Digital Discussion
article 30 Ways to Arrange Students for Group work
Great tips for teacher responses when teaching in online forums/discussions with a large group
TAG Framework to engage student discussions - download your own copy here!
Using chat to check for understanding: After giving lessons last spring, Paul France had his third-grade students use the Google Chat feature to ask and answer questions or type in emojis, like a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, to show whether they understood a concept. To create structure around the responses, he guided his students in creating norms around using the chat feature—they decided as a group to use only one emoji at a time, for example. France said the practice helped him check for student understanding and pushed students to engage more with the content.
Volley for asynchronous audio, video, and text discussion. Volley is kind of like Flipgrid meets Slack. You can create discussion groups in which participants can reply via video, audio, or text. The thing that I like about it is that discussions can be broken out into new directions based on how group members reply to the original discussion prompt. www.freetech4teachers.com
Flipgrid has been a go-to tool for online discussion for a few years now. The trouble that I ran into was that some kids weren’t comfortable knowing that the whole class would see their video replies to my discussion prompts. To remedy that, I created smaller subgroups that had just three to five students in them. Yes, it made a little more work for me to manage all the groups, but the benefit to students is worth it. On a related note, Flipgrid just made it a lot easier to create groups. www.freetech4teachers.com
Spaces is a digital portfolio tool that has an asynchronous breakout room capability. You can assign students to specific group Spaces to share with each other and with you. A group Spaces space is a place where students can share their work in progress and get feedback from each other as well as from their teacher. For example, last spring some of my computer science students were working on semester-long projects. I put them into group Spaces where they shared bits of their design work and bits of their programming work. They then got feedback from their classmates as well as from me in the form of video messages. www.freetech4teachers.com
Kialo Edu is a public discussion platform designed to facilitate reasoned debates about complex topics online. Its tools promote collaborative discussions, attracting millions of contributions. Kialo Edu is a version of Kialo optimized for classroom use. With clear visualization of ideas and easy to use navigation tools, Kialo is the perfect resource to promote intercollegiate collaboration, debate, and student critical thinking. tutorial
Padlet is an online bulletin board where you can display text, images, video, and more. Padlets can be embedded in blog posts. It used to be free but now there is a limit of three Padlets before you need to upgrade
Trello A collaborative tool for everything from project planning and research to class brainstorming. Easy-to-use interface makes task simple. video tutorial that covers teacher and student implementation
Vialogue is an online video with a group discussion feature. Upload a video of your own, from YouTube or one of the public videos available on Vialogue. Define the purpose of the Vialogue, provide some discussion questions, and click create to finish.
Gitmind is a free web-based tool that makes creating mindmaps and flowcharts easy to do. video
Mindmeister brainstorm graphic organizer. A nice feature is that you can access. the history of the additions to the map to see who was involved.
Answer Garden short simple brainstorming and collaboration tutorial
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Web-based Jigsaw
JigSaw Create a collaborative JigSaw activity with Google Slides
Fishbowl activities involve two groups of learners: One group is in the “Fishbowl,” while the other group is designated as “Observers.” The idea is that the Fishbowl students speak, while the Observers listen carefully and cannot respond for a specified period of time. This activity can easily be facilitated online with a threaded discussion board. To do so, divide your class into two groups, allowing group 1 (Fishbowl) to contribute the first half of the week and group 2 (Observers) to contribute the second half. Often useful for group prob.em solving
Think - Pair - Share In a remote situation it would be think, randomly group in a breakout room, and share | FREE collaborative templates for pairs and small groups!
Discussion Carousel
Group Facetime
Google Meet Backchannel Chat - Safe Secure Classroom Discussions "Backchannel Chat is a class discussion tool that was designed from the ground up to support teachers.Backchannels are great for increasing participation in classroom discussions and for informally assessing your students’ knowledge."
Mentimeter Students click on a continuum line where they stand on an issue. then they can defend their position. Good for a quick debate. Complete training in using Mentimeter There are other response capabilities also like student questions,
Parlay Teacher can organize discussion and ensure everyone participates. Can be in real time or asynchronous. A nice feature is the teacher's capability to see student notes and encourage them to participate with their ideas.
YoTeach! A multi-featured backchannel web app where teachers create and moderate chat rooms for real-time digital interaction among students. Teachers choose the Create a Room option to create searchable or private rooms. Most teachers will want to enable the admin features, which require a password to delete posts, mute students, control room access, and use the interactive features. Teachers will have to enter the password again after setting up the room in order to make these features show up during moderation.
The Queue – Free educational chat tool that mirrors Twitter and allows teachers to post questions and students to respond via the thread. Students can respond via text or video, and the tool allows “journeys” in which teachers introduce a topic via video and connect students to participating
Asynchronous Learning Tips for Teachers
Discussion Protocols Chart | More Discussion Protocols to help with responses
article The Pedagogy of Digital Discussion
article 30 Ways to Arrange Students for Group work
Great tips for teacher responses when teaching in online forums/discussions with a large group
TAG Framework to engage student discussions - download your own copy here!
Using chat to check for understanding: After giving lessons last spring, Paul France had his third-grade students use the Google Chat feature to ask and answer questions or type in emojis, like a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, to show whether they understood a concept. To create structure around the responses, he guided his students in creating norms around using the chat feature—they decided as a group to use only one emoji at a time, for example. France said the practice helped him check for student understanding and pushed students to engage more with the content.
Volley for asynchronous audio, video, and text discussion. Volley is kind of like Flipgrid meets Slack. You can create discussion groups in which participants can reply via video, audio, or text. The thing that I like about it is that discussions can be broken out into new directions based on how group members reply to the original discussion prompt. www.freetech4teachers.com
Flipgrid has been a go-to tool for online discussion for a few years now. The trouble that I ran into was that some kids weren’t comfortable knowing that the whole class would see their video replies to my discussion prompts. To remedy that, I created smaller subgroups that had just three to five students in them. Yes, it made a little more work for me to manage all the groups, but the benefit to students is worth it. On a related note, Flipgrid just made it a lot easier to create groups. www.freetech4teachers.com
Spaces is a digital portfolio tool that has an asynchronous breakout room capability. You can assign students to specific group Spaces to share with each other and with you. A group Spaces space is a place where students can share their work in progress and get feedback from each other as well as from their teacher. For example, last spring some of my computer science students were working on semester-long projects. I put them into group Spaces where they shared bits of their design work and bits of their programming work. They then got feedback from their classmates as well as from me in the form of video messages. www.freetech4teachers.com
Kialo Edu is a public discussion platform designed to facilitate reasoned debates about complex topics online. Its tools promote collaborative discussions, attracting millions of contributions. Kialo Edu is a version of Kialo optimized for classroom use. With clear visualization of ideas and easy to use navigation tools, Kialo is the perfect resource to promote intercollegiate collaboration, debate, and student critical thinking. tutorial
Padlet is an online bulletin board where you can display text, images, video, and more. Padlets can be embedded in blog posts. It used to be free but now there is a limit of three Padlets before you need to upgrade
Trello A collaborative tool for everything from project planning and research to class brainstorming. Easy-to-use interface makes task simple. video tutorial that covers teacher and student implementation
Vialogue is an online video with a group discussion feature. Upload a video of your own, from YouTube or one of the public videos available on Vialogue. Define the purpose of the Vialogue, provide some discussion questions, and click create to finish.
Gitmind is a free web-based tool that makes creating mindmaps and flowcharts easy to do. video
Mindmeister brainstorm graphic organizer. A nice feature is that you can access. the history of the additions to the map to see who was involved.
Answer Garden short simple brainstorming and collaboration tutorial
Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormersolves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. www.freetech4teachers..com
Web-based Jigsaw
JigSaw Create a collaborative JigSaw activity with Google Slides
Fishbowl activities involve two groups of learners: One group is in the “Fishbowl,” while the other group is designated as “Observers.” The idea is that the Fishbowl students speak, while the Observers listen carefully and cannot respond for a specified period of time. This activity can easily be facilitated online with a threaded discussion board. To do so, divide your class into two groups, allowing group 1 (Fishbowl) to contribute the first half of the week and group 2 (Observers) to contribute the second half. Often useful for group prob.em solving
Think - Pair - Share In a remote situation it would be think, randomly group in a breakout room, and share | FREE collaborative templates for pairs and small groups!
Discussion Carousel
Group Facetime
Google Meet Backchannel Chat - Safe Secure Classroom Discussions "Backchannel Chat is a class discussion tool that was designed from the ground up to support teachers.Backchannels are great for increasing participation in classroom discussions and for informally assessing your students’ knowledge."
Mentimeter Students click on a continuum line where they stand on an issue. then they can defend their position. Good for a quick debate. Complete training in using Mentimeter There are other response capabilities also like student questions,
Parlay Teacher can organize discussion and ensure everyone participates. Can be in real time or asynchronous. A nice feature is the teacher's capability to see student notes and encourage them to participate with their ideas.
YoTeach! A multi-featured backchannel web app where teachers create and moderate chat rooms for real-time digital interaction among students. Teachers choose the Create a Room option to create searchable or private rooms. Most teachers will want to enable the admin features, which require a password to delete posts, mute students, control room access, and use the interactive features. Teachers will have to enter the password again after setting up the room in order to make these features show up during moderation.
The Queue – Free educational chat tool that mirrors Twitter and allows teachers to post questions and students to respond via the thread. Students can respond via text or video, and the tool allows “journeys” in which teachers introduce a topic via video and connect students to participating
Screencasting
Examples of how Screencasts or Recorded Videos are Being Used:
Use the Drawing Tools in Screencastify for Chromebooks
Screencastify had already made most of their features free to teachers. Now they offer all of them for free. To record a whiteboard style video with Screencastify first open a blank white Google Slide then start recording. While recording use Screencastify's built-in drawing tools to draw over that slide while you're recording your video. Short tutorial | How to Build Questions Into Screencastify Videos | How to Blur Faces in Videos With Screencastify
🎯Screencastify Makes Video Quizzes Easier with Interactive Questions Feature -
1. Microphone settings
2. Enabling/ disabling system audio.
3. Enabling drawing tools and how to use them.
4. Highlighting cursor on click.
5. Integrating more sharing options like EDpuzzle and Wakelet. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Jamboard & Screencastify to Make Whiteboard Videos
Flipgrid Shorts A wide variety of tools to enhance screencasts. You can use whiteboard, share your screen and application. tutorial
Screencast-O-Matic | video tutorial The recording length limit on Screencast-o-matic's free plan is a generous fifteen minutes. And the cursor highlighting is fantastic. The ability to reposition the webcam cutout is also handy. www.freetech4teachers.com
RecordCast brings the functionality of Screencastify and Loom Pro, but without requiring browser add-ons or downloads. That, and its “FREE” label make it an amazing find. It has a 30-minute time limit for recordings and offers a timeline that allows you to add audio tracks and overlay text. You can also record your screen, screen and webcam, or webcam only. To use the program, you will need to create an account and verify your email.
Threadit lets you record videos with your webcam and record screencast videos. You can record multiple clips and "thread" them together as little chapters or segments in a series. The collaboration aspect is that you can invite people to join your thread and record video clips to add into the thread that you've started. Much like Google Docs, Threadit video threads can be shared with individuals or with the world at large. Threadit doesn't have the cute emojis or picture frames that Flipgrid offers. But it does offer that Flipgrid doesn't offer. The first is templates for creating threads of tutorial videos. The second is a Chrome extension that lets you record videos from your inbox. www.freetech4teachers.com
Cloud App allows you to record both your screen and your camera. Cloud App also enables you to capture your screen recording as an animated GIF. You can create GIFs that are up to 30 seconds long and share them with others through a generated link or embed them in your email or blog. Besides GIFs, Cloud App also enables you to create screenshots of your entire screen or just a portion of it. Using annotating tools, you can easily annotate your videos, GIFs and screenshots by adding lines, highlights, arrows, drawings, emojis, and text. Another useful feature of CloudApp is files 'upload and share'. You can "Upload files of any type and transform them into shareable links so you can forget the “failed to upload” error messages. Choose to protect them with a password and expiration date and keep them secure and searchable in one organized place."CloudApp will automatically upgrade your account if you're a K12 teacher or student registering with a valid educational email address. You simply need to sign up for a free account and fill out a quick prompt so it can be enabled.
Know Lounge is a complementary service to the Know Recorder app. Know Lounge lets you create an online room in which you can host tutoring sessions and record videos. The video demonstrates how to use Know Lounge as teacher. video tutorial. Know Lounge now includes a quiz function. You can create a quiz and have students take it during a live session. The results of the quiz can be shared with students or you can keep them private. The quiz function could be helpful in determining whether or not you need to reteach a topic.
Five Ways to Make Whiteboard Instructional Videos in Your Web Browser
- A video introduction or screencast for key lessons (might not be possible for all lessons).
- A screencast of whiteboard explanation
- A short welcome video each morning and/or reflection video each afternoon.
- A screencast to offer feedback on student work and progress.
- Student created screencasts to demonstrate learning.
Use the Drawing Tools in Screencastify for Chromebooks
Screencastify had already made most of their features free to teachers. Now they offer all of them for free. To record a whiteboard style video with Screencastify first open a blank white Google Slide then start recording. While recording use Screencastify's built-in drawing tools to draw over that slide while you're recording your video. Short tutorial | How to Build Questions Into Screencastify Videos | How to Blur Faces in Videos With Screencastify
- Screencastify is an excellent tool for quickly creating screencast videos. What you might not know is that you can also use Screencastify's free video editor to edit videos that you've recorded with other tools. For example, I recorded a video on my phone then transferred it to my laptop where I used Screencastify's free video editor to blur things in my video. short video www.freetech4teachers.com
🎯Screencastify Makes Video Quizzes Easier with Interactive Questions Feature -
- Interactive Questions to add multiple choice quizzes to your videos so you can assess student understanding
- And Viewer Analytics to see who has viewed your videos to track student engagement
1. Microphone settings
2. Enabling/ disabling system audio.
3. Enabling drawing tools and how to use them.
4. Highlighting cursor on click.
5. Integrating more sharing options like EDpuzzle and Wakelet. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Jamboard & Screencastify to Make Whiteboard Videos
Flipgrid Shorts A wide variety of tools to enhance screencasts. You can use whiteboard, share your screen and application. tutorial
Screencast-O-Matic | video tutorial The recording length limit on Screencast-o-matic's free plan is a generous fifteen minutes. And the cursor highlighting is fantastic. The ability to reposition the webcam cutout is also handy. www.freetech4teachers.com
RecordCast brings the functionality of Screencastify and Loom Pro, but without requiring browser add-ons or downloads. That, and its “FREE” label make it an amazing find. It has a 30-minute time limit for recordings and offers a timeline that allows you to add audio tracks and overlay text. You can also record your screen, screen and webcam, or webcam only. To use the program, you will need to create an account and verify your email.
Threadit lets you record videos with your webcam and record screencast videos. You can record multiple clips and "thread" them together as little chapters or segments in a series. The collaboration aspect is that you can invite people to join your thread and record video clips to add into the thread that you've started. Much like Google Docs, Threadit video threads can be shared with individuals or with the world at large. Threadit doesn't have the cute emojis or picture frames that Flipgrid offers. But it does offer that Flipgrid doesn't offer. The first is templates for creating threads of tutorial videos. The second is a Chrome extension that lets you record videos from your inbox. www.freetech4teachers.com
Cloud App allows you to record both your screen and your camera. Cloud App also enables you to capture your screen recording as an animated GIF. You can create GIFs that are up to 30 seconds long and share them with others through a generated link or embed them in your email or blog. Besides GIFs, Cloud App also enables you to create screenshots of your entire screen or just a portion of it. Using annotating tools, you can easily annotate your videos, GIFs and screenshots by adding lines, highlights, arrows, drawings, emojis, and text. Another useful feature of CloudApp is files 'upload and share'. You can "Upload files of any type and transform them into shareable links so you can forget the “failed to upload” error messages. Choose to protect them with a password and expiration date and keep them secure and searchable in one organized place."CloudApp will automatically upgrade your account if you're a K12 teacher or student registering with a valid educational email address. You simply need to sign up for a free account and fill out a quick prompt so it can be enabled.
Know Lounge is a complementary service to the Know Recorder app. Know Lounge lets you create an online room in which you can host tutoring sessions and record videos. The video demonstrates how to use Know Lounge as teacher. video tutorial. Know Lounge now includes a quiz function. You can create a quiz and have students take it during a live session. The results of the quiz can be shared with students or you can keep them private. The quiz function could be helpful in determining whether or not you need to reteach a topic.
Five Ways to Make Whiteboard Instructional Videos in Your Web Browser
RecordCast brings the functionality of Screencastify and Loom Pro. No browser add-ons or downloads are required. RecordCast works without a special browser add-on or extension. That, and its “FREE”. RecordCast enjoys a thirty-minute time limit for recordings. It combines the ease of use with two important factors: a timeline that allows you to add audio tracks and overlay text. You can also record your screen, screen plus webcam, or webcam only. RecordCast’s video editor shine is image import. You can import images and place them on their own track. It does not have drawing tools like some other tools. Be aware that, in order to use the program, you will need to create an account, as well as verify your email. Video tutorial (start at 1:54)
Screencastify Screen Recorder for Chrome Browser
Cross Platform Drawing
Sketchbook by Autodesk
TechSmith Capture for free to use on Windows and Mac computers. Like its predecessor Jing TechSmith Capture can be used to create screencast videos and capture screen images. www.freetech4teachers
frontcam.com/ free and pro version both have similar capabilities
WeVideo Cloud based video editing tool that allows students and teachers to get creative. Students could have fun responding to some of learning tasks as a video and can collaborate with peers on projects. WeVideo have also recently introduced screencasting.
Create Khan Academy Videos
Screencastify Screen Recorder for Chrome Browser
- Screencastify Submit lets you create an assignment for your students to complete by making videos with Screencastify. Screencastify a great way for students to send short videos to the teacher without their classmates seeing them.You can post the assignment link in Google Classroom or any other LMS and when students click the link they can instantly start recording. The ease of integration with Google Classroom and EDpuzzle is particularly nice. There are some convenient tools for drawing on your screen while recording. That function is great for emphasizing a particular item on your screen or creating a whiteboard video with Jamboard. In the free version of Screencastify's editor you can overlay text on your video.Students don't need to have the Screencastify extension installed in order to record videos via Screencastify Submit. Students' completed videos appear in a folder in your Google Drive. This video offers a good overview of the service. www.freetech4teachers.com 🎯Screencastify Makes Video Quizzes Easier with Interactive Questions Feature -
- Interactive Questions to add multiple choice quizzes to your videos so you can assess student understanding
- And Viewer Analytics to see who has viewed your videos to track student engagement
- 11-minute video walkthrough here: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2021/08/screencastify-quiz.html
- Use Screencastify with Edpuzzle
- How to Add Background Music to Screencastify Videos www.freetech4teacherscom
- Create Animated GIF's with Screencastify (Perfect for Scaffolding Instructions) "Are you noticing that your students may be skipping certain tasks because they are not fully reading your instructions? Adding animated GIF's could be a helpful idea. This may also help students who are more visual or need an additional scaffold or support for completing a task."
- 🎯Screencastify Makes Video Quizzes Easier with Interactive Questions Feature -
Interactive Questions to add multiple choice quizzes to your videos so you can assess student understanding And Viewer Analytics to see who has viewed your videos to track student engagement 11-minute video walkthrough here: https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2021/08/screencastify-quiz.html
Cross Platform Drawing
Sketchbook by Autodesk
TechSmith Capture for free to use on Windows and Mac computers. Like its predecessor Jing TechSmith Capture can be used to create screencast videos and capture screen images. www.freetech4teachers
frontcam.com/ free and pro version both have similar capabilities
WeVideo Cloud based video editing tool that allows students and teachers to get creative. Students could have fun responding to some of learning tasks as a video and can collaborate with peers on projects. WeVideo have also recently introduced screencasting.
Create Khan Academy Videos
- Create Khan Academy Style Video Tutorials with ScreenChomp an iPad app
- ShowMe iPad app
- Educreations It’s similar in its features with ScreenChomp and ShowMe, though it records a longer lesson (10 minutes)
- Smoothdraw Paint program for PC
Use a screencasting software to capture narration and the progress of the process - Krita. It works on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It's designed more for painting, but it should work just fine for this.
- Microsoft Paint should already be on your Windows PC. In the search box next to Start on the taskbar, type paint and then select Paint from the list of results.
Sticky Notes and Exit Slips
Sparkpost This app from Adobe allows teachers to add graphics and visuals to exit tickets
Fifteen Exit Ticket Questions for Almost Any Classroom www.freetech4teachers.com
10 ideas for digital exit ticket | 24 Exit Ticket Ideas
Brain dump templatesThis simple concept -- also called retrieval practice -- says that we lock things in our long-term memory when we call them out of memory to study instead of just reading notes or the textbook.
It's a big idea that Dr. Pooja Agarwal, one of the speakers you'll find in the Ditch Summit this December, has dedicated her work to. It's powerful! You can check out her educator resources at RetrievalPractice.org.
Bell Ringers, Exit Tickets & Attendance with Jamboard with templates
Padlet to add responses to ...AKA Shared wall
Jamboard Exit Ticket Template
Trello A collaborative tool for everything from project planning and research to class brainstorming. Easy-to-use interface makes task simple. video tutorial that covers teacher and student implementation
Loop lets you create an online classroom to post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. Those features alone don't make Loop different from lots of similar services. What Loop offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they were responding to a group survey. The purpose of that feature is to make it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. video tutorial www.freetech4teachers.com
Video responses Flipgrid
11 Exit Ticket Questions to Ask Students
20 End of the Year Teacher Reflection Questions to help you process all the craziness.
20 End of the Year Would You Rather Questions now includes a super cute set of google slides that you can use with your whole class. She also added a student answer page if you want to make it into a writing assignment. Or use it as an Easel Activity and have your students highlight their choices and explain their reasoning.
Fifteen Exit Ticket Questions for Almost Any Classroom www.freetech4teachers.com
10 ideas for digital exit ticket | 24 Exit Ticket Ideas
Brain dump templatesThis simple concept -- also called retrieval practice -- says that we lock things in our long-term memory when we call them out of memory to study instead of just reading notes or the textbook.
It's a big idea that Dr. Pooja Agarwal, one of the speakers you'll find in the Ditch Summit this December, has dedicated her work to. It's powerful! You can check out her educator resources at RetrievalPractice.org.
- This Google Slides brain dump template was shared online by educator Meredith Akers. It includes a great 30 seconds / 1 minute / 2 minutes protocol to get lots of student ideas!
- This Google Form brain dump template was shared online by educator Debbie Campbell. It's a quick way to gather students' brain dumps so you can see what they remember.
Bell Ringers, Exit Tickets & Attendance with Jamboard with templates
Padlet to add responses to ...AKA Shared wall
Jamboard Exit Ticket Template
Trello A collaborative tool for everything from project planning and research to class brainstorming. Easy-to-use interface makes task simple. video tutorial that covers teacher and student implementation
Loop lets you create an online classroom to post questions for your students to respond to with emojis, with words, or by selecting an answer choice. You can let your students respond anonymously or require them to identify themselves. Those features alone don't make Loop different from lots of similar services. What Loop offers that is somewhat unique is the option to respond directly to individual students even when they were responding to a group survey. The purpose of that feature is to make it easy to ask follow-up questions or to give encouragement to students based on their responses to a question posed to the whole group. video tutorial www.freetech4teachers.com
Video responses Flipgrid
11 Exit Ticket Questions to Ask Students
20 End of the Year Teacher Reflection Questions to help you process all the craziness.
20 End of the Year Would You Rather Questions now includes a super cute set of google slides that you can use with your whole class. She also added a student answer page if you want to make it into a writing assignment. Or use it as an Easel Activity and have your students highlight their choices and explain their reasoning.
Reading/Literature/Writing
Reading Skills
Read Theory is a free educational tool. Once teachers set up a class, their students instantly gain access to thousands of leveled reading passages. Teachers have the ability to set each students initial reading level, which ensures each student starts with text that is appropriate for them. As the student progresses through the program, Read Theory adapts the student's reading level. Meaning, if a student scores 90% or higher on a quiz, their reading level goes up and passages get harder. If a student scores 70-89% on a quiz, their level remains the same, thus passages remain the same. The level will decrease if the student scores 69% or less, consequently passages will decrease in difficulty. An issue may be the lack of control over topics.
Phonics Manipulatives
StarFall, Offers activities for kids in preschool through second grade and kids focusing on English language development, special education instruction, and homeschooling. They progress through four sections: letter recognition, games, stories, and animations that showcase letter sounds, short reading selections that emphasize vocabulary, and online books that provide fluency and comprehension practice. The free phonics-based site also offers a few math exercises.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comHelperbird Whether you need speech to text, text-to-speech, Opendyslexic font, highlight tools, note-taking, clutter removal, Immersive Reader, etc., this tool has all of your favorite accessibility tools rolled into one! video tutorial
An Active Reading Strategy for Classroom and Remote Learning
Immersive Reader has a distraction free interface where the focus is squarely on text. Users are able to change text size, font and increase spacing between lines, letters and words to enhance the visibility of text. Another useful feature is the Grammar Options which once activated enable students to " split words into syllables so words are easier to sound out". They also automatically highlight the selected parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs). Reading Preferences is another great tool embedded in Immersive Reader. It includes three main features: Line Focus (it is similar to "reading ruler that helps students reduce distractions as they scroll down the page"), a Picture Dictionary which provides graphical representations of the meanings of words in a text, and Instant Translation
Adapt digital texts to students’ reading levels by using digital platforms like
SIX WAYS THAT NEWCOMERS CAN INTERACT WITH ONLINE TEXT
Create Your Own Rebus Activities Solving a rebus puzzle can be a great learning activity for students of any age. Because it uses non-linguistic representation of familiar things, it is one of the high-effect-size strategies. And it can help with spelling and vocabulary skills as well. You can create your own rebus at this free website. The site will let you choose between using their own images or emoji characters. You can also turn on the ability for hints about some of the drawings to be shown.
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels”
Actively Learn ( gr. 4 - 12 ) An online tool with a library of thousands of texts and Common Core-aligned lessons that both teachers and students can interact with in real-time. Teachers assign pre-existing Actively Learn materials to students or upload their own content, then track student responses and activity using the company’s data tools. Students can interact with a text by digitally highlighting and annotating, responding to embedded questions and content, and leaving feedback and comments for peers.
NCTE's Resources for Online Learning: Activities, resources, and more to support online language arts instruction (grades K-12)
Free Text to Speech Reading Tools
21 kinesthetic reading activities
Classroom Inc ( gr. 7 - 12 ) Learning game programs that help struggling readers succeed by inviting them to take on the role of the boss in a professional workplace. Students develop literacy skills, including close reading, evidence-based writing and the ability to apply these skills to make informed decisions and solve authentic workplace problems. Games include offline lessons including project-based activities, literacy lessons and more.
Get Your Very Own Frayer Model Template on Jamboard The Frayer model is a popular tool for building student vocabulary. Whether you are face-to-face or in an online environment, building student vocabulary is an important aspect of learning. The Frayer model provides students with four quadrants to fill in with definitions, characteristics, and examples of a term.
Story Mentors: Focuses specifically on struggling readers, with 25 weekly lessons. Each lesson has guides and activities using common household materials (grades K-3)
Kids Friendly News Sites
FLUENCY and FITNESS LETTERS help students review essential K-2 reading topics while providing a moving break.
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Top 14 websites to download your favorite e-books for free ...
Reading Eggs Makes learning to read interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities.
Hypothesis Available as a Google Chrome browser extension, it lets users annotate publicly, and you can create private “rooms” for students. Annotating directly on a text creates what scholars call an “anchored context for conversation.” In other words, the discussion is literally anchored in the source material. If a student is struggling with vocabulary, he or she can inquire right in the text itself. Students can also enhance texts by sharing personal connections. Annotations in Hypothesis include sticky notes and highlighting, as well as options that are unique to digital, such as commenting using images, animated GIFs, or embedded videos. Students reading a poem together can react by adding images or text to a stanza, rather than on a discussion forum separate from the text. In the classroom it is often recommends “seeding the text”—adding your own conversation starters to model for students how annotative side conversations should take place. “Some people consider marking up books to be an act of love. I want my students to see some annotations when they open a text for the first time.”
Link to Text is a Chrome extension provided by Google. You can highlight a text on a web page and then create a link that you can share. When someone clicks on your link, they go to the website AND the text that you had highlighted will be highlighted for them. This is an awesome tool if you are trying to differentiate within a Google Doc or HyperDoc, but want to keep the main document simple. You can now link out to more specific information that is already highlighted for your students.
Actively Learn Promotes social reading among middle and high school students. The tool is similar to Hypothesis. Teachers upload content to the website, and students socially annotate it. Several use cases of NowComment lessons, many of which are available as playlists on the LRNG platform. One example used teacher-curated mentor texts—sets of poems from places around the country. Students read, annotate, and comment on the curated mentor text poems. “Students use these mentor texts to help them write their own poems about the places that they
NowComment is a freemium online education platform that allows students to read a book (or some other document), make comments, answer questions posed by the teacher, and even collaborate with others.
VocabBoost This extension, available for Chrome and Firefox, is designed to adapt a web page article into a quiz. VocabBoost, which is currently in beta mode, will remove various words on the page and provide a blank space in its place. The user has the option to type in the missing words or drag-and-drop from a curated list at the top. After installing the appropriate extension, you are now able to create your first test
eReading Games - highly addictive, grammar & language review games.
5 Ways You Can Use Flipgrid's New Mic Only Feature for reading and speaking
Into the Book ‘Into the Book is a reading comprehension resource for elementary students and teachers. We focus on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing.’
Boom Cards Interactive literacy activities. Capability for students to self-check their work and teacher reports. There are free and inexpensive cards. Free cards | Tutorials
Read Theory ‘Accompany your students on a journey through our vast library of reading comprehension content. ReadTheory's adaptive approach fosters improvement by automatically meeting learners at their own, individual ability levels. Signup takes seconds and no time is spent vetting assignments. Progress is shown on an intuitive report, replete with actionable, meaningful insights. Our program is completely free.
Reading Rockets Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of research-based reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. These reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.’
Phonics Manipulatives
StarFall, Offers activities for kids in preschool through second grade and kids focusing on English language development, special education instruction, and homeschooling. They progress through four sections: letter recognition, games, stories, and animations that showcase letter sounds, short reading selections that emphasize vocabulary, and online books that provide fluency and comprehension practice. The free phonics-based site also offers a few math exercises.
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comHelperbird Whether you need speech to text, text-to-speech, Opendyslexic font, highlight tools, note-taking, clutter removal, Immersive Reader, etc., this tool has all of your favorite accessibility tools rolled into one! video tutorial
An Active Reading Strategy for Classroom and Remote Learning
Immersive Reader has a distraction free interface where the focus is squarely on text. Users are able to change text size, font and increase spacing between lines, letters and words to enhance the visibility of text. Another useful feature is the Grammar Options which once activated enable students to " split words into syllables so words are easier to sound out". They also automatically highlight the selected parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs). Reading Preferences is another great tool embedded in Immersive Reader. It includes three main features: Line Focus (it is similar to "reading ruler that helps students reduce distractions as they scroll down the page"), a Picture Dictionary which provides graphical representations of the meanings of words in a text, and Instant Translation
Adapt digital texts to students’ reading levels by using digital platforms like
- Newsela select differentiated news related texts based on students’ reading levels.
- ReadWorks is a free service that provides teachers with hundreds of lesson plans and more than two thousand reading non-fiction and fiction passages aligned to Common Core standards, and you can adjust the reading levels of text. It also includes poems and question sets. Lexile scores are listed for each article along with grade levels and Common Core standards.
With a free ReadWorks account you can search for lessons and reading passages by grade level, lexile score, reading skill, subject area, and text type (fiction or non-fiction). In your ReadWorks account you can create digital binders of the lesson plans and reading passages that you want to use.
** ReadWorks announced a new offline mode for students. This allows students to download articles and assignments while connected to Wi-Fi at school and then use those materials on their laptops, phones, or tablets at places where they don't have Internet - Rewordify Text-leveling tool gives every student access to complex readings
- Reading Vine Finding good reading passages that have comprehension questions and Lexile ranges can be difficult. And finding them for free is almost impossible. Reading Vine offers supplemental reading practice that can be personalized to fit a student’s or group’s exact needs. Teachers, parents, and tutors simply choose appropriate passage text/questions as desired, and then save, download, or print it out and share with the students.” The site has reading sets and reading passages for grades K-12
- Listenwise ( gr. K - 12) makes it easy to bring authentic voices and compelling non-fiction stories to the classroom. Teach your students to Listen with the Power of Public Radio. Curates the best of public radio to keep teaching connected to the real world and build student listening skills at the same time. Vast range of solid current event info and historical stories, 3- 6 minutes, from public radio let students make genuine connections. Includes a debate stories section.
- Achieve3000 is offering free access to resources for differentiated literacy instruction. Educators and parents can sign their students up for Achieve3000 Literacy at Home, for access to non-fiction articles at three reading levels with topics covering science, social studies and current events. For students without reliable or daily internet, the company is offering "Literacy Printable Packets," a set of text sets with 20 printable articles and questions for grades 1-12.
- Bookshare With a free Bookshare membership, teachers can provide individualized support and help students to read independently. With over 925,000 titles, you will find virtually any textbook or educational material and can assign them easily and remotely. Students can then access books from home or school and listen to them read aloud, follow along with highlighted text, read in braille or large font, and more. Bookshare’s easy-to-read ebooks allows students to customize their reading experience and helps them to be more independent
- Tween Tribune find content based on current events. Allows you to search by reading level.
- CommonLit A treasure trove of non-fiction literary resources that teachers can use to build lessons that target students' reading needs. Use the robust search and filter tool to explore texts by themes. Helps to scaffold and build background knowledge on a topic. The articles are short enough to be manageable. Each article has suggestions for articles related to the same topic that I could explore and use as well. It begins with a student introduction to the article and then provides annotation tasks, which vary in difficulty based on the lexile level of the article. CommonLit also asks varied questions, such as guiding questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. You can assist struggling learners with dictionary tools, read the text aloud options, translation options, and highlight tools.
SIX WAYS THAT NEWCOMERS CAN INTERACT WITH ONLINE TEXT
Create Your Own Rebus Activities Solving a rebus puzzle can be a great learning activity for students of any age. Because it uses non-linguistic representation of familiar things, it is one of the high-effect-size strategies. And it can help with spelling and vocabulary skills as well. You can create your own rebus at this free website. The site will let you choose between using their own images or emoji characters. You can also turn on the ability for hints about some of the drawings to be shown.
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels”
Actively Learn ( gr. 4 - 12 ) An online tool with a library of thousands of texts and Common Core-aligned lessons that both teachers and students can interact with in real-time. Teachers assign pre-existing Actively Learn materials to students or upload their own content, then track student responses and activity using the company’s data tools. Students can interact with a text by digitally highlighting and annotating, responding to embedded questions and content, and leaving feedback and comments for peers.
NCTE's Resources for Online Learning: Activities, resources, and more to support online language arts instruction (grades K-12)
Free Text to Speech Reading Tools
- Immersive Reader (Microsoft)
- Dolphin Easy Reader (iOS, Android & Windows)
21 kinesthetic reading activities
Classroom Inc ( gr. 7 - 12 ) Learning game programs that help struggling readers succeed by inviting them to take on the role of the boss in a professional workplace. Students develop literacy skills, including close reading, evidence-based writing and the ability to apply these skills to make informed decisions and solve authentic workplace problems. Games include offline lessons including project-based activities, literacy lessons and more.
Get Your Very Own Frayer Model Template on Jamboard The Frayer model is a popular tool for building student vocabulary. Whether you are face-to-face or in an online environment, building student vocabulary is an important aspect of learning. The Frayer model provides students with four quadrants to fill in with definitions, characteristics, and examples of a term.
Story Mentors: Focuses specifically on struggling readers, with 25 weekly lessons. Each lesson has guides and activities using common household materials (grades K-3)
Kids Friendly News Sites
- HuffPost Teens The popular Huffington Post has this special section where it features news specifically for a young audience.
- National Geographic Kids Nat Geo Kids inspires young adventurers to explore the world through award-winning magazines, books, apps, games, toys, videos, events, and a website, and is the only kids brand with a world-class scientific organization at its core. National Geographic Kids magazine (10 issues per year) and Little Kids magazine (six issues per year) are photo-driven publications and are available on newsstands or by subscription in print and on tablets.’
- Newsela Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject…It starts with interesting articles about tons of topics—each available at 5 reading levels. Assessments are included with the articles to help readers engage with the content.’News stories adapted to different reading levels.
- News-O-Matic News-O-Matic is the first daily newspaper just for kids. It provides an exciting and engaging nonfiction experience for children, complete with valuable literacy tools for the classroom…Thanks to its unique combination of editorial and technology, News-O-Matic creates innovative solutions to help children become tomorrow’s responsible citizens. It gives young readers a window into the world — and a reason to love reading news.’
- Here There Everywhere Here There Everywhere is a news website/blog designed for elementary and older school-aged children. Its purpose is to show kids how they are connected to their world and introduce them to the people and events shaping it. It credits children with being interested in and being able to understand some of the more newsy topics (though there will be lots of the fun stuff, too!).’
FLUENCY and FITNESS LETTERS help students review essential K-2 reading topics while providing a moving break.
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Top 14 websites to download your favorite e-books for free ...
Reading Eggs Makes learning to read interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities.
Hypothesis Available as a Google Chrome browser extension, it lets users annotate publicly, and you can create private “rooms” for students. Annotating directly on a text creates what scholars call an “anchored context for conversation.” In other words, the discussion is literally anchored in the source material. If a student is struggling with vocabulary, he or she can inquire right in the text itself. Students can also enhance texts by sharing personal connections. Annotations in Hypothesis include sticky notes and highlighting, as well as options that are unique to digital, such as commenting using images, animated GIFs, or embedded videos. Students reading a poem together can react by adding images or text to a stanza, rather than on a discussion forum separate from the text. In the classroom it is often recommends “seeding the text”—adding your own conversation starters to model for students how annotative side conversations should take place. “Some people consider marking up books to be an act of love. I want my students to see some annotations when they open a text for the first time.”
Link to Text is a Chrome extension provided by Google. You can highlight a text on a web page and then create a link that you can share. When someone clicks on your link, they go to the website AND the text that you had highlighted will be highlighted for them. This is an awesome tool if you are trying to differentiate within a Google Doc or HyperDoc, but want to keep the main document simple. You can now link out to more specific information that is already highlighted for your students.
Actively Learn Promotes social reading among middle and high school students. The tool is similar to Hypothesis. Teachers upload content to the website, and students socially annotate it. Several use cases of NowComment lessons, many of which are available as playlists on the LRNG platform. One example used teacher-curated mentor texts—sets of poems from places around the country. Students read, annotate, and comment on the curated mentor text poems. “Students use these mentor texts to help them write their own poems about the places that they
NowComment is a freemium online education platform that allows students to read a book (or some other document), make comments, answer questions posed by the teacher, and even collaborate with others.
VocabBoost This extension, available for Chrome and Firefox, is designed to adapt a web page article into a quiz. VocabBoost, which is currently in beta mode, will remove various words on the page and provide a blank space in its place. The user has the option to type in the missing words or drag-and-drop from a curated list at the top. After installing the appropriate extension, you are now able to create your first test
eReading Games - highly addictive, grammar & language review games.
5 Ways You Can Use Flipgrid's New Mic Only Feature for reading and speaking
Into the Book ‘Into the Book is a reading comprehension resource for elementary students and teachers. We focus on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing.’
Boom Cards Interactive literacy activities. Capability for students to self-check their work and teacher reports. There are free and inexpensive cards. Free cards | Tutorials
Read Theory ‘Accompany your students on a journey through our vast library of reading comprehension content. ReadTheory's adaptive approach fosters improvement by automatically meeting learners at their own, individual ability levels. Signup takes seconds and no time is spent vetting assignments. Progress is shown on an intuitive report, replete with actionable, meaningful insights. Our program is completely free.
Reading Rockets Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of research-based reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. These reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.’
Literature
Story Shares Single Story: Students watch the TED Talk by Chimamanda Adichie called, Danger of a Single Story, and discuss it. They can then write a paragraph, essay or create a visual representation explaining the single stories that are told about them. Display writing or visuals in a virtual gallery.
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Read-aloud eBooks. This platform increases access to text for kids and provides an opportunity for them to read and build skills in a digital reading environment.
Play a Zoom-modified game of Guess Who using your classrooms’ favorite fictional characters—or book characters you have learned about this year.
Tar Heel Reader a collection of free, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics. Each book can be speech enabled and accessed using multiple interfaces
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Magic Blox A large and growing collection of eBooks for kids 1 to 13 years old, your children get to enjoy new books all the time from award winning authors and publishers from around the world. In addition to titles you are familiar with from traditional publishers, they also have the opportunity to discover new stories from authors they've never heard of, or try out new languages they've never seen.
Story Shares Support struggling readers with age-appropriate stories
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
EPIC Choose from more than 35,000 books, and they can read them online or offline, on the Web, or on mobile devices. Many selections are by well-known authors or from major publishers, and the collection includes Spanish/English, Chinese/English, and French/English bilingual books. Users can search books by subject, genre, or age (web version only), and some are audio or read-to-me versions where kids can follow along with highlighted words.
Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages.
Wonderopolis Informational nonfiction text that is highly engaging.
Digital libraries for kids
Building Knowledge: Free Online Read Alouds for PreK-3 Browse this curated YouTube library of various Core Knowledge Language Arts Read-Alouds by grade level
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
Literature circles or book club
Glose for Education (gr. 6-12) ."Start a virtual book club with your students, posing thoughtful questions and highlighting meaningful quotes that kids can discuss. Then teach students how to paraphrase and annotate by highlighting excerpts from books or articles, and have them practice via a discussion thread. Let students create and share their own book cards with questions or excerpts from the shared reading selection, and encourage them to react and respond to each other's cards. Support struggling writers or gauge reading fluency by asking kids to submit voice recordings -- just be aware that anyone in the class will be able to listen to them."
Novel HyperDocs: 25 ready to use units for your class interactive HyperDocs filled with paired texts, engaging media and interactive activities. Scroll down the page to see the list. If you feel inspired to create your own HyperDoc using the template
Parlay - Synchronous & asynchronous discussion platform.
Novels on Location helps readers find novels according to the story's geographical setting. When you visit Novels on Location you can find novels by clicking on the placemarks that you see or by using the location search bar in the upper, right corner of the site. If you want to contribute to Novels on Location you can do so very quickly by simply entering a location then entering the title and author of your favorite book set in that location. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comAn Ocean of Books is a Google Arts & Culture experimental site. An Ocean of Books is a concept map of authors and their books. The purpose of An Ocean of Books is to represent authors' footprints on the web and their relationships, via the web, to other authors. The size of an author's presence on the web is displayed as an island on An Ocean of Books. The authors' presences on the web isn't a reflection of social media rather it's a reflection of frequency of search and content published about them and their works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Building Knowledge: Free Online Read Alouds for PreK-3 Browse this curated YouTube library of various Core Knowledge Language Arts Read-Alouds by grade level
Hoopla & Overdrive - Access to online ebooks and audiobook with a library card.
Audible - Free audiobooks (COVID response)
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Read-aloud eBooks. This platform increases access to text for kids and provides an opportunity for them to read and build skills in a digital reading environment.
Play a Zoom-modified game of Guess Who using your classrooms’ favorite fictional characters—or book characters you have learned about this year.
Tar Heel Reader a collection of free, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics. Each book can be speech enabled and accessed using multiple interfaces
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Magic Blox A large and growing collection of eBooks for kids 1 to 13 years old, your children get to enjoy new books all the time from award winning authors and publishers from around the world. In addition to titles you are familiar with from traditional publishers, they also have the opportunity to discover new stories from authors they've never heard of, or try out new languages they've never seen.
Story Shares Support struggling readers with age-appropriate stories
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
EPIC Choose from more than 35,000 books, and they can read them online or offline, on the Web, or on mobile devices. Many selections are by well-known authors or from major publishers, and the collection includes Spanish/English, Chinese/English, and French/English bilingual books. Users can search books by subject, genre, or age (web version only), and some are audio or read-to-me versions where kids can follow along with highlighted words.
- EpicPals is a monthly, reading project that combines the use of Epic Books for Kids and Padlet. Read & respond as a whole class, use with a small group, or have students participate independently. All posts are moderated, however, we’d appreciate it if you would please work with your students to teach them how to post responsibly.
Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages.
Wonderopolis Informational nonfiction text that is highly engaging.
Digital libraries for kids
- Choosito Browse our digital library of 200,000+ sites, make a standards aligned resource collection, or track students as they search the web with enhanced reading level and subject area filters.’
- Libby puts a library's ebook and audiobook collection at users' fingertips by allowing them to use their library card to digitally borrow books. Kids can either download books, which can then be accessed offline, or they can stream them.
- Storyline Online provides opportunities for parents, children, and educators to listen to and view children’s classic storybooks read aloud by professional actors and actresses 24 hours a day. Each book is selected to appeal to the imagination and interest of children in grades pre-K to 5. The website features 30 read-aloud stories including memorable titles such as Knots on a Counting Rope, Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge and Thank You, Mr. Falker. Activity guides developed by a literacy specialist offer a summary of each story, activities to extend the read-aloud experience, and information about the author, illustrator, and the actor who performs the read-aloud.
- Storyweaver offers a wide variety of illustrated open source storybooks for kids. Most importantly, these reading materials are available in over 200 languages. Storyweaver allows users to download stories for later reading in three different formats:"a web-resolution PDF, an A4 print ready format, and a digital-friendly ePub format". Users can also save their stories to their offline library and access them anytime they want. Additionally, Storyweaver also helps students create 'their' own stories and illustrate them. StoryWeaver now makes it super-easy to write your narrative, pick your illustrations, and publish your very own story – in minutes".
- The International Children's Digital Library ICDK offers popular chidlren’s books from all over the world.’The materials in the collection, all presented in the original languages in which they were published, reflect similarities and differences in cultures, societies, interests, and lifestyles of peoples around the world.’
- Epic Epic!’s ebook library includes many of the best kids books and popular books such as Fancy Nancy, Big Nate, Warriors, Ramona, and National Geographic Kids…Epic! costs only $4.99/month with the first month FREE and supports up to 4 individual child profiles per account.’
- StoryPlace StoryPlace came about to provide children with the virtual experience of going to the Library and participating in the same types of activities the Library offers at its physical locations. First launched in 2000, StoryPlace has been newly redesigned to present favorite stories and activities in a format compatible with desktop and mobile devices. The site also now includes early literacy information for parents and caregivers.’
- Magic Blox With a large and growing collection of eBooks for kids 1 to 13 years old, your children get to enjoy new books all the time from award winning authors and publishers from around the world. In addition to titles you are familiar with from traditional publishers, they also have the opportunity to discover new stories from authors they've never heard of, or try out new languages they've never seen.’
- Bookshare Free ebooks for qualified U.S. students. Makes reading easier for people with reading barriers, allowing them to read in ways that work for them: Listen to books read aloud/follow along with audio and highlighted text Read in large print or Braille
Building Knowledge: Free Online Read Alouds for PreK-3 Browse this curated YouTube library of various Core Knowledge Language Arts Read-Alouds by grade level
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
Literature circles or book club
- Virtual Literature Circles Create a Safe Space for Students Discussions that are centered in students' experiences spark more text-to-self connections and help students internalize concepts like empathy. This article provides resources and categorized booklists.
Glose for Education (gr. 6-12) ."Start a virtual book club with your students, posing thoughtful questions and highlighting meaningful quotes that kids can discuss. Then teach students how to paraphrase and annotate by highlighting excerpts from books or articles, and have them practice via a discussion thread. Let students create and share their own book cards with questions or excerpts from the shared reading selection, and encourage them to react and respond to each other's cards. Support struggling writers or gauge reading fluency by asking kids to submit voice recordings -- just be aware that anyone in the class will be able to listen to them."
Novel HyperDocs: 25 ready to use units for your class interactive HyperDocs filled with paired texts, engaging media and interactive activities. Scroll down the page to see the list. If you feel inspired to create your own HyperDoc using the template
Parlay - Synchronous & asynchronous discussion platform.
Novels on Location helps readers find novels according to the story's geographical setting. When you visit Novels on Location you can find novels by clicking on the placemarks that you see or by using the location search bar in the upper, right corner of the site. If you want to contribute to Novels on Location you can do so very quickly by simply entering a location then entering the title and author of your favorite book set in that location. www.freetech4teachers.com
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comAn Ocean of Books is a Google Arts & Culture experimental site. An Ocean of Books is a concept map of authors and their books. The purpose of An Ocean of Books is to represent authors' footprints on the web and their relationships, via the web, to other authors. The size of an author's presence on the web is displayed as an island on An Ocean of Books. The authors' presences on the web isn't a reflection of social media rather it's a reflection of frequency of search and content published about them and their works. www.freetech4teachers.com
Building Knowledge: Free Online Read Alouds for PreK-3 Browse this curated YouTube library of various Core Knowledge Language Arts Read-Alouds by grade level
Hoopla & Overdrive - Access to online ebooks and audiobook with a library card.
Audible - Free audiobooks (COVID response)
Writing
Read a story and compare yourself to the main character
Write a letter to or between characters in a storyTaking the perspective of a character in a story can help students understand their motivations and better comprehend their response to events in a story. Assign a stationery template, use the Stationery backgrounds, or have students design their own. Provide a prompt that connects to the story you are reading to direct their thinking and writing
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comGoogle Doc Feature to Help the Teacher Comment on the Revision Process Google Docs has this excellent feature called 'Compare Document' which allows users to compare documents with a single click. As a teacher, you can use this feature to "to compare essays and track revisions, saving them time when grading." Students can also use the 'compare document' tool to help them keep track of the changes they made on a document, capture the evolution of their writing style, document new edits, and share feedback with students or colleagues.
Book Creator app and website has recently introduced a new interesting feature called templates to help teachers and students design professional looking books in few easy steps. There are now two forms of books on Book Creator: template books and theme books.
Wordtune is a Chrome extension that provides suggestions on ways to rewrite sentences in your Google Documents, in your email (Gmail and Outlook), and in some social media accounts. Once you have Wordtune installed in Chrome you can simply highlight any sentence that you have written and click the Wordtune extension to have a list of alternate wordings suggested to you. video www.freetech4teachers.com
Using Google Slides to create Instagram Stories in class
The social media reply template Using social media isn't just fun. It's a communication skill. This social media reply template lets students practice posting and replying in an app they can use -- Google Slides! Plus, they can show you what they've learned through their post. In this post, you can copy/download the template to use with your students. Follow step-by-step instructions. Get ideas for using it. I even share secrets about how I made it!
Read: A social media reply Google Slides template for digital citizenship
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
12 social media-inspired Google Slides templates Since we're talking about making class feel like social media These templates are some of my favorites! Create learning activities that feel like social media that use a tool that students have access to: Google Slides! Check out -- and download/copy -- these templates!
Fake Blog Google Slides Template | Template option 2
Glitterly is a handy web tool that enables you to create engaging short videos to share on your social media feed or in your email. As a teacher , you can use Glitterly to design writing prompts, discussion starters, icebreakers, short explainers, reviews and many more. No video editing experience is required, you simply upload your images or use the ones in the site's library, add animations, effects, and transitions and share your final product with your students or colleagues. Videos created through Glitter can be exported in various formats including as mp4 or GIF. Videos can not be longer than 30 seconds and do not have sound.
Random Emoji Generator writing prompter for busy teachers. Opening the page will produce an emoji that the student should write about. When he runs out of things to say, he can select “And Then” and another random emoji will be produced next to the first one to continue the story. This can go on for as long as the student likes.
Easy 1, 2, 3: Create Your Own Accessible Book with Slides
Newspaper Front Page Template – Students create the front page of newspaper to your collection. This can be used in almost any content area, as well as working on determining if a news story is fake or real.
10+ Digital Writing Activities
Writing Journal Use Google Docs for an ongoing writing journal. Google Docs Writing Journal alicekeeler.com/writingjournal
Read a story and compare yourself to the main character
Write a letter to or between characters in a storyTaking the perspective of a character in a story can help students understand their motivations and better comprehend their response to events in a story. Assign a stationery template, use the Stationery backgrounds, or have students design their own. Provide a prompt that connects to the story you are reading to direct their thinking and writing
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comGoogle Doc Feature to Help the Teacher Comment on the Revision Process Google Docs has this excellent feature called 'Compare Document' which allows users to compare documents with a single click. As a teacher, you can use this feature to "to compare essays and track revisions, saving them time when grading." Students can also use the 'compare document' tool to help them keep track of the changes they made on a document, capture the evolution of their writing style, document new edits, and share feedback with students or colleagues.
Book Creator app and website has recently introduced a new interesting feature called templates to help teachers and students design professional looking books in few easy steps. There are now two forms of books on Book Creator: template books and theme books.
Wordtune is a Chrome extension that provides suggestions on ways to rewrite sentences in your Google Documents, in your email (Gmail and Outlook), and in some social media accounts. Once you have Wordtune installed in Chrome you can simply highlight any sentence that you have written and click the Wordtune extension to have a list of alternate wordings suggested to you. video www.freetech4teachers.com
Using Google Slides to create Instagram Stories in class
The social media reply template Using social media isn't just fun. It's a communication skill. This social media reply template lets students practice posting and replying in an app they can use -- Google Slides! Plus, they can show you what they've learned through their post. In this post, you can copy/download the template to use with your students. Follow step-by-step instructions. Get ideas for using it. I even share secrets about how I made it!
Read: A social media reply Google Slides template for digital citizenship
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
12 social media-inspired Google Slides templates Since we're talking about making class feel like social media These templates are some of my favorites! Create learning activities that feel like social media that use a tool that students have access to: Google Slides! Check out -- and download/copy -- these templates!
Fake Blog Google Slides Template | Template option 2
Glitterly is a handy web tool that enables you to create engaging short videos to share on your social media feed or in your email. As a teacher , you can use Glitterly to design writing prompts, discussion starters, icebreakers, short explainers, reviews and many more. No video editing experience is required, you simply upload your images or use the ones in the site's library, add animations, effects, and transitions and share your final product with your students or colleagues. Videos created through Glitter can be exported in various formats including as mp4 or GIF. Videos can not be longer than 30 seconds and do not have sound.
Random Emoji Generator writing prompter for busy teachers. Opening the page will produce an emoji that the student should write about. When he runs out of things to say, he can select “And Then” and another random emoji will be produced next to the first one to continue the story. This can go on for as long as the student likes.
Easy 1, 2, 3: Create Your Own Accessible Book with Slides
Newspaper Front Page Template – Students create the front page of newspaper to your collection. This can be used in almost any content area, as well as working on determining if a news story is fake or real.
10+ Digital Writing Activities
Writing Journal Use Google Docs for an ongoing writing journal. Google Docs Writing Journal alicekeeler.com/writingjournal
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google. Slides Add-onAdd visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
15 FREE Google Drawings graphic organizers — and how to make your own
Assistive Writing Features in Google Docs – Two assistive writing features in Google Docs that are sure to help your students.
Choice stories in Google Slides: How to + ideas for class
Self-Publishing on Amazon - Step-by-step directions on how to self-publish a book on Amazon at no cost.
Crash! Bang! Boom! How to add Google Drawings comic strips to your class
Google Docs Templates that teachers and students can use for a wide variety of purposes. The purpose is to empower you with resources that can make a difference in your overall productivity and add value to your work. Templates are readily available from Docs template gallery. There are five different resume templates in Docs gallery which you can customize and edit the way you like. For students there are templates to use for writing essays, book reports, and letters (formal, informal, and business letters). There are also templates to help students design their project proposals providing them with all the necessary steps and categories to include in their proposals (e.g., overview, goals, specifications, milestones). There are even templates for taking and organizing class notes which students can adapt for their own learning purposes. To access these and many other templates, head over to Google Docs and click to expand the template gallery. Scroll down and search for the titles cited above or browse through the collections there for inspiration.
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
Progressive Stories in Google Docs - a fun remote, writing activity.
Create Meme in Google Drawings Sample
Google Slides templates for Snapchat games in class
The New York Times Learning Network
Literature circles or book club
Brochure Google Slides template for creating a brochure. Why a Brochure?
Drawings for Writing
Rivet (available for both iOS and Android) "With a rapidly growing digital library of over 2,000 free books, Rivet makes it easy to find interesting reading material at the right level. There are engaging books covering a wide array of topics, from planets in outer space to Harriet Tubman. Every book in our library is carefully reviewed and leveled by content quality experts to ensure young readers are shown appropriate content at the right level of difficulty."
15 FREE Google Drawings graphic organizers — and how to make your own
Assistive Writing Features in Google Docs – Two assistive writing features in Google Docs that are sure to help your students.
Choice stories in Google Slides: How to + ideas for class
Self-Publishing on Amazon - Step-by-step directions on how to self-publish a book on Amazon at no cost.
Crash! Bang! Boom! How to add Google Drawings comic strips to your class
Google Docs Templates that teachers and students can use for a wide variety of purposes. The purpose is to empower you with resources that can make a difference in your overall productivity and add value to your work. Templates are readily available from Docs template gallery. There are five different resume templates in Docs gallery which you can customize and edit the way you like. For students there are templates to use for writing essays, book reports, and letters (formal, informal, and business letters). There are also templates to help students design their project proposals providing them with all the necessary steps and categories to include in their proposals (e.g., overview, goals, specifications, milestones). There are even templates for taking and organizing class notes which students can adapt for their own learning purposes. To access these and many other templates, head over to Google Docs and click to expand the template gallery. Scroll down and search for the titles cited above or browse through the collections there for inspiration.
Elementari A K-5 online platform where students can read, write, code, share and remix interactive stories with different illustrations and sounds. Teachers can create classes on Elementari, view student progress, create template stories, and give feedback. Teachers and parents can request access here.
Progressive Stories in Google Docs - a fun remote, writing activity.
Create Meme in Google Drawings Sample
Google Slides templates for Snapchat games in class
The New York Times Learning Network
Literature circles or book club
Brochure Google Slides template for creating a brochure. Why a Brochure?
Drawings for Writing
- "Wintertime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Wintertime Magnetic Poetry Template - Google Drawing linkk
- Compose a Tweet Template - Google Drawing link
- "3 Tools for Making Memes in School" - Website link
- "Create Your Own Story Cubes with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity
Rivet (available for both iOS and Android) "With a rapidly growing digital library of over 2,000 free books, Rivet makes it easy to find interesting reading material at the right level. There are engaging books covering a wide array of topics, from planets in outer space to Harriet Tubman. Every book in our library is carefully reviewed and leveled by content quality experts to ensure young readers are shown appropriate content at the right level of difficulty."
Science
National Science Digital Library - provides high quality online educational resources for teaching and learning, with current emphasis on the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines–both formal and informal, institutional and individual, in local, state, national, and international educational settings. The NSDL collection contains structured descriptive information (metadata) about web-based educational resources held on other sites by their providers. These providers have contribute this metadata to NSDL for organized search and open access to educational resources via this website and its services.
Science Journal for Kids and Teens Free reports on cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science research adapted for students and their teachers. Articles can be selected according to reading level (elementary school, lower high school, middle school, upper high school) and/or subject field (biodiversity and conservation, biology, energy and climate, food and agriculture, health and medicine, physical science, pollution, social science, technology, water resources).
The 3M Young Scientist Lab K - 8 is a website we are adding to our science distance teaching and learning resources. It provides teachers with tons of educational resources to get their students motivated and engaged in science learning in class. Among these resources are custom lesson plans that cover science topics for grades k-8; interactive activities to help students "discover the real-world science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school"; and challenge support materials.The 3M Young Scientist also offers a unique challenge for students in the form of a project-based opportunity "that gives students a chance to work one-on-one with a 3M Scientist during an exclusive summer mentorship, developing new skills and transforming their idea intro a working prototype! Encourage your scientists to enter today and use these resources to help guide them through the process." There is also a section designed for students featuring tons of science activities to help them see the real application of science in real-life. These activities "are based on classic scientific discoveries; some dating back over 200 years. Scientists have used these activities to engage audiences around the world.
Tool for Building Simulation Validating How Something Works
SageModeler is an intuitive modeling tool being developed at The Concord Consortium and the CREATE for STEM Institute at Michigan State University for middle school and high school students to build their own models and validate their model design using real-world data. Using the SageModeler tool, students can take their current ideas about how something works and design a runnable simulation without needing to write equations or do traditional coding. By making it possible to map their ideas about a phenomenon to a working computational simulation, students can test, share, evaluate, and revise their model (and their understanding of the phenomenon). SageModeler makes possible three different types of modeling, from basic diagramming of the structure of a system to creation of a static equilibriummodel or a dynamic time-based model. A step-by-step tutorial is available in English and Spanish.
Khan Academy This is probably one of the most popular resources of video content covering topics as diverse as math, chemistry, biology, economics, history, finance, and many more.
Mystery Science Mystery Science is offering its popular science lessons for free for teachers as a way to support them remote teaching "All of the lessons below are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers to use. We have short mini-lessons that are completely digital and full lessons that include an activity. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that families will likely already have at home."
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Arizona Science Center Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. These include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.
Discovery Education Experience Discovery Education Experience, our flexible K-12 learning platform, provides compelling high-quality content, ready-to-use digital lessons, unique collaboration tools, and professional learning resources to give you everything you need to facilitate instruction and create a lasting educational impact. Built for all learners, grade levels, subject areas, and interests, Experience brings new excitement and relevance to the topics you teach and lets you reach and engage every student wherever learning is taking place."
YouTube Channels for Learning Science Check out this collection of some of the best YouTube channels that provide educational videos covering various science topics. These include SciShow kids, Socratica, Veritasium, National Geographic Kids, and many more.
Twig Science Reporter is a free weekly science news service for kindergarten through grade 6 classrooms created in partnership with Imperial College London to connect science lessons with real-world STEM news and events through high-quality video and other learning resources to pique students’ interest. Each week Twig helps teachers boost student engagement with free stories highlighting scientific concepts focused on everything from local phenomena to global issues.
Mystery Science Mystery Science is offering its popular science lessons for free for teachers as a way to support them during this time of pandemic. "All of the lessons below are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers to use. We have short mini-lessons that are completely digital and full lessons that include an activity. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that families will likely already have at home."
National Science Teachers Association is providing free sense-making tasks called Daily Dos designed to engage students in authentic, relevant science learning.Students actively try to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design solutions to problems (engineering) using the science and engineering practices that scientists engage in as they investigate and build models and theories about the natural world, and the key set of engineering practices that engineers use as they design and build models and systems. For example, a Daily Do at the elementary level asks children, “How does air make things move?” Another, at the middle school level, asks students, “Why do we see twin mountain ranges?” A high school Daily Do invites students to ponder, “How can an ecosystem survive without sunlight?” Engaging in these practices requires that students be part of the learning community by sharing and evaluating ideas, giving and receiving critique, and reaching consensus.
Science Journal for Kids and Teens. The website includes hundreds of articles approved by scientists written for kids. While most of the articles I found were best suited for secondary students, there are a few for elementary. The site also offers a very nice filtering system, allowing you to search by reading level, scientific field, scientific methodology (a world of learning there for high school students), and more. There are even a few articles written in languages other than English.
CK-12 STEM, math and science resource with highly customizable content
Exploratorium, in San Francisco, has an online learning toolbox with free science activities for virtual education. Resources include "science snacks," which use "cheap, readily available materials" and can be done at home. The organization has also published a collection of free, Spanish-language science activities, Bocadillos científicos. https://www.exploratorium.edu/learn
Arizona Science Center Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. These include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.
The American Museum of Natural History is sharing a bunch of online content for teachers and families to use during virus days. That includes the "OLogy" science website with lessons on subjects from anthropology to zoology; online science curriculum collections; virtual visits to the museum through its YouTube channel; and massive open, online museum courses delivered through Coursera. https://www.amnh.org/explore
Open-Source Kit for Middle School Science OpenSciEd was launched to create high-quality open-source science instructional materials specifically for middle schools. The lessons are available for science teachers to access and download freely. All align with NGSS and are developed by educators and tested by teachers. The organization recently released hands-on learning content for eighth-grade science. The latest unit covers Each unit includes a set of professional learning resources, with instructional agendas, slides, and videos. A remote learning guide is also available
Discovery Education Experience "Discovery Education Experience, our flexible K-12 learning platform, provides compelling high-quality content, ready-to-use digital lessons, unique collaboration tools, and professional learning resources to give you everything you need to facilitate instruction and create a lasting educational impact. Built for all learners, grade levels, subject areas, and interests, Experience brings new excitement and relevance to the topics you teach and lets you reach and engage every student wherever learning is taking place.".
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comForensics National Science Foundation produces educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures.
Flinn Scientific has compiled numerous resources for science education, including video labs with teacher and student guides and 130 at-home activitiesfor middle and high school science students. The company is also offering broadcasts of lab experiments conducted by its own scientific staff. https://www.flinnsci.com/athomescience/at-home-lab-series/
Braingenie is an useful website for students and teachers of Math and Science. It covers most of the topics under these subjects, aided with extensive video lessons and practice questions, which help build mastery and sharpen problem-solving skills. Teachers can use Braingenie to create class groups, set goals and provide assignments to the students. They can also monitor their individual students’ and entire class’ progress. Students can use Braingenie to master a number of Math and Science skills using the available video lessons and practice exercises for each skill. They can follow their curriculum in class, and even learn at their own pace. They can also prepare for quizzes and tests and the gamified system of Braingenie, with the reward of badges and awards on progress keeps students motivated to learn Walk-Through:- Get started right away by clicking on ‘Learn and Practice’ or by going to the listed courses, but it’s best to set up an account to track your progress and compare it with your friends. So, sign-up as a student or a teacher to proceed.
NOVA Labs "A digital platform where "citizen scientists" can actively participate in the scientific process and take part in real-world investigations by visualizing, analyzing, and playing with the same data that scientists use.
Bozeman Science: More detailed explanations of science concepts. Great for expanding on a topic.
Crash Course: Another source of more detailed explanations, with more humor. The narrative is pretty fast though, so encourage students to turn on the captions.
Steve Spangler’s website is full of engaging activities that require minimal materials. In fact, most of the experiments use items that you most likely have around your home or classroom. You can find a list of experiments by clicking here.
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
Science Kids As its name indicates, Science for Kids is a website that features a treasure trove of educational science materials. These include online games, experiments, lesson plans, quizzes, science projects, free activities and many more.
National Geographic Kids Nat Geo Kids enables science lovers to explore the world of science through a collection of apps, games, magazines, toys, videos, and many other materials.
The Organic Chemistry Tutor "This channel focuses on providing tutorial videos on organic chemistry, general chemistry, physics, algebra, trigonometry, precalculus, and calculus."
Sci Show: An excellent resource from the same makers of Crash Course that explores random topics. Great for real-life connections and for students to explore science concepts they are interested.
Science Journal for Kids and Teens Free reports on cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science research adapted for students and their teachers. Articles can be selected according to reading level (elementary school, lower high school, middle school, upper high school) and/or subject field (biodiversity and conservation, biology, energy and climate, food and agriculture, health and medicine, physical science, pollution, social science, technology, water resources).
The 3M Young Scientist Lab K - 8 is a website we are adding to our science distance teaching and learning resources. It provides teachers with tons of educational resources to get their students motivated and engaged in science learning in class. Among these resources are custom lesson plans that cover science topics for grades k-8; interactive activities to help students "discover the real-world science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school"; and challenge support materials.The 3M Young Scientist also offers a unique challenge for students in the form of a project-based opportunity "that gives students a chance to work one-on-one with a 3M Scientist during an exclusive summer mentorship, developing new skills and transforming their idea intro a working prototype! Encourage your scientists to enter today and use these resources to help guide them through the process." There is also a section designed for students featuring tons of science activities to help them see the real application of science in real-life. These activities "are based on classic scientific discoveries; some dating back over 200 years. Scientists have used these activities to engage audiences around the world.
Tool for Building Simulation Validating How Something Works
SageModeler is an intuitive modeling tool being developed at The Concord Consortium and the CREATE for STEM Institute at Michigan State University for middle school and high school students to build their own models and validate their model design using real-world data. Using the SageModeler tool, students can take their current ideas about how something works and design a runnable simulation without needing to write equations or do traditional coding. By making it possible to map their ideas about a phenomenon to a working computational simulation, students can test, share, evaluate, and revise their model (and their understanding of the phenomenon). SageModeler makes possible three different types of modeling, from basic diagramming of the structure of a system to creation of a static equilibriummodel or a dynamic time-based model. A step-by-step tutorial is available in English and Spanish.
Khan Academy This is probably one of the most popular resources of video content covering topics as diverse as math, chemistry, biology, economics, history, finance, and many more.
Mystery Science Mystery Science is offering its popular science lessons for free for teachers as a way to support them remote teaching "All of the lessons below are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers to use. We have short mini-lessons that are completely digital and full lessons that include an activity. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that families will likely already have at home."
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Arizona Science Center Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. These include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.
Discovery Education Experience Discovery Education Experience, our flexible K-12 learning platform, provides compelling high-quality content, ready-to-use digital lessons, unique collaboration tools, and professional learning resources to give you everything you need to facilitate instruction and create a lasting educational impact. Built for all learners, grade levels, subject areas, and interests, Experience brings new excitement and relevance to the topics you teach and lets you reach and engage every student wherever learning is taking place."
YouTube Channels for Learning Science Check out this collection of some of the best YouTube channels that provide educational videos covering various science topics. These include SciShow kids, Socratica, Veritasium, National Geographic Kids, and many more.
Twig Science Reporter is a free weekly science news service for kindergarten through grade 6 classrooms created in partnership with Imperial College London to connect science lessons with real-world STEM news and events through high-quality video and other learning resources to pique students’ interest. Each week Twig helps teachers boost student engagement with free stories highlighting scientific concepts focused on everything from local phenomena to global issues.
Mystery Science Mystery Science is offering its popular science lessons for free for teachers as a way to support them during this time of pandemic. "All of the lessons below are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers to use. We have short mini-lessons that are completely digital and full lessons that include an activity. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that families will likely already have at home."
National Science Teachers Association is providing free sense-making tasks called Daily Dos designed to engage students in authentic, relevant science learning.Students actively try to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design solutions to problems (engineering) using the science and engineering practices that scientists engage in as they investigate and build models and theories about the natural world, and the key set of engineering practices that engineers use as they design and build models and systems. For example, a Daily Do at the elementary level asks children, “How does air make things move?” Another, at the middle school level, asks students, “Why do we see twin mountain ranges?” A high school Daily Do invites students to ponder, “How can an ecosystem survive without sunlight?” Engaging in these practices requires that students be part of the learning community by sharing and evaluating ideas, giving and receiving critique, and reaching consensus.
Science Journal for Kids and Teens. The website includes hundreds of articles approved by scientists written for kids. While most of the articles I found were best suited for secondary students, there are a few for elementary. The site also offers a very nice filtering system, allowing you to search by reading level, scientific field, scientific methodology (a world of learning there for high school students), and more. There are even a few articles written in languages other than English.
CK-12 STEM, math and science resource with highly customizable content
Exploratorium, in San Francisco, has an online learning toolbox with free science activities for virtual education. Resources include "science snacks," which use "cheap, readily available materials" and can be done at home. The organization has also published a collection of free, Spanish-language science activities, Bocadillos científicos. https://www.exploratorium.edu/learn
Arizona Science Center Arizona Science Center is another resource you can draw on to help your students enhance their at-home science learning. The site offers a wide variety of educational resources and materials for educators, parents, and students. These include lesson plans, DIY activities, interactive videos, hands-on tutorials, virtual demonstrations, and many more.
The American Museum of Natural History is sharing a bunch of online content for teachers and families to use during virus days. That includes the "OLogy" science website with lessons on subjects from anthropology to zoology; online science curriculum collections; virtual visits to the museum through its YouTube channel; and massive open, online museum courses delivered through Coursera. https://www.amnh.org/explore
Open-Source Kit for Middle School Science OpenSciEd was launched to create high-quality open-source science instructional materials specifically for middle schools. The lessons are available for science teachers to access and download freely. All align with NGSS and are developed by educators and tested by teachers. The organization recently released hands-on learning content for eighth-grade science. The latest unit covers Each unit includes a set of professional learning resources, with instructional agendas, slides, and videos. A remote learning guide is also available
Discovery Education Experience "Discovery Education Experience, our flexible K-12 learning platform, provides compelling high-quality content, ready-to-use digital lessons, unique collaboration tools, and professional learning resources to give you everything you need to facilitate instruction and create a lasting educational impact. Built for all learners, grade levels, subject areas, and interests, Experience brings new excitement and relevance to the topics you teach and lets you reach and engage every student wherever learning is taking place.".
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comForensics National Science Foundation produces educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures.
Flinn Scientific has compiled numerous resources for science education, including video labs with teacher and student guides and 130 at-home activitiesfor middle and high school science students. The company is also offering broadcasts of lab experiments conducted by its own scientific staff. https://www.flinnsci.com/athomescience/at-home-lab-series/
Braingenie is an useful website for students and teachers of Math and Science. It covers most of the topics under these subjects, aided with extensive video lessons and practice questions, which help build mastery and sharpen problem-solving skills. Teachers can use Braingenie to create class groups, set goals and provide assignments to the students. They can also monitor their individual students’ and entire class’ progress. Students can use Braingenie to master a number of Math and Science skills using the available video lessons and practice exercises for each skill. They can follow their curriculum in class, and even learn at their own pace. They can also prepare for quizzes and tests and the gamified system of Braingenie, with the reward of badges and awards on progress keeps students motivated to learn Walk-Through:- Get started right away by clicking on ‘Learn and Practice’ or by going to the listed courses, but it’s best to set up an account to track your progress and compare it with your friends. So, sign-up as a student or a teacher to proceed.
NOVA Labs "A digital platform where "citizen scientists" can actively participate in the scientific process and take part in real-world investigations by visualizing, analyzing, and playing with the same data that scientists use.
Bozeman Science: More detailed explanations of science concepts. Great for expanding on a topic.
Crash Course: Another source of more detailed explanations, with more humor. The narrative is pretty fast though, so encourage students to turn on the captions.
Steve Spangler’s website is full of engaging activities that require minimal materials. In fact, most of the experiments use items that you most likely have around your home or classroom. You can find a list of experiments by clicking here.
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
Science Kids As its name indicates, Science for Kids is a website that features a treasure trove of educational science materials. These include online games, experiments, lesson plans, quizzes, science projects, free activities and many more.
National Geographic Kids Nat Geo Kids enables science lovers to explore the world of science through a collection of apps, games, magazines, toys, videos, and many other materials.
The Organic Chemistry Tutor "This channel focuses on providing tutorial videos on organic chemistry, general chemistry, physics, algebra, trigonometry, precalculus, and calculus."
Sci Show: An excellent resource from the same makers of Crash Course that explores random topics. Great for real-life connections and for students to explore science concepts they are interested.
Simulations & Interactives
Interactive Science Simulations
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work.
Every Place Has Its Own Climate Risk. What Is It Where You Live? An interactive from The NY Times. You click on your county, and and it will least which climate challenges face your community.
🎯Ask a Biologist K - 12 activities (includes short and long play games, simulations, and virtual field trips) , stories and images (zoom - in/virtual microscope)
Biology Simulations
Interactive Science Simulations
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work.
Every Place Has Its Own Climate Risk. What Is It Where You Live? An interactive from The NY Times. You click on your county, and and it will least which climate challenges face your community.
🎯Ask a Biologist K - 12 activities (includes short and long play games, simulations, and virtual field trips) , stories and images (zoom - in/virtual microscope)
Biology Simulations
- Botany
- Ask a Biologist K - 12 activities (includes short and long play games, simulations, and virtual field trips) , stories and images (zoom - in/virtual microscope)
- Cell and Molecular Biology
- Development and Embryology
- Ecology and Conservation
- Evolutionary Biology
- General
- Genetics
- Human Anatomy and Physiology
- Life
- Microbiology
- Zoology
Tools
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Chart It is a tool that lets you create charts.
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google Slides Add-on Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
MathType this is an equation editor which allows you to easily type and handwrite mathematical notation in your Google documents. The add-on provides you with almost the same features you would normally find on the online version. MathType also supports chemical notation which you can access through ChemType. All the chemistry-related features are activated when the chemistry toolbar is activated.
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Chart It is a tool that lets you create charts.
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google Slides Add-on Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
MathType this is an equation editor which allows you to easily type and handwrite mathematical notation in your Google documents. The add-on provides you with almost the same features you would normally find on the online version. MathType also supports chemical notation which you can access through ChemType. All the chemistry-related features are activated when the chemistry toolbar is activated.
Videos
YouTube Channels for Learning Science This collection of some of the best YouTube channels that provide educational videos covering various science topics. These include SciShow kids, Socratica, Veritasium, National Geographic Kids, and many more.
Amoeba Sisters videos,
YouTube Channels for Learning Science This collection of some of the best YouTube channels that provide educational videos covering various science topics. These include SciShow kids, Socratica, Veritasium, National Geographic Kids, and many more.
Amoeba Sisters videos,
Math
A Model for Setting Up Group Work in Online High School Math
🎯Math Whiteboard is a fabulous, free, collaborative tool designed specifically for math education. It allows the teacher, who shares a link to a collaborative board, to see the work of every student at one time. You can import PDFs for students to work on and annotate, use the included graphing calculator, take advantage of the powerful Computer Algebra System that allows for calculations from arithmetic to calculus, and write or type math formulas and numbers.
Middle School Math Jamboard Collection | Algebra 1 Jamboard Collection
High School Jamboard Collection
Choice Boards for Math
Google Slides Always-Sometimes-Never-Polynomials
7th Grade Math Jamboard Collection | 4th Grade Math Jamboard Collections | 3rd Grade Math Jamboard Collections | Second Grade Math Jamboard Collection | 1st Grade Math Jamboard Collections
Mathigon ( gr. 6 - 12) An interactive take on the classic math textbook. There are mini-games, interactive elements, and problems to solve throughout the text to keep students engaged. Topics range from Divisibility and Primes to Differential Equations; other fun topics include Mathematical Origami. Students must often show knowledge of concepts being taught before they're able to move forward. As students enter answers, an interactive bot named Archie gives real-time feedback and positive support and hints.
Graspable Math Graspable Math, available for free for teachers, is an “algebraic notation system.” This means that you can interact on the screen with math symbols. The interactive nature changes how children interact with math, making it less abstract.
Interactive Math Simulations
How to Turn Math Word Problems Into Engaging Comics
Elementary students may struggle with the wording of problems, and the visual supports of comics can help them focus on the math.
Permission slips help us set our intention and focus. Share examples such as, “I give myself permission to make a mistake and try again.” Then ask students to create their own permission slip (self-management
Math Tasks Resources Broad selection of challenges and manipulatives
Bad Calculators - Dozens of fun and challenging math puzzles where you apply operations to reach a result in a certain number of moves.
MathType this is an equation editor which allows you to easily type and handwrite mathematical notation in your Google documents. The add-on provides you with almost the same features you would normally find on the online version. MathType also supports chemical notation which you can access through ChemType. All the chemistry-related features are activated when the chemistry toolbar is activated.
Empower Your MathLessons with Google Suite Incorporate, Google docs, Slides, Drawings and more to enhance math instruction
Which One Doesn't Belong?, "a website dedicated to providing thought-provoking puzzles for math teachers and students alike. There are no answers provided as there are many different, correct ways of choosing which one doesn't belong."
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
GeoGebra has many useful tools and activities for many of the hands-on geometry construction standards, and EquatIO which helps add mathematical symbols into text spaces. How to use Geogebra notes video 1 | video 2
Who Am I? A number robot offers clues about who the puzzle represents. The goal is to fill in the blanks for its digits and solve the mystery. Logical thinking is critical here. There are currently more than 200 visual, interactive mathematical puzzles or students can create their own puzzles to share with friends or the SolveMe Community. Students can play without an account or log in to keep track of their progress. And all SolveMe activities are self checking.
SolveMe Mobiles. This tool provides equations practice using mobiles. Imagine a hanging sculpture made with shapes, strings, and beams. The beams and strings are weightless, but the shapes have weight. Students can also create their own mobiles for others to solve.
SolveMe MysteryGrid is another great math logic tool. To solve a mystery grid puzzle, place all the tiles on the grid so that every row and every column contains exactly one type of tile, and so that the tiles fit the clues.
Autograph 5 is free, downloadable software for high school math teachers (and their students). It allows you to visualize math problems in 2D and 3D designs with the click of a button.
Cyberchase gr. 2 - 5 Facilitates math practice and application. Its varied videos could be used to introduce, reinforce, or apply concepts. The homepage has tabs for videos (including full episodes of the television show as well as Web shorts), games, and printable activities, and a tab to search the video and game library by topic. One drawback is that most games don't continue to progress to new levels or difficulties once they're cleared. Another drawback is that you can search for videos and games by topic or theme, but not by grade level or age, so it may take several tries to find something at the right level.
Free Math Instruction Apps from the Math Learning Center is a resource that I've shared in the past. The last time I wrote about it was a couple of years ago. Back then it offered ten free apps containing virtual manipulatives for math lessons. Since then MLC has expanded to offer twelve free apps. Ten of them are available for iOS, Android, and Chrome while two are currently Chrome-only. Math Learning Center apps are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. With the exception of the flashcards app, all of the Math Learning Center's free apps are designed to provide you and your students with virtual manipulatives. By the way, the flashcard app is available in English and Spanish.
EquatIO - Math made digital - Google Chrome "makes math digital, helping teachers and students at all levels create math expressions quickly and easily. Type or handwrite virtually any mathematical term" Review
Microsoft Math Solver - Step-by-step directions for solving math problems from Pre-Algebra to Calculus, as well as supporting videos, quizzes, worksheets, and other resources.
Splat POWERFUL, highly interactive number sense strategy that can be used at any grade level.
Matific A collection of online Mathematics activities that teach students problem solving and critical thinking through discovery...Matific’s content is completely browsable and searchable, and you can even designate any content specifically for schoolwork or homework, and all our content is aligned to your local curriculum or textbook."
CK-12 Math The math section in cK-12 offers a collection of mathe resources covering: precalculus, Algebra, Geometry, and 1st-8th grades math.
Would You Rather Math is so awesome! The two-statement scenario spurs debate, discussion, reasoning, and writing in the math classroom. The questions are separated into four grade levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12.
Open Middle (pre-K–grade 12) leaves parts of an equation blank and asks students to fill them in to make it true. “I love Open Middle for remote learning, especially paired with a Google Jamboard,” says teacher McGrath. “The problems inspire inquiry thinking, game like play, creativity, and perseverance.”
Depth of Knowledge Matrix based on the Open Middle concept for Algebra 2 available from Robert Kaplinsky. He also has these matrices:
MashUpMath 6- 8 Middle School Try to match the puzzle with certain holidays or events.
Using Jamboard to get students doing math together (video) | Math Jamboard Templates
Function (or Not) Puzzle with links to a Google Slides version and a Jamboard version. scroll down to see the download options
Two Kahoot Features for Math Math symbol editor is now part of the built-in features in Kahoot creator allowing you to easily add a wide variety of formulas and equations into "questions, answer alternatives and slides in your Kahoot". To open the math editor, click on f(x) and use the provided options to type in a formula or equation, once finished click on Insert. Another great feature from Kahoot that math teachers will find helpful is the ability to use images as answer alternatives in your kahoots. These can be practical when "explaining graphs and fractions in a more interactive way". You can use either your own images or select from kahoot's library. You can also mix both images with text to make your kahoot more engaging.
Zearn K - 5 An online math curriculum (coupled with live whole- and small-group instruction) for grades one through five, with supplemental skills practice activities for kindergartners. Students open up to a dashboard with tasks to be completed; these include a variety of fluency warm-ups that promote general number sense and lesson-specific skills, as well as guided practice with interactive video lessons that feature enthusiastic human teachers and school-age children ("The Zearn Squad"). Students will also find an independent practice and formative assessment activity rolled into one (called the Tower of Power) and a summative exit ticket. Teachers have quick access to the curriculum from their own dashboard, as well as a handy Pace Report to help track student progress.
LearnZillion has numerous free video math lessons that end with a quiz. Those in themselves are not that big of a deal, but three nice things about them are that they are designed by teachers, are free, and that teachers can create “virtual” classes and monitor student progress on them.
xtramath.org. It is a free site that helps kids master their math facts. Initially, the student takes an assessment quiz of what they already have mastered as indicated by a response of 3 seconds or less. Each consecutive session is based on the outcome of the previous assessments. It takes about 5 minutes a day, provides corrective feedback, visuals for goal setting, and can be used for the whole class or set up at home by a parent.
Formative for Interactive Math Worksheets | Tips for Math Teachers! | Formative Help Center | You can also use the whiteboard and observe in realtime students work and comment and provide help through text or audio.
Classkick is an interactive tool which allows teachers to create assignments and push them out to their students. Classkick allows teacher-created assignments to become interactive learning opportunities for students. Classkick offers teachers the ability to view their entire class in one screen, in real-time. It also allows teachers to provide immediate feedback on student work. Almost like a virtual whiteboard, a teacher might pose a math a few math problems on the question slides. Students can then work through those problems at their own pace and demonstrate their thinking with a variety of annotation tools. The teacher is able to monitor students’ screens from his or her own device and provide feedback directly to individual students. | How to Create a Classkick Account and Use the Online Whiteboard Tools in Math Classes
Spiral Assessment tool for teachers that incorporates real-time feedback for students. Quickfire, Clip, Team Up, and Discuss. Quickfire allows teachers to assign a quiz or ask a question. Teachers can send back inadequate responses immediately and ask students to improve and resubmit responses. Clip allows users to create interactive videos, stopping periodically to check understanding or discuss content. Team Up allows teachers to randomize or assign teams and have students create presentations that hold each member accountable. Finally, Discuss allows users to participate in interactive presentations by asking questions, sharing pictures, and responding to others. tutorial
That Quiz Quizzes on arithmetic to calculus, You can use activities provide and edit them or design your own Video tutorial
Boddle ( K -5) is an adaptive learning platform that offers access to a wide variety of interactive math games designed specifically for kids. Besides self-paced practice activities that target grades K-6 mathematics, Boddle offers you the possibility to host your own class online. You can create a classroom and invite your students to join. As students play the game, you will get access to real-time reports about their performance and tools to track their progress.Content on Boddle is standards-aligned designed. Boddle can be used in a variety of educational activities in class including as an exit ticket, a formative assessment tool, or as a supplement to your lessons. Boddle comes in two version the basic version is free and offers limited features, the pro one comes with way more services
Bringing a Collaborative Math Strategy Online "In a four-step activity called “Try It, Talk It, Color It, Check It,” students work through problems together and explain their mathematical thinking—all on Zoom."
Write interactive math stories in Google Slides
Zearn has made its K-5 math curriculum available for free to teachers. The content includes 400 hours of digital lessons with on-screen teachers and "supportive remediation," as well as paper-based materials that can be used device-free. https://about.zearn.org/distance-learning
Which One Doesn’t Belong? (pre-K–grade 12), a similar site, showcases four shapes, numbers, or graphs and asks students to describe which one doesn’t belong, using math vocabulary. “This is great for opening a synchronous discussion, as it is considered a low-floor, high-ceiling task,” says Joseph Manfre, a math specialist for the Hawaii Department of Education. High school math teacher Mary Bourassa has her calculus students identify reasons why each graph in a set of four doesn't belong by indicating graph characteristics like asymptotes and non-differentiable points, and later has her students create their own WODB sets.
Math Equations Allows you to take your typeset languages and convert them to images to use inside of your Google slideshow. Other features include the ability to reload a equation image and make changes and re upload to your presentation.’
Write on PDFs in Google Classroom - tool for math Provides a way students can do free-hand writing on documents shared in Google Classroom. A better option to having students take pictures of handwritten work and uploading it to Google Classroom assignments. The Chrome extension called Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF is a Chrome extension that enables students to draw on top of PDFs that you open in Chrome. After drawing on the PDF students can save the PDF as a new copy or replace the existing copy of the PDF that was sent to them in Google Classroom. video overview of how students can use Lumin PDF to write on PDFs that are assigned to them in Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
HowCan Help Students Solve Math Problems OneNote Within OneNote there is a great feature that can help students solve math problems. In the video that you can see how OneNote can help students solve math problems OneNote provides students with step-by-step outlines for solving math problems that they write in their OneNote notebooks. The way that this works is a student hand-writes or types a problem onto a page in OneNote and then highlights that problem using the lasso tool in OneNote. Once the problem is highlighted students can then select "math" in the ribbon menu and a new menu appears on the page. In that new menu students can choose to see the steps to take to solve the problem. Watch video to see how to use the math problem solution function in OneNote. Available in Windows and browser version on any computer. www.freetech4teachers.com
Division Brownies Conceptual practice of division, modeled after Jo Boaler Division Brownies in her book Mathematical Mindsets. Modeling Division of Brownies by @joboaler alicekeeler.com/boalerbrownies
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Chart It is a new tool that lets you create charts.
Drawings for Math
Khan Academy This is probably one of the most popular resources of video content covering topics as diverse as math, chemistry, biology, economics, history, finance, and many more.
Tutoring Experts As its name indicates, Tutoring Experts allows students to seek help with their math problems from tutors that are available 24/7. The process is simple and easy: students select the math area related to their problem, take a screenshot or use a picture of their problem, upload the image, add details about the problem and click on 'Start 20-min session'. There are 7 areas covered so far: Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Trigonometry, Precalculus, Calculus.
Transum Mathematics K - 6 A large collection of free interactive online activities supporting the teaching and learning of Mathematics.
Battleship Google Slides template for coordinate plane battleship Game Based Learning: Google Slides Coordinate Plane Battleship alicekeeler.com/slidesbattleship
Best Math Websites Chosen by Teachers: We Are Teachers has compiled online math resources for teachers (grades K-12)
Online Resources for Math Teachers: The National Council for Teaching Mathematics has curated these recommended resources, as well as related guidance on teaching math in the coming school year (grades K-12)
ASSISTments is a free tool for middle school level students assigning and assessing math problems and homework. Teachers can select and assign problem sets from providers like Eureka Math and Illustrative Math, the Common Core, or various textbook curricula or state assessments. Questions range from Skill Builders to Problem Sets to Exit Tickets, and all work can be assigned through Canvas or Google Classroom. Once they get an assignment, students can complete it at their own pace and with the help of hints, multiple chances, and immediate feedback. Teachers get instant results broken down by individual student or for the whole class.Teachers must initially put time into searching through the folders of content, organized by skills and concepts and identified by problem set IDs. This organization is a little odd, but once teachers have their favorite problem sets identified, things get easier. When students complete the assignments, teachers will have access to a time-stamped report that shows who answered correctly, when hints were used, and how long it took each student to complete the set.
Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. Also math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.
Webmath Webmath is a "site that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also shows the student how to arrive at the answer."
Virtual Manipulatives
Hand2mind A home learning resource for K-5 students. The "Learning at Home" program includes videos on math and literacy content taught by teachers and activities to reinforce the lessons and downloadable worksheets.
Math Playground K - 6 Math and Logic Game Thinking Blocks” and “Thinking Blocks Tool”
Solvemoji is a free website that makes math puzzles using emojis. There are ten levels of difficulty in classic, grid, or word types. You can create an account to join the leaderboard or just solve puzzles on the website. Solvemoji puzzles are great for math warmups and bell ringers.
YouTube channels for Math teachers
This is a collection of some helpful YouTube channels where you can access educational video content covering various math concepts. The channels include Math TV, Khan Academy, Techmath, Mathantics and many more
Freckle Math content covers K-8 math and ELA Common Core standards. Its math offering includes individual online practice for students, as well as group lessons that are meant to be taught at the whole-class level over multiple days. The online math practice allows teachers to assign specific activities for individual students to complete when they log on to their student accounts.
Online Math Games
Mark It Rounding game. Mark it Game alicekeeler.com/markitround10
Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
Play these fun Zoom games while social distancing to ensure you stay connected with everyone. They can be used with kids or adults.
Buzz Me In: Remote Learning Buzzers and Scoreboards
Want to gamify learning in your remote classroom in support of practice testing? Why not drop in an online buzzer or scoreboard? Find out how in this blog.
Solve It A “Frayer model for math.”alicekeeler.com/solveit
CSI: Algebra -- The Real Number System | Google slides version
Delta Math is a free program that allows teachers to combine modules of lessons. The modules cover a wide range of topics taught in Middle School math, Algebra 1 & 2, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and Computer Science. Once teachers set up their account and create their classes, they can provide students with a code to join their class. Students can work through modules at their own pace if you choose. The program includes built in graphing and statistical calculators as well as a keyboard that allows the user to write mathematical expressions. There program also shows students the steps to get the correct solution. If you want to see their work, the students have to send you a screenshot. www.freetech4teachers.com
I Know It is offering free access to its online math practice lessons for students in grades K-5. The site features over 500 graphical math activities. Animated characters guide students through math lessons, and hints and graphical explanations help them along when they need it. This tool tracks progress and scores for teachers and parents. Parents and teachers can request unlimited access in a form online.
Middle School Math Resources features video lessons covering big mathematical ideas for grades 6-8, delivered by a certified teacher. Support materials are available in both English and Spanish, and feature student activities and practice problems.
Socratic and Google Lens to take a photo of a problem or equation they need help with. Socratic and Lens provide quick access to helpful results, such as step-by-step guides to solve the problem and detailed explainers to help you better understand key concepts. There's no guarantee kids are going to use this app to learn; some will just want quick answers. Bottom Line: Used wisely, this reference tool has the capacity to amplify learning and aid students on their own time and term
MathDisk is a service that teachers can use to develop interactive mathematics worksheets. Through MathDisk's "Math Builder" tool you can design mathematics models that your students can use online. The models and worksheets you develop online can also be downloaded to use offline if you also install the MiBook software on your desktop or on your Android device. If you don't have time to create new materials, the MathDisk gallery has pages of models and worksheets that you can choose from. Everything in the gallery, like everything you create through MathDisk, can be downloaded and or embedded into your own website or blog.
Fraction Talks (grades 1–12) is a website filled with images of shapes--triangles within triangles, for example—that encourages math discussions. Simply asking students, “What do you observe?” can prompt them to share what and how many shapes they notice, while asking “How many shapes are red or shaded?” encourages students to explore and understand fractions. Once students have a basic understanding of fractions, they can start to explore more complex concepts. By prompting students to look at subsections of a shape—and what fractions they created when combined.
Five Free Virtual Dice
Visual Patterns (K–grade 12) shows the beginning of a pattern—like several boxes in a grid—then asks students to figure out the equation to fit the pattern. “Even though there is only one answer,” says Manfre, “you can ask deeper questions with these kinds of tasks, and engage students with mathematics in its more natural, visual form.”
CK-12 STEM, social studies resource with highly customizable content
Youtube Math Channels
1- MooMooMath and Science
This channel provides a wide variety of videos covering Math and Science. Some of its playlists include: vectors, equations, biochemical cycle, types of cells, galaxies, prime numbers, and many more.
2- Numberphile
Another great YouTube channel that provides video content to help students learn math.
3- Socratica
Created by a couple of Caltech grads, Socratica offers educational videos covering both Math and Science.
4- 3Blue1Brown
"3blue1brown, by Grant Sanderson, is some combination of math and entertainment, depending on your disposition. The goal is for explanations to be driven by animations and for difficult problems to be made simple with changes in perspective."
5- Maths Gotserved
"This channel offers a wide variety of math tutorials ranging from algebra, algebra 2, trigonometry, to Calculus. We offer free support to our subscribers who need help with mathematics."
6- Brian McLogan
"I teach math from the perspective of the struggling student because that was me & it could be you, too. My videos are short, to-the-point and cover everything from Algebra 1 through Calculus."
Solveme The logic of balancing mobile puzzles is the same as the logic required in solving equations and systems of equations.
Inside Mathematics Dynamic videos and printables support CCSS math practices
RossmanChance.com A secondary math specialist, had her students graph how they felt during the first week of distance learning.Applets—a simple code with a specific objective—were mentioned by a few teachers as a good resource. Emma Chiappetta's statistics students use applets from RossmanChance.com to manipulate and identify sampling distribution patterns in graphs, for example. She creates a basic guide on how to use the applet with which values to change, and then asks questions to get students thinking critically about those patterns. Chiappetta also uses applets from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her linear algebra students.
Desmos (grades 6–12), a website with interactive math activities and a graphing calculator (also available as an app on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android). Desmos is not just a graphing calculator! There are Desmos Classroom Activities for ALL levels. Check out the new whiteboard screens for distance learning. While social and emotional learning (SEL) and math may not seem to go hand in hand, teachers integrated SEL into math lessons using Desmos. In the first week of distance learning, Ashley Taplin, a secondary math specialist in San Antonio, Texas, had her students graph how they were feeling, for example. Taplin says she particularly loves that teachers can make their own activities—like this one about parabolas and this card sort, where students match cards with the name, corresponding equation, and correct graphical representation of a function.
🎯Math Whiteboard is a fabulous, free, collaborative tool designed specifically for math education. It allows the teacher, who shares a link to a collaborative board, to see the work of every student at one time. You can import PDFs for students to work on and annotate, use the included graphing calculator, take advantage of the powerful Computer Algebra System that allows for calculations from arithmetic to calculus, and write or type math formulas and numbers.
Middle School Math Jamboard Collection | Algebra 1 Jamboard Collection
High School Jamboard Collection
Choice Boards for Math
Google Slides Always-Sometimes-Never-Polynomials
7th Grade Math Jamboard Collection | 4th Grade Math Jamboard Collections | 3rd Grade Math Jamboard Collections | Second Grade Math Jamboard Collection | 1st Grade Math Jamboard Collections
Mathigon ( gr. 6 - 12) An interactive take on the classic math textbook. There are mini-games, interactive elements, and problems to solve throughout the text to keep students engaged. Topics range from Divisibility and Primes to Differential Equations; other fun topics include Mathematical Origami. Students must often show knowledge of concepts being taught before they're able to move forward. As students enter answers, an interactive bot named Archie gives real-time feedback and positive support and hints.
Graspable Math Graspable Math, available for free for teachers, is an “algebraic notation system.” This means that you can interact on the screen with math symbols. The interactive nature changes how children interact with math, making it less abstract.
Interactive Math Simulations
How to Turn Math Word Problems Into Engaging Comics
Elementary students may struggle with the wording of problems, and the visual supports of comics can help them focus on the math.
Permission slips help us set our intention and focus. Share examples such as, “I give myself permission to make a mistake and try again.” Then ask students to create their own permission slip (self-management
Math Tasks Resources Broad selection of challenges and manipulatives
Bad Calculators - Dozens of fun and challenging math puzzles where you apply operations to reach a result in a certain number of moves.
MathType this is an equation editor which allows you to easily type and handwrite mathematical notation in your Google documents. The add-on provides you with almost the same features you would normally find on the online version. MathType also supports chemical notation which you can access through ChemType. All the chemistry-related features are activated when the chemistry toolbar is activated.
Empower Your MathLessons with Google Suite Incorporate, Google docs, Slides, Drawings and more to enhance math instruction
Which One Doesn't Belong?, "a website dedicated to providing thought-provoking puzzles for math teachers and students alike. There are no answers provided as there are many different, correct ways of choosing which one doesn't belong."
Anchor Charts An anchor chart is a tool used to support instruction (i.e., “anchor” the learning for students). As you teach a lesson, you create a chart, together with your students, that captures the most important content and relevant strategies. Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom by making thinking—both the teacher’s and students’—visible. Resources for finding anchor chart templates
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
GeoGebra has many useful tools and activities for many of the hands-on geometry construction standards, and EquatIO which helps add mathematical symbols into text spaces. How to use Geogebra notes video 1 | video 2
Who Am I? A number robot offers clues about who the puzzle represents. The goal is to fill in the blanks for its digits and solve the mystery. Logical thinking is critical here. There are currently more than 200 visual, interactive mathematical puzzles or students can create their own puzzles to share with friends or the SolveMe Community. Students can play without an account or log in to keep track of their progress. And all SolveMe activities are self checking.
SolveMe Mobiles. This tool provides equations practice using mobiles. Imagine a hanging sculpture made with shapes, strings, and beams. The beams and strings are weightless, but the shapes have weight. Students can also create their own mobiles for others to solve.
SolveMe MysteryGrid is another great math logic tool. To solve a mystery grid puzzle, place all the tiles on the grid so that every row and every column contains exactly one type of tile, and so that the tiles fit the clues.
Autograph 5 is free, downloadable software for high school math teachers (and their students). It allows you to visualize math problems in 2D and 3D designs with the click of a button.
Cyberchase gr. 2 - 5 Facilitates math practice and application. Its varied videos could be used to introduce, reinforce, or apply concepts. The homepage has tabs for videos (including full episodes of the television show as well as Web shorts), games, and printable activities, and a tab to search the video and game library by topic. One drawback is that most games don't continue to progress to new levels or difficulties once they're cleared. Another drawback is that you can search for videos and games by topic or theme, but not by grade level or age, so it may take several tries to find something at the right level.
Free Math Instruction Apps from the Math Learning Center is a resource that I've shared in the past. The last time I wrote about it was a couple of years ago. Back then it offered ten free apps containing virtual manipulatives for math lessons. Since then MLC has expanded to offer twelve free apps. Ten of them are available for iOS, Android, and Chrome while two are currently Chrome-only. Math Learning Center apps are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. With the exception of the flashcards app, all of the Math Learning Center's free apps are designed to provide you and your students with virtual manipulatives. By the way, the flashcard app is available in English and Spanish.
EquatIO - Math made digital - Google Chrome "makes math digital, helping teachers and students at all levels create math expressions quickly and easily. Type or handwrite virtually any mathematical term" Review
- Voice Type Math Symbols into Google Docs Sheets Slides Jamboard
- Unfortunately, while all of EquatIO's features are free for teachers, students need to have a subscription in order to access all of the features within EquatIO. Here are a couple of other Add-ons that you might consider using for inserting graphs and equations into your Google Documents and Google Forms
- Jamboard Math Activities with Equatio - Resource Link - How to use the free Equatio extension to easily add all sorts of mathematical manipulatives, symbols, and expressions to Jamboard for learning activities.
Microsoft Math Solver - Step-by-step directions for solving math problems from Pre-Algebra to Calculus, as well as supporting videos, quizzes, worksheets, and other resources.
Splat POWERFUL, highly interactive number sense strategy that can be used at any grade level.
Matific A collection of online Mathematics activities that teach students problem solving and critical thinking through discovery...Matific’s content is completely browsable and searchable, and you can even designate any content specifically for schoolwork or homework, and all our content is aligned to your local curriculum or textbook."
CK-12 Math The math section in cK-12 offers a collection of mathe resources covering: precalculus, Algebra, Geometry, and 1st-8th grades math.
Would You Rather Math is so awesome! The two-statement scenario spurs debate, discussion, reasoning, and writing in the math classroom. The questions are separated into four grade levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12.
Open Middle (pre-K–grade 12) leaves parts of an equation blank and asks students to fill them in to make it true. “I love Open Middle for remote learning, especially paired with a Google Jamboard,” says teacher McGrath. “The problems inspire inquiry thinking, game like play, creativity, and perseverance.”
Depth of Knowledge Matrix based on the Open Middle concept for Algebra 2 available from Robert Kaplinsky. He also has these matrices:
- Elementary and secondary matrix (a selection from eight grade levels)
- Elementary matrix (kindergarten through 5th grade)
- Secondary matrix (6th grade through calculus)
- 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 matrices (separate matrices for each grade level)
MashUpMath 6- 8 Middle School Try to match the puzzle with certain holidays or events.
Using Jamboard to get students doing math together (video) | Math Jamboard Templates
Function (or Not) Puzzle with links to a Google Slides version and a Jamboard version. scroll down to see the download options
Two Kahoot Features for Math Math symbol editor is now part of the built-in features in Kahoot creator allowing you to easily add a wide variety of formulas and equations into "questions, answer alternatives and slides in your Kahoot". To open the math editor, click on f(x) and use the provided options to type in a formula or equation, once finished click on Insert. Another great feature from Kahoot that math teachers will find helpful is the ability to use images as answer alternatives in your kahoots. These can be practical when "explaining graphs and fractions in a more interactive way". You can use either your own images or select from kahoot's library. You can also mix both images with text to make your kahoot more engaging.
Zearn K - 5 An online math curriculum (coupled with live whole- and small-group instruction) for grades one through five, with supplemental skills practice activities for kindergartners. Students open up to a dashboard with tasks to be completed; these include a variety of fluency warm-ups that promote general number sense and lesson-specific skills, as well as guided practice with interactive video lessons that feature enthusiastic human teachers and school-age children ("The Zearn Squad"). Students will also find an independent practice and formative assessment activity rolled into one (called the Tower of Power) and a summative exit ticket. Teachers have quick access to the curriculum from their own dashboard, as well as a handy Pace Report to help track student progress.
LearnZillion has numerous free video math lessons that end with a quiz. Those in themselves are not that big of a deal, but three nice things about them are that they are designed by teachers, are free, and that teachers can create “virtual” classes and monitor student progress on them.
xtramath.org. It is a free site that helps kids master their math facts. Initially, the student takes an assessment quiz of what they already have mastered as indicated by a response of 3 seconds or less. Each consecutive session is based on the outcome of the previous assessments. It takes about 5 minutes a day, provides corrective feedback, visuals for goal setting, and can be used for the whole class or set up at home by a parent.
Formative for Interactive Math Worksheets | Tips for Math Teachers! | Formative Help Center | You can also use the whiteboard and observe in realtime students work and comment and provide help through text or audio.
Classkick is an interactive tool which allows teachers to create assignments and push them out to their students. Classkick allows teacher-created assignments to become interactive learning opportunities for students. Classkick offers teachers the ability to view their entire class in one screen, in real-time. It also allows teachers to provide immediate feedback on student work. Almost like a virtual whiteboard, a teacher might pose a math a few math problems on the question slides. Students can then work through those problems at their own pace and demonstrate their thinking with a variety of annotation tools. The teacher is able to monitor students’ screens from his or her own device and provide feedback directly to individual students. | How to Create a Classkick Account and Use the Online Whiteboard Tools in Math Classes
Spiral Assessment tool for teachers that incorporates real-time feedback for students. Quickfire, Clip, Team Up, and Discuss. Quickfire allows teachers to assign a quiz or ask a question. Teachers can send back inadequate responses immediately and ask students to improve and resubmit responses. Clip allows users to create interactive videos, stopping periodically to check understanding or discuss content. Team Up allows teachers to randomize or assign teams and have students create presentations that hold each member accountable. Finally, Discuss allows users to participate in interactive presentations by asking questions, sharing pictures, and responding to others. tutorial
That Quiz Quizzes on arithmetic to calculus, You can use activities provide and edit them or design your own Video tutorial
Boddle ( K -5) is an adaptive learning platform that offers access to a wide variety of interactive math games designed specifically for kids. Besides self-paced practice activities that target grades K-6 mathematics, Boddle offers you the possibility to host your own class online. You can create a classroom and invite your students to join. As students play the game, you will get access to real-time reports about their performance and tools to track their progress.Content on Boddle is standards-aligned designed. Boddle can be used in a variety of educational activities in class including as an exit ticket, a formative assessment tool, or as a supplement to your lessons. Boddle comes in two version the basic version is free and offers limited features, the pro one comes with way more services
Bringing a Collaborative Math Strategy Online "In a four-step activity called “Try It, Talk It, Color It, Check It,” students work through problems together and explain their mathematical thinking—all on Zoom."
Write interactive math stories in Google Slides
Zearn has made its K-5 math curriculum available for free to teachers. The content includes 400 hours of digital lessons with on-screen teachers and "supportive remediation," as well as paper-based materials that can be used device-free. https://about.zearn.org/distance-learning
Which One Doesn’t Belong? (pre-K–grade 12), a similar site, showcases four shapes, numbers, or graphs and asks students to describe which one doesn’t belong, using math vocabulary. “This is great for opening a synchronous discussion, as it is considered a low-floor, high-ceiling task,” says Joseph Manfre, a math specialist for the Hawaii Department of Education. High school math teacher Mary Bourassa has her calculus students identify reasons why each graph in a set of four doesn't belong by indicating graph characteristics like asymptotes and non-differentiable points, and later has her students create their own WODB sets.
Math Equations Allows you to take your typeset languages and convert them to images to use inside of your Google slideshow. Other features include the ability to reload a equation image and make changes and re upload to your presentation.’
Write on PDFs in Google Classroom - tool for math Provides a way students can do free-hand writing on documents shared in Google Classroom. A better option to having students take pictures of handwritten work and uploading it to Google Classroom assignments. The Chrome extension called Lumin PDF. Lumin PDF is a Chrome extension that enables students to draw on top of PDFs that you open in Chrome. After drawing on the PDF students can save the PDF as a new copy or replace the existing copy of the PDF that was sent to them in Google Classroom. video overview of how students can use Lumin PDF to write on PDFs that are assigned to them in Google Classroom. www.freetech4teachers.com
HowCan Help Students Solve Math Problems OneNote Within OneNote there is a great feature that can help students solve math problems. In the video that you can see how OneNote can help students solve math problems OneNote provides students with step-by-step outlines for solving math problems that they write in their OneNote notebooks. The way that this works is a student hand-writes or types a problem onto a page in OneNote and then highlights that problem using the lasso tool in OneNote. Once the problem is highlighted students can then select "math" in the ribbon menu and a new menu appears on the page. In that new menu students can choose to see the steps to take to solve the problem. Watch video to see how to use the math problem solution function in OneNote. Available in Windows and browser version on any computer. www.freetech4teachers.com
Division Brownies Conceptual practice of division, modeled after Jo Boaler Division Brownies in her book Mathematical Mindsets. Modeling Division of Brownies by @joboaler alicekeeler.com/boalerbrownies
Study Ladder. It has literacy, science and math interactives, and teachers can set-up “classrooms” to keep track of student work. Plus, it’s free!
Chart It is a new tool that lets you create charts.
Drawings for Math
- 11 Ways to Teach Math with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Help Guide - "Teaching Math with Google Drawings" - Google Document link
- Training video - "Teaching Math with Google Drawings" - YouTube Video
- Blog post - "Interactive Clock Face with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Interactive Clock Face template - Google Drawing link
- Blog post - "Creating Fractions in Google Slides and Drawings" - Website link
- Blog post - "Pattern Block Templates and Activities with Google Drawings" - Website link
- Choral Counting Using Interactive Slides This interactive Choral Counting routine gives a place for student responses and visuals to show patterns.
- Which One Doesn’t Belong Get kids to compare and contrast to find the box that doesn’t belong in any subject area. Give each student a voice with open rationale writing space.
- Proportionate Pokemon Learn how to use POKEMON to teach kids about measurement (with non-standard units) and proportions.
- Which One Doesn’t Belong This classic strategy allows students to consider a rule for which one doesn’t belong.
Khan Academy This is probably one of the most popular resources of video content covering topics as diverse as math, chemistry, biology, economics, history, finance, and many more.
Tutoring Experts As its name indicates, Tutoring Experts allows students to seek help with their math problems from tutors that are available 24/7. The process is simple and easy: students select the math area related to their problem, take a screenshot or use a picture of their problem, upload the image, add details about the problem and click on 'Start 20-min session'. There are 7 areas covered so far: Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Trigonometry, Precalculus, Calculus.
Transum Mathematics K - 6 A large collection of free interactive online activities supporting the teaching and learning of Mathematics.
Battleship Google Slides template for coordinate plane battleship Game Based Learning: Google Slides Coordinate Plane Battleship alicekeeler.com/slidesbattleship
Best Math Websites Chosen by Teachers: We Are Teachers has compiled online math resources for teachers (grades K-12)
Online Resources for Math Teachers: The National Council for Teaching Mathematics has curated these recommended resources, as well as related guidance on teaching math in the coming school year (grades K-12)
ASSISTments is a free tool for middle school level students assigning and assessing math problems and homework. Teachers can select and assign problem sets from providers like Eureka Math and Illustrative Math, the Common Core, or various textbook curricula or state assessments. Questions range from Skill Builders to Problem Sets to Exit Tickets, and all work can be assigned through Canvas or Google Classroom. Once they get an assignment, students can complete it at their own pace and with the help of hints, multiple chances, and immediate feedback. Teachers get instant results broken down by individual student or for the whole class.Teachers must initially put time into searching through the folders of content, organized by skills and concepts and identified by problem set IDs. This organization is a little odd, but once teachers have their favorite problem sets identified, things get easier. When students complete the assignments, teachers will have access to a time-stamped report that shows who answered correctly, when hints were used, and how long it took each student to complete the set.
Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. Also math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.
Webmath Webmath is a "site that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also shows the student how to arrive at the answer."
Virtual Manipulatives
- The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives This website features interactive, grade-level-specific sets of manipulatives. You can click on tiles of students and teacher interacting to see what’s available.
- Math Virtual Manipulative Collection K-6 Wonderful collection of free virtual math manipulatives. It’s been put together by Julie Smith, the Techie Teacher, and can also be shared with students in Google Classroom, Seesaw, Canvas, or any other LMS you’re using with this link: https://bit.ly/TechieTeacherMath.
- MathBots Includes manipulatives, question generators, puzzles, printables, and more. I really the Starters section which offers bell ringer activities to get kids warmed up and ready to learn. It also has a great Tools section where you’ll find more than 25 different digital math resources perfect for exploratory learning or for teacher-led instruction. MathsBot include in Manipulatives, for instance, Coordinate Pegboard, Algebra Discs, Counters, Equation Solvers, Dice, Geoboard, and many more. Math tools offered include: Fraction Grids, Multim-Number Line, Number Bonds, Place Value Chart, Venn Diagrams, Scaled Times Tables, Percentage Trails, among others. There are also over 14 printable resources like Pyramids, Polygon Names, Angle Names, Axes, Dotty Grids, Basic Angle Rules, Pie Charts, etc. You can browse through the resources on MathsBot using the top menu or you can use the search box in the top right corner to search for specific items. Besides these resources, MathsBot also offers a timer, an advanced calculator, a set of mathematical symbols to copy, and a camera to take screenshots. All of these tools are located on the top left corner.
- Math Manipulatives for K - 5 Wide variety of tools. Clicxk on each one and it will link you to the tool
- Didax Virtual Manipulatives for Math $ Didax’s website offers web-based manipulatives you can use at no cost. They also offer video tutorials for how to use their virtual manipulatives.
- Whiteboard Chat Create collaborative whiteboards to use with your students. Virtual mathmanipulatives,. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Glencoe Math includes K - 5 tools and algebra tiles
- Decimal Blocks - Resource Link - Interactive tool for visualizing, building, describing, comparing, and exploring place value with decimals.
- Constructions - Resource Link - Interactive tool to perform constructions with a digital compass, ruler, protractor, and more.Exterior Angles - Resource Link - Interactive tool to create polygons and explore the sum of the exterior angles.
- Measure Up - Resource Link - Measure spaces and objects around you in augmented reality with this experiment for Chrome on Android.
- Math Tasks Resources scroll down to see manipulatives
- MathsPad - Interactive online tools including activities for constructions, graphing, decimal blocks, exterior angles, and more.
- Virtual Math Manipulatives K - 5
- Create Angles Google Drawing with a transparent protractor. Math: Creating Angles in a Google Drawing
- Mathigon’s Polypad Appearing in a tweet from Tony Vincent, Polypad offers some incredible digital manipulatives. You can add fraction bars, change the colors of objects, and much more.
- Toy Theater K - 5 This is a rich digital manipulative website. You can find a lot to explore. Before you ask yourself “How can I use this with my students?” watch Jessica Oldham explain how. Her audience is her students, and we can learn from her efforts.
- Make Your Own with Google SlidesThe K-5 Math Teaching Resources site offers a fascinating suggestion: have students work with digital manipulatives in Google Slides. They offer tips on how to best organize the lesson and provide several Google Slides templates. The templates include Five Frame, Ten Frame, Number Line 0-10, and Hundreds, Tens and Ones Mat among others.
- Money pieces
- Mathsbot K- 5 also algebra tiles bar modeling counters counting stick Cuisenaire rods Dienes blocks fraction wall geoboard number frame pentominoes place value counters unit box
- Math manipulatives templates ■ Clock Fractions ■ Money Fractions ■ Using Google Draw for Virtual Manipulatives ■ Teaching Math with Google Drawings
Hand2mind A home learning resource for K-5 students. The "Learning at Home" program includes videos on math and literacy content taught by teachers and activities to reinforce the lessons and downloadable worksheets.
Math Playground K - 6 Math and Logic Game Thinking Blocks” and “Thinking Blocks Tool”
Solvemoji is a free website that makes math puzzles using emojis. There are ten levels of difficulty in classic, grid, or word types. You can create an account to join the leaderboard or just solve puzzles on the website. Solvemoji puzzles are great for math warmups and bell ringers.
YouTube channels for Math teachers
This is a collection of some helpful YouTube channels where you can access educational video content covering various math concepts. The channels include Math TV, Khan Academy, Techmath, Mathantics and many more
Freckle Math content covers K-8 math and ELA Common Core standards. Its math offering includes individual online practice for students, as well as group lessons that are meant to be taught at the whole-class level over multiple days. The online math practice allows teachers to assign specific activities for individual students to complete when they log on to their student accounts.
Online Math Games
Mark It Rounding game. Mark it Game alicekeeler.com/markitround10
- Make 100 game Based on game from youcubed.org to help develop number sense for students. alicekeeler.com/make100
- Topmarks Math Games Topmarks has this resourceful section packed full of math games for kids 3 to 14 years old. Some of the math concepts covered by these games include: multiplication and division, addition and subtraction, counting, odd and even, sequencing numbers and many more.
- Math Games A site fo math games that lets teachers create virtual classrooms and monitor student progress.
- MathQuiz.io Elementary Grades
MathQuiz.io is a math game developed by a student. It's a relatively simple site that presents you with a series of math problems to solve in your head then enter an answer. The problems are presented in sets of ten consecutive questions. You can play in an "easy" mode which is mostly simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication or you can plan in the "medium" mode which incorporates problems with fractions, division, and negative numbers. - PBS Kids Math Games This page from PBS Kids features a number of interactive math games for kids. Some of these games are also available in other languages than English. Make sure your browser has Java installed for you will need it to play most of the games here.
- MathQuiz.io is a new math game developed by a student. It's a relatively simple site that presents you with a series of math problems to solve in your head then enter an answer. The problems are presented in sets of ten consecutive questions. You can play in an "easy" mode which is mostly simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication or you can plan in the "medium" mode which incorporates problems with fractions, division, and negative numbers. www.freetech4teqchers.com
- Fun Brain Math Games This is another excellent website that provides interactive games for teaching Math and reading. The math section includes games such as Math Arcade, Math Baseball, Connect the Dots and many more.
- Cool math Games This is {a} brain-training site, for everyone, where logic & thinking meets fun & games. These games have no violence, no empty action, just a lot of challenges that will make you forget you're getting a mental workout!
Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
Play these fun Zoom games while social distancing to ensure you stay connected with everyone. They can be used with kids or adults.
Buzz Me In: Remote Learning Buzzers and Scoreboards
Want to gamify learning in your remote classroom in support of practice testing? Why not drop in an online buzzer or scoreboard? Find out how in this blog.
Solve It A “Frayer model for math.”alicekeeler.com/solveit
CSI: Algebra -- The Real Number System | Google slides version
Delta Math is a free program that allows teachers to combine modules of lessons. The modules cover a wide range of topics taught in Middle School math, Algebra 1 & 2, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and Computer Science. Once teachers set up their account and create their classes, they can provide students with a code to join their class. Students can work through modules at their own pace if you choose. The program includes built in graphing and statistical calculators as well as a keyboard that allows the user to write mathematical expressions. There program also shows students the steps to get the correct solution. If you want to see their work, the students have to send you a screenshot. www.freetech4teachers.com
I Know It is offering free access to its online math practice lessons for students in grades K-5. The site features over 500 graphical math activities. Animated characters guide students through math lessons, and hints and graphical explanations help them along when they need it. This tool tracks progress and scores for teachers and parents. Parents and teachers can request unlimited access in a form online.
Middle School Math Resources features video lessons covering big mathematical ideas for grades 6-8, delivered by a certified teacher. Support materials are available in both English and Spanish, and feature student activities and practice problems.
Socratic and Google Lens to take a photo of a problem or equation they need help with. Socratic and Lens provide quick access to helpful results, such as step-by-step guides to solve the problem and detailed explainers to help you better understand key concepts. There's no guarantee kids are going to use this app to learn; some will just want quick answers. Bottom Line: Used wisely, this reference tool has the capacity to amplify learning and aid students on their own time and term
MathDisk is a service that teachers can use to develop interactive mathematics worksheets. Through MathDisk's "Math Builder" tool you can design mathematics models that your students can use online. The models and worksheets you develop online can also be downloaded to use offline if you also install the MiBook software on your desktop or on your Android device. If you don't have time to create new materials, the MathDisk gallery has pages of models and worksheets that you can choose from. Everything in the gallery, like everything you create through MathDisk, can be downloaded and or embedded into your own website or blog.
Fraction Talks (grades 1–12) is a website filled with images of shapes--triangles within triangles, for example—that encourages math discussions. Simply asking students, “What do you observe?” can prompt them to share what and how many shapes they notice, while asking “How many shapes are red or shaded?” encourages students to explore and understand fractions. Once students have a basic understanding of fractions, they can start to explore more complex concepts. By prompting students to look at subsections of a shape—and what fractions they created when combined.
Five Free Virtual Dice
Visual Patterns (K–grade 12) shows the beginning of a pattern—like several boxes in a grid—then asks students to figure out the equation to fit the pattern. “Even though there is only one answer,” says Manfre, “you can ask deeper questions with these kinds of tasks, and engage students with mathematics in its more natural, visual form.”
CK-12 STEM, social studies resource with highly customizable content
Youtube Math Channels
1- MooMooMath and Science
This channel provides a wide variety of videos covering Math and Science. Some of its playlists include: vectors, equations, biochemical cycle, types of cells, galaxies, prime numbers, and many more.
2- Numberphile
Another great YouTube channel that provides video content to help students learn math.
3- Socratica
Created by a couple of Caltech grads, Socratica offers educational videos covering both Math and Science.
4- 3Blue1Brown
"3blue1brown, by Grant Sanderson, is some combination of math and entertainment, depending on your disposition. The goal is for explanations to be driven by animations and for difficult problems to be made simple with changes in perspective."
5- Maths Gotserved
"This channel offers a wide variety of math tutorials ranging from algebra, algebra 2, trigonometry, to Calculus. We offer free support to our subscribers who need help with mathematics."
6- Brian McLogan
"I teach math from the perspective of the struggling student because that was me & it could be you, too. My videos are short, to-the-point and cover everything from Algebra 1 through Calculus."
Solveme The logic of balancing mobile puzzles is the same as the logic required in solving equations and systems of equations.
Inside Mathematics Dynamic videos and printables support CCSS math practices
RossmanChance.com A secondary math specialist, had her students graph how they felt during the first week of distance learning.Applets—a simple code with a specific objective—were mentioned by a few teachers as a good resource. Emma Chiappetta's statistics students use applets from RossmanChance.com to manipulate and identify sampling distribution patterns in graphs, for example. She creates a basic guide on how to use the applet with which values to change, and then asks questions to get students thinking critically about those patterns. Chiappetta also uses applets from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her linear algebra students.
Desmos (grades 6–12), a website with interactive math activities and a graphing calculator (also available as an app on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android). Desmos is not just a graphing calculator! There are Desmos Classroom Activities for ALL levels. Check out the new whiteboard screens for distance learning. While social and emotional learning (SEL) and math may not seem to go hand in hand, teachers integrated SEL into math lessons using Desmos. In the first week of distance learning, Ashley Taplin, a secondary math specialist in San Antonio, Texas, had her students graph how they were feeling, for example. Taplin says she particularly loves that teachers can make their own activities—like this one about parabolas and this card sort, where students match cards with the name, corresponding equation, and correct graphical representation of a function.
Social Studies/History
Teaching History with Hamilton K - 12
Distance Learning with the National Archives <[email protected]>All of the program recordings are now available on YouTube:
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comLearning for Justice has plenty of online articles, videos, and other resources for teaching social studies in an inclusive and informed way.
News Evaluator website is a new interactive designed to help students develop information literacy skills.
Current Events and Media Literacy
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
5 ways that Google Jamboard can save your Social Studies Bacon
Breaking News Google Slide template foe students to pretend they are a newscaster and have some Breaking News!
Circle-Based Visuals with Circly Circly is a free web-based tool that allows you to create simpler ways of looking at complex topics. The teacher or students can drag-and-drop circles anywhere on the screen to create connections between ideas or topics. The tool is extremely colorful and simple to use.
Achieve3000 is offering free access to resources for differentiated literacy instruction. Educators and parents can sign their students up for Achieve3000 Literacy at Home, for access to non-fiction articles at three reading levels with topics covering science, social studies and current events. For students without reliable or daily internet, the company is offering "Literacy Printable Packets," a set of text sets with 20 printable articles and questions for grades 1-12.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comHow to Engage Students in Historical Thinking Using Everyday Objects Asking students to examine their own possessions from the perspective of a historian in the future helps them sharpen their analytical skills.
Create Meme in Google Drawings Sample
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Wikipedia Timeline Generator. This free tool will take a Wikipedia article and generate a timeline based on that article. That's not all it does. You can edit the entries on the timeline to correct dates, to edit the information associated with the dates, delete entries on the timeline, and add new dates to the timeline. Timelines created with the Wikipedia Timeline Generator can be embedded into web pages and or shared with the unique URL assigned to your timeline. www.freetech4teachers.com short video Other useful tools at ClassTools.net,
C-SPAN Classroom Bell Ringers are short video clips accompanied by a few discussion questions and a list of key vocabulary terms. Bell Ringers are intended to be warm-up or introductory activities that you can complete with your students in five to ten minutes.
Facing History: Facing History has compiled their remote learning resources, training opportunities, and more in this online resource center (grades 3-12)
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
Bouncy Maps - Animated world maps that change the relative sizes of countries based on data including population, energy, economy, religion, health, and more.
This Would Be An Interesting Social Studies Assignment: Choose The Best & Worst Years In History
5 Ways to Use Jamboard Teaching Social Studies Subject Areas
Learn With Google Arts and Culture. Learn With Google Arts and Culture is a collection of lesson plans, Street View imagery, and virtual tours based around the content found in Google Arts and Culture. www.freetech4teachers.com
DOGONews: Thousands of news articles and new original content added daily in ELA, science, and social studies (grade 3+)
Newsela: Authentic content from the most trusted names with leveled articles. ELA, social studies, science, and SEL collections (grades 2-5+)
The New York Times Learning Network,
Tween Tribune find content based on current events. Allows you to search by reading level.
KidsPost is a current events website which features games, news, contests, puzzles, and fun activities. The articles relate to elementary - middle school range of students. Once a site user clicks on an article, the readability is appropriate for middle elementary aged students. Children will also find the photography area interesting since the captions underneath are written as mini-stories. For those students who are looking for reading recommendations, this section of the website is extremely helpful.
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Anti-Social Studies High School American History podcasts along with teaching materials, sample essays, and two very handy planning documents that are excellent. You get both face to face and online teaching tools and strategies, ideas for direct and indirect instruction, and assorted other best practices.
Teaching with Current Events gr 6 - 12
Brochure Google Slides template for creating a brochure. Why a Brochure?
The Core Knowledge free PDFs They cover many of the key elements of any World History or U.S. History curriculum. Each PDF includes both teacher lessons and the student book. However, the teacher lessons are in portrait view but the student book isn’t – you would have to go to something like the free PDF go to “rotate” the student pages so they wouldn’t have to bend their heads to read them online
Virtual Field Trips
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Wonderopolis. Informational nonfiction text that is highly engaging.
History Mysteries: Historical Inquiry for Elementary Classrooms is a site created with Library of Congress / Teaching with Primary Sources money. Two teachers, Kelley Brown and Laurie Risler, partnered to develop Google Slides, student materials, and teacher guides that all focus on historical thinking skills and the use of primary sources. History Mysteries provides a ton of ready to use presentations, intro videos, handouts, and teacher resources, all designed to make the life of an elementary teacher as easy as possible.
Zoom In "is a free, Web-based platform that helps students build literacy and historical thinking skills through “deep dives” into primary and secondary sources."
The Image Annotator is a tool from Class Tools that allows you to…annotate images.
Media Literacy and Current Events
C-SPAN Classroom provides free video-based materials, including lesson plans, for social studies teachers. https://www.c-span.org/classroom/
DocsTeach is the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives. Teachers can access primary source-based learning activities and assign them to students to complete online. Students can complete activities and research primary sources on a variety of topics spanning American history. Learn more at: www.docsteach.org/resources/getting-started
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google Slides Add-on Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
Social Studies Remote Learning Resources
Civics Renewal Network brings together resources from partner organizations such as the National Archives, iCivics, National Constitution Center, the Center for Civic Education, and more.
Make your own VR Field Trip If you can’t find the exact field trip you are looking for on Google Expeditions, consider creating your own! There are two DIY virtual reality tools that I like. Tour Creator is another Google product, which allows you to use any Google Maps image or take your own pictures using an app called Google Cardboard Camera, and create a custom VR tour. Within these tours you can add multiple scenes, audio narration, and points of interest. Consider creating a tour of your school, city, or any other area that is specific to your needs.
Co-Spaces is another VR tool. It differs from Google's tours in that the VR spaces you create are all animated — so the sky isn’t even the limit!
Consider having students create their own VR tours on Tour Creator or CoSpaces. Make custom activities for your. classroom: quizzes, match ups, word games, and more
Teach the Headlines this fall with lessons from the Zinn Education Project about the climate crisis, immigration, Black Lives Matter, voter suppression, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more
Distance Learning with the National Archives <[email protected]>All of the program recordings are now available on YouTube:
- How to Lead a DocsTeach Activity Remotely: https://youtu.be/PAwG07ac7cA
- How to Create and Share Primary Source Sets: https://youtu.be/sXJzAPiWcNM
- How to Pair and Share DocsTeach Activity Sets: https://youtu.be/iHc_Wjp615o
- How to Analyze Primary Sources Online with DocsTeach: https://youtu.be/iIwrnpdk4-A
- The Smithsonian Learning Lab Mini Exhibits is a resource for social studies and language arts teachers. One of its many features is an option to create and share collections of artifacts from the Smithsonian and external sources. And every month the Smithsonian Learning Lab sends out an email with ideas for activities for students. Mini Exhibits about household items.
- Smithsonian History Explorer. provides seven types of resource types: artifacts, primary sources, lessons and activities, worksheets, reference materials, reviewed websites, and interactives and media. The staff from the Smithsonian Museum of American History has added so many new resources, lessons, activities, and themes, I guarantee you’ll walk away with all sorts of stuff you can incorporate into your instruction tomorrow. Start by using the search tool on the home page. Insert key words, select your resource type, grade level, era, and potential cross curricular connection. Hit return. You’ll get results from a couple thousand ready to use lesson plans and activities
Use Formative to Build Questions Into Primary Source Documents Formative is a tool for creating all kinds of online activities from simple multiple choice quizzes to in-depth examinations for documents.You can upload a document and then build questions into the document for students to answer while reading. This video demonstrates using a PDF of a primary source document in Formative. www.freetech4teachers.comLearning for Justice has plenty of online articles, videos, and other resources for teaching social studies in an inclusive and informed way.
News Evaluator website is a new interactive designed to help students develop information literacy skills.
Current Events and Media Literacy
Hexagon Thinking Connections Video
5 ways that Google Jamboard can save your Social Studies Bacon
Breaking News Google Slide template foe students to pretend they are a newscaster and have some Breaking News!
Circle-Based Visuals with Circly Circly is a free web-based tool that allows you to create simpler ways of looking at complex topics. The teacher or students can drag-and-drop circles anywhere on the screen to create connections between ideas or topics. The tool is extremely colorful and simple to use.
Achieve3000 is offering free access to resources for differentiated literacy instruction. Educators and parents can sign their students up for Achieve3000 Literacy at Home, for access to non-fiction articles at three reading levels with topics covering science, social studies and current events. For students without reliable or daily internet, the company is offering "Literacy Printable Packets," a set of text sets with 20 printable articles and questions for grades 1-12.
A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs have students working in small groups and recording notes, Assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. Demonstrated in this new video www.freetech4teachers.comHow to Engage Students in Historical Thinking Using Everyday Objects Asking students to examine their own possessions from the perspective of a historian in the future helps them sharpen their analytical skills.
Create Meme in Google Drawings Sample
Fakebook Students create a Facebook like page to provide biographies of historical or literature characters.
Template: Students text message to learn?!? Write a fake text message conversation between two characters, historical figures, even students. Learning will ensue! What if that text message conversation was interactive This is the newest free Google Slides/PowerPoint template! Plus, ideas for integrating it in literature, history, geography, health, math, and world language! template here!
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Wikipedia Timeline Generator. This free tool will take a Wikipedia article and generate a timeline based on that article. That's not all it does. You can edit the entries on the timeline to correct dates, to edit the information associated with the dates, delete entries on the timeline, and add new dates to the timeline. Timelines created with the Wikipedia Timeline Generator can be embedded into web pages and or shared with the unique URL assigned to your timeline. www.freetech4teachers.com short video Other useful tools at ClassTools.net,
C-SPAN Classroom Bell Ringers are short video clips accompanied by a few discussion questions and a list of key vocabulary terms. Bell Ringers are intended to be warm-up or introductory activities that you can complete with your students in five to ten minutes.
Facing History: Facing History has compiled their remote learning resources, training opportunities, and more in this online resource center (grades 3-12)
Slow Reveal Graphs Rather than presenting a full graph to students and asking them to interpret it, teachers use Slow Reveal Graphs to allow the students to discuss, think, wonder, and predict as each stage of the graph is shown – hopefully resulting in deeper learning. (This technique is similar to the one used in the New York Times’ “What’s Going on in this Graph?”
Bouncy Maps - Animated world maps that change the relative sizes of countries based on data including population, energy, economy, religion, health, and more.
This Would Be An Interesting Social Studies Assignment: Choose The Best & Worst Years In History
5 Ways to Use Jamboard Teaching Social Studies Subject Areas
Learn With Google Arts and Culture. Learn With Google Arts and Culture is a collection of lesson plans, Street View imagery, and virtual tours based around the content found in Google Arts and Culture. www.freetech4teachers.com
DOGONews: Thousands of news articles and new original content added daily in ELA, science, and social studies (grade 3+)
Newsela: Authentic content from the most trusted names with leveled articles. ELA, social studies, science, and SEL collections (grades 2-5+)
The New York Times Learning Network,
Tween Tribune find content based on current events. Allows you to search by reading level.
KidsPost is a current events website which features games, news, contests, puzzles, and fun activities. The articles relate to elementary - middle school range of students. Once a site user clicks on an article, the readability is appropriate for middle elementary aged students. Children will also find the photography area interesting since the captions underneath are written as mini-stories. For those students who are looking for reading recommendations, this section of the website is extremely helpful.
Socratic Smackdown - Remote Learning - Google Slides
Anti-Social Studies High School American History podcasts along with teaching materials, sample essays, and two very handy planning documents that are excellent. You get both face to face and online teaching tools and strategies, ideas for direct and indirect instruction, and assorted other best practices.
Teaching with Current Events gr 6 - 12
Brochure Google Slides template for creating a brochure. Why a Brochure?
The Core Knowledge free PDFs They cover many of the key elements of any World History or U.S. History curriculum. Each PDF includes both teacher lessons and the student book. However, the teacher lessons are in portrait view but the student book isn’t – you would have to go to something like the free PDF go to “rotate” the student pages so they wouldn’t have to bend their heads to read them online
Virtual Field Trips
- Virtual Field Trips from Around the World
- 6 Resources for Virtual Field Trips
- Discovery Education has compiled a large database of interactive field trips that you can search and filter by topic. They also offer tech tips and a variety of field trips that go beyond the standard museum visit. Unique interactive tours
Make a Booksnap in 3 Easy Steps Booksnaps take a literacy twist to the idea of Snapchat! The idea is for students to use a digital tool to identify a portion of the text and share connections in a creative and meaningful way! “A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of an excerpt of a book or text.” (Martin, T, 2017)
Wonderopolis. Informational nonfiction text that is highly engaging.
History Mysteries: Historical Inquiry for Elementary Classrooms is a site created with Library of Congress / Teaching with Primary Sources money. Two teachers, Kelley Brown and Laurie Risler, partnered to develop Google Slides, student materials, and teacher guides that all focus on historical thinking skills and the use of primary sources. History Mysteries provides a ton of ready to use presentations, intro videos, handouts, and teacher resources, all designed to make the life of an elementary teacher as easy as possible.
Zoom In "is a free, Web-based platform that helps students build literacy and historical thinking skills through “deep dives” into primary and secondary sources."
The Image Annotator is a tool from Class Tools that allows you to…annotate images.
Media Literacy and Current Events
C-SPAN Classroom provides free video-based materials, including lesson plans, for social studies teachers. https://www.c-span.org/classroom/
DocsTeach is the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives. Teachers can access primary source-based learning activities and assign them to students to complete online. Students can complete activities and research primary sources on a variety of topics spanning American history. Learn more at: www.docsteach.org/resources/getting-started
Lucidchart Diagrams for Slides Google Slides Add-on Add visuals to any presentation: Spice up your slides with Lucidchart diagrams to keep your audience engaged, clarify any concept, and make your message stick. With the Lucidchart Diagrams for Google Slides add-on, instead of having to export your diagram to slides, you can insert it directly from within the Google environment.
Social Studies Remote Learning Resources
Civics Renewal Network brings together resources from partner organizations such as the National Archives, iCivics, National Constitution Center, the Center for Civic Education, and more.
Make your own VR Field Trip If you can’t find the exact field trip you are looking for on Google Expeditions, consider creating your own! There are two DIY virtual reality tools that I like. Tour Creator is another Google product, which allows you to use any Google Maps image or take your own pictures using an app called Google Cardboard Camera, and create a custom VR tour. Within these tours you can add multiple scenes, audio narration, and points of interest. Consider creating a tour of your school, city, or any other area that is specific to your needs.
Co-Spaces is another VR tool. It differs from Google's tours in that the VR spaces you create are all animated — so the sky isn’t even the limit!
Consider having students create their own VR tours on Tour Creator or CoSpaces. Make custom activities for your. classroom: quizzes, match ups, word games, and more
Teach the Headlines this fall with lessons from the Zinn Education Project about the climate crisis, immigration, Black Lives Matter, voter suppression, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more
Online Games
Capability for creators to add questions that require participants to draw the answer – they can use their mouse or finger on a smartphone or tablet.🎯Wordwall allows you to create interactive resources online for use in class or at home. Activities are often games, but you can use it to bring more standard coursebook activities to life such as matching tasks. It’s very straightforward to create a resource – there are a variety of templates available, most of which are intuitive and require no more than 10 minutes to set up. There are also a zillion other games created by teachers that you can search for and use. Also available as Android app. Advanced Training in Wordwall | Make multiple games with one button click
Article: Using online games to connect with students
Game show classroom: Comparing Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live and Gimkit
Kahoot Starter Guide
TinyTap is an iPad app and Android app and computer option for building fun and interactive review games. You can create games based on pictures, diagrams, videos, and icons. Students can play your games on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. Speaking of playing games, TinyTap recently published a game that features sixteen ways to use TinyTap in your classroom.
- How to Create Your Own Educational Games With TinyTap - Getting Started. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Making Your Educational Games Look Good With TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
- Student Created Review Game With Kahoot Here's the template, and there's a video on the post that will show you how.
Play & Create Games With “Tiny Tap” | - How to Make a Puzzle Game in TinyTap video. www.freetech4teachers.com
- Build Talk or Type Educational Games on TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
- More Puzzle Games Inspiration and a Tutorial
A collection of puzzle games that anyone can try right now. Letters and Picture Word Puzzle. Matching numbers to ten.Matching numbers to amounts.A Winter Picture Puzzle (created using the automated shapes cutouts).Body parts puzzle with Mr. Potato Head.Counting Trains.Fruits & Vegetables.
Educaplay K - 6 Make classroom learning games for students. In addition to easy game creation (16 types of games you can make) , sending the games to Google Classroom was easy, as was student work, automatic grading, and engagement. Area of knowledge section has pre-made games
BookWidgets - Create Unique Online Activities for Your Students www.freetech4teachers.comKahoot student-response tool for all platforms, allows teachers to run game-like multiple-choice answer quizzes. Teachers can either create their own quizzes or find, use, and/or remix public quizzes. Questions, along with answer choices, are projected onto a classroom screen while students submit responses using an internet-connected device (computer, tablet, or phone). Questions and polls can contain images and video to help further appeal to all learners. Classic mode and Team mode take place in real time, but Challenge mode enables students to take quizzes within a set time frame, such as for homework. video tutorial
- Teaching Online with Kahoot
- Challenge option allow students two play at their own pace. Good for remote and stations
- Blind Kahoot Strategy | Template
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics www.freetech4teachers.com
Quizlet Live Similar to Kahoot and Quizizz but its stand out feature is the collaboartive framework where each group member contributes to deciding on the answer. Instead of students answering individual questions on their individual devices, Quizlet puts students in groups. All possible answers are divided amongst the devices of all students participating. Think of three students with 12 possible answers … they’re divided up with four on each devices, so the answer may or may not be on your device. How to start a Quizlet Live game in 60 seconds + tips and tricks | Quizlet Guide || Adaptive question banks that would mean students would see different questions in their quizzes based on their previous answers. Capability for creators to add questions that require participants to draw the answer – they can use their mouse or finger on a smartphone or tablet.
Quizalize is a relatively new addition to The Best Ways To Create Online Tests. It’s very similar to Kahoot. My big critique of both Quizalize and Kahoot has been the. competitive nature of their format. Although Kahoot has a challenge option for students to play at their own pace.. That’s why I’ve featured an alternative called Quizizz Quizizz takes the excitement of a gameshow-style review game and puts the whole experience in the students’ hands. With a traditional Kahoot! game, everyone sees the question and possible answers on the projector and answer simultaneously. Quizizz is different because the questions and possible answers are displayed individually on student devices.
- Quizizz just added a great feature — the ability to assign these quizzes as homework, work at their own pace, and to have teachers track student progress. Quizizz Homework Via Google Classroom | directions for homework
- Lessons feature – the ability to create a slideshow that you can present to your students live or assign as homework. For those of you who are familiar with Nearpod, it’s basically a very simplified version of it, with far fewer bells and whistles.
- Room Recess has online games that reinforce important skills vital to students in gradesK-6. It was developed entirely by an elementary school teacher with the goal of reinforcing fundamental learning concepts in math, reading, spelling, language arts, typing, and problem solving. Because their learning games are free, students do not have to register or have an account to use the site.
* PowerUp feature adjusts to achievement level
* The Fast and the Curious Strategy
* Student Created. Quizzes
Games and Choice Boards from Slidesmania for Google Slides and Powerpoint
“Quiz Game Master” Is A Nice Tool For Creating Online Learning Games
PuzzGrid - Play or create your own online word puzzles where you try to identify four sets of linked words and determine what they have in common.
Make An Amazing Number Of Different Learning Games With “GameBuilder”
More Create Your Own Games
Distancing without Disconnecting: Zoom Games
10 Easy Games For Online Zoom Classes K - 5
Legends of Learning The site has multiple games for each standard in grades 1-8th Math and Science?
Flippity Make numerous games, flashcards, and timelines easily with Google Sheets. Use for a variety of purposes like assessing, tracking progress and review games. Recently, Flippity introduced a new template for making your own online board game through Google Sheets. With Flippity's new board game template you can create a game that includes up to eight players, has up to three dice to roll, and interactive game squares. Your game can also include videos, pictures, Google Drawings, and graphs. And your students can play your game without an email address or having to create any kind of online account. DO NOT forget to publish to the Web. Short video to see how you can create and play your own online board game. www.freetech4teachers.com. | How to Use Pictures in Flippity Template
Factile is a site that has been around for a while. I started using it years ago when it was still called Jeopardy Rocks (it turns out that trademark and copyright concerns make it hard to use "Jeopardy" in a product name). Factile lets you create games and save them in your account to use whenever you need them. When you create your game you can include images in the answer display. The games in Factile can be played individually or in teams. You control the board and award points when students answer correctly.
Google Slides & PowerPoint
It's possible to create your own Jeopardy-style games using Google Slides or PowerPoint. You can do this by creating a table in your first slide then creating a series of slides that have your answers and questions on them. The Q&A slides are then hyperlinked back to the points listed in the table in your first slide. In this video I demonstrate how to make a Jeopardy-style game in Google Slides. The Slides Carnival website also has a template available to use in PowerPoint and Google Slides.
Template for Snapchat Games
Baamboozle For students to study, self-assess, or play a Jeopardy-like group game! Whether you want students to study, provide direct instruction, or play a group review game, Baamboozle has a feature for you. No two games are the same! Questions are never in the same order and are pulled from a bank of questions created by the creator of the game. You can customize your game to your student's needs! Need a timer? Want to give students a chance to pass on a question they don't know? Do you want to change your team names? There is no need to prepare! There are thousands of games created by other educators available to play at your fingertips. Limited on student devices? No worries. Students do not need accounts or codes to play! You can easily create my own games within minutes! If you want to check out how to play and create your own games on Baamboozle, tutorial video
Educandy A convenient aspect of the service is that once you’ve created a list of vocabulary words it will automatically be applied to multiple game formats for you. In other words, write one word list and you’ll get three games that your students can play. Your students can play the games without needing to create an account www.freetech4teachers.com
Buzz Me In: Remote Learning Buzzers and Scoreboards Want to gamify learning in your remote classroom in support of practice testing? Why not drop in an online buzzer or scoreboard?
“Playbuzz” For Creating Learning Games
Gamified Syllabus: Help students get really excited about your classroom and get to know each other with an interactive and gamified syllabus. Rather than reviewing rules and procedures on Day 1, turn onboarding into a game-based race that weaves icebreakers and rules into an immersive, hands-on experience. Read about it at EDreneline Rush and grab the template to make your own
Student Created Review Game With Kahoot Here's the template, and there's a video on the post that will show you how.
Play & Create Games With “Tiny Tap” |
- Making Your Educational Games Look Good With TinyTap www.freetech4teachers.com
- How to Make a Puzzle Game in TinyTap video. www.freetech4teachers.com
Letterbox is a free game that follows the common structure of providing several letters and then challenges the player to create words out of them in a short period of time. Letterbox’s twist, though, is that it provides a url address for you to share so that you can play with your friends, which can work quite well in a classroom.
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics is from Richard Byrne.
Drawpoly is Pictionary-like online game where you can play with your friends and classmates.
“Learning Apps” Is One Of The Top Educational Websites Of The Year!
Scattergories A possible choice for a brain brake
60+ Game Templates Includes breakout/escape rooms, logic, ELs. social studies,math, science, TV genre quiz shows, social media and more review games.
Apps 4 EFL. The site has a huge variety of ready-to-use interactives and games for English Language Learners. In addition, teachers can use the site’s tools to create their own. Even better, teachers can create free virtual classrooms where students can enroll.
Sploder which allows students to develop their own simple games easily and then Sploder hosts their creation. Students have to write instructions on how to play the game for players to read. They can then play each other’s games, and then write comments about what they liked about it (the instructions and comments are hosted by Sploder).
Review Game Zone lets teachers, and anyone, input academic questions and have them turned into a games that students can use for review. It’s free, and teachers can also monitor student use of at least some types of the games.
POINTING AND CLICKING FOR ESL: Using Video Games To Promote English Language Development).
Room Escape Maker that lets anybody create their own….escape the room games. It requires a little more of a learning curve than I would like, but I think it has some potential.
Easily Make Reviews into Gameshows!
Factile is a site that has been around for a while. I started using it years ago when it was still called Jeopardy Rocks (it turns out that trademark and copyright concerns make it hard to use "Jeopardy" in a product name). Factile lets you create games and save them in your account to use whenever you need them. When you create your game you can include images in the answer display. The games in Factile can be played individually or in teams. You control the board and award points when students answer correctly.
Flip Quiz is an easy site that lets you create an online Jeopardy-like game board that students can play.
“Quizizz” Is A Game-Playing & Game-Creating Site For Classes!
“SuperTeacherTools” Site For Creating Online Learning Games
eQuiz Show lets you easily create online Jeopardy-like games without requiring registration. There are already a number of similar tools on the list, but you can never have too many because who knows what School District content filters will block and what they will let through.
Teachers-Direct They have two styles of games you can create without registering. One is called Quiz-Busters. The other is sort of interesting. I’m not a big fan of Word Searches, and view them as basically busy work. At this site, you can create a Word Search – with a twist. Instead of listing the words students have to find, you list sentences with a blank and the students have to come up with the word and find it. I wouldn’t spend any teacher time on creating one, but I could see having students use it to create ones for classmates to play now-and-then.
Class Tools is an excellent resource. Teachers and students can create lots of learning activities using formats from popular 1980’s arcade games.
Philologus is also on my list. It’s very similar to Class Tools. However, it uses more recent television games shows as templates for teacher and student created exercises.
Jeopardy Labs lets teachers and students create their own online games of Jeopardy. No registration is required, and each game has its own unique url address. Most other apps to create Jeopardy games require a software download, which makes Jeopardy Labs really stand-out since none is required.
QuizBreak! lets teachers easily create Jeopardy-like games for free that will be hosted online. What makes it really top-notch is that you can add images, video and audio to the questions, too. It’s one of several excellent and free online apps that is made available to teachers by The Center For Language Education and Research at Michigan State University.
Digital Escape Games
Breakout escape rooms can focus on concepts, skills, review of material, a book the students have all read, math problem solving, historical investigations, etc...
Why Use Digital Escape Rooms?
Digital Escape Room Planning Guide | Google Slides Edible Version (For PowerPoint, go to File > Download as > PPTX.) | Getting Started with Digital Escape Rooms
Click here for Web sites
Creating a Simple Google Form Digital Breakout (Digital Escape Room) Using a Google Form you can create a Digital Escape Room that has your students solve problems, riddles, locate items etc and type their responses into your Form.
Create Your Own Breakout EDU Games Breakout EDU games for in-person and online classrooms. A couple of these games were actually designed, built, and shared by teachers and not by Breakout EDU staff. Breakout EDU offers an extensive collection of tutorials and materials for designing, building, and publishing your own games. Watching the game design tutorial videos is probably the best first step if you're interested in creating your own Breakout EDU games. Those six videos walk you through the overall concept of game design then the five steps of building and publishing your game. After watching the game design tutorial videos you'll be ready to build your first Breakout EDU game. All of the templates and artwork that you need to get started are available on this Breakout EDU resources page. The templates are in Google Docs format so that you can quickly copy and save them in your Google Workspace account. www,freetech4teachers.comGenially Escape Room Tutorial Simple to make with a sophisticated looking design
How to make an escape room step by step (with a FREE planning guide)
Puzzles to Use in Escape Rooms
Numerous Free Digital Escape Rooms at all grade levels
3rd Grade Math Review Escape Room
The Missing Ice Cream | Distance Learning ( gr. 3-4) Your family loves "I Scream" Ice Cream Truck. It has the best ice cream in the city. One day your family went to the truck and you were told that the ice cream is missing! No one knows where it is. To find the ice cream, you have to solve different puzzles and problems which break open the locks. You can add an interactive layer to this PDF and assign it to your students through Google Classroom
Henrico County Public Schools ES Digital Breakouts - Richmond, VA
Wilson Digital BreakoutEDU First Grade St. Patrick's Day Spreadsheet
Tom's Digital Breakout
Teaching and Learning (Digital Breakouts) - Brittany Shifflett
Star Wars Digital Breakout - Author Unknown
Let's Explore Breakouts - Alicia McGee and Doug Wickham
EJD Digital Breakout - Mr. Dalgety & Mr. LaRosa
Owl Digital Escape Room ( gr. 3-5) Informational text passages on owls and the fun drag and drop activities in Google Slides.
Escape the Classroom: A Pirate Adventure! (Digital Breakout, Escape Room) ( gr. 4 - 9) Critical thinking.
Insects - Digital Breakout! (Escape Room, Scavenger Hunt) (gr. 3 - 8)Get students excited about INSECTS with this digital breakout! This breakout is purely digital, no kits necessary! Works through Google Forms! And it is editable
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE ESCAPE ROOM CHALLENGE | DISTANCE LEARNING ( gr. 6 - 10) Have your students show their understanding of metaphor, simile, personification, and onomatopoeia.
Puzzles to Use in Escape Rooms
AP Human Geography Languages Digital Breakout, Role Play, Escape Room Challenge! Imagine you are the only hope to save a major world city. A mad terrorist planted a bomb with a timer and your knowledge about languages, and problem solving skills, is the only thing to keep
Science (gr. 6 - 12 science Add interactivity
World Geography Digital Breakout Escape. (gr. 7 - 11) Teach Human-Environment Interaction in Europe and Russia? This is how you do it. Have students pretend to be a Cold War spy who needs to escape
Why Use Digital Escape Rooms?
Digital Escape Room Planning Guide | Google Slides Edible Version (For PowerPoint, go to File > Download as > PPTX.) | Getting Started with Digital Escape Rooms
Click here for Web sites
- 40+ FREE escape rooms you can start using right now
- Another Collection - Includes Digital Citizenship Dilemma, Computer Science, Animal Adaptation, Book: A boy Called Bat, Book Stella Diaz Has Something to Say, Book The Wild Robot, Multiplication Mayhem, Revolutionary War, Olympic Games, National Parks, St. Patrick's Day, 3 Halloween Rooms, ,
- A quick digital escape room you can try out yourself
Creating a Simple Google Form Digital Breakout (Digital Escape Room) Using a Google Form you can create a Digital Escape Room that has your students solve problems, riddles, locate items etc and type their responses into your Form.
Create Your Own Breakout EDU Games Breakout EDU games for in-person and online classrooms. A couple of these games were actually designed, built, and shared by teachers and not by Breakout EDU staff. Breakout EDU offers an extensive collection of tutorials and materials for designing, building, and publishing your own games. Watching the game design tutorial videos is probably the best first step if you're interested in creating your own Breakout EDU games. Those six videos walk you through the overall concept of game design then the five steps of building and publishing your game. After watching the game design tutorial videos you'll be ready to build your first Breakout EDU game. All of the templates and artwork that you need to get started are available on this Breakout EDU resources page. The templates are in Google Docs format so that you can quickly copy and save them in your Google Workspace account. www,freetech4teachers.comGenially Escape Room Tutorial Simple to make with a sophisticated looking design
How to make an escape room step by step (with a FREE planning guide)
Puzzles to Use in Escape Rooms
- CSI: Algebra -- The Real Number System | Google slides version
- Mapping Puzzles
- PDF Escape - convert pdfs into interactive worksheets
- Forensics National Science Foundation produces educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures.
- Puzz Grid is a newer game that I found that was fun to try and also fun for students to create their own. To promote collaboration, try using breakout rooms and have students work together to create their own PuzzGrid game. It is kind of like “connect four” and helps students to practice the vocabulary and collaborate! I had students use my email address to send the grid to me so that we always had access to the link to be edited if needed. The game offered a more engaging way for practice that pushes students to not only think about what the words mean but to think more closely about their connection. Click Submit to create your own
Numerous Free Digital Escape Rooms at all grade levels
3rd Grade Math Review Escape Room
The Missing Ice Cream | Distance Learning ( gr. 3-4) Your family loves "I Scream" Ice Cream Truck. It has the best ice cream in the city. One day your family went to the truck and you were told that the ice cream is missing! No one knows where it is. To find the ice cream, you have to solve different puzzles and problems which break open the locks. You can add an interactive layer to this PDF and assign it to your students through Google Classroom
Henrico County Public Schools ES Digital Breakouts - Richmond, VA
Wilson Digital BreakoutEDU First Grade St. Patrick's Day Spreadsheet
Tom's Digital Breakout
Teaching and Learning (Digital Breakouts) - Brittany Shifflett
Star Wars Digital Breakout - Author Unknown
Let's Explore Breakouts - Alicia McGee and Doug Wickham
EJD Digital Breakout - Mr. Dalgety & Mr. LaRosa
Owl Digital Escape Room ( gr. 3-5) Informational text passages on owls and the fun drag and drop activities in Google Slides.
Escape the Classroom: A Pirate Adventure! (Digital Breakout, Escape Room) ( gr. 4 - 9) Critical thinking.
Insects - Digital Breakout! (Escape Room, Scavenger Hunt) (gr. 3 - 8)Get students excited about INSECTS with this digital breakout! This breakout is purely digital, no kits necessary! Works through Google Forms! And it is editable
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE ESCAPE ROOM CHALLENGE | DISTANCE LEARNING ( gr. 6 - 10) Have your students show their understanding of metaphor, simile, personification, and onomatopoeia.
Puzzles to Use in Escape Rooms
- CSI: Algebra -- The Real Number System | Google slides version
- Mapping Puzzles
- PDF Escape - convert pdfs into interactive worksheets
- Forensics National Science Foundation produces educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures.
AP Human Geography Languages Digital Breakout, Role Play, Escape Room Challenge! Imagine you are the only hope to save a major world city. A mad terrorist planted a bomb with a timer and your knowledge about languages, and problem solving skills, is the only thing to keep
Science (gr. 6 - 12 science Add interactivity
World Geography Digital Breakout Escape. (gr. 7 - 11) Teach Human-Environment Interaction in Europe and Russia? This is how you do it. Have students pretend to be a Cold War spy who needs to escape
SEL
How to Teach Social-Emotional Learning When Students Aren't in School
Student Thriving Index Measure well-being of students. Example questions are In you school do you feel like you fit on? In you school, is there an adult you can turn to for support or advice? How happy have you been feeling these days? Do you feel that you can succeed in you classes if you tried?
How to Create Community in a Virtual Classroom
Meeting the needs of introverted students with e-learning
Using Padlet for Self Reflection in K-2 www.freetech4teachers.comHow Administrators, and Teachers View Social - Emotional Learning
Nurturing a Classroom Community During Distance Learning Strategies like using a variety of groupings and having students meet each other during online office hours can help build strong relationships.
Social Media Test Drive Simulation games that can prepare students for real life in the digital world.
A Tool to Help Students Make Good Decisions Some students need help when it comes to weighing pros and cons, and this simple decision-making matrix will help them sort things out. Implementation article
Jamboard Templates for Attendance, Lunch Count, and Social-Emotional Learning (gr. K - 5)
Home Room EDU: This is a project that Carrie Baughcum and I co-created last year. It is five weeks of journaling and doodling prompts that cover getting to know you, goal-setting, self-care, self-regulation, organization, time management, and more.
New Tech CF: Discover a protocol that provides students a ways to critique their work and projects with an emphasis on reflection, critique, and revision
provided by the amazing New Tech School Network. You can learn more about the Critical Friends (Tuning Protocol) from this video at PBLWorks.
Well-Being & Connection Survey: Surveys can be used to monitor the needs and well-being of remote learners. SEL Check-in: Taking the temperature of your students’ emotions is a great way to begin class and find out which students may need extra care. Try one of these Google Form Daily Check-ins or create your own from this list of 130 Questions to Ask Students. Also see the next link below.
Emotional Check-ins K- 12 "The emotional check-in gets every student’s voice into the room at the start of each class. Although students can always say “pass” instead of sharing, each student has the opportunity to be heard every class session. The check-in is also a great opportunity to practice active listening, turn-taking, and following group norms."
SEL templates from Pear Deck
Social Emotional Learning Activity Templates for Google Jamboard
Five Quick Ways to Integrate Social-Emotional Learning
Helping Students with Social-Emotional Challenges
Empowering Students Through Digital Citizenship and Social-Emotional Learning
Behavior/Incentive Tracker Templates that can be used individually or as a class. Use these tracker templates to gradually progress your students towards a common goal throughout the day.
Questions to Build Relationships
Engagement and Community Building with Jamboard includes templates
Virtual Team Building Activities
Click here to download the Growth Mindset Activity Bundle through Google Drive or download zip bundle here
Collaboration with Jamboard includes templates
Empathy Maps for Educators Pulling together information about a student into what’s known as an empathy map can help teachers provide better instruction. Template included
Khan Academy Kids "A free, fun, educational program designed to inspire young children to become learners for life. The robust Khan Academy Kids curriculum and original content make learning engaging and fun for children ages two to seven."
Strategies for Dealing With Struggling Students Middle and High School
20 End of the Year Teacher Reflection Questions to help you process all the craziness.
20 End of the Year Would You Rather Questions now includes a super cute set of google slides that you can use with your whole class. She also added a student answer page if you want to make it into a writing assignment. Or use it as an Easel Activity and have your students highlight their choices and explain their reasoning.
Smekens Education, always-free video "mini-lessons" for K-12 students on reading, writing and social-emotional learning. The lessons are divided by grade bands, K-1, 2-3, 4-6 and 7-12. Videos are available on both YouTube and Vimeo. https://www.smekenseducation.com/literacy-lessons.html
WorryWoo Monsters which focuses on social-emotional learning, has compiled a resource page with creative writing and art lessons plans as well as downloadable coloring pages, exploring themes on subjects such as worry, frustration, loneliness, confusion, innocence, insecurity and envy. https://www.worrywoos.com/worrywoo-sel-resources.html
Committee for Children's Second Step has free social-emotional learning resources for educators, students ages 5 to 13 and their families. Those include a five-lesson unit that can be used to help rebuild students' connections to school. https://www.secondstep.org/covid19support
Remote Learning Free SEL Resources
Social Emotional Learning Activity Templates for Google Jamboard
Quandry is a free learning game on ethical decision making. The game is designed for flexible use and includes educator resources such as lesson plans and curriculum guides.
Wisdom: The World of Emotions is an adaptive social–emotional learning game offered by Better Kids for children aged 4–8. The app, available for iOS and Android devices, includes an SEL curriculum, SEL transitions, and SEL activities to support students’ emotional wellbeing.
Team Building Resources | Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room
Virtual Getting to Know you Activities
Stop, Breathe, Think has hundreds of lesson ideas and activities for students.
Click Use Template to copy and edit this Calming Space #1
Click Use Template to copy and edit this Calming Room by PCSD. #2
LearnStorm "Khan Academy's Back-to-school and Fall program that gives teachers an engaging way to help students gain skills, foster growth mindsets, and build teamwork."
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Grades K-2)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Grades 3-5)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Middle School)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (High School)
Self Reflection Resources
Student Self-Assessment Activities.
Student Thriving Index Measure well-being of students. Example questions are In you school do you feel like you fit on? In you school, is there an adult you can turn to for support or advice? How happy have you been feeling these days? Do you feel that you can succeed in you classes if you tried?
How to Create Community in a Virtual Classroom
Meeting the needs of introverted students with e-learning
Using Padlet for Self Reflection in K-2 www.freetech4teachers.comHow Administrators, and Teachers View Social - Emotional Learning
Nurturing a Classroom Community During Distance Learning Strategies like using a variety of groupings and having students meet each other during online office hours can help build strong relationships.
Social Media Test Drive Simulation games that can prepare students for real life in the digital world.
A Tool to Help Students Make Good Decisions Some students need help when it comes to weighing pros and cons, and this simple decision-making matrix will help them sort things out. Implementation article
Jamboard Templates for Attendance, Lunch Count, and Social-Emotional Learning (gr. K - 5)
Home Room EDU: This is a project that Carrie Baughcum and I co-created last year. It is five weeks of journaling and doodling prompts that cover getting to know you, goal-setting, self-care, self-regulation, organization, time management, and more.
New Tech CF: Discover a protocol that provides students a ways to critique their work and projects with an emphasis on reflection, critique, and revision
provided by the amazing New Tech School Network. You can learn more about the Critical Friends (Tuning Protocol) from this video at PBLWorks.
Well-Being & Connection Survey: Surveys can be used to monitor the needs and well-being of remote learners. SEL Check-in: Taking the temperature of your students’ emotions is a great way to begin class and find out which students may need extra care. Try one of these Google Form Daily Check-ins or create your own from this list of 130 Questions to Ask Students. Also see the next link below.
Emotional Check-ins K- 12 "The emotional check-in gets every student’s voice into the room at the start of each class. Although students can always say “pass” instead of sharing, each student has the opportunity to be heard every class session. The check-in is also a great opportunity to practice active listening, turn-taking, and following group norms."
SEL templates from Pear Deck
Social Emotional Learning Activity Templates for Google Jamboard
Five Quick Ways to Integrate Social-Emotional Learning
Helping Students with Social-Emotional Challenges
Empowering Students Through Digital Citizenship and Social-Emotional Learning
Behavior/Incentive Tracker Templates that can be used individually or as a class. Use these tracker templates to gradually progress your students towards a common goal throughout the day.
Questions to Build Relationships
Engagement and Community Building with Jamboard includes templates
Virtual Team Building Activities
Click here to download the Growth Mindset Activity Bundle through Google Drive or download zip bundle here
- Growth Mindset Videos Playlist on Youtube
- How to Use Remote Survey Data Documenting and codifying survey responses turns those responses into actionable data for flagging students in need, informing current and future supports, and gaining visibility into Tier 1 needs. Refer to our guiding questions to get started using those data impactfully. Questions
- How to Use Remote Progress Monitoring Data Many districts are weighing the option of progress monitoring with remote learners. Regarding students with IEPs, OSEP’s guidance is to continue progress monitoring remotely when it can be done reasonably and when the IEP includes progress monitoring to document a goal. However, if it can be reasonably administered remotely, progress monitoring all students who are receiving interventions can also help educators plan for the fall. As with an onsite environment,
- Responding to New, Common Student Needs One of the ways we can use data today is to flag new, common student needs as we see them arise. This helps us align resources throughout the spring and summer, as well as prepare to accelerate our support responses in the fall. Analyzing new student needs can help teams to think proactively about the professional learning, resources, and supports that staff may require next year. Here are some example groups that your team may want to consider.
Collaboration with Jamboard includes templates
- 20 Jamboard templates on reflection that you can start using right away with students. Make a copy. Adjust. Then assign. They include: -Stop Start Continue: A way for students to evaluate their work - Struggle / Work at / Good at: A three-part self evaluation - Reflection questions: Including "Where can I improve my learning?" and "What are my learning strengths?" - ✅Don't use Jamboard? No problem. You can download any of these templates as an image file. Add it to Slides, PowerPoint, Docs, Word, etc. and assign to students.
Empathy Maps for Educators Pulling together information about a student into what’s known as an empathy map can help teachers provide better instruction. Template included
Khan Academy Kids "A free, fun, educational program designed to inspire young children to become learners for life. The robust Khan Academy Kids curriculum and original content make learning engaging and fun for children ages two to seven."
Strategies for Dealing With Struggling Students Middle and High School
20 End of the Year Teacher Reflection Questions to help you process all the craziness.
20 End of the Year Would You Rather Questions now includes a super cute set of google slides that you can use with your whole class. She also added a student answer page if you want to make it into a writing assignment. Or use it as an Easel Activity and have your students highlight their choices and explain their reasoning.
Smekens Education, always-free video "mini-lessons" for K-12 students on reading, writing and social-emotional learning. The lessons are divided by grade bands, K-1, 2-3, 4-6 and 7-12. Videos are available on both YouTube and Vimeo. https://www.smekenseducation.com/literacy-lessons.html
WorryWoo Monsters which focuses on social-emotional learning, has compiled a resource page with creative writing and art lessons plans as well as downloadable coloring pages, exploring themes on subjects such as worry, frustration, loneliness, confusion, innocence, insecurity and envy. https://www.worrywoos.com/worrywoo-sel-resources.html
Committee for Children's Second Step has free social-emotional learning resources for educators, students ages 5 to 13 and their families. Those include a five-lesson unit that can be used to help rebuild students' connections to school. https://www.secondstep.org/covid19support
Remote Learning Free SEL Resources
Social Emotional Learning Activity Templates for Google Jamboard
Quandry is a free learning game on ethical decision making. The game is designed for flexible use and includes educator resources such as lesson plans and curriculum guides.
Wisdom: The World of Emotions is an adaptive social–emotional learning game offered by Better Kids for children aged 4–8. The app, available for iOS and Android devices, includes an SEL curriculum, SEL transitions, and SEL activities to support students’ emotional wellbeing.
Team Building Resources | Slide Template for getting students introduced to team building in a breakout room
Virtual Getting to Know you Activities
Stop, Breathe, Think has hundreds of lesson ideas and activities for students.
Click Use Template to copy and edit this Calming Space #1
Click Use Template to copy and edit this Calming Room by PCSD. #2
LearnStorm "Khan Academy's Back-to-school and Fall program that gives teachers an engaging way to help students gain skills, foster growth mindsets, and build teamwork."
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Grades K-2)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Grades 3-5)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (Middle School)
SEL Lessons for Online Learning (High School)
Self Reflection Resources
Student Self-Assessment Activities.
Videos
Synchronous Teaching
Choice and Options
Choice Boards