Special Showcase.
This is why Rick Jones, high school agricultural and vocational teacher, is a Sheep Shearing National Champion. Lots of practice. Congratulations Rick on your title and this record.
Schoology Updates - New Tools to be Used with Assessment
Click here to go to Schoology updates for assessment. Teachers can now add a ruler, calculator, protractor or highlighter to their assessments. In addition, media and images can be added to assessments.
Also, for users who are enrolled in numerous courses and having trouble seeing all of your current courses, here is a brief video showing you how to move your courses around and organize your list so that you can see all of your current courses via your course tab. Click here.
Also, for users who are enrolled in numerous courses and having trouble seeing all of your current courses, here is a brief video showing you how to move your courses around and organize your list so that you can see all of your current courses via your course tab. Click here.
Small PDF
Thank you to Linda Swift who recommended this quick and easy to use tool. Small PDF quickly lets users convert a PDF document to Word. I couldn't believe how well it worked. So, keep this tool in mind when you want to make a conversion from PDF to Word. I believe I downloaded the PDF document prior to doing the conversion.
Now Comment
Now Comment is designed specifically for discussion. It's free and a Google sign on can be used to create your account. Click Here for short video preview.
FlipGrid
Flipgrid is a fun tool. It's great for including all students within a discussion. I recently read about a neat idea for using Flipgrid. It could be used in a book study. Wouldn't that be an engaging way to get students to interact to a novel that a class might be reading. Or wouldn't it be cool to take a social studies topic and have student elaborate on their thoughts and understanding of the complexities of an event or period in history. Last, but not least, wouldn't it be cool to do a professional development book study with Flipgrid.
20 interactive teaching activities for in the interactive classroom
by Ruben Knapen — Jun 13, 2018
Found this interesting post by Ruben Knapen on the Book Widgets blog. Whether you are a veteran teacher or a new teacher it's a good review of activities for engaging students. Maybe you have some of these deep within your tool bag of activities and after reading this you will pull them out and try them again. I am sharing the link above to his entire post, below I have passed on his list of interactive teaching strategies. I have also added the link to go to Book Widgets and get a Bingo Card which you can customize for your own classroom.
3 Effective interactive teaching strategies to encourage speech in your classroomFirst, I want to put some activities in the spotlight. The following interactive student activities are three of the most effective ways to encourage more speech in your classroom.
1. Think, pair and shareSet a problem or a question around a certain topic, and pair up your students. Give each pair of students enough time so they can reach a proper conclusion, and permit the kids to share their conclusion in their personal voice. This way your students will be engaged, communicating, and remember more of the class than ever before.
2. BrainstormingInteractive brainstorming is mostly performed in group sessions. The process is useful for generating creative thoughts and ideas. Brainstorming helps students learn to work together, and above all, learn from each other. You’ll be surprised of all the great ideas they come up with! Check out these 8 fun brainstorming apps you can use in your classroom, or use BookWidgets' Mindmap widget to structure thinking.
3. Buzz sessionParticipants come together in session groups that focus on a single topic. Within each group, every student contributes thoughts and ideas. Encourage discussion and collaboration among the students within each group. Everyone should learn from each other’s input and experiences. As a teacher, you could give your students some keywords to spark the conversation.
Of course, there are many other interactive teaching ideas as well. I split up the activities in different categories:
5. Misconception check Discover students' misconceptions. See if students can identify what is the correct answer, when given a false fact. It’s useful when going over a previous lesson. It encourages students to think deeply and wager all the possibilities.
6. Circle the questionsMake a worksheet or a survey that has a list of questions (make them specific) about your topic, and ask students to circle (or check) the ones they don’t know the answers to. Then, let them turn in the paper.
Create corners concerning different questions that were circled. Let your students work on the extra exercises and explanation in the corners, individually. As your students will all have circled different questions, you have to give each student a different and personilized order to visit the corners.
7. Ask the winnerAsk students to silently solve a problem on the board. After revealing the answer, instruct those who got it right to raise their hands (and keep them raised). Then, all other students have to talk to someone with a raised hand to better understand the question and how to solve it next time.
Student pair activities8. Pair-share-repeatAfter a Think-pair-share experience, which I’ve written about in the first interactive learning lesson idea, you can also ask students to find a new partner and share the wisdom of the old partnership to this new partner.
9. Teacher and studentLet students brainstorm the main points of the last lesson. Then, pair up your students and assign them 2 roles. One of them is the teacher, and the other the student. The teacher’s job is to sketch the main points, while the student’s job is to cross off points on his list as they are mentioned and come up with 2 to 3 points that the teacher missed.
10. Wisdom from anotherAfter an individual brainstorm or creative activity, pair students to share their results with each other. Then, call for volunteers who found their partner’s work to be interesting or exemplary. Students are often more willing to share the work of fellow students publicly than their own work. Of course, you can always encourage sharing their own objectives as well.
11. Forced debateLet students debate in pairs. Students must defend the opposite side of their personal opinion. It encourages them to step away from their own beliefs and teaches them to look through a different coloured glass for once in a while.
Variation: one half of the class takes one position, the other half takes the other position. Students line up and face each other. Each student may only speak once, so that all students on both sides can engage the issue.
12. Optimist/PessimistIn pairs, students take opposite emotional sides of a case study, statement, or topic. Encourage them to be empathic and truly “live” the case study. You’ll discover some good solution proposals and your students will learn some exceptional social skills.
13. Peer review writing taskTo assist students with a writing assignment, encourage them to exchange drafts with a partner. The partner reads the essay and writes a three-paragraph response: the first paragraph outlines the strengths of the essay, the second paragraph discusses the essay’s problems, and the third paragraph is a description of what the partner would focus on in revision, if it were her essay. Students can learn a lot from each other and from themselves as well! Here are 10 more creative self-assessment ideas.
Student group activities14. Board rotationThis interactive learning strategy is even more interactive than the others! Divide your class into different groups of students and assign them to each of the boards you’ve set up in the room. Assign one topic/question per board. After each group writes an answer, they rotate to the next board. Here, they write their answer below the first answer of the previous group. Let them go around the room until all the groups have covered all the boards. Not that many boards in your classroom? Try using tablets and BookWidgets' interactive whiteboard.
15. Pick the WinnerDivide the class into groups and let them work on the same topic/problem. Let them record an answer/strategy on paper or digitally. Then, ask the groups to switch with a nearby group and let them evaluate their answer. After a few minutes, allow each set of groups to merge and ask them to select the better answer from the two choices, which will be presented to the complete class.
16. Movie ApplicationIn groups, students discuss examples of movies that made use of a concept or event discussed in class, trying to identify at least one way the movie makers got it right, and one way they got it wrong. Think about movies showing historical facts, geographical facts, biographies of famous people, …
Interactive game activitiesCreate in interactive classroom full of interactive learning games. Games are so much fun for students, since it doesn’t feel like learning. With BookWidgets, you can make interactive learning games like crossword puzzles, pair matching games, bingo games, jigsaw puzzles, memory games, and many more in minutes (and there’s a Google Classroom integration as well).
17. Crossword puzzleThe crossword game is perfect to use as repetition activity. Choose a list of words and their description, and BookWidgets creates an interactive crossword for you. The crossword game transforms these boring lessons into a fun experience. Here you can read more about how to create them and for which topics you can use them (not only for teaching languages)!
18. ScrabbleUse the chapter (or course) title as the pool of letters from which to make words (e.g., mitochondrial DNA), and allow teams to brainstorm as many words relevant to the topic as possible. You can also actually play scrabble and ask students to form words from the newly learned vocabulary.
19. Who/what am I?Tape a term or name on the back of each student. You can also tape it on their forehead. Each student walks around the room, asking “yes or no” questions to the other students in an effort to guess the term. Of course, the term has something to do with your lesson topic.
20. BingoBingo is a fun game that can be used for all sorts of exercises: language exercises, introductory games, math exercises, etc. Take a look at this blog post with all the different bingo possibilities here. You’ll be surprised about how many interactive lesson activities you can do with just one game.
Want to create a bingo game yourself? You can start for free right here: Click here to sign up for Book Widgets
3 Effective interactive teaching strategies to encourage speech in your classroomFirst, I want to put some activities in the spotlight. The following interactive student activities are three of the most effective ways to encourage more speech in your classroom.
1. Think, pair and shareSet a problem or a question around a certain topic, and pair up your students. Give each pair of students enough time so they can reach a proper conclusion, and permit the kids to share their conclusion in their personal voice. This way your students will be engaged, communicating, and remember more of the class than ever before.
2. BrainstormingInteractive brainstorming is mostly performed in group sessions. The process is useful for generating creative thoughts and ideas. Brainstorming helps students learn to work together, and above all, learn from each other. You’ll be surprised of all the great ideas they come up with! Check out these 8 fun brainstorming apps you can use in your classroom, or use BookWidgets' Mindmap widget to structure thinking.
3. Buzz sessionParticipants come together in session groups that focus on a single topic. Within each group, every student contributes thoughts and ideas. Encourage discussion and collaboration among the students within each group. Everyone should learn from each other’s input and experiences. As a teacher, you could give your students some keywords to spark the conversation.
Of course, there are many other interactive teaching ideas as well. I split up the activities in different categories:
- Individual student activities
- Student pair activities
- Student group activities
- Interactive game activities
5. Misconception check Discover students' misconceptions. See if students can identify what is the correct answer, when given a false fact. It’s useful when going over a previous lesson. It encourages students to think deeply and wager all the possibilities.
6. Circle the questionsMake a worksheet or a survey that has a list of questions (make them specific) about your topic, and ask students to circle (or check) the ones they don’t know the answers to. Then, let them turn in the paper.
Create corners concerning different questions that were circled. Let your students work on the extra exercises and explanation in the corners, individually. As your students will all have circled different questions, you have to give each student a different and personilized order to visit the corners.
7. Ask the winnerAsk students to silently solve a problem on the board. After revealing the answer, instruct those who got it right to raise their hands (and keep them raised). Then, all other students have to talk to someone with a raised hand to better understand the question and how to solve it next time.
Student pair activities8. Pair-share-repeatAfter a Think-pair-share experience, which I’ve written about in the first interactive learning lesson idea, you can also ask students to find a new partner and share the wisdom of the old partnership to this new partner.
9. Teacher and studentLet students brainstorm the main points of the last lesson. Then, pair up your students and assign them 2 roles. One of them is the teacher, and the other the student. The teacher’s job is to sketch the main points, while the student’s job is to cross off points on his list as they are mentioned and come up with 2 to 3 points that the teacher missed.
10. Wisdom from anotherAfter an individual brainstorm or creative activity, pair students to share their results with each other. Then, call for volunteers who found their partner’s work to be interesting or exemplary. Students are often more willing to share the work of fellow students publicly than their own work. Of course, you can always encourage sharing their own objectives as well.
11. Forced debateLet students debate in pairs. Students must defend the opposite side of their personal opinion. It encourages them to step away from their own beliefs and teaches them to look through a different coloured glass for once in a while.
Variation: one half of the class takes one position, the other half takes the other position. Students line up and face each other. Each student may only speak once, so that all students on both sides can engage the issue.
12. Optimist/PessimistIn pairs, students take opposite emotional sides of a case study, statement, or topic. Encourage them to be empathic and truly “live” the case study. You’ll discover some good solution proposals and your students will learn some exceptional social skills.
13. Peer review writing taskTo assist students with a writing assignment, encourage them to exchange drafts with a partner. The partner reads the essay and writes a three-paragraph response: the first paragraph outlines the strengths of the essay, the second paragraph discusses the essay’s problems, and the third paragraph is a description of what the partner would focus on in revision, if it were her essay. Students can learn a lot from each other and from themselves as well! Here are 10 more creative self-assessment ideas.
Student group activities14. Board rotationThis interactive learning strategy is even more interactive than the others! Divide your class into different groups of students and assign them to each of the boards you’ve set up in the room. Assign one topic/question per board. After each group writes an answer, they rotate to the next board. Here, they write their answer below the first answer of the previous group. Let them go around the room until all the groups have covered all the boards. Not that many boards in your classroom? Try using tablets and BookWidgets' interactive whiteboard.
15. Pick the WinnerDivide the class into groups and let them work on the same topic/problem. Let them record an answer/strategy on paper or digitally. Then, ask the groups to switch with a nearby group and let them evaluate their answer. After a few minutes, allow each set of groups to merge and ask them to select the better answer from the two choices, which will be presented to the complete class.
16. Movie ApplicationIn groups, students discuss examples of movies that made use of a concept or event discussed in class, trying to identify at least one way the movie makers got it right, and one way they got it wrong. Think about movies showing historical facts, geographical facts, biographies of famous people, …
Interactive game activitiesCreate in interactive classroom full of interactive learning games. Games are so much fun for students, since it doesn’t feel like learning. With BookWidgets, you can make interactive learning games like crossword puzzles, pair matching games, bingo games, jigsaw puzzles, memory games, and many more in minutes (and there’s a Google Classroom integration as well).
17. Crossword puzzleThe crossword game is perfect to use as repetition activity. Choose a list of words and their description, and BookWidgets creates an interactive crossword for you. The crossword game transforms these boring lessons into a fun experience. Here you can read more about how to create them and for which topics you can use them (not only for teaching languages)!
18. ScrabbleUse the chapter (or course) title as the pool of letters from which to make words (e.g., mitochondrial DNA), and allow teams to brainstorm as many words relevant to the topic as possible. You can also actually play scrabble and ask students to form words from the newly learned vocabulary.
19. Who/what am I?Tape a term or name on the back of each student. You can also tape it on their forehead. Each student walks around the room, asking “yes or no” questions to the other students in an effort to guess the term. Of course, the term has something to do with your lesson topic.
20. BingoBingo is a fun game that can be used for all sorts of exercises: language exercises, introductory games, math exercises, etc. Take a look at this blog post with all the different bingo possibilities here. You’ll be surprised about how many interactive lesson activities you can do with just one game.
Want to create a bingo game yourself? You can start for free right here: Click here to sign up for Book Widgets
How to Come Up With Good Exit Ticket Prompts
How to come up with good exit slip prompts?
Here are some example prompts to draw inspiration from:
Write down three things you learned today.
If you had to explain today’s lesson to a friend, what would you tell him/her?
What question do you have about what we learned today?
What part of the lesson did you find most difficult?
What would you like me to go over again next lesson?
Write down two questions you would put in a quiz about today’s lesson.
What were the main points we covered today?
Did the group activity contribute to your understanding of the topic? Why?
Read this problem … What would be your first step in solving it?
I used app X extensively today. Was it helpful? Why or why not?
Was this post helpful?
What better way to end this article than by gauging your feedback via… an exit slip!
Here are some example prompts to draw inspiration from:
Write down three things you learned today.
If you had to explain today’s lesson to a friend, what would you tell him/her?
What question do you have about what we learned today?
What part of the lesson did you find most difficult?
What would you like me to go over again next lesson?
Write down two questions you would put in a quiz about today’s lesson.
What were the main points we covered today?
Did the group activity contribute to your understanding of the topic? Why?
Read this problem … What would be your first step in solving it?
I used app X extensively today. Was it helpful? Why or why not?
Was this post helpful?
What better way to end this article than by gauging your feedback via… an exit slip!
Cool Nearpod Feature - Another reason to check out Nearpod
Check out this vimeo that shows you in 3 steps how to create lesson plans in Nearpod and send them to your sub or to your administrator who can share them with your sub when you are out of the classroom. Click here.
Everything Teachers Need to Know To Master Google Drive
Saw this share out from Ed Tech and Mobile Learning. Looks very helpful.
Google Drive Guidelines
1- Get Started with Google Drive
2- Use Google Drive Files Offline
3- Accessibility in Google Drive for Mobile Devices
4- Navigate in Google Drive with Screen Reader
5- Manage Files in Google Drive with A Screen Reader
6- Upload files and folders to Google Drive
7- Download a file
8- Backup photos & videos automatically in Google Drive
9- Store and play video in Google Drive
10- Save, edit & share Microsoft Office files
11- Save web content to Google Drive
12- Convert PDF and photo files to text
13- Organize your files in Google Drive
14- Delete and restore files in Google Drive
15- Find or recover a file
16- Find files in Google Drive
17- Sort your files
18- View activity & file versions
19- Use Google Drive apps
20- Change notification settings
21- Share files from Google Drive
22- Stop, limit, or change sharing
23- Make someone else the owner of your file
24- Share folders in Google Drive
25- Change your sync settings
26- Stop syncing files between your computer & Google Drive
27- Fix problems syncing to your computer
28- How Google Drive works with Google Photos
29- Back up iPhone data with Google Drive
30- Save, edit & share Microsoft Office files
31- Use Google Drive with Yahoo Mail
32- Attach Google Drive files to Evernote
33- Manage your maps in Google Drive
34- Back up WhatsApp messages (Android only)
35- Manage & restore your device backups in Google Drive
36- Use Google Drive apps
Google Drive Guidelines
1- Get Started with Google Drive
2- Use Google Drive Files Offline
3- Accessibility in Google Drive for Mobile Devices
4- Navigate in Google Drive with Screen Reader
5- Manage Files in Google Drive with A Screen Reader
6- Upload files and folders to Google Drive
7- Download a file
8- Backup photos & videos automatically in Google Drive
9- Store and play video in Google Drive
10- Save, edit & share Microsoft Office files
11- Save web content to Google Drive
12- Convert PDF and photo files to text
13- Organize your files in Google Drive
14- Delete and restore files in Google Drive
15- Find or recover a file
16- Find files in Google Drive
17- Sort your files
18- View activity & file versions
19- Use Google Drive apps
20- Change notification settings
21- Share files from Google Drive
22- Stop, limit, or change sharing
23- Make someone else the owner of your file
24- Share folders in Google Drive
25- Change your sync settings
26- Stop syncing files between your computer & Google Drive
27- Fix problems syncing to your computer
28- How Google Drive works with Google Photos
29- Back up iPhone data with Google Drive
30- Save, edit & share Microsoft Office files
31- Use Google Drive with Yahoo Mail
32- Attach Google Drive files to Evernote
33- Manage your maps in Google Drive
34- Back up WhatsApp messages (Android only)
35- Manage & restore your device backups in Google Drive
36- Use Google Drive apps
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