Edmodo Part 7: Small Groups

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. Now that you've been using Edmodo, you've discovered how powerful it can be for creating engaging lessons and tracking student work and progress. How about if you want to be able to differentiate assignments for your students? Edmodo allows you to create Small Groups within your main group. These small groups could be created so students could collaborate on assignments,...

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Edmodo Part 6: Snapshot

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. If you want a quick and easy way to assess your students progress on the CCSS, Edmodo's new Snapshot tool is for you. Snapshot is a new micro-assessment tool that allows you to quickly create short, CCSS targeted formative assessment quizzes. Snapshots can be assigned to large or small...

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Cool and useful website: Bingo Baker

I came across this cool website discussed in a blog that I follow. I immediately saw how useful it would be in the classroom. Bingo Baker is a website you can use to create bingo cards on any subject. The cards can be randomized, printed as a pdf or played on an iPad. Check out the Snapguide below to see how easy it is to setup. Check out How to Create & Play Bingo on Your iPad by Lisa Johnson on Snapguide. Here's a few suggested ways of using this in the classroom: Kindergarten...

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Edmodo Part 5: Gradebook

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. Now that you've created assignments, quizzes, and polls, you need a way to track scores and progress. Edmodo has a built in grade book that will do this for you. They refer to the grade book as Progress and it can be accessed from the main toolbar. Select the group you want....

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Displaying your iPad on your classroom projector

Updated: added information about a WIFI adapter when using Airserver/Reflector. With many classes using iPads, teachers are anxious to display work that students are doing on their iPads to their classroom projectors. This can easily be done for a minimal cost. There are a few different options depending on your classroom setup. Wired The simplest way is to plug the iPad into the projector using...

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Edmodo Part 4: Polls

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. In previous posts in this series on Edmodo, I showed how to use assignments and quizzes to assess student work. Polls are another effective way of gathering immediate feedback and assessing background knowledge. Polls are anonymous and students can select only one answer. Polls are...

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Edmodo Part 3: Quizzes

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. In the previous post in this series on Edmodo I explained how to post assignments that can be graded and used for assessments. Another type of assessment Edmodo supports are quizzes. Quizzes are just as easy to create as assignments, but are excellent ways of assessing mastery of lessons....

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Edmodo Part 2: Assignments

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. In my previous Edmodo post, Edmodo Part 1: Getting Started, I briefly described how to post a note to your groups. Posting notes is the easiest way to get the discussion going within your virtual classroom. With the ability to attach files or website links, a teacher can easily share...

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Teaching above the line: SAMR

I have been helping teachers integrate technology into their curriculum for the last 12 years, first as an Educational Computing Strategist and now as a Digital Learning Coach. In all those years I have frequently been asked how to integrate technology with this lesson or that theme. Even within the last several weeks I have been asked to come up with a technology rich lesson based on selected standards...

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Cool and useful website: printfriendly.com

I have seen many printers in schools with stacks of paper students have printed from various websites. Most of these printouts have ads, pictures, and navigation text that wastes paper and toner. Now there is a website that you can use to strip out that extra stuff from webpages and print just the important text. That website is http://www.printfriendly.com. To use it you just have to copy the...

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Digital Learning Coach

Schools in the Clark County School District are transitioning to a new technology support model. The transition began during the 2013-2014 school year and continues with a new set of schools added to the model for this year. What is this new technology support model? And, more importantly, what is the role of the Digital Learning Coach? The model is broken down into 3 distinct roles. School Based Technology Team The Site Based Technology Team is made up of teachers at the school. The...

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Edmodo Part 1: Getting started

This is the first in a  series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. Edmodo is a free online learning platform that takes the ideas of a social network and refines them for classroom use. Using Edmodo, students and teachers can connect with each other to share ideas and collaborate. Teachers can assign and grade work. Students can respond to prompts,...

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