Summer EdTech Challenge: #8: It's a small world!

Welcome to the Summer EdTech Challenge! Summertime is a wonderful time to be a teacher! It's the perfect time to recharge your batteries, catch up on trends in education, read for pleasure, and learn new things. How about taking the opportunity to learn new tech skills or try out new tools and strategies? Each Monday this summer I'll post a simple tech challenge, something you can do between dips...

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Summer EdTech Challenge #7: Interactive videos

Welcome to the Summer EdTech Challenge! Summertime is a wonderful time to be a teacher! It's the perfect time to recharge your batteries, catch up on trends in education, read for pleasure, and learn new things. How about taking the opportunity to learn new tech skills or try out new tools and strategies? Each Monday this summer I'll post a simple tech challenge, something you can do between dips...

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Summer EdTech Challenge #6: Formative Assessment tools

Welcome to the Summer EdTech Challenge! Summertime is a wonderful time to be a teacher! It's the perfect time to recharge your batteries, catch up on trends in education, read for pleasure, and learn new things. How about taking the opportunity to learn new tech skills or try out new tools and strategies? Each Monday this summer I'll post a simple tech challenge, something you can do between dips...

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Summer EdTech Challenge #5: Keyboard shortcuts

Welcome to the Summer EdTech Challenge! Summertime is a wonderful time to be a teacher! It's the perfect time to recharge your batteries, catch up on trends in education, read for pleasure, and learn new things. How about taking the opportunity to learn new tech skills or try out new tools and strategies? Each Monday this summer I'll post a simple tech challenge, something you can do between dips...

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Share EDpuzzle videos with anyone

EDpuzzle has a nifty feature where teachers can share links to or embed EDpuzzle videos with others who are not in their classroom. Users can watch the video and answer any of the questions, but progress won't be saved back to your EDpuzzle account. This lets the users check their understanding of the video content, and you don't have to worry about muddying up your reports. To get the share or embed...

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Cool and useful website: PlayPosit

More and more teachers using video in their classroom for good reason. Videos are engaging, are visual, and can really help to explain concepts or illustrate a point. Flipped classrooms are becoming more and more popular and generally utilize videos to teach concepts prior to students coming to class. The problem most teachers find with videos is holding the students accountable for what they see. Enter...

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Awesome iPad App: Touchcast Studio

Using video in the classroom helps those visual learners master content and keeps them engaged. Unfortunately video tends to be a passive activity where students simply sit and watch. No more! Now with TouchCast teachers (and students) can make interactive videos where students can tap the screen to interact with the video, take a poll, view a website within the video, scroll through a document,...

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Reading log alternatives: a comparison

I never really thought about reading logs until last year when I read a few posts by one of the bloggers I follow, Pernille Ripp (@pernilleripp). She has written a few posts on the subject, pointing out how reading logs actually discourage students from reading. Curious about this whole idea, I searched the topic and found that many other educators feel the same way. They assign reading logs only because they have to or its the way its always been done, not because they actually help students....

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Cool and useful website: Bookopolis

Educators know that the more students read the better readers they become. In most classrooms students are asked to read every night. There are many different ways students can record their daily reading. Bookopolis is a website teachers can use to have students record books they are reading and discover new ones. They can see what their classmates are reading, read book reviews by other students,...

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Awesome iPad App: Videoliscious

Videoliscious is a simple video creation app for iPads. The app is free, but has a 60 second limit. It's simple to use, has a clean interface, and is great for creating short videos on the go. There are only 3 steps needed to create the videos. The app makes it super easy for students by walking them through each step. Step 1 Select videos and photos you want to use. These can be from the Photos...

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Writing math equations on Blogger

Yes, you math teachers have some unique writing requirements! You have unique symbols, need superscript and subscript letters and numbers, and other precise ways ways of writing out information. I am no mathematician, but I feel your frustration when it comes to writing out these equations in Blogger. Fortunately there are many mathematicians on the internet that also blog and have found solutions...

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Kahoot and Quizizz Comparison

Students love playing games. Unfortunately they may not enjoy studying for tests or reviewing material as much. Fortunately for teachers there are two great tools that get students excited about reviewing and studying. Kahoot! and Quizizz are both web based formative assessment tools that work on any device. Because of the competitive, game based aspect students are excited and motivated to answer...

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Formative Assessment Toolbox: Quizizz

Formative assessments are easy to do with the many digital tools available. One great tool for your formative assessment toolbox is a new website, Quizizz. You may have read my post on Kahoot!, a game-based formative response system. Quizizz is a similar tool, but with several differences. Quizizz is web-based so it can be used on any internet connected device, whether it's a desktop computer or...

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