Category: Reviews

Summer is a great time to reset your personal pedagogy to an education-friendly mindset and catch up on what’s been changing in the ed world while you were teaching eight ten hours a day. My Twitter friends gave me great suggestions, but first:

A comment on the selections: I did get more suggestions than I could possibly list so I avoided books that involved politics or hot-button subjects that teachers are divided on and focused on positive and uplifting reading. Yes, there is a lot wrong with education around the world but I wanted a selection of books that would send me — and you —  back to teaching in the fall with a can-do attitude for how to accomplish miracles with your next class of students.

Having said that, here’s a granular list of teacher-approved books to keep you busy this summer:

Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times

by Eric C. Sheninger

Digital Leadership defines a strategic mindset and set of behaviors that leverage resources to create a meaningful, transparent, and engaging school culture. It takes into account recent changes such as connectivity, open-source technology, mobile devices, and personalization of learning to dramatically shift how schools have been run for over a century.

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

by Clayton M. Christensen

Selected as one of Business Week’s Best Books on Innovation in 2008, Disrupting Class remains a worthy read. It is filled with fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and insights into how managed innovation can unleash education. Disrupting Class will open your eyes to new possibilities and evolve your thinking. For more detail, read my review, Disrupting Class.

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This how-to-type website doesn’t get enough exposure so I’m doing a quick overview of pros and cons and how to use it. If you’re looking for a good typing program to engage your students during summer school or next school year, this is an excellent choice:

KidzType is a free comprehensive approach to learning keyboarding. The ad- and distraction-free interface provides not only practice drills but quick links to grade-appropriate keyboarding games (including popular ones from DanceMat Typing). It’s easy to get started and just as easy to use making it the perfect tool for busy teachers and students who have lots to do besides keyboarding.

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Ask a Tech Teacher occasionally reviews an education website that caught our eye and seemed to have excellent value for readers. Today, it’s SplashLearn. Here’s an easy-to-read bullet list of what we found:

Platform: 

• Android
• iOS
• Web

Overview:

SplashLearn is an innovative online learning platform tailored for PreK through Grade 5 kids. With a global reach engaging over 45 million children and 446k teachers, it ingeniously blends the excitement of gaming with the rigor of academic learning; the platform ensures that each session is not only engaging but also deeply educational.

Cost:

• Parents: SplashLearn offers a 7-day free trial, allowing parents to explore its features before committing to a subscription. Subsequent plans start at $7.50/month. You can get started here!
• Teachers: For teachers, SplashLearn is completely free. It includes access to thousands of educational resources without hidden costs or permissions. You can get started here!

Age Group and Subjects:

• Parents: SplashLearn offers Math and Reading curriculum from PreK through Grade 5 for parents.
• Teachers: SplashLearn’s curriculum spans Kindergarten to Grade 5 for Math and Kindergarten to Grade 2 for Reading.

What SplashLearn Offers:

Parents:

• Daily Learning Path: Parents can customize bite-sized daily lessons to fit their child’s schedule.
• Curriculum Alignment: SplashLearn aligns closely with school curricula, reinforcing classroom learning with games and activities.
• Engagement: Interactive content, vibrant colors, and engaging gameplay keep children interested in learning and something for children look forward to.
• Rewards: To further motivate learners, SplashLearn incorporates rewards like coins and access to non-curricular games. These games include puzzles and quizzes that enhance critical thinking skills and offer a fun break from traditional learning.
• Content Types:

1. Games: Each educational game on SplashLearn is crafted to strengthen understanding and practice new skills, ensuring that children grasp concepts while having fun.
2. Worksheets: An expansive collection of worksheets is available, covering every imaginable skill necessary for school success. These worksheets serve as excellent reinforcement tools.
3. Live Classes: Children can learn from expert tutors in live classes that go beyond the standard curriculum, offering advanced learning opportunities and helping students stay ahead. Read more about it here.
4. Multiplayer Games: These allow children to challenge and compete with friends, adding a social element to learning that can boost engagement and motivation.

Teachers:

• Compatibility with Other Tools: SplashLearn integrates seamlessly with Google Classroom and Clever, simplifying data import and saving teachers time.
• Free 11,000 Worksheets: Over 11,000 free worksheets across various subjects and levels are available to support teaching.
• Free Assignment Access for Home: Assignments can be accessed at home, enhancing learning continuity between school and home.
• Teacher-Referred Discounts for Parents: Teachers can extend subscription discounts to parents.
• Lesson Plans and Teaching Tools: Detailed lesson plans and tools align with educational standards to aid effective teaching.

Screenshots

• Parents

• Teacher:

How SplashLearn Works for Parents:

• Personalization: From the moment you sign up, SplashLearn customizes the learning experience based on your child’s educational level and preferences through an initial onboarding questionnaire, ensuring content matches their abilities and goals.
• Research-Based and Expert-Designed Content: Developed from educational research, SplashLearn’s curriculum and games align with academic standards, target misconceptions, and include scaffolding to support learners and foster deep understanding.
• Live Classes: Led by expert tutors, SplashLearn’s live classes range from basic practice to advanced explorations, plus creative “out-of-the-box” sessions. These help students advance beyond standard curricula and encourage creative application of knowledge.
• Adaptive Algorithm: A robust adaptive algorithm analyzes your child’s interactions and progress, adjusting content difficulty and type in real-time to match their pace and skill level for an optimal learning challenge.
• Detailed Reports: Detailed reports provide insights into your child’s activities and achievements, outline mastered skills, and recommend future learning steps.
  
  Tips and Suggestions for Using SplashLearn:

• Access to All Grades PreK to Grade 5: SplashLearn allows you to adjust the learning level based on your child’s needs. Whether your child is gifted and needs more challenging material or has special needs and requires a slower pace, you can tailor the content by setting them at an appropriate grade level.
• Integration with Google Classroom and Clever: For schools using Google Classroom or Clever, SplashLearn integrates smoothly with these platforms, ensuring a consistent learning environment between school and home.
• Free Teacher-Recommended Content: Teachers can recommend specific SplashLearn content that students can access at home without charge.
• Automatic Assignments: With just one click, SplashLearn activates assignments, simplifying the process and saving time.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Parents can try SplashLearn for free before committing to a subscription.
• It is completely free for teachers.
• The platform is aligned with educational standards.
• Integrates seamlessly with classroom management tools.

Cons:

• SplashLearn does not currently offer an ELA curriculum for Grades 4 and 5 for teachers.

Closing Remarks on SplashLearn

In conclusion, SplashLearn is a standout educational platform that effectively merges the excitement of gaming with the rigor of structured learning. Despite the minor drawbacks, SplashLearn’s benefits—such as its adaptability and the broad spectrum of engaging content—significantly outweigh these issues. Whether you’re seeking to enrich your child’s educational journey or find supportive classroom instruction tools, SplashLearn is an excellent choice for enhancing learning outcomes and making education fun and impactful.

–Image credit for some–Deposit Photo

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Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

https://forms.aweber.com/form/07/1910174607.htm

“The content presented in this blog are the result of creative imagination and not intended for use, reproduction, or incorporation into any artificial intelligence training or machine learning systems without prior written consent from the author.”

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

I–like many teachers–do a lot of prep for my teaching, often requiring digital desktop publishing platforms. Between newsletters for parents, announcements on social media, communications for students and parents, and more, it became a challenge to demonstrate the excitement and engagement of learning through what could be boring tools.

Then I got an email from the folks at Creative Fabrica. My norm with these sorts of solicitations (I get about a dozen a week) is give the website ten seconds to grab me or lose me. With Creative Fabrica–I was sold faster. How had I never seen this amazing website? It seemed to hold the answer to so many of my daily tasks, offering quick professional, clean communication that save time.

What is it

Creative Fabrica is a digital marketplace out of Amsterdam that offers a wide range of creative resources for designers, crafters, creators, and to my specific area of interest–teachers. They offer over 9 million products from 50,000 designers besides what users design themselves. Users can access fonts, graphics, SVG files, 3D, tools, bundles, embroidery designs, mockups, teacher resources, and more for various creative projects.

You can pay ala carte for individual items or sign up for a monthly/yearly subscription and download unlimited items. Additionally, the platform features tutorials and community forums to support and inspire creators.

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Pew Research recently reported that about half of Americans regularly get their news from social media. Really? Isn’t SM where you share personal information, stay in touch with friends and families, post pictures of weddings and birthdays, and gossip? So why do students turn to it for news?

This stat may explain it: 60% of people don’t trust traditional news sources. That’s newspapers, evening news, and anything considered ‘mainstream media’. They prefer blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.

So when it comes to research, are you still directing kids toward your grandmother’s resources — encyclopedias, reference books, and museums? No doubt, these are excellent sources, but if students aren’t motivated by them, they won’t get a lot out of them. I have a list of six research sites designed by their developers with an eye toward enticing students in and keeping their interest. It’s notable that most are free, but include advertising. The exception is BrainPOP — there are no ads, but it requires a hefty annual fee:

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Writing a comprehensive review is harder than it sounds! Authors must be sensitive to the particulars of the tasks, who the audience will be, and their overall purpose in sharing ideas. The Ask a Tech Teacher crew put together a basic guide for accomplishing this in a balanced, clear manner:

Tips and Tricks to Write a Comprehensive Review

Students working on research papers are well aware of the significance of a review. But evaluating a piece of work can be quite tough for those new to the field. ‘What is a review?’ is the first question that comes to your mind. Simply put, a review is an assessment of an article’s worth.

That being said, it is clear that writing such pieces will not be a cakewalk. Websites like MyAssignmenthelp.com have samples that can help you learn how to write one. However, students generally skip such samples and leave after availing of their cheap essay writing services.

What does one imply when they say ‘write a comprehensive review’? Cambridge University defines a comprehensive review as “a systematic, scientifically designed review of a defined literature base that employs the rigor of original research in an effort to limit outcome bias.”

This post aims to take a deep dive into the concept along with some expert tips to write a remarkable comprehensive review.

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Summer is a great time to reset your personal pedagogy to an education-friendly mindset and catch up on what’s been changing in the ed world while you were teaching eight ten hours a day. My Twitter friends gave me great suggestions, but first:

A comment on the selections: I did get more suggestions than I could possibly list so I avoided books that involved politics or hot-button subjects that teachers are divided on and focused on positive and uplifting reading. Yes, there is a lot wrong with education around the world but I wanted a selection of books that would send me — and you —  back to teaching in the fall with a can-do attitude for how to accomplish miracles with your next class of students.

Having said that, here’s a granular list of teacher-approved books to keep you busy this summer:

Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times

by Eric C. Sheninger

Digital Leadership defines a strategic mindset and set of behaviors that leverage resources to create a meaningful, transparent, and engaging school culture. It takes into account recent changes such as connectivity, open-source technology, mobile devices, and personalization of learning to dramatically shift how schools have been run for over a century.

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

by Clayton M. Christensen

Selected as one of Business Week’s Best Books on Innovation in 2008, Disrupting Class remains a worthy read. It is filled with fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and insights into how managed innovation can unleash education. Disrupting Class will open your eyes to new possibilities and evolve your thinking. For more detail, read my review, Disrupting Class.

(more…)

Many Fridays, I report on a wonderful website or project my classes and parents love. This one is teaching architecture to youngers:

Lesson Plan:

Three projects over six weeks and your students will learn about blueprints, room layout, dimensions, and more. Plus, they’ll understand how to think about a three-dimensional object and then spatially lay it out on paper. This is challenging, but fun for first graders.

Spend two weeks on each projects. Incorporate a discussion of spaces, neighborhoods, communities one week. Practice the drawing, then do the final project which students can save and print. Kids will love this unit.

• First, draw a picture in your drawing program of the child’s home. If you don’t already have a class favorite, check this list. Many have architecture tools so show students how to find them. Have kids think about their house, walk through it. They’ll have to think in three dimensions and will soon realize they can’t draw a two-story house. In that case, allow them to pick which rooms they wish to include and concentrate on what’s in the room.

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You may know Jotform as one of the most popular tools in the form builder category, recognized for its simplicity and sophistication in what could otherwise be the complicated process of collecting and analyzing data. It works on all platforms, can be shared via a link or embed (as well as other options), and supports multiple languages. Over the past several years, Jotform has released many features designed to simplify and automate teaching’s more mundane tasks, such as Smart PDF Forms, a PDF Editor, Jotform Cards, Tables, and Jotform Reports, Approvals, Mobile Forms, and more. (Click the links for my reviews).

Today, we’ll talk about Jotform Sign, a great way to save time collecting and managing signatures:

What is Jotform Sign?

How does it work?

Popular features

Why educators love it

Jotform Sign is an alternative to clunky and pricey e-signature software. It streamlines your workflow, making it easy for users to sign documents and you to collect responses. Built into the platform are many features like advanced field detection, limitless customization options, and popular integrations. Jotform Sign is perfect for any public or private school looking for a way to easily and automatically create legally binding documents with signatures.

Best of all, Sign is free with any Jotform account.

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If you’re not familiar with Kiddom, you should be, especially in the changing environment of today’s classroom. Kiddom is an all-in-one education platform for remote or in-person learning or a hybrid of the two that provides a high-quality digital curriculum capable of integrating curriculum management, instruction, assessment, and communication tools into one location. It is easily personalized to the needs of a classroom meaning it saves teachers valuable time, resources and money, and simplifies technology for students who may be new to it or not quite comfortable. Because it is internet-based, it works well on any platform, any device, and seamlessly syncs between work started at school and finished at home.

In the past, I’ve written about many of Kiddom’s features–the Content Library, SEL Rubrics, its partnership with OUR Curricula Resources to name a few, One quality that has always stood out to me as I explore each of their new features is this company listens to customers and responds to their needs.

Kiddom’s newest feature, Lesson Launch, does it again.

What is Lesson Launch

Until now, teachers must manage multiple technology platforms to incorporate disparate lesson elements and then separately manage student interaction. This complexity takes time and attention away from what matters–a positive and engaging in-class learning experience. Kiddom’s Lesson Launch consolidates these key elements and gives teachers myriad tools to plan, build, schedule, deliver and engage in real-time anywhere.

With Kiddom Lesson Launch, lessons can be pushed out to students individually, in small groups, or an entire class and then monitored in real time through a teacher dashboard. Students are alerted as soon as the lesson is available and the teacher tracks their progress through the lesson. Teachers see which students have begun the lesson, their progress (by percent completed), and who has submitted the assignment. Teachers can check student work by hovering their mouse over a student’s avatar.

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