Tag: lists

18 Thanksgiving Sites and Apps and 4 Projects for the Holiday

Need a few websites and apps to fill in sponge time? Here are Thanksgiving websites that will keep students busy and still teach them:

Canadian Thanksgiving
Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
Plimoth Plantation–a field trip of a Pilgrim’s life. Included on this real-life site is a video of the Pilgrim’s crossing to the New World.
Starfall–Silly Turkey
Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
Thanksgiving Games
Thanksgiving games and puzzles
Thanksgiving games–Quia
Thanksgiving information–history, more
Thanksgiving Jigsaw
Thanksgiving Jigsaw II
Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
Thanksgiving Tic-tac-toe
Thanksgiving video–Brainpop
Thanksgiving Wordsearch
The First Thanksgiving

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10 Digital Citizenship Articles You Don’t Want to Miss

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Here are ten of the top digital citizenship resources according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

Click for a K-8 digital citizenship curriculum

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Use Unconventional Research Sites to Inspire Students

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I read recently that 70% of millennials get their news from Facebook. Really? Isn’t Facebook a place to share personal information, stay in touch with friends and families, post pictures of weddings and birthdays? So why do students turn to it for news? And then, not two days later, I heard Twitter has reclassified their app as a news purveyor rather than a social media device. Once again: Who gets news from Twitter? Apparently a lot of adults. No surprise news shows are littered with references to listener’s tweets and presidential candidates break stories via their Twitter stream.

One more stat — which may explain the whole social-media-as-news-trend — and then I’ll connect these dots: 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 eight research sites that walk the line between stodgy (textbooks) and out-there (Twitter and Facebook), designed by their developers with an eye toward enticing students in and then 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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33 Digital Exit Tickets That Fit Most Subjects

Exit tickets (or exit slips) are a time-proven method of checking understanding in the classroom. Often, this means students write down (with pen and paper) a two-three sentence take-away summary of the day’s lesson and turn it in prior to exiting the class. It’s easily understand, requires little preparation, and is done in minutes.

Robert Marzano, classroom researcher and education author, shares four uses for exit slips. Students:

rate their current understanding of new learning
analyze and reflect on their efforts around the learning

….and teachers:

gain feedback on an instructional strategy
gain feedback about the materials and teaching

Technology provides a great opportunity to update this popular activity so it can be collaborative, shared, and published for the benefit of all. A few weeks ago, I published a Google Spreadsheet as a collaborative way for all of us to share our Exit Ticket suggestions. Here are 28 ideas from readers. I love the variety:

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Ten Reading-with-Tech Tips You Don’t Want to Miss

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Here are ten of the top reading-related articles according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

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9 Google Apps Tips You Don’t Want to Miss

Here are the top 9 nine Google Apps tips according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

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Best-in-Class Digital Storytelling Tools

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A digital story is a series of images connected with text and/or a narrated soundtrack — captured by a digital device such as an iPad or smartphone — that tell a story. It can be fiction, non-fiction, narrative, biographic, expository, or even poetry. Think of Ken Burns’ The Civil War, or Colin Low’s City of Gold. Because of its multimedia approach and appealing blend of text, color, movement, sound, and images, it has fast become one of the most popular writing exercises in schools.

According to Center for Digital Storytelling, there are seven elements critical to a good digital story:

Point of View — What is the perspective of the author?
Dramatic Question — A key question that keeps the viewer’s attention and will be answered by the end of the story.
Emotional Content — Serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way and connects the audience to the story.
Voice — personalize the story with the author’s unique writing style to help the audience understand the context.
Soundtrack — Music or other sounds that support and embellish the story.
Economy — Using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer.
Pacing — The rhythm of the story and how slowly or quickly it progresses.

These elements are the goal and may not be included in the first digital story written by a kindergartner, but by middle school, using the vast swath of multimedia tools available in digital storytelling, students will have no problem including all elements.

Writing a digital story includes five basic steps:

Research the topic so you are clear on presentation.
Write a script, a storyboard, or a timeline of activities.
Collect the required multimedia parts — text, images, audio, video, oral selfies, and more.
Combine everything into an exciting story.
Share and reflect on the completed story.

These five steps are stepping stones for beginners and critical to experienced storytellers.

There are so many online options for digital storytelling, rarely is there a student who can’t find a webtool that fits their communication style. Here are nine of the most popular. Try them all and then let students pick the one that works best for them:

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10 Grammar Tips You Don’t Want to Miss

Here are ten of the top grammar/word study/vocabulary tips according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

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Ten Tech Problem-Solving Tips You Don’t Want to Miss

Here are the top ten problem-solving tips according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

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15 Memorial Day Websites for Students

Memorial Day is the time we remember all of those soldiers (and anyone in the Armed Forces) who gave their lives in the defense of American freedom. In war and peace, they made the ultimate sacrifice, and because of them we are privileged to live the American Dream.