Tag: lists

3 Free/Freemium Tools for Rubrics

Rubrics are a well-accepted, even transformative tool for assessing student knowledge over a breadth of criteria. Their deep granular detail enables students to quickly understand what is expected of them, teachers to receive critical feedback on student learning, and both sides to benefit from an agile yet objective tool for measuring workflow competency.

But they are not without their problems. The pre-online versions weren’t dynamic or flexible, couldn’t be re-used, and few teachers had the time or energy to build these summative, purpose-built assessments. That changed with online rubrics. These webtools offer standard topical text that can be quickly personalized, saved for re-use in the future, and easily updated year-to-year to reflect changes in the curriculum and desired learning outcomes.

There are many online rubric creators, each with a little different twist on the norm. Here are three that fill different needs. Decide which works the best for you:

Rubistar

Free

Rubistar is the gold standard of online rubric creators. It lets teachers personalize categories and qualifications, save, and then edit for another class. You can use the site rubric templates or modify them to better serve your particular needs. Rubrics can be created in English or Spanish, in ten different subject areas, with ten or more skill categories (this varies depending upon the subject chosen).

Here’s how it works:

Set up an account so you can save your rubrics, making them available to be re-used and edited for future needs. This is optional–rubrics can be created without registering.
Pick the subject category you wish to create a rubric for.
Start with a generic template or from scratch. Alternatively, search by keyword or topic for rubrics other Rubistar members have created and remix those.
Pick a grading scale–either numeric or descriptive.
Pick a category for each row from the drop-down list and the rubric automatically populates with language defining what the category would look like based on the rating.
Edit criteria so it perfectly fits your needs or accept the well-considered defaults.
When you’re done, submit.
Once the rubric is rendered, you can print, download, or make it available online to your account.

Educational applications

Rubistar is invaluable in creating personalized, quick rubrics that are easily edited for varied needs. For registered users, there’s a vast library of rubrics created by members that can be used. Teachers can also use the rubric to evaluate student performance. For example, if a third of students scored poorly on ‘Diagrams’ in the math rubric, the teacher knows immediately this is an area that requires review.

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23 Great Websites and Apps for Earth Day

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April 22nd is Earth Day. Celebrate it with your students by letting them visit these websites:

Breathing earth– the environment
Breathing Earth YouTube Video–of CO2 use, population changes, and more
Conservation Game
Earth Day—NASA Ocean Currents
Earth Day Printables
Eco-friendly house
Ecotourism Simulation–for grades 4 and above
EekoWorld
Electrocity
Footprint calculator
History of Earth Day–lots of reading
Home of the Future
My Garbology
NASA City

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11 Easter Sites For Students

Many Christians celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. The Easter date depends on the ecclesiastical approximation of the March equinox. This year, it’s March 31st. Here are some websites your students will love:

Easter color-me (for Kindergarten/first grade)
Easter Color Me to print or import to drawing program
Easter games II
Easter games III
Easter games IV
Easter poems and songs (to play online)
Easter Puppies–video
Easter puzzles and games
Easter songs for kids
Easter story--the Easter Egg–video
Easter Word hunt (Starfall)

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20 St. Patrick’s Day Sites For Students

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Getting ready for St. Patrick’s Day? Try these fun websites:

If you have iPads at your school, try these three apps:

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3 Fresh Art and Music Apps for the Classroom

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Fifty years ago, Albert Einstein warned ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’ The ability to solve problems by thinking creatively is more important than knowing how they were solved in the past. Now, in today’s connected classroom, creativity has become the newest transformative tool, the buzzword that indicates a curriculum is on the cutting edge, that teachers are delivering their best to students and differentiating for varied needs.

Art and music have long been considered the doorway to creative thinking. Here are three suggestions that will help you across that threshhold painlessly, even if you aren’t an artist.

SmartMusic

I teach technology, so I asked Lawrence Auble, a musician friend I’ve known for years, what he uses for tutoring. His recommendation: Smart Music. It’s one of the 2014 category award winners by School and Band Orchestra magazine and the industry standard for teaching band, string, and vocal of all ages and all skill levels. The app gives subscribers unlimited access to SmartMusic’s extensive library of over 50 method books, nearly 50,000 skill building exercises, and 22,000+ solo and ensemble titles by major publishers.

Here’s how it works:

Students sign into class and receive materials tailored to their needs by their teacher.
As the music appears on the screen, students play or sing along with the background accompaniment.
SmartMusic provides an immediate assessment.
When satisfied, students send a recording to their teacher who can assess, score, and build a portfolio to track their progress over time.

It is available on PCs and Macs as well as iPads.

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3 Apps to Build Solid Study Skills

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It’s not enough to share information with students. Unless they have an eidetic memory, much of what they see/hear/taste/smell never reaches long term memory. For that, students require study. That includes note-taking and review in a variety of formats to touch the varied approaches to learning.

Here are three apps I find helpful with students. They are flexible, scalable, and as a group, address a variety of learning approaches students use. This includes traditional handwritten notes, collecting multimedia resources, and the ever-popular drill. Which is best for you?

Papyrus

This is as close as you’ll get to pen-and-paper and be digital. No registration required and no ads. The start page is clear, uncluttered, with notes clearly listed. The menu bar is narrow and unobtrusive. Notes are taken on an infinite canvas as though it was a tablet of lined paper. You can add images, text, and audio files. Notes are saved in collections or singly which can then be exported as a PDF or an image.

Pros

Take notes with a finger, a stylus, or typed, even annotate PDFs (currently for an additional fee).

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5 Great Holiday Websites

Here are five great holiday websites that will put the seasonal spirit into your teaching. They are education-infused, lively, and appeal to varied learning styles. If you’re a tech teacher, you’ll want to use all of them. If you’re a classroom teacher, click through and find the ones right for your age group: