💗😊"8 Respectful Routines" 😊💗

Saw this post by Catlin Tucker and liked the suggestions for classroom routines. Most of these are just good reminders and much of what you're already doing. I see a lot of you rocking something similar to #4 with student chromebooks already. Sometimes we ask students to close the lid, angle the lid closed slightly, hands on head etc. ~Whatever it takes to shift the focus to the speaker, whether it be another classmate, a guest speaker or you!

"Screens 45", "Lids Closed" or anything else that is a lil more fun and catchy
As with any expectation, be sure to practice whatever phrase or strategy you go with and
discuss what that looks-like/sounds-like/feels-like.

Please share if you have a routine, phrase or strategy that you love

We grow from helping one another

As always, give us a shout if you want to explore ideas together.

Have an awesome rest of your week!

AdobeSpark for EDU

Hey All! Came across this post by Sarah Kiefer and wanted to share.

We've shared Adobe Spark before, but it's definitely worth a look if you haven't explored it yet.

In any curricular area, you and your students can create awesome :

• Graphics

(info-graphics, posters, collages, memes, character quotes, poetry, famous quotes,

add captions & labels to an image, selfie showcase, vocabulary, etc etc etc).

Matt Miller has some great examples in this post. and also on Adobe's site here.

• Videos (slide shows too)
• WebSites

It comes with a library of images to choose from, but students can also upload their own.
It looks like many already come from the Public Domain as Pixabay pops up as one of the options
when searching for images.  

Of course, much of this can be accomplished with other tools too, even our Google Apps!
However, AdobeSpark makes it a breeze with preloaded images for your students to create,
create, create and share their knowledge!! One more tool for your toolbox.

Take or Toss ~ Let us know if you want to explore together.
Kait😊

Join the Global Movement

Hour of Code is an annual computer science experience that takes place across the globe.
Don't miss out! Carve out some time during the week of December 3rd-9th to participate
~ Yes, YOU and your students! This can be implemented in every grade, anywhere across
the curriculum, in any core classroom, co-curricular, special service, you name it!

• NO coding/computer science experience required by the teacher or students.

For ages "4 to 104".

• Coding activities are self-guided. Many students have experience with some level

of coding fromSTEM class, so they can help each other out!

• Choose from ipad/chromebook activities or "unlugged" activities ~both are awesome!

• You could even invite experts from STEM fields in to talk with students (in-person or via Skype/Hangouts).

If you're interested, but don't know how to get started, give us a shout!

We'd be happy to help you plan your hour of code. Don't be intimidated by the
"hour" ~ it's flexible!

167,799 events around the world have signed up to participate so far. 1273 are in IL so far!
Sign up here and let's add to those numbers!

Hope to see your students coding, programing and computing!

Please be sure to post pictures. You can add our # on Thrillshare anytime~  #pg46pride and also #HourOfCode for this one.

Animations ~ Bring Concepts to Life!

Hey All!

Stumbled upon this post by Richard Byrne today and thought it would be a great tool
to add to the toolbox. Across the curriculum, students can bring a concept to life and communicate their knowledge/explain their thinking.  They can animate a process or bring vocabulary to life using Brush Ninja. The author then took it a step further and had students record their explanation/explain their thinking using Screencastify. Last, embed it all on a slide. One slide per student and you have a classroom digital "book" of science processes, vocabulary words, animated idioms, math concepts, animated How-To's, sequencing and soooo much more.

You could skip Screencastify too and have students record directly on the slide
with AliceKeelerWebCamRecord instead. Less steps and still just as powerful!

Take or Toss ~ As always, let us know if you want to explore any of this together.

Kaiti😊

Take a Snapshot is back….and more!

If you haven't already seen it, the camera feature is available once again in Google apps. For those of you who have missed "Take a snapshot", it is back as Insert > Camera.

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Other fun tidbits and tips :

• Alice Keeler recently shared : You/students can bold comments in Google Docs(etc) by putting asterisks around the word(s) you want to emphasize. *bold*

• You/students can also italicize comments in Google Docs(etc) by putting underscores on both sides of the word(s) that you want to emphasize.  _italics_

• In Google, try voice typing to help save you time too. We know it's a great option for students, but sometimes we don't realize all of these great tools that can help us too. Have a lot to type into a form or other program? >Voice Type and copy/paste over.

• Global Read Aloud Fall 2018 registration is open already!

• Student Voice Film Festival - Students can create an original story or produce a biographical film using the theme, “In Another’s Shoes” -  Deadline is February 28th. Finalists are invited to ISTE 2018 in Chicago. If you have any questions registering or about digital storytelling via WeVideo, give us a shout!

• Eric Curts recently re-shared his Random Writing Prompt Generator with Google Sheets and his Emoji Writing Prompt Generator

Take or Toss!

So many of you are rockin' Google, as well as SeeSaw/ClassDojo, into your
teaching and learning adventures - Just wanted to share some opportunities to become ambassadors or certified in those programs that you are incorporating into your classrooms

(if you haven't already).

• SeeSaw Ambassador  ~ Apply today! Love SeeSaw!

There are also so many opportunities to connect with other classes

around the world through student connected "blogs"/portfolios.  

Knock down those walls and share to a global audience!

• Class Dojo has an ambassador program as well, but it looks

like it opens up in the summer each year. We can keep an eye out if
any of you are interested. Love their Big Ideas component too!

• Google Certification - Levels 1&2 (assessment fees apply)

Let us know if you have any questions about moving forward with any of these
or if you want to explore any together.

Thank you for all that you do for our students each and every day!

Have a wonderful, restful, well-deserved Break!

See you in 2018!

-->Did you know?
Students can crop images in Google Slides into shapes rather than just the default square?!

Sumdog ~K-8 Math

This may be old news to you, but saw some education peeps talking about some of their favorite math programs. Many of the ones that you incorporate were mentioned ; However, there was one I saw a few times that I hadn't heard of and wanted to share in case it's "new" to you too > Sumdog

Looks like it's along the lines of Prodigy as far as having an avatar and completing questions.

Says it is free /CCSS aligned  ~ Haven't explored it myself yet, but please let us know if you want to check it out together.

Take or Toss!

12 Days of Tech-Mas

Eric Curts shares great resources and tools (He's the one who created the Snowman and Halloween interactive writing templates that we've shared out before).

He has a 12 Days of Tech-Mas countdown here too.

Take or Toss😊 Let us know if you want to explore anything together.

The Google Voyager tours look like amazing virtual field trips to embark on!

⛄️❄️Wintertime Googley Writing Activities⛄️❄️

Just wanted to share these Googley Winter Activities from Eric Curts via the 12 Days of TechMas in case you missed them. Just another set of tools to give students choice for switching up platforms for writing. Focus on just one to consider implementing or let the students explore a number of them and report back to the class about their discoveries.

Keep in mind that you can compile each activity onto an online gallery to share with families rather than printing them.

Students can also make their links "public" and create a QR code of their activity. >With an extension like Quick QR Code generator, students can easily make a QR code for their project. You can have them drop their code in Classroom or in a shared doc similar to this. Rather than printing out the full-colored activity, you're only printing a small QR Code. You can still have a designated classroom place to showcase their "work", but just swap out the QR code that peers and visitors will interact with.

This also works great for digital books that students create in Slides, Little Bird Tales, StoryBird, BookCreator, StoryJumper, etc.

~Your own little Read-Box for student-created ebooks~

Let us know if you have any questions or want to explore together.

Take or Toss!

Digital Rubrics & Google Keep

Have you been checking out the 12 Days of Tech-mas?! Love these rubric options! Some of the rubrics can be "stamped" right on a student's google doc. There are options for written/voice feedback, customized rubrics and you can ingest your Google Classroom assignments so that you can easily go from student to student. With anything new, there's a learning curve, but hopefully these save you time in the long-run while still providing students with authentic feedback.

The other countdown calendar highlights Google Keep today. Don't forget, Google Keep is also linked to the Docs/Slides now which makes researching, note-taking and collaborating that much more streamlined for your students. Add images, drawings, links and more! Try it out for yourself.

As always, let us know if you want to check out any of these together.

BlackLight Math & Glow-in-the-Dark Scavenger Hunts

Came across two awesome activities on Twitter to try out with your students. Nothing transformational here ~ but oh so fun for you and your students! Take or toss. If you’ve tried this in any subject, let us know how it went!

Can our rooms even get this dark?! :)

Black light Math

Glow in the dark scavenger hunts

Making Connections

Hi Teachers! This has been shared out before, but it's been a while. Just wanted to take a moment to share one of many communities where teachers are looking to connect their classes with others. If you scan the site, you'll see all different grade levels, around the world, looking to connect with others.

It could be YOU and your students!!

We'd love to help get you connected, so please let us know if you see anything that sparks your interest OR if you would like any help writing your own post.

There are many many different versions of connecting. A Mystery Hangout is often played much like 20-Questions -Neither side knows where the other is located (the teachers usually do and will plan it out ahead of time).  Jeanne Salazar does an awesome MATH Mystery Number instead of guessing the location ~ the students solve math riddles together and complete a mystery picture on a hundreds chart (created by the other class) as they go. There can be connections specific to novels read, Science concepts and so on. We had a Mystery Connection in Music class one year and the two classes sang holiday songs together in the end! We could even connect you with an expert based on what you're discussing in class.

Breaking down the walls of the classroom, connecting, collaborating and sharing with others is so incredibly powerful. Your students will always remember the experience.

We have many getting started resources to share if you're interested as well. Give us a shout!

2017 Google Countdown to Winter Break

Spreading some "Google" Holiday Cheer from Eric Lawson. Bookmark this page and visit it each day (beginning Friday) to open up a new Google tip. You won't be able to click on a date until Friday!

One example that was shared out in the past was the App Launcher organizer. Have you ever wanted to organize the icons that pop up in the grid? This extension will help you ~ now I have all of my everyday google icons right at the top when I open the grid.

Excited to see what fun Googly tools are shared each day! Give us a shout along the way if you want to explore any new goodies together.

Take or Toss

EquatIO Free for Teachers

Math Peeps : 

We've talked about EquatIO before, but now it's free for educators. Just wanted to pass along.

Looks like gMath is going away and Desmos Graphing is coming our way too!

Visual Note-Taking/ Sketchnotes

Had a recent conversation with a teacher about Visual Note Taking, so wanted to share a few resources. This concept has been around for a long time and many of you may already use visual note-taking strategies with students in the classroom on various levels (visual vocabulary, organizing writing, science, health, math, history concepts, music, art and so much more).

Whether via paper/pencil, chromebook or iPad, students do not need to be artists to visualize learning...in any subject/discipline.

Students can visually emphasize solely the text and layout (no drawings or colors) of their Cornell notes and other note-taking strategies as well.

It may not be for everyone, but it's a great strategy for some students to help bring the learning "story" to life and make it stick!

Take or Toss ~ As always, please let us know if you'd like to explore together or collaborate on ideas for tools to implement.

Why and how of sketchnotes in the classroom

2nd grade Sketchnotes example

Middle School Sketchnote examples

If you want to dig deep, check out these resources and examples from Sylvia Duckworth, Queen of Sketchnotes.

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I should have sent this all visually as a sketchnote!!