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For most of the school year thus far, I had been using Classkick. It was working great for what I wanted to use it for. I won't go into all the details because I know someone else already has. I teach 6th grade math. It was doing what I needed it to, but I was just frustrated. It was slow loading for me and my students. It was making it super difficult to get grading done. Then, we were told that Kami had updated it's function. Kami has allowed me to upload a pdf and edit it with all the tools and it loads a lot quicker. It allows me to only assign some pdfs to only some students and not all. I can more easily assign stuff to my hybrid or full remote students. It is a lot more user friendly I think as well. I don't have to spend so much time splitting up homework documents (I can just upload the pdf version as if it were on paper) and the students can work right on the Kami assignment easier, so it's all right there. It basically is performing the same tasks that I got from Classkick, but much quicker and better. I can also leave comments a variety of ways. I have definitely found myself less stressed when planning and saving SO much more time. I use Kami to communicate my notes and for the students to do classwork and homework on. It easily assigns from Google Classroom. The ELA teacher uses Kami as well and the kids are sometimes better at navigating it than we are (LOL).

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Google Slides and Google Forms are my daily go to for all of my teaching. We departmentalized at Madison for this year and I teach the fifth grade math. When we were remote at the beginning of the year I needed a way to reach all of my students and I began teaching the math modules with Google Slides for the lesson and I use Google Forms for the Exit Ticket and Homework. We do not exchange any papers even though we are hybrid now (I still have some students fully remote). With Google Forms the students see the correct answer after they submit theirs. I correct it and send it back to them. All of my communication with them is through my google classroom posts. I save the slide presentation with my completed work and post it to my classroom so they can refer back to it while they work on their homework. I will probably continue teaching this way even when we are all fully back to school.

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Chris Sanchez-Quizlet                  I am a big fan of Quizlet. I have used in my Global 9, Sociology and Psychology courses.  I use it for vocabulary combined with note pages. I really enjoy how you can develop flashcards easily and tie images to them. I think it is useful to have students take charge of looking up key terms prior to having begun instruction in a new unit.  I found that this greatly assisted my IEP and 504 plan students. Tying images to concepts helps everyone. It is simple and elegant. This is something that I had toyed with prior to the 2020 shut down but I have fully committed to because it is a great review tool.

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Chris Sanchez-Quizlet                  I am a big fan of Quizlet. I have used in my Global 9, Sociology and Psychology courses.  I use it for vocabulary combined with note pages. I really enjoy how you can develop flashcards easily and tie images to them. I think it is useful to have students take charge of looking up key terms prior to having begun instruction in a new unit.  I found that this greatly assisted my IEP and 504 plan students. Tying images to concepts helps everyone. It is simple and elegant. This is something that I had toyed with prior to the 2020 shut down but I have fully committed to because it is a great review tool.

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I enjoy using Pear Deck in my second grade reading classroom. I began using Pear Deck as a way to do daily dictation from our Super Kids reading series in a different way. It allows me to record the dictation words and sentences. In the morning, students complete it for their morning work. It allows the students to work at their own pace (in the student pace feature). They can choose their writing tool. When class starts I switch the daily Pear Deck to teacher led instruction and we go over it together making corrections together as needed. I love that I can see the students work in real time and that I can highlight student work and keep track of what skills need to be retaught. I also use Pear Deck on Digital Mondays. I can insert my voice into the activities and I can have the students answer in many different ways. It is very user friendly for my second grade students. At the end, I can print their takeaways for record keeping purposes. I feel that it was helpful to use when we switched from in-person to remote as well.

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I love jamboards! Whether they are used as an interactive whiteboard with students or as a fun replacement for a google slideshow, the app is really easy to use. I started using it during remote learning in the spring, along with screencastify, to make homework help videos for 8th grade students who were struggling in math, and now I use it often. When using it as an interactive whiteboard, the kids love using the sticky notes, and the laser pointer is cool to play with. Adding and sharing content is simple, and jamboards can be used in any curriculum. You can use one jamboard for collaborative work or assign each student their own to see individual work. Truly a versatile tool.

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I started out the year being the 4th grade remote teacher. I needed an online platform to help the students complete work that I didn't have to recreate. Well... I still had to recreate a lot but just not as much. Classkick allows you to upload existing PDF files and the kids are able to complete work in real time. Very similar to the Kami concept just without the saving issues. At first this was a fantastic way to even see if they were online doing the work that I have asked them to do. The live feature was very helpful. Because I couldn't imagine training my class to switch programs mid year I am still using Classkick to complete work. I also use google slides daily to give my kids an overview of what their day looks like. Their planner, all class links and homework links are attached to either a classwork or homework slide. This is something I will continue to do next year. It has helped me tremendously with my planning and organization.

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Zearn is a great way to reinforce and enhance the math skill(s) we are working on each week.  It can either be used as a preview for the upcoming lesson or review of the lesson we just did together in class.  Because I have students every other day, Zearn is my go-to tech tool for students to use as an independent task at home.  If they get stuck on a Zearn lesson at home, we can work through it the following day or they can log on for help via Google Meet to present which section of Zearn they are struggling with.  Lessons and skills can be adjusted throughout the year to best fit your students' needs, if need be.  I love it when I teach a lesson and the students say, "Hey, we did this on Zearn yesterday!"  I think it helps them feel more confident and therefore feel more successful with the skill we are learning.

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Although I use it for educational purposes as well, I use it every day for engagement and connecting with my students. I have had my kids write to me everyday since I started teaching.  It is how I get to know them and how they get to know me. I truly believe that a child will not learn from you if they do not connect with you and believe you value them as a person.  (We used a spiral notebook.  It was very time consuming to write back to each child and a lot to manage. But the benefits outweighed the disadvantages.) When we went remote last March, I switched the daily journal from a private communication between myself and a student to a journal for the whole class using google slides. The social aspect for the kids was more important at the time.  Each child had their own slide to write on each day.  Then they could read the other slides written by their classmates.  Giving all 4th graders in a class editing issues to the entire slide show did have its issues at times.  So when we started this year, I continued to keep the journal a class exercise, but used Padlet. LIFESAVER!! Each day I post a prompt for them to write about.  I plan, create, and schedule them 1 day per week for the week following. Topics vary from serious to silly and everything in between.  I finish each day of work reading about my kids and learning so many things about them; usually laughing out loud.  I also often cite entries in my weekly newsletter to parents, because the kids ideas are too good not to share. Padlet makes this crucial exercise fun and manageable for me and my kids.

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Kami allows me to adapt, create, send, “mark up”, and grade assignments. Kami works well with  Google Classroom and is very accessible with Google drive. I have just started to scratch the surface. I did some training with Kami, but never actually used it much until I had a need to use it. I had been using Edulastic to post and track assessments. Kami offers this option in a much more user friendly format.  “Marking up” text has been a useful feature when teaching reading. Just simply highlighting key details when finding the main idea, theme, author’s point of view, etc. is beneficial. Annotating text is critical for close reading. Kami allows you to make notes, comments, voice to text, etc. You can also easily provide feedback to students. It is probably the most versatile universal tool out there.

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There are 2 forms of BrainPOP that I use, BrainPOP & BrainPOP Jr. Most of us have access to this tool in our waffle. This tool allows students to see mini informational movies and then engage in some type of activity that goes along with it. The subject matter & topics are bountiful. I use this to follow up with a topic I've recently covered in Health. My students are usually assigned the movie, which will help to cement what we've discussed in a lesson, because it's coming from another source, not just Mrs. Hayes said so. Then I typically have my students complete the quiz or worksheet that goes along with that movie, which helps to hold them accountable to watching the movie and test their understanding of the concept. It allows me to see what their work is, and I can review concepts as needed. It has been something I've used in years past by showing whole class and doing the quiz whole class, but with the pandemic I've been individually assigning these, which really has helped to see who is understanding what, no matter if they are in person or at home.

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I am a huge fan of sticky/post-it notes to begin with so this caught my attention instantly last year! Not only that but you can do so much with it, it has wonderful templates and a very easy tool to incorporate in your remote or even face to face classroom. Last year teaching fifth grade remotely, I used Padlet for bellringers, exit tickets, discussions in all subjects and some just fun discussions. I used it for our solar system projects to display their final results due to everyone being remote. I used it for book reports and even did a fun end of the year, yearbook for the kids and they were all able to comment and wish each other farewell for the summer.
Starting off the year this year I was teaching 1st and 2nd remote and I used padlet to introduce myself to the students and had them create an all about me to share with the rest of their online classmates. I know am focused on reading intervention with face to face kiddos and use padlet as a bellringer to the story they took home to read the night prior. I love this tool and all its options!

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Kami has a great tool kit for the students to choose from.  When working in ELA the students can number paragraphs, write notes by each paragraph and annotate (circle words they need clarifying, underlining key terms, starring key facts in each paragraph, etc.).  In math, students can use the shapes for drawing pictures and the text box for typing up equations. Kami is mostly used for ELA and Math assessments for both my remote and face to face students.

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Pear Deck and Kami:   I love Pear Deck.  I use this to introduce the story of the week.  I have a section that allows them to practice the vocabulary words.  They could use post its to give the definition and I could check at a glance if they know the meaning.  It is also good to identify theme.  You can have the students post their theme statement, and you can quickly skim the answers to see who might be having difficulty.  It is very similar to the "parking garage" that I used to use, with actual post it notes, on my white board.
I love kami as I can have them submit answers to me.  I use this for their written responses and also when they fill out graphic organizers.  I also use this and have them submit their notes, so I  can hold them accountable for the days they are remote.

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I am a huge fan of Kahoot and my students are as well. I use it as a tool for review if we have a quiz or a test. This year I am teaching only math so I will have math problems that they have to solve. Even though it's a regular math problem they try twice as hard because they want to get the right answer. It's also a bit of healthy competition because they want to beat their friends (disclaimer: we have a full discussion about winning and losing the first time I do it in a school year). It gives them the practice they need and I get to see how they are doing and if I need to review certain areas that they aren't understanding.

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Join a game of kahoot here. Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn – any subject, in any language, on any device, for all ages!

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I created a "Virtual Library" with 5 Google Slides. This allows me to share library resources and recorded stories for both in person and remote students. I have created a walk through tutorial of the Google Slides Library for students and parents.  Now that I am 100% at Madison, my Nightengale students still have full access to their Virtual Library and can request library books from there and use all the resources still. Pear Deck has been a great interactive tool that allows students to complete either independently at their pace or at my pace as the instructor. There are also excellent digital citizenship lessons within Pear Deck.

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Padlet is a great place for everything. It is a place where you can post anonymously and share sticky notes. I used this when we went fully remote and even now as we are hybrid. Students can comment, like, rate and share with their peers. I used it at the beginning of the year when we were all getting to know each other and we played 2 truths one lie. My students love it because it reminds them of a type of social media. My other favorite part is all the different types of templates. The one I use the most is backchannel because they can communicate in a chat like environment. It also is a great way to get feedback from students and I love using it for exit tickets. That way they can post what they learned for the day and what they want to review for the next. Also, its a great tool for checking for comprehension.

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Going full remote and then back to hybrid in the beginning of the year, I knew I needed to have something consistent each day so the students did not get confused with the back and forth. I began using google slides to put links to assignments and everything they would need for that day in that slideshow and post it to google classroom. The first page was the opener, saying good morning and what day it was. Then I would go through each subject in order of the day and write in what we were going to be learning and what they would need to have. I would also post the homework and links to that as well. This allowed me to keep track of who saw the show and then they would have everything in one space.

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Teaching ELA requires discussion. Flip Grid allows students to prepare his/her thoughts, record themselves discussing the assignment, literature, answering questions or giving opinions, etc. They have the ability to hold a "virtual" discussion by commenting on the videos and asking questions. A valuable tool while teaching hybrid and remotely.

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We express ourselves in different ways. On Flip, you can use our simple and fun built-in camera to record your thoughts, add effects and share within your Flip group as video, audio only or text in your web browser or mobile app.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.