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A Third Grader’s Plea For More Game-Based Learning | KQED

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One student speaks up about his experience of video games in the classroom.

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New posts daily of stories, trending videos, pet tales, health tips, and more. Stories that will put a smile on your face, as well as updates related to the causes you care about. Loving and caring people, funny kids, goofy pets, and a world of good.

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Let your students choose one of these creative, hands-on projects to show their learning.

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The Into the Book website was retired December 31, 2023, and will no longer be available. Please explore the high-quality educational resources from PBS Wisconsin as an alternative. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us.

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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Angela Lee Duckworth: Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

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Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn't the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.

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Critical thinking is an important aspect of learning. Understanding something is more than repeating facts, it's being able to apply what you know in different forms. The practice of getting students to do this requires a shift from learning by receiving information to turning that information into something else, like a diagram or a storybook.

These five simple tools allow you to inspire critical thinking in your students. Encourage them to take the information you're giving them, and show what they know with mind maps, puzzles and more!

Students can use Discovery's Puzzlemaker suite of tools to make customized word searches, letter tile puzzles, hidden message games and more. Use this as a v ocabulary activity station. Students pair up and create a puzzle for their teammate to solve using the words they're learning that week.

This gives both students a chance to work with vocabulary in a new and fun way that requires extra thinking and problem solving.

Mind mapping is a valuable tool to facilitate critical thinking, and technology has made it easier than ever to bring this into your classroom.

Use MindMeister, a simple and easy to implement mind mapping tool, to encourage students to think about a topic, lesson, problem or subject from every angle. This activity helps them look at the whole picture with a critical eye, rather than just studying the facts that are being taught in the curriculum.

Check out this compilation of inspiring educational mind maps, which cover topics like grammar, geography and reading comprehension.

Answering open-ended questions is a simple way to facilitate critical thinking with students. However, many reading comprehension tools only allow students to answer multiple-choice questions, rather than requiring them to formulate their own answer.

Whooo's Reading, an online reading log, not only requires students to answer open-ended questions, but every automatically prompted question is Common Core-aligned, so you can be sure your students are thinking about the text in terms of the various reading and writing anchors.

Learn more about how this tool has helped more than 10,000 teachers improve their students' reading comprehension at the Learn2Earn teacher blog.

While this tool only has pre-defined flow chart games, in a variety of categories ranging from life sciences to the human body, you can use them to inspire critical thinking where appropriate.

For example, use flow chart games when exploring photosynthesis. Students have to drag and drop the various stages in the right part of the cycle. Require each student to write what each part of the cycle is about for a complete interactive thinking activity. Note that use of this this tool requires a monthly subscription.

This online business tool was not made for the classroom; however, students can use it to map out the visual representation of a process, adding notes, colors and details to show their knowledge of the topic. All diagrams are saved in your "Online Diagram Library" so students can access this content when studying for an exam or to show their parents.

You also have access to a large database of pre-made diagrams. Use these as supplementary materials for a lesson you've already written or as examples of what you expect from students with their own diagram.

This is a guest post by Jessica Sanders. Jessica is the Director of Social Outreach for Learn2Earn, an online fundraising platform that allows students raise money by reading books. She grew up reading books like The Giver and Holes, and is passionate about making reading as exciting for young kids today as it has always been for her. Follow Learn2Earn on and , and send content inquiries to social@learn2earn.org.

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Director of Social Outreach for Learn2Earn

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5 Tech Tools to Encourage Critical Thinking

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Critical thinking is an important aspect of learning. Understanding something is more than repeating facts, it's being able to apply what you know in different forms. The practice of getting students to do this requires a shift from learning by receiving information to turning that information into something else, like a diagram or a storybook.

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New posts daily of stories, trending videos, pet tales, health tips, and more. Stories that will put a smile on your face, as well as updates related to the causes you care about. Loving and caring people, funny kids, goofy pets, and a world of good.

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Free classroom resources, inspiration, and support.

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New posts daily of stories, trending videos, pet tales, health tips, and more. Stories that will put a smile on your face, as well as updates related to the causes you care about. Loving and caring people, funny kids, goofy pets, and a world of good.

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What Are Coral Reefs And What's Their Purpose?

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These Fun, Free Web Applications Make it Quick and Easy to Create Cool Learning Content (Watch out Though, Other Teachers Will be Banging Down Your Door Looking for Tips).

Do you know a teacher who just always seems to know about the latest technology, and makes it look so easy to produce cool content that students find fun and engaging? Maybe you are one of these teachers?

It doesn't have to be hard to use slick tech tools in the classroom. There are so many free, easy to use tools out there. Here are five of my favorites to recommend.

In addition to explaining the basic functionality of each tool, I've provided an example, and offered some thoughts on 'ease of use' and whether or not there is a paid plan (all of these tools have free offerings, one has a Premium Plan).

Be patient with yourself if you try these for the first time and find yourself running into challenges. Some are really easy, and some are a little harder. Don't be too afraid to click stuff and see what happens. Sometimes you have to cast aside caution a bit and take a chance (and yes, sometimes that means you'll get tripped up, but more often you'll probably surprise yourself and figure it out!).

If you have another favorite easy free tools to share, please drop a quick comment and share!

1. LessonPaths

Function: Create a slick tool for viewing a collection of web resources and other digital content. The best way to understand how the end result works is to check out the example below.

Ease of use: This is really easy to use (suggested time for first use: < 30 minutes, if you know what content you want to share)

Free vs Paid use: This is free and that's all there is to it.

Example: I created this Flipped Classroom professional development LessonPath when I first took the app out for a ride (it took me about 15 minutes). You can embed it, as you see here, or if you can use it directly on the LessonPaths site (and get a slightly more functional view).

Function: Geddit provides an easy way for students to "check in" and indicate if they are comfortable with lessons sections as you move through them. This allows you to see at a glance how many students are struggling to understand material you are covering, allowing you focus on which material needs further focus. You can also ask specific questions. There are other applications that provide this functionality, but Geddit is one of the simpler ones I've seen. Of course, students need a device - this can be just about any computer, a tablet, or a smart phone, as long as it is has Internet access. I am confident that this kind of interactive student response system will become increasingly common, eventually becoming standard in many classrooms and schools.

Ease of use: It is pretty simple to set up. I worked my way through setting up and trying my own lesson, making a simple question, downloading the app on my iPhone and signing up as a student and entering the course code for the class, and then going back and forth as the teacher and student asking for response ("check ins"), in about 20 minutes or so, but it could easily take a bit longer. I would advise allowing 45 minutes to an hour for figuring it out and working out the kinks.

Free vs Paid use: Totally Free!

Example: As a live interactive app, I can't really point you to a live example (it's not like web content). This video provides a look at functionality. Beyond that, to learn more ... dive in at letsgeddit.com (click the Get Started Button).

Function: The TedED tool lets you "Flip" any YouTube video. There are several sections where you can add resources, build a simple quiz, have a discussion, and then provide further links, etc., for a "Deeper Dive". There are summaries available for each lesson, showing how many students have viewed lessons, answered questions, etc. This is a pretty awesome concept.

Ease of use: Pretty easy to use (suggested time for first use: 30+ minutes). I love the thought behind this app, and it keeps improving, but I do have to forewarn that it seems like sometimes everything works great with it and sometimes it behaves sort of inconsistently. I have a slightly different experience just about every time I use it. Another slightly similar app is Tackk, but it doesn't have the quiz functionality or the structured additional content sections (you can have a discussion though, and provide additional resources).

Free vs Paid use: Totally Free.

Example: Here is an example of a video that was flipped with Ed.Ted.Com: http://ed.ted.com/on/5iMW5cFP. This is obviously a public lesson, but you can also choose to keep a lesson private and share it with only selected individuals via email.

4. Blendspace

Ed Note: TES acquired Blendspace and the tool now lives here: https://www.tes.com/lessons.

Function: Conceptually kind of similar to LessonPaths, but the end result has a different look and feel (see example below)

Ease of use: Very easy to use (suggested time for first use: < 30 minutes, if you know what content you want to share)

Free vs Paid use: Totally Free!

Example: This example has just 5 resources in it, but you can add many more to yours. It is also easier to view on the Blendspace web site: click here to access it in full screen mode, or click on the "Open in Blendspace" link in the upper right hand corner. Click on the circular icons on the upper right hand corner of each resource tile to open that resource within the Blendspace window.

Function: Create a professional looking short video with ease using preexisting templates. It's pretty easy to create impressive videos with Powtoon.

Ease of use: The template and tools make it pretty easy, but be prepared to spend some time laying your video out. Of course, you need to have some ideas about content. You can easily spend an hour with Powtoon the first time you use it, but the time is well spent, as the results are pretty impressive.

Free vs Paid use: The Free version allows for only 5 minute videos, but there are paid versions starting at $19.99 a month which allow for 15 minutes videos. There are numerous other considerations with the free versus paid options. Click here to learn more.

Example: I created this Powtoon to advertise the Flipped Classroom Workshop-in-a-Book. There are a wide variety of templates for educators and training, in addition to business and marketing and other content.

I hope you find these as fun as I did. Be sure to tell us about some of your favorite free-but-powerful apps!

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5 Tech Savvy Teaching Tools That Your Students Will Love and Your Peers Will Envy

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Do you know a teacher who just always seems to know about the latest technology, and makes it look so easy to produce cool content that students find fun and engaging? Maybe you are one of these teachers? It doesn't have to be hard to use slick tech tools in the classroom.

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Critical thinking is an important aspect of learning. Understanding something is more than repeating facts, it's being able to apply what you know in different forms. The practice of getting students to do this requires a shift from learning by receiving information to turning that information into something else, like a diagram or a storybook.

These five simple tools allow you to inspire critical thinking in your students. Encourage them to take the information you're giving them, and show what they know with mind maps, puzzles and more!

Students can use Discovery's Puzzlemaker suite of tools to make customized word searches, letter tile puzzles, hidden message games and more. Use this as a v ocabulary activity station. Students pair up and create a puzzle for their teammate to solve using the words they're learning that week.

This gives both students a chance to work with vocabulary in a new and fun way that requires extra thinking and problem solving.

Mind mapping is a valuable tool to facilitate critical thinking, and technology has made it easier than ever to bring this into your classroom.

Use MindMeister, a simple and easy to implement mind mapping tool, to encourage students to think about a topic, lesson, problem or subject from every angle. This activity helps them look at the whole picture with a critical eye, rather than just studying the facts that are being taught in the curriculum.

Check out this compilation of inspiring educational mind maps, which cover topics like grammar, geography and reading comprehension.

Answering open-ended questions is a simple way to facilitate critical thinking with students. However, many reading comprehension tools only allow students to answer multiple-choice questions, rather than requiring them to formulate their own answer.

Whooo's Reading, an online reading log, not only requires students to answer open-ended questions, but every automatically prompted question is Common Core-aligned, so you can be sure your students are thinking about the text in terms of the various reading and writing anchors.

Learn more about how this tool has helped more than 10,000 teachers improve their students' reading comprehension at the Learn2Earn teacher blog.

While this tool only has pre-defined flow chart games, in a variety of categories ranging from life sciences to the human body, you can use them to inspire critical thinking where appropriate.

For example, use flow chart games when exploring photosynthesis. Students have to drag and drop the various stages in the right part of the cycle. Require each student to write what each part of the cycle is about for a complete interactive thinking activity. Note that use of this this tool requires a monthly subscription.

This online business tool was not made for the classroom; however, students can use it to map out the visual representation of a process, adding notes, colors and details to show their knowledge of the topic. All diagrams are saved in your "Online Diagram Library" so students can access this content when studying for an exam or to show their parents.

You also have access to a large database of pre-made diagrams. Use these as supplementary materials for a lesson you've already written or as examples of what you expect from students with their own diagram.

This is a guest post by Jessica Sanders. Jessica is the Director of Social Outreach for Learn2Earn, an online fundraising platform that allows students raise money by reading books. She grew up reading books like The Giver and Holes, and is passionate about making reading as exciting for young kids today as it has always been for her. Follow Learn2Earn on and , and send content inquiries to social@learn2earn.org.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Director of Social Outreach for Learn2Earn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Tech Tools to Encourage Critical Thinking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Critical thinking is an important aspect of learning. Understanding something is more than repeating facts, it's being able to apply what you know in different forms. The practice of getting students to do this requires a shift from learning by receiving information to turning that information into something else, like a diagram or a storybook.