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MagicSchool.ai - AI for teachers - lesson planning and more!

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Join over a million teachers saving hours of time using the #1 AI Platform for Education, MagicSchool, to help lesson plan, differentiate, write assessments, write IEPs, communicate clearly, and more!

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Back to school is a special time of year. Sure, it means the end of summer break, but it's also a time for new beginnings. It's a time to get back into the regular cadence of the school schedule.

This is a crucial time of year for setting expectations -- for students, for teachers, for everyone in the school setting.

It's a time to set routine -- to get some repetitions with how the class will run day by day, week by week.

And, of course, it's relationship-building time! We want to get to know our students. They want to know more about us. And they need to get to know each other to build the classroom community.

Below we have curated over 80 back to school activities for any classroom. Scroll down for tons of ready-to-use lessons along with tutorials, templates, and examples to make planning this year a little easier.
What are your back to school ideas? Please share them in a comment at the bottom of the post!

80 back to school activities for any classroom
Click on any picture below to jump directly to that section or use the drop down menu to browse the table of contents.

Scroll down orclick here to see our ideas for welcoming students back from break or starting a new semester.

Make learning memorable!

Take your teaching to the next level by transforming your lessons into a memorable learning experience.

What are your back to school ideas for remote learning? Please share them in a comment below!

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Back to school is a special time of year. Sure, it means the end of summer break, but it's also a time for new beginnings. It's a time to get back into

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https://mathgeekmama.com/free-online-math-manipulatives/

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I have compiled some of my favorite virtual math manipulative web apps in this one resource that I hope you and your students can use this year!

👆You can share that link in Google Classroom, Seesaw, your LMS, etc.

Students will be able to click on the laptops to visit five different virtual manipulative sites. The individual manipulatives that appear on the bookshelf are also hyperlinked to that specific tool.

Most of the manipulatives will work on any device with a web-browser.

Math Learning Center does provide Apple & Chrome store downloads. Also, they have recently launched a sharing option which allows educators to pose problems and investigations for students using an 8-character code or link! Students can even share their thinking with their teachers and classmates. Right now the sharing feature is available on Number Pieces, Number Rack, Number Line, Number Fames and Math Clock. More coming soon!

The link above automatically launches the slide in "present" mode. I will update the file if any of the tools stop working.
I have had a few requests for the iframe embed code for teachers to add to their LMS. Here it is for you to copy:
Need more digital math resources? Check out these resources in my TpT Store:

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A Collection of Virtual Math Manipulatives

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I have compiled some of my favorite virtual math manipulative web apps in this one resource that I hope you and your students can use this year! 👆You can share that link in Google Classroom, Seesaw, your LMS, etc. Students will be able to click on the laptops to visit five different virtual manipulative sites.

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The evidence is in the practice

ESSA Level 3 correlation evidence in math and ELA, earned by teachers running frequent formative assessments.

When teachers run 30+ formative questions a week, the research is clear: they get more data-driven, their students get more engaged. Wayground is built to make that practice enjoyable ot run, attainable to fit a class period, and habitual enough to last past September.

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Quizizz is now Wayground | Teacher AI and Resources

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Find standards-aligned resources that engage every student. Wayground (formerly Quizizz) helps teachers differentiate instruction with AI and track student progress.

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How to Create a Clear Overlay in Google Slides

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Jun 8, 2020 - How to create a clear overlay in google slides so the user cannot automatically advance to the next slide. This is very useful if the

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Hello darlings!

I completed this project with my students during the school closures last quarter. The Flat Teacher Project is a spin off of the book Flat Stanley. This fun activity allows your students to take "you" on adventures with them. I had my students choose activities from a choice board and then take a picture with my Bitmoji completing that activity with them. I had my students take the pictures using Flipgrid, but you could also have a Google Slide for them to upload pictures to and even included a little writing assignment with it. They could write a little journal from your perspective or explain the adventure in their own words.

I have included step by step directions for you in this free resource. It is really easy to create your own Bitmoji and then simply replace mine. (The resource link can be found at the bottom of this post)

Frequently Asked Questions

There are black squares printing behind my Bitmojis. What do I do?
***This usually happens on Macs if you are simply copying and pasting a picture. You could save each Bitmoji to your computer and upload it OR you could simply save your file as a PNG and it will print the entire file as a picture.

How do I find the Bitmojis that are just standing?
***Search "pose" but make sure if you are in the Bitmoji extension on Chrome, you do not press the space bar.
Click here to get your own editable copy!
Enjoy!

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Flat Teacher Project - That Teaching Spark

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Hello darlings! I completed this project with my students during the school closures last quarter. The Flat Teacher Project is a spin off of the book Flat Stanley. This fun activity allows your students to take "you" on adventures with them. I had my students choose activities from a choice board and then take a ...

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After looking critically at the concept of rules, we decided that a list of rules would not be as helpful as a shared community vision to guide us each day.  So each of my classes worked to create a Community Vision Statement. Here is what we came up with:

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After looking critically at the concept of rules, we decided that a list of rules would not be as helpful as a shared community vision to guide us each day.  So each of my classes worked to create a Community Vision Statement. Here is what we came up with: https://t.co/iq69DMvGHF

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After looking critically at the concept of rules, we decided that a list of rules would not be as helpful as a shared community vision to guide us each day. So each of my classes worked to create a Community Vision Statement. Here is what we came up with: pic.twitter.com/iq69DMvGHF
— Jess Lifshitz (@Jess5th) August 30, 2022

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After looking critically at the concept of rules, we decided that a list of rules would not be as helpful as a shared community vision to guide us each day.  So each of my classes worked to create a Community Vision Statement. Here is what we came up with: https://t.co/iq69DMvGHF

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After looking critically at the concept of rules, we decided that a list of rules would not be as helpful as a shared community vision to guide us each day.  So each of my classes worked to create a Community Vision Statement. Here is what we came up with: https://t.co/iq69DMvGHF

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After looking critically at the concept of rules, we decided that a list of rules would not be as helpful as a shared community vision to guide us each day.  So each of my classes worked to create a Community Vision Statement. Here is what we came up with:

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QR codes are a super fun way to engage your students and incorporate technology into your classroom. While not all schools are 1:1 with tablets, all of the activities below can be used during small group rotations with whatever number of tablets you might have access to.
Make your classroom buzz! Create a free Teach Starter account and download hundreds of time-saving resources. Find out more
QR Code Activity Ideas

For each of the activities below, you will need to:

1. Google "free QR code generator" to find a website to create your codes. We used http://goqr.me/

2. Install a free QR Code reader app onto the set of tablets. We use the "Quick Scan" app. It is available for free through the App Store for iPads, and is also free to download for Android.

Have students bring in clean boxes, containers, packets and any other items to create a classroom shop.

Download, print and laminate these awesome QR Code Price Tags.

Attach each tag to an item

Students scan the code to reveal an item's price.

You can also download this resource in an editable MS Word document so that you can create your own price tags.

Extension Activity

Provide students with a scenario and a budget for which they need to shop.
E.g. It is your Mum's birthday and you need to get food for her party. You have $25 to spend.

Create a table for students to record their "purchases" and track their total spend.

#2 Learning Pop-Up Spots

Generate QR codes that link to videos, websites or information sheets about the topic or theme.

Print poster-size codes to use in the centre of a display, or in a special location in the school.

#3 Trip Around the World

Generate QR codes that when scanned, provide clues about a certain location from around the world.

Place these around your classroom, or around the school.

Provide students with a map where they can plot their trip around the world as they work through each of the clues, finding the next location.

#4 Homework Helping Tips

Create QR codes that link to the specific strategies or information needed to support student learning.
For example, reading strategies, spelling strategies, or mathematics strategies.

Add the QR code to reading folders or homework sheets as an easy way for parents to access information they can use to help their child with their learning at home.

#5 Anatomy of Anything

Place QR codes on the different parts of a model (e.g. a skeleton, a simple machine or globe).

Provide students with a variety of definitions on cards or on a worksheet.

Students scan the QR codes to reveal the name of that part and match the name to the definitions.

#6 Make Your Own Scavenger Hunt

#7 Extension Activities Corner

Create a fast-finishers corner or display where QR codes reveal an extension activity.

Colour-coordinate the activities for each key learning area.
- For example, codes on green paper reveal numeracy activities, codes on blue paper reveal literacy activities.

#8 Live Worksheets

Make worksheets live by adding QR codes that take students off the page and onto a relevant website, interactive game or video.

#9 QR Code Cubes

Use a QR code generator and our 3D QR Code Activity Cube Template to create QR code cubes.

Each code reveals a different question or activity.

Create cubes for reflection questions, journal questions, brain break activities or fast-finisher tasks.

We've created these QR Code Comprehension Question cubes using the Super Six comprehension strategies!

#10 Digitial Student Work Presentations

Use a shared space on your school intranet or website where students can upload their completed digital works.

Generate a QR code for each student's work.

Create a display incorporating the codes, where students scan to reveal and view each others' digital works.
E.g. share book reviews (display a picture of the cover with a QR code that links to a book review).

Here are some favourites from our QR Code resource collection:

Have you used QR Codes in your classroom?
What has been your favourite moment of QR code-inspired student engagement?
Make your classroom buzz! Create a free Teach Starter account and download hundreds of time-saving resources. Find out more

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10 Exciting QR Code Classroom Activity Ideas | Teach Starter

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QR codes are a super fun way to engage your students and incorporate technology into your classroom. While not all schools are 1:1 with tablets, all of the activities below can be used during small group rotations with whatever number of tablets you might have access to. Make your classroom buzz!

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I seem to admire so many Pinterest ideas and for over a year now I have been gathering and gathering ideas that make very pretty boards. This last week of school I have used two of the ideas. I changed the around a bit, but my students enjoyed them and therefore were engaged. This is no easy task considering it is the last week of school and we have a Reading Counts celebration, an end of the year party, and a last day of school pizza lunch. Pfew!

Well the first idea that I want to share was an idea from my technology board.

This is from another blogger and their blog is located here :

Who's Who and Who's New
It is a wonderful resource for ideas using technology.

Another blogger did it this way;

I am not certain who the last picture came from, but they also had the QR codes leading to a blog containing the children's work.

I love both of these ideas and next year having the children blog in the classroom is on my list of new things I plan to add to my routine.

But this year, I mixed the two ideas and came up with these;

Or rather my children came up with these. They made self portraits and their portraits are holding IPODS with QR codes on them. These QR codes lead to messages for the new students I will have next year. This means I have to keep them safe all summer!

The messages greet my new students and tell them about the things they will like about second grade and being in my class. The children wrote about math, science, social studies, Edmodo, writing and reading. I will post a banner that reads "Welcome to Second Grade, messages from Last Year's Hagan's Heroes". I am very excited and think this will be fun for parent's to do with their children Open House. My hope is that this gives the feeling of a strong technological presence.

Next year I hope to have my students blog and call it online portfolios and use the QR codes to lead to their work for others to view. But I love the idea of messages to future students.

Any comments? I would love feedback or any ideas that anyone may have concerning these QR code projects.

Oh yes, the other Pinterest idea I will share another day.

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I seem to admire so many Pinterest ideas and for over a year now I have been gathering and gathering ideas that make very pretty boards. Thi...

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by TeachThought Staff

There is often talk about assessment-its forms, frequency, and the integration of gleaned data to revise planned instruction.

Formative versus assessment, rigor, and the evasive nature of understanding are also areas for exploration. But rarely is there discussion about the kinds of things teachers can do-literal actions and concrete strategies-to help streamline the assessment process, and hopefully produce purer results you can trust.

There are countless ways to improve a test-or quiz or any other assessment you give a student. How you improve it depends on what you're hoping to accomplish with the assessment, your plan to use the data, and where that assessment (as it is) is strong, and where it can be improved.

It might be that an existing standards-based multiple-choice exam is strongly aligned with those standards, the questions are clear, and the answers are accurate but it may simply be too long or given at the wrong time. Or it might benefit from more engaging examples in given passages or questions to more strongly activate student background knowledge.
20 Ways To Improve A Test, Quiz, Or Other Assessment
1. Reduce or increase length

2. Make it 'adaptive'-using technology, for example. That is, make sure it scales to be accessible to students who might be struggling while also challenging students who may have already mastered the material.

3. Use language or examples more familiar, interesting, amusing, or otherwise more engaging to the student

4. Provide substantive student choice in the assessment-form, items, timing, etc.

5. Use scenarios to help students apply their thinking to real-world circumstances

6. Create questions or prompts that can be solved in multiple ways

7. Use a variety of open-ended and closed questions strategically-that is, for specific effect.

8. Consider using many types of questions

9. Use analogies-examples of analogies for critical thinking, for example.

10. Let students create their own assessment. How well this works depends on the student and content and grade level and type of assessments and so on. But for the right application, the questions or challenges students create and what their responses are can give you valuable data-and after all, isn't data what you're looking for?

11. Change the format-from multiple-choice to open-ended prompt, or matching to gamified debate, or essay/short response to part fill-in-the-blank and part multiple-choice, for example.

12. Flip the assessment-give students answers and ask them to create the 'questions'

13. Add a rubric or scoring guide that somehow supports students-one that clarifies something that otherwise might be confusing and get in the way of assessing what the student actually understands

14. Make it visual-pictures, video, editorial cartoons, data forms, etc.

15. Use additive grading-give students points for what they get right and no points for what they get wrong rather than a percentage correct. This can encourage students to want to 'earn points' over time rather than simply 'pass the test' and move on. This can also make tests less threatening and more conducive to formative assessment patterns (using data from inform instruction on an ongoing basis).

16. Let the student modify the assessment. This wouldn't give you data measured against a benchmark but it would give you data of where that student 'is' more clearly than simply getting an answer 'wrong'

17. Gamify it-Challenges, points, levels to be 'unlocked,' leveling up of specific skills, etc.

18. Update or improve any source material-reading passages, for example.

19. Repeat it. Let struggling students simply retake it while students who score above a certain percentage change or add questions to challenges to reflect their actual knowledge level (versus simply 'passing the test).

20. Make it multimodal-conversation, text, concept-mapping, multiple-choice, etc. This takes more work but to ease the burden, you can create templates for multimodal assessments and use them throughout the year.

Another quiz might benefit from better alignment with learning objectives, while another could be improved by using some kind of adaptive learning algorithm that scales to a student's performance.

Coupled with our 10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds Or Less, that's several dozen simple formative assessment forms and strategies to add to your teacher toolset.

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20 Ways To Improve A Test, Quiz, Or Other Assessment

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From making it adaptive to changing the form, timing, language, or structure of the assessment, here are 20 ways to improve a test.

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These free focus mats have been created to help you get your students ready for standardized testing or other stressful days in your classroom.
These free focus mats are another tool you can add to your prepping for standardized testing collection.
Our goal when creating these focus mats was to provide a free resource for teachers to use when prepping for testing. These might also be used for a morning entry task when you have a busy morning ahead of you.

No matter how we as teachers feel about standardized testing, we know that it is currently just a fact of life almost all of us have to face. Since it's a part of school we can't avoid, we are working to find tools to ease a little of the stress related to the process.

This specific resource has been created to help your students have a calming and relaxing entry into school as they prep for testing.

More about our focus mats...

We are providing you with six mats that you can copy and share with your students.

You might choose to create a stack of each so students can choose the page they find the most appealing.

The pages contain a variety of images for coloring such as frames and mandalas. There are also mazes and a few other open-ended questions.

Our thought in creating these is we wanted something simple for students to work on that would be relaxing. The process of coloring the designs contained on the mats and creating patterns can be a calming process.

Of course, for students who might be overwhelmed by the designs, a blank piece of paper might be a good option. Some students might prefer to simply draw or doodle instead of having a preprinted page.

To complete these mats, we suggest students have access to colored pencils or fine tipped markers.

You can download these free focus mats for students here:

We've gotten so many requests for additional mats! We created a new set with 8 mats focused on Growth Mindset concepts. You will find these here:
Growth Mindset Mats

Looking for something similar but with a fall theme? Take a look at this set:
Fall Focus Mats

We also have a set of mats with a wizard theme - they are perfect for your Harry Potter lovers!

You might like these markers to make coloring fine lines easier for your students. (contains affiliate link)

Thank you for the cute clip art: Hidesy's Clipart

As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.

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These free focus mats have been created to help you get your students ready for standardized testing or other stressful days in your classroom.

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How many types of curriculum are you familiar with?

© Leslie Owen Wilson. Ed. D.

When considering all of the types of curriculum what are the different definitions?

When I asked my students what curriculum means to them, they always indicated that it means the overt or written curriculum - thinking of a curriculum manual with goals and objectives, or their textbooks. However, the word "curriculum" as it is defined from its early Latin origins means literally "to run a course." If one thinks of a marathon with mile and direction markers, signposts, water stations, and officials and coaches along the route, this beginning definition is a metaphor for what the curriculum has become in the education of our children.

Here are multiple definitions for curriculum, from Oliva (1997) (4)

Curriculum is:

That which is taught in schools

A set of subjects.

Content

A program of studies.

A set of materials

A sequence of courses.

A set of performance objectives

A course of study

Is everything that goes on within the school, including extra-class activities, guidance, and interpersonal relationships.

Everything that is planned by school personnel.

A series of experiences undergone by learners in a school.

That which an individual learner experiences as a result of schooling. p 4

What are the different types of curriculum?

Obviously the answer to this question is subject to interpretation. Since curriculum reflects the models of instructional delivery chosen and used, some might indicate that curriculum could be categorized according to the common psychological classifications of the four families of learning theories " Social, Information Processing, Personalist, and Behavioral." Longstreet and Shane have dubbed divisions in curricular orientations as: child-centered, society-centered, knowledge-centered, or eclectic. Common philosophical orientations of curriculum parallel those beliefs espoused by different philosophical orientations - Idealism, Realism, Perennialism, Essentialism, Experimentalism, Existentialism, Constructivism, Reconstructivism and the like. With all of these sources it should be obvious that there are lots of types of curriculum.

Whatever classification one gravitates toward, the fact remains that at one time or another curriculum in the United States has, at some level, been impacted by all of the above. In essence, American curriculum is hard to pin down because it is multi-layered and highly eclectic.

My personal definition (Wilson, 1990) of curriculum is:

Anything and everything that teaches a lesson, planned or otherwise. Humans are born learning, thus the learned curriculum actually encompasses a combination of all of the following - the hidden, null, written, political and societal etc.. Since students learn all the time through exposure and modeled behaviors, this means that they learn important social and emotional lessons from everyone who inhabits a school - from the janitorial staff, the secretary, the cafeteria workers, their peers, as well as from the deportment, conduct and attitudes expressed and modeled by their teachers. Many educators are unaware of the strong lessons imparted to youth by these everyday contacts."

The following represents the many different types of curriculum used in schools today.

Type of Curriculum

Definition

1. Overt, explicit, or written curriculum
Is simply that which is written as part of formal instruction of schooling experiences. It may refer to a curriculum document, texts, films, and supportive teaching materials that are overtly chosen to support the intentional instructional agenda of a school. Thus, the overt curriculum is usually confined to those written understandings and directions formally designated and reviewed by administrators, curriculum directors and teachers, often collectively.

2. Societal curriculum (or social curricula)

As defined by Cortes (1981). Cortes defines this curriculum as:...[the] massive, ongoing, informal curriculum of family, peer groups, neighborhoods, churches, organizations, occupations, mass media, and other socializing forces that "educate" all of us throughout our lives. 24

This type of curricula can now be expanded to include the powerful effects of social media (YouTube; Facebook; Twitter; Pinterest, etc) and how it actively helps create new perspectives, and can help shape both individual and public opinion.

3. The hidden or covert curriculum

That which is implied by the very structure and nature of schools, much of what revolves around daily or established routines.

Longstreet and Shane (1993) offer a commonly accepted definition for this term - the "hidden curriculum," which refers to the kinds of learnings children derive from the very nature and organizational design of the public school, as well as from the behaviors and attitudes of teachers and administrators.... " 46

Examples of the hidden curriculum might include the messages and lessons derived from the mere organization of schools - the emphasis on: sequential room arrangements; the cellular, timed segments of formal instruction; an annual schedule that is still arranged to accommodate an agrarian age; disciplined messages where concentration equates to student behaviors were they are sitting up straight and are continually quiet; students getting in and standing in line silently; students quietly raising their hands to be called on; the endless competition for grades, and so on. The hidden curriculum may include both positive or negative messages, depending on the models provided and the perspectives of the learner or the observer.

In what I term floating quotes, popularized quotes that have no direct, cited sources, David P. Gardner is reported to have said: We learn simply by the exposure of living. Much that passes for education is not education at all but ritual. The fact is that we are being educated when we know it least.

4. The null curriculum

That which we do not teach, thus giving students the message that these elements are not important in their educational experiences or in our society. Eisner offers some major points as he concludes his discussion of the null curriculum. The major point I have been trying to make thus far is that schools have consequences not only by virtue of what they do teach, but also by virtue of what they neglect to teach. What students cannot consider, what they don't processes they are unable to use, have consequences for the kinds of lives they lead. 103

Eisner (1985, 1994) first described and defined aspects of this curriculum. He states: There is something of a paradox involved in writing about a curriculum that does not exist. Yet, if we are concerned with the consequences of school programs and the role of curriculum in shaping those consequences, then it seems to me that we are well advised to consider not only the explicit and implicit curricula of schools but also what schools do not teach. It is my thesis that what schools do not teach may be as important as what they do teach. I argue this position because ignorance is not simply a neutral void; it has important effects on the kinds of options one is able to consider, the alternatives that one can examine, and the perspectives from which one can view a situation or problems. ...97

From Eisner's perspective the null curriculum is simply that which is not taught in schools. Somehow, somewhere, some people are empowered to make conscious decisions as to what is to be included and what is to be excluded from the overt (written) curriculum. Since it is physically impossible to teach everything in schools, many topics and subject areas must be intentionally excluded from the written curriculum. But Eisner's position on the "null curriculum" is that when certain subjects or topics are left out of the overt curriculum, school personnel are sending messages to students that certain content and processes are not important enough to study. Unfortunately, without some level of awareness that there is also a well-defined implicit agenda in schools, school personnel send this same type of message via the hidden curriculum. These are important to consider when making choices. We teach about wars but not peace, we teach about certain select cultures and histories but not about others. Both our choices and our omissions send messages to students.

5. Phantom curriculum
The messages prevalent in and through exposure to any type of media. These components and messages play a major part in the enculturation of students into the predominant meta-culture, or in acculturating students into narrower or generational subcultures.

6. Concomitant curriculum

What is taught, or emphasized at home, or those experiences that are part of a family's experiences, or related experiences sanctioned by the family. (This type of curriculum may be received at church, in the context of religious expression, lessons on values, ethics or morals, molded behaviors, or social experiences based on the family's preferences.)

7. Rhetorical curriculum
Elements from the rhetorical curriculum are comprised from ideas offered by policymakers, school officials, administrators, or politicians. This curriculum may also come from those professionals involved in concept formation and content changes; or from those educational initiatives resulting from decisions based on national and state reports, public speeches, or from texts critiquing outdated educational practices. The rhetorical curriculum may also come from the publicized works offering updates in pedagogical knowledge.

8. Curriculum-in-use

The formal curriculum (written or overt) comprises those things in textbooks, and content and concepts in the district curriculum guides. However, those "formal" elements are frequently not taught. The curriculum-in-use is the actual curriculum that is delivered and presented by each teacher.

9. Received curriculum
Those things that students actually take out of classrooms; those concepts and content that are truly learned and remembered.

10. The internal curriculum

Processes, content, knowledge combined with the experiences and realities of the learner to create new knowledge. While educators should be aware of this curriculum, they have little control over the internal curriculum since it is unique to each student. Educators can explore this curricula by using instructional assessments like "exit slips," reflective exercises, or debriefing discussions to see what students really remember from a lesson. It is often very enlightening and surprising to find out what has meaning for learners and what does not.

11. The electronic curriculum
Those lessons learned through searching the Internet for information, or through using e-forms of communication. (Wilson, 2004) These types of curriculum may be either formal or informal, and inherent lessons may be overt or covert, good or bad, correct or incorrect depending on ones' views. Students who use the Internet and electronic media on a regular basis, both for recreational and informational purposes, are bombarded with all types of media and messages. What types of messages are they being exposed to through varied social media and online interactions?

When they are researching subjects and topics online and gathering information they are often bombarded with all types of ads, images and messages. Much of this information may be factually correct, informative, or even entertaining or inspirational. But there is also a great deal of other e-information that may be very incorrect, dated, passé, biased, perverse, or even manipulative.

The implications of the electronic curriculum for educational practices are that part of the overt curriculum needs to include lessons on how to be wise consumers of information, how to critically appraise the accuracy and correctness of e-information, as well as how to determine the reliability of electronic sources. Also, students need to learn how to be artfully discerning about the usefulness and appropriateness of certain types of information.

As well, when it comes to social media and interactions just like other forms of social interaction, students need to know that there are inherent lessons to be learned about appropriate and acceptable " netiquette" and online behaviors, to include the differences between "fair and legal usage," vs. plagiarism and information piracy.

In today's world, of all the types of curriculum listed on this page, the electronic curriculum needs to be actively appraised, discussed, and considered by today's educators.

References and further readings for types of curriculum:

Cortes, C.E. (1981) The societal curriculum: Implications for multiethnic educations. In Banks, J.A (ed.) Educations in the 80's: Multiethnic education. National Education Association.

Eisner, E.W. (1994) T he educational imagination: On design and evaluation of school programs. (3rd. ed) New York: Macmillan.

Longstreet, W.S. and Shane, H.G. (1993) Curriculum for a new millennium. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Oliva, P. (1997) The curriculum: Theoretical dimensions. New York: Longman.

Wilson, L. O. (1990, 2004, 2006) Curriculum course packets ED 721 & 726, unpublished
Contact Leslie Giving = Continued Sharing
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types of curriculum - detailed explanations of the mutiple types of curriculm

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How many types of curriculum are you familiar with? © Leslie Owen Wilson. Ed. D. When considering all of the types of curriculum what are the different definitions? When I asked my students what curriculum means to them, they always indicated that it means the overt or written curriculum - thinking of a curriculum manual with goals and objectives, or their textbooks.

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The Free Expression Educators Handbook contains practical tools and advice for managing book challenges and censorship controversies in schools and school libraries. The handbook, created by NCAC in collaboration with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), is intended for teachers, librarians, and school administrators.

It offers guidance for educators developing inclusive and viewpoint-neutral instructional material policies, including sample review policies. The handbook also offers advice for educators navigating book challenges. We hope this resource will empower school communities to defend their students' freedom to read, create, and explore.

If you need further advice on strengthening your book selection procedures and resisting censorship, submit a Censorship Report to NCAC at ncac.org/report-censorship . Unless you tell us otherwise, we will keep all inquiries confidential. If you are not sure what help you need, please reach out. We are here to support you.

View the handbook below. Click here for a full-screen downloadable PDF.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

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The Free Expression Educators Handbook contains practical tools and advice for managing book challenges and censorship controversies in schools and school libraries. The handbook, created by NCAC in collaboration with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), is intended for teachers, librarians, and school administrators.

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What to Try When a Web App Isn't Working - Free Technology For Teachers

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Two weeks ago in my Practical Ed Tech Newsletter I outlined six things to try when a website or web app isn't working as you expected it to. Based on click-through, that was my most popular newsletter of the year! For those who haven't seen it, the handout from that edition of the newsletter is included below.

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PBS LearningMedia | Teaching Resources For Students And Teachers

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Inspire your students with thousands of free teaching resources including videos, lesson plans, and games aligned to state and national standards.

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Created and maintained by the American Federation of Teachers, Share My Lesson is a community of teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, specialized instructional support personnel, higher education faculty, and parents and caregivers who contribute content, collaborate, and stay up to date on the issues that matter to students and educators everywhere.

Sign up to receive our newsletter.

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Share My Lesson | Free Lesson Plans & Teacher Resources

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Share My Lesson is a community of teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, specialized instructional support personnel, higher education faculty, and parents and caregivers who contribute content, collaborate, and stay up to date on the issues that matter to students and educators everywhere.

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Resources other than teachers pay teachers

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Resources other than teachers pay teachers

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A thread on why the TPT platform is trash, with links, since some Ts are telling me to “apologize” to TPT. Lol—I’m going to double down instead. First, this is larger than TPT. It’s a systemic issue in education. No resources, all of us clamoring for content. /1

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A thread on why the TPT platform is trash, with links, since some Ts are telling me to “apologize” to TPT. Lol—I’m going to double down instead. First, this is larger than TPT. It’s a systemic issue in education. No resources, all of us clamoring for content. /1

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A thread on why the TPT platform is trash, with links, since some Ts are telling me to “apologize” to TPT. Lol—I’m going to double down instead. First, this is larger than TPT. It’s a systemic issue in education. No resources, all of us clamoring for content. /1
— Katelyn #LowBarTeacher 🐍🐊🖍️✏️🎃📜👑🚫👨👀 (@k8roulette2) October 15, 2021

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A thread on why the TPT platform is trash, with links, since some Ts are telling me to “apologize” to TPT. Lol—I’m going to double down instead. First, this is larger than TPT. It’s a systemic issue in education. No resources, all of us clamoring for content. /1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
A thread on why the TPT platform is trash, with links, since some Ts are telling me to “apologize” to TPT. Lol—I’m going to double down instead. First, this is larger than TPT. It’s a systemic issue in education. No resources, all of us clamoring for content. /1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
A thread on why the TPT platform is trash, with links, since some Ts are telling me to “apologize” to TPT. Lol—I’m going to double down instead. First, this is larger than TPT. It’s a systemic issue in education. No resources, all of us clamoring for content. /1

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Online Classes for Creatives | Skillshare

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Skillshare is a learning community for creators. Anyone can take an online class, watch video lessons, create projects, and even teach a class themselves.

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chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.middlesex.mass.edu/copyright/downloads/fairuse.pdf

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Thanks to Angie Dick at ETS for sharing this cool tool! Pick any level of Bloom's Taxonomy (cognitive domain) and find a tech tool that fits the purpose!

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged ed tech, T&L, Tech Tool. Bookmark the permalink.

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Thanks to Angie Dick at ETS for sharing this cool tool! Pick any level of Bloom's Taxonomy (cognitive domain) and find a tech tool that fits the purpose! This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged ed tech, T&L, Tech Tool. Bookmark the permalink.

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Learning Objectives

Recognize how technology can help foster authentic learning and student choice;

Identify common tools to support communication, collaboration, creativity, and student choice.

Technology provides so many ways for students to learn anywhere and at any time, and at a pace that is comfortable for each student. As educators, we want students to be able to connect with the classroom and the resources, as well as to develop global connections in their learning. Finding the right tools to use can take time and the search for a tool to implement in the classroom should always begin by asking the question "Why" integrate technology and "How" will it enhance learning for students. Knowing what tools to use takes time and having resources available to start with, and being able to involve students more in the process will be highly beneficial.

Technology enables teachers to teach from anywhere and the availability of tools which lend themselves to more interaction between the teacher and the students and the content continues to grow. Using digital tools provides more differentiation and personalized learning, and opportunities for students to become the leaders and creators in the classroom. They can create with these tools and share lessons with the class, increasing the resources available to all students, or they can simply use the opportunity to become the creator, as a way to help them to learn the material in a more meaningful and authentic way.

Key Terms

technology_integration,project-based_learning,media_literacy

Authentic Learning and Choices

The use of digital tools means that learning is no longer confined to the traditional time and setting of the classroom. The learning environment can be anywhere , at any time and at a pace that is comfortable for students. When students are given choices in how to show what they have learned, they are more likely to be engaged and excited for learning. They will feel valued. The lesson and learning will be more meaningful because it has been made personal to them. Students can look for and interact with resources that meet their own needs and teachers can use these resources to find out what the student needs are. With the many ways to assess students using digital tools today, data is available instantly, allowing teachers to provide feedback to students when they need it the most.

Student Choices

Having feedback while learning happens is critical for student growth. When teachers give students the opportunity to make choices about the types of activities they are interested in, students become more empowered in their learning and can self-direct. When teachers relinquish some of the control and leave the decision-making to the students to determine how to show what they have learned, or let them create their own homework assignment, they are more empowered in their learning.

In years past, classrooms were teacher-centered. With the tools available today and the goal toward increasing student empowerment, through choices in learning, we move from the teacher-centered classrooms, to student-centered and optimally, student-driven learning environments.

In a student-driven classroom, students have opportunities to lead the activities in the classroom and to do more than just be passive learners. They actively make decisions and have input into their learning experiences. With the launch of the new ISTE student standards last summer, focus is on the empowered learner and and student-driven learning. The standards emphasize the importance of providing students with opportunities to do more than just use technology but to "leverage technology" and to create with technology to gain new perspectives, to communicate, collaborate, and become responsible digital citizens.

In particular, ISTE - Student Standard 6 - "Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals." Students create, communicate and develop a voice in learning.

Relevant Resources

The advantages of digital tools is that many things are easily accessible. Educators and students can access information anytime from anywhere, the materials stay up-to-date and there are many choices so each student and each teacher can find something that is relevant to them. Continue looking for opportunities to try new tools and methods with students, and to involve the students in the decisions. Ask for their input and let them show you what they can do. By doing this, everyone has a personal investment and we all learn.

Communication through collaboration

There are many options which promote student collaboration and enhance writing skills and student voice, providing students with many opportunities to develop their voice and be creative in communication.

Blogging

Through blogging, teachers can provide support for students and help them to gain confidence in writing and speaking. Some platforms to try are Spaces, Seesaw , Edublogs, which can be used to have students complete writing prompts and creative writing assignments. These tools can be used to open up the communication between peers in and out of the classroom and promote digital citizenship skills for students in a safe, online learning space. Students have the opportunity to make their blog space their own. In the foreign language classroom, this is a great way for students to practice writing in the language they are learning, and sharing their ideas with students in different countries.

Padlet is a "virtual wall" which promotes collaboration, communication, creativity and more because of its versatility. Students have created their own Padlet to share projects, create a digital portfolio space, work as part of a team on a group project and to share research findings from a scavenger hunt. Students learn how to interact in the online space more by posting and commenting to a discussion question, adding their own resources for a collaborative class project, working in small groups and using it for brainstorming during the early stages of a project. It is also a great way to connect with other students and classrooms throughout the world by sharing the Padlet link with other educators, opening up ways for students to communicate in a creative way and broaden their perspectives.

Tools for promoting Creativity and Student Choice

There are many ways for students to create presentations and share their information and learning in visual ways. Some of the tools offer multiple ways to create presentations and to even use these tools for other purposes like creating newsletters, signs for the classroom, and more, which can be other ways to have students create with the language and design materials for their learning space.

A few options for having students present information in a visual way, with options for multimedia include the following:

Book Creator fosters collaboration and enables educators to connect students with peers, even globally, to develop social awareness and in particular, empathy as they learn. Students create a book for use as a journal or digital portfolio as they develop self-awareness and self-management. For PBL, it can be a great choice for an artifact of their learning.

Buncee can be used for creating presentations, interactive lessons, formative assessments and more, with many options for including different characters, fonts, animations, and video. There are so many options available within Buncee for students to create presentations which include so many relevant and authentic pieces. In foreign language classrooms, students can demonstrate their listening, reading, writing and speaking skills by creating a Buncee. For example, students can record audio to describe their favorite activities, talk about family, narrate a story, or add a YouTube video to further demonstrate a concept, use the features like drawing, uploading items, sharing a link, or simply taking advantage of all the different stickers, animations and other tools provided within Buncee. With Buncee, students can find everything they need to create an authentic product and will be more engaged in the learning process. Using Buncee is a way to address each of the ISTE-Standards for Students.

Piktochart is a tool for creating infographics, social media flyers, engaging presentations and more. Students can use Piktochart to create menus, self-descriptions, talk about movies and even create TV advertisements, recipe presentations and anything related to the content material. Their work can even be downloaded and printed for display in the classroom.

Spaces EDU offers a digital portfolio platform that assists teachers to better understand students, their interests and needs in learning. With Spaces, teachers can create individual, class or group spaces. With individual spaces, the interactions between teacher and student help with self-awareness and self-management as students develop content area skills and in a supportive space. Digital portfolios help students to develop SEL skills of self-awareness and self-management. For educators, join the Spaces Educator group for a supportive PLN and place to share ideas and make new connections.

Storyboard That is a very authentic tool for telling a story, expressing a concept, and really creating an engaging project. It fosters innovation in designing and empowers students in the learning process. Students show what they have learned in their own personal way. By using Storyboard That, students can select from many templates with diverse options for themes, backgrounds, characters, text, props and more. There are many lesson plans available to implement with Foreign Languages and more. It is a great option to provide to students, because of the variety of options available to express creativity and promote student choice and voice. Deciding how to best use digital tools can be challenging at times, but a good place to start is to hear directly from the students. Involving the students in the classroom decisions and then asking for reflections on their experience with using the tool helps educators to understand if and how technology is enhancing their learning process.

Visme is a "drag and drop" tool, which is easy to use for creating infographics, reports, different presentations and other visuals that can be used in the language classroom. It has a library full of images, charts and more, making it easy for users to create exactly what they need. Students have used it to share their Project Based Learning work and have been able to create very engaging, authentic projects that show their learning and also promote a more meaningful learning experience.

Storybird is a tool great for having students narrate a story and have choices in beautiful backgrounds to use for their storybook. The students can be creative and have fun learning in the process so that students can read books created by their classmates, adding more authentic works to class materials. Students can download their creations or can even have the books printed in softcover or hardcover format. These are great to purchase for use in your classroom as learning materials for future classes and this exemplifies what personalized learning and having a choice can do to engage students and increase their learning potential. There are so many options available with Storybird to find something that fits right in with the theme of what students are studying.

Educreations is a digital tool that enables students to use an interactive whiteboard space and add drawings, images, text and also record audio to their lesson. This is a great tool to use to have students teach a lesson as part of a more authentic practice or for an assessment, and it is also a way that students can create projects. For example, drawing and narrating about one's dream house or creating a family description.

Adobe Express is a free online tool for creating videos, images, and other presentations in a very visually engaging way. Students can use Adobe Spark to tell a story, create a video presentation and record audio, or make infographics for class. With tools like Adobe Spark, students can find everything they need to represent their ideas and be creative in the process.

Powtoon can be used to have students create animated cartoons with comic characters and a lot of other add-ins, audio, text and much more. It is easy to create with PowToon and students can find all of the images, fonts, icons, and visuals they need to tell their story. This can be great for retelling folk stories from the culture students are learning about, or for telling their own stories in the language they are learning.

Flip is another video response tool that enables students and teachers to interact with a variety of discussion topics. You start by creating a "grid" and then adding a "topic." A grid could be one level of a course or all students. Students go to the grid to see new topics posted for discussion and then have time to record a response and even reply to their classmates. Flip launched more updates this summer and it now integrates with Microsoft and Canvas. You can have students record short videos of 15 seconds or even longer up to 5 minutes. There are many attachments that can be added to the topic. Teachers can also set up the topics in advance and set when they post and freeze, making scheduling easier. Flip is also a way to connect students with other classrooms or even professionals in different fields, to connect with real-world applications of the content material.

Telegraph is a very easy site to publish a stand-alone web page, which can be used to have students create a sign, a newsletter, a journal entry, or anything as an alternative format to pen and paper or using a Word or Google Document. It is easy to use and create with Telegraph. Students start by typing in the website, adding a title, their name, and even some pictures or posting links to other websites. When students have finished, they publish it and it will have a unique web address that can easily be shared with anyone.

What are the benefits of these tools?

The point to remember is that it is not just about using the tool in class. There is a difference between technology use and technology integration. Going forward with bringing technology into the classroom, it should serve a purpose that benefits student learning. Each of these tools promotes more personalized and meaningful learning for students. These tools can be used to enhance, amplify and facilitate deeper and more authentic learning. Using technology just for the sake of using it is not a good choice. But using it to help students find their voice, learn what they want to do, what they can do, and what they need help with, does make sense. When technology is used with purpose, learning opportunities will amplify.

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Recognize how technology can help foster authentic learning and student choice; Identify common tools to support communication, collaboration, creativity, and student choice. Technology provides so many ways for students to learn anywhere and at any time, and at a pace that is comfortable for each student.

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Google Forms is a versatile tool, far beyond its basic survey functions. If you've poked around the blog before or listened to an episode of my Easy EdTech Podcast, you know how much I love them! You might have even used a Google Form I've shared to request resources from a workshop I've led or to be the first to know about a handful of new resources.

While you might be familiar with ways to use Google Forms for quizzes and feedback forms, the potential of Google Forms is massive. There are multiple applications that can revolutionize the way you share classroom resources and tackle administrative tasks.

Ways to Use Google Forms

In this new blog post, we'll explore a handful of unexpected ways to use Google Forms. These can save you time, enhance learning, and streamline processes, making your educational endeavors more efficient and engaging.

Student Interest Survey

At the beginning of the year, use a form to learn about students' interests, strengths, and learning preferences. This information can guide your teaching strategies and classroom activities.

Do Now and Check-In

Start each day with a check-in form where students can share their feelings or concerns, helping you gauge the classroom mood. You might combine this with a "do now" activity to keep track of attendance.

Create a Checklist

I love sharing ways to use favorite tools in unexpected ways, and one of my favorite tips is to create a checklist with Google Forms. If you've joined me for a webinar or workshop on formative assessment strategies, you might remember that I often share this tip. This blog post goes deeper into this strategy, so you can try making checklists with Google Forms, too.

Generate Forms Using AI

You can use generative AI to help you save oodles of time this school year. In addition to ChatGPT ( download this list of prompts here), you can use educational AI tools like Diffit to create content to share with students. One of their export options is Google Forms, so you can make activities for students that they can respond to right from within this tool.

Virtual Suggestion Box

Encourage students to share their ideas, such as a suggestion for a class read-aloud, through a Google Form. This can lead to valuable insights and foster a more inclusive classroom atmosphere.

Link to QR Codes

You can link any Google Form you create to a QR code so someone can scan it and open up the form on their mobile device. This blog post takes you through the process so you can follow the steps and make your own QR codes linked to a Google Form.

Classroom Inventory Tracker

Use a form to keep track of classroom supplies. Students and teachers can note when items are taken or need replenishing. Alternatively, you can create a form someone can fill out when a particular item is running low.

Use Audio Responses

If you've checked out my artificial intelligence resources this year, you've probably seen Conker on a list of tools to explore. The same company is behind Mote, a Chrome extension you can install so your users can provide audio responses to a Google Form. Here's a post that takes you through what's possible with Mote.

Professional Development Requests

If you are helping organize professional development sessions at your school or district, use a form to gather requests from your colleagues. This helps in tailoring future sessions to better meet everyone's needs.

Collect Payments

Do you have to keep track of payments for field trips, after-school events, or other moments during the school year? I featured Payable on my blog last year, and this tool lets you connect Google Forms to a payment platform.

Classroom Job Applications

Create a form to introduce to students as a fun way for them to apply for classroom responsibilities. This teaches them about job applications and responsibilities in a practical, engaging manner.

Field Trip Planning

Simplify the organization of field trips by using forms to collect volunteer requests, meal choices or gathering information you'll need for a particular trip. This can make the planning process more streamlined.

Ready to try out one of these unexpected ways to use Google Forms? By thinking outside the box, you can harness the flexibility of Google Forms to strengthen classroom management, boost student engagement, and save time on administrative tasks this school year.

The ideas shared in this post are just the beginning. As you experiment with these applications, you'll likely discover even more ways to integrate Google Forms into your work. If you have something to add to this list, I'd love to hear about it! Reach out on social media (you can find me here on Instagram) or reply to one of my free Monday newsletters (I read every response).

Find more posts featuring ways to use Google Forms:

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12 Unexpected Ways to Use Google Forms - Class Tech Tips

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Explore 12 creative and unexpected ways to use Google Forms in your classroom, enhancing engagement and simplifying tasks for teachers!

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Orboot Earth by PlayShifu - Educational AR Globe for Kids

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Travel the world with Orboot Earth by PlayShifu, an interactive world globe for kids. Learn about maps, cultures, food, animals, and more! For ages 4-10.

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Learn Science, Master STEM, Be Future Ready. | AR/VR Learning & Creation

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Merge EDU uses spatial computing technology to allow students to touch and interact with 3D digital content. Hold anything, Go anywhere.

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‎Download apps by Merge Apps, including Merge Scanner, Merge HoloGlobe, Merge Explorer, and many more.

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Experience the immersive wonder of 3D Augmented Reality with engaging coloring experiences that let your creativity run wild.

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1. Redwood AR (basic shapes, patterns, counting, and following directions–elementary)

2. Wonderscope

3. My Caterpillar

4. AR-kid:SpaceLite (cute intro to space exploration–use the lite version)

5. Eugene’s AR (maybe for science–some free features)

6. WWF Forests

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

I launched ETML in 2010 with the purpose of helping my fellow EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers integrate technology in English language teaching. Fast forward to 2022, ETML became among the top EdTech blogs with over 7000 published blog posts. ETML has been referenced in a wide variety of academic research journals, books, and news outlets including the New York Times, Huffpost.com, Hubspot.com... [continue reading].

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

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Creative Fabrica is the hub of choice for creative minds. It offers tons of free and premium fonts, graphics, embroidery, crafts, and tools. Creative Fabrica is accessible in 8 languages namely English, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Polish. And those talented designers of you have the choice to open their online store on the site and start making profit from their own creations.

For us in education, Creative Fabrica is a great place where you can access a wide variety of materials to use in instruction. These include graphics, illustrations, creative fonts, and many more. Teachers can also upload their teaching materials and sell them to other fellow teachers and educators.

Creative Fabrica offers a host of interesting tools that allow you to take your creativity to the next level. These tools include:

Fontcloud is an online font management tool that allows users to view, organize, and access their fonts from a single overview. You can upload your fonts and save them to your library where you can easily and quickly access them. You can preview characters in your font and with a single click you can copy/paste them anywhere you want.

The great thing about Fontcloud is that it is cloud-based enabling you to save your fonts on the cloud so that you can access them anywhere, anytime and across different devices and browsers. Each user is given a 2GB of free storage which is enough to store thousands of fonts. To access Fontcloud, head over to Creative Fabarica' s homepage, click on Tools and select Fontcloud. Check out this tutorial to learn more about Fontcloud.

Shapecloud is a free word art generator from Creative Fabrica that allows you to easily generate your own word art. To start creating your word art, select a shape of your choice. You can either choose from Shapecloud' s pre-made shapes or you can upload your custom shape through an SVG file.

Once your shape is selected, provide words you want to include in your word art, then select your favourite font and colour. When your design is complete you can download it in various formats including PNG, SVG, or as PDF file. The free version of Shapecloud supports up to 5 downloads, to unlock the full features of Shapecloud you will need to get a premium subscription.

Webfont Generator allows you to easily convert your fonts into web fonts for free. Here is how it works: First, select the font you want to convert by uploading your font file (permitted formats are .ttf and .otf files) and click on Convert to Webfonts. You will then get a zip file containing common web font formats such as .woff, .woff2, svg, and many more. You will also be provided with an .html file containing examples of how to use those fonts.

Craft Club is a creative space where you bring your visualized designs to reality. As a member of the Craft Club, you can submit requests for personal crafts that Creative Fabrica's team of designers can create for you. However, for your prospective design to be created, your request needs to be approved first. Top voted designs receive priority. Once your design is created it is automatically added to Craft Club's online library.

Additionally, as a member of Craft Club you get access to extra perks including exclusive discounts on deals from best craft and vinyl suppliers, unlimited access to tons of craft designs, the ability to vote on other members' craft requests, and many more.

Creative Fabrica has a special section dedicated to teachers where it features a wide variety of high quality educational materials and worksheets. With a subscription of $2.99 per year teachers can download up to 5 teaching resources per week, 260 per year.

Teachers can also upload their own teaching materials and sell them to a global community of fellow teachers and educators on Creative Fabrica. Teaching resources cover various topics from math to learning to write letters. Teachers can browse materials by grade (PreK to grade 12), by popularity, or by date added.

CF Classes is a learning hub where people of different skill levels and interest come to learn creative skills from knitting to graphic design. CF Classes offer a wide variety of original video classes created by crafting teachers from around the globe. Each class is composed of various small lessons that take learners on a step by step process along a continuum of raising learning difficulty. Starting with beginner levels learners can go up all the way to advanced levels.

Categories covered by CF Classes include graphic design, illustration, embroidery, painting, sewing, home decor, business, printing, doll making, and many more. All you need to access CF Classes is to have an account on Creative Fabrica and have one of these two subscriptions: All Access Subscription or a Classes Subscription. There are also free classes which do not require any subscription. You can access them via your account.

Creative Fabrica offers various types of subscriptions. There is the popular All Access subscription which costs $29/m, the Crafts subscription which costs $12/3 months, the Fonts subscription costs $19/m, and Graphics subscription which costs $19/m.

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Creative Fabrica Offers Tons of Stunning Fonts and Graphics to Use in Your Teaching - Educators Technology

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Creative Fabrica is the hub of choice for creative minds. It offers tons of free and premium fonts, graphics, embroidery, crafts, and tools. Creative Fabrica is accessible in 8 languages namely English, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Polish. And those talented designers of you have the choice to open their online store on...

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Pre K- K Bundle- Early Literacy and Numeracy Activities

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Pre K- K Bundle- Early Literacy and Numeracy Activities

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We all know that young children learn best through hands-on activities. When children can manipulate letters to form words or use manipulatives such as counters to learn critical concepts their learning accelerates. The Make, Take & Teach cookie sheet activities offers students hands-on fun for learning and practicing beginning literacy and number concepts. These activities are ideal for both direct teaching and independent practice. The cookie sheet keeps the activity contained as well provides the engagement of using magnets!

There are 6 volumes of cookie sheet activities each volume targeting a specific skill. Just to keep it simple, I combined the volumes into two grade level bundles- one bundle for my Pre K- K friends and another for my first grade friends. Volumes 1, 2 and 4 comprise the Make, Take & Teach Pre K- K Bundle.
Cookie Sheet Activities Volume 1- ABC Order, Rhyme and Building Words
Cookie Sheet Activities Volume 1 contains 3 activities for teaching early literacy skills. The first activity addresses the skill of alphabetic order. There are 9 differentiated templates that can be used. In addition to ordering the letters of the alphabet, this activity can be differentiated as students can match upper- to uppercase letters, lower- to lowercase letter, or upper- to lowercase letters.

There are also 10 differentiated rhyme templates. Several templates require students to sort 2 rhymes while others 4 rhymes. The colorful pictures make this an engaging activity for teaching this skill.

Volume 1 of the cookie sheet activities also contains 8 Making Words templates. Our little kinders love building CVC words with magnetic letters.
Cookie Sheet Activities Volume 2- Number Order, Number Concepts
Cookie Sheet Activities Volume 2 is the early numeracy volume. 14 number order templates are included. These templates are differentiated as students who struggle with this skill can simply match the numbers on several of the templates. There are templates for number order 1-10, 1-20 and 1-100.

Students can practice counting with the beginning number concepts templates. There are two number concepts templates: 1-5 and 6-10.

For our little advanced students, these number concept templates can be helpful. There are 20 templates where the students are required to identify the number before and after, provide a number word, tally and count objects.
Cookie Sheet Activities Volume 4- Beginning Sounds and Short Vowels
So you may be thinking-what's up with Volume 3? Volume 3 is for sight words which we may address towards the end of kindergarten, but it was most appropriate for the first grade volume. Volume 4 certainly belongs in the Pre K- Kindergarten bundle. Volume 4 is the volume which addresses beginning sounds and short vowels. The order of introduction of the letters follows a curriculum commonly used in schools, but I've included blank templates for you to use if your order of introduction differs. You will receive 20 beginning sound templates complete with the colorful pics for sorting. The templates are differentiated as some templates allow for 2 sounds and others 4 sounds.

Those short vowel sounds can be so tricky! Sorting activities are perfect for helping students learn those vowels. When you download volume 4, you receive 11 vowel sorting templates with the corresponding pictures. This volume contains over 200 colorful pictures for sorting!

The Cookie Sheet Activities Pre K- Kindergarten Bundle is guaranteed to keep those little learners engaged in learning early phonemic awareness, phonics and number skills.

The dowloadable pdf activities are available in my online Teachers Pay Teachers store or through the Make, Take & Teach website.

Not quite sure you want to print the activities yourself? When you order the Printed Cookie Sheet Activities I'll mail you the colored templates printed on office paper, the colored pictures printed on 90 lb card stock and a red cookie painted cookie sheet. The Printed Bundle is also available in my online Teachers Pay Teacher store or through the Make, Take & Teach website.

There are several different ways to store your cookie sheet activities. I found that using the 15 x 11 1/2 x 3″ Sterilite containers work great. The templates, letters and pictures fit perfectly and stack nicely on a shelf. You can find the containers at Walmart or most any local department store. I created these stickers to fit the containers (they are contained in the pdf file and also included if you order the printed materials).

I'm pretty picky about the shape of the magnetic letters. Of course you can use magnetic letters purchased at a dollar store and many of dollar stores have appropriately shaped letters. I purchase my magnetic letters at Banks School Supply- they are about $2.50. Not only do I like the shape and size of the letters, but the consonants are blue and vowels are red. You also have the option of purchasing uppercase and lowercase letters so that you can extend the cookie sheet activities to include upper- to lowercase matching.

Just click HERE

So not necessary, but I have a thing for color coordinating activities. It's probably not a healthy obsession with color. If you'd like to add a little color into your centers, these painted cookie sheets are available for purchase through the Make, Take & Teach website.

Hope you enjoy the cookie sheet activities!

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Cookie Sheet Activities Pre K- K Bundle- Early Literacy and Numeracy Activities - Make Take & Teach

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We all know that young children learn best through hands-on activities. When children can manipulate letters to form words or use manipulatives such as counters to learn critical concepts their learning accelerates. The Make, Take & Teach cookie sheet activities offers students hands-on fun for learning and practicing beginning literacy and number concepts.

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Chrome is the most popular web browser.

It’s not always safe to use.

Here are 7 Chrome settings you need to change immediately:

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Chrome is the most popular web browser.

It’s not always safe to use.

Here are 7 Chrome settings you need to change immediately:

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Chrome is the most popular web browser.

It’s not always safe to use.

Here are 7 Chrome settings you need to change immediately:
— ZAAFIR (@zaafirsalam) July 18, 2022

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Chrome is the most popular web browser.

It’s not always safe to use.

Here are 7 Chrome settings you need to change immediately:

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Chrome is the most popular web browser.

It’s not always safe to use.

Here are 7 Chrome settings you need to change immediately:

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Chrome is the most popular web browser.

It’s not always safe to use.

Here are 7 Chrome settings you need to change immediately:

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This is a time of year when educators are busy writing and revising rules and policies for the new year. Offering 8 questions here that we might use as filters for our decisions. How we “manage” a space can be a chance to practice freedom instead of modeling control.

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This is a time of year when educators are busy writing and revising rules and policies for the new year. Offering 8 questions here that we might use as filters for our decisions. How we “manage” a space can be a chance to practice freedom instead of modeling control.

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This is a time of year when educators are busy writing and revising rules and policies for the new year. Offering 8 questions here that we might use as filters for our decisions. How we “manage” a space can be a chance to practice freedom instead of modeling control.
— Carla Shalaby (@CarlaShalaby) August 7, 2022

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This is a time of year when educators are busy writing and revising rules and policies for the new year. Offering 8 questions here that we might use as filters for our decisions. How we “manage” a space can be a chance to practice freedom instead of modeling control.

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This is a time of year when educators are busy writing and revising rules and policies for the new year. Offering 8 questions here that we might use as filters for our decisions. How we “manage” a space can be a chance to practice freedom instead of modeling control.

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This is a time of year when educators are busy writing and revising rules and policies for the new year. Offering 8 questions here that we might use as filters for our decisions. How we “manage” a space can be a chance to practice freedom instead of modeling control.

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Social media is often seen as a distraction. But can you use social media for inspiration instead? There are creative and unexpected ways to incorporate social media into various aspects of teaching - specifically as inspiration for student learning experiences throughout the school year.

Today on the blog, we'll look at how integrating aspects of social media into your teaching methods can transform traditional classrooms into engaging and interactive spaces. The strategies below are ready for you to customize to your particular group of students. I think you'll find that they can boost student engagement, foster creativity, and provide real-world context to your next lesson!

12 Ways to Use Social Media in Education

Here are twelve ready-to-customize ideas so you can use social media as an inspiration for your next student learning activity!

Historical Figure Instagram Posts

Students create Instagram posts from the perspective of a historical figure, capturing key moments or thoughts. This activity encourages research and creativity in presenting history and asks students to combine text and images. You can introduce a tool like Adobe Express to have students create graphics.

Science Research Infographics

Kids can create infographics summarizing scientific research or experiments. There are lots of infographic tools, including Genially. This activity can help visualize complex data and provide a creative way to share what students have learned.

Tweet a Poem

Compose short poems or haikus that fit within character constraints (like 280 characters, the limit on Twitter). This activity can encourage students to write in a concise and impactful manner. Instead of having them post on Twitter, have them share in a collaborative space like Padlet.

Animated Videos

I'm a big fan of Adobe Express and have done some work with their team. If you haven't tried out their animated video tool, you have to give it a spin! I share more about it in this blog post - even though it has a winter theme you could use it any time of year.

Geography Photo Collages

Are your students learning about different parts of the world? They can use a creative tool like Canva to create photo collages of different geographical locations. This engages students with the subject and encourages exploration of different spaces.

Mathematical Concept Videos

Create short videos (similar to the length of what can be shared on TikTok) with students to explain a mathematical concept or problem-solving technique. Adobe Express has a vertical video option and music for students to choose from, or you can use iMovie or Clips with your students, too.

Character Blogs

Students can write blog posts as a character from a book, pulling quotes or textual evidence to support their decisions as writers. This activity requires them to think about what they have read and gain a deeper understanding of character development and narrative.

Virtual Book Clubs

You may have heard of BookTok before or how social media sites like TikTok have helped connect readers with new book recommendations. You can encourage students to create short video recommendations to convince their classmates to check out a favorite book.

Make a Meme

Have you made memes with students? A tool like Antimatter sets up students for success with creating and sharing memes on any topic. You could also use this Google Slides template for your meme activity, too.

Foreign Language Translation

Share short pieces of text, like a social media update, with students for them to translate into a different language. This is a great way for them to practice translating text in a short form. You might even find messages from a real-life account to use or make your own.

Stop-Motion Science Experiments

Create stop-motion videos of science experiments, simplifying complex concepts. This can help students think deeply about each step of the process and have a short video to share with their classmates. Stop Motion Studio is a good choice for this type of video creation.

Visual Board of Notes

Pinterest is a popular tool for gathering ideas that act as a source of inspiration. You can simulate this type of visual space for students using a tool like Google Slides for students to make a slide for each idea they want to bookmark or using a tool like Bublup.

Using social media in the classroom is a way to energize the way you teach something new. These creative activities show how social media can make learning more engaging and interactive. Bringing social media into education doesn't mean we're getting rid of old teaching methods but rather adding something new to what we've done in the past.

As you look for inspiration from how we interact with social media, you might think of more activity ideas that help motivate students, spark their creativity, and deepen their interest in learning. What will you try? Reach out to me on social media (find me @ClassTechTips on Instagram), and let me know what you've tried out!

Find more posts featuring using social media in education:

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12 Ways to Use Social Media in Education - Class Tech Tips

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Discover 12 innovative ways to leverage social media in education by designing activities to enhance student engagement and creativity.

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Encouraging yoga or meditation can’t make up for systemic issues that cause stress, experts say. “You can’t deep-breathe your way out of a pandemic; you cannot stretch your way out of terrible class sizes; you cannot ‘individual behavior’ your way out of structural problems,”… https://t.co/FRxUaYrEJj
— Lauren Haynie (@MsLaurenHaynie) September 26, 2021

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Technology is compromising the health and well-being of teachers, blurring the already-indistinct boundaries between work and home and leading to an unsustainable "always on" mentality, researchers assert in a new study.

It's not an entirely new problem. For decades, educators have labored under the twin pressures of expanding responsibilities at work and increasing domestic demands. As dual-income families became the norm, larger class sizes, more paperwork, and a gradual shift in caretaking duties toward school systems have strained the capacity of educators, encroaching on personal time traditionally set aside for family and friends. Well before the pandemic, stress topped the list of reasons teachers quit, according to a RAND study, which identified long hours and the burden of taking on second jobs to supplement income as primary factors in early retirement.

Technology is rapidly pushing things toward a breaking point. The proliferation of computers, and especially cell phones, is putting the last vestiges of personal space at risk, compelling teachers to spend more time outside of school hours planning tech-enriched lessons while responding to nighttime emails and text messages. This pattern of incursion-researchers call it "techno-invasion" or "pervasive connectivity"-can make them feel as though they're on call at all hours of the day and even late into the night, explains Caroline Murphy, a researcher at the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick, in the current study.

For teachers, there are few places to turn to for respite. While the public sector has typically traded lower wages for better work-life balance, the commodification of teaching-driven by a greater focus on test scores and evaluating teacher performance-has led to what some experts call the "marketization of education." Increasingly, the profession looks like the private sector, "in particular in relation to demands around working time, and the development of an 'always on' culture," Murphy points out. In what amounts to a broken promise, the expectations keep growing, but the pay hasn't kept pace.

Without new policies defending teachers' fundamental right to disconnect-to reclaim time with their families and friends, and to relax and restore themselves-the outcomes are all too predictable. Rising job dissatisfaction and deteriorating mental and physical health are real risks, according to the research. The issue is serious and growing, and it demands immediate attention.

Internet Leakage

Online communications have led to a pervasive "encroachment of work on individuals' time off through ubiquitous connectivity," says Murphy. The mere expectation that an email or text may arrive from a principal or student, and demand a response, is an intrusion into a teacher's personal space.

Theoretical emails eventually become real ones. The average teacher receives up to 100 emails each day, a staggering amount that can feel insurmountable-and the pressure to reply quickly can feel irresistible. In a 2019 study, employees reported that they started responding to emails 6 seconds after receiving them. Meanwhile, in a 2015 study, researchers observed that employees experienced "significantly lower daily stress" when limiting the frequency of checking email to three times a day, compared with those who had no restrictions.

There's also a significant cognitive tax to checking emails and other notifications, like texts or reminders: According to a 2017 study, the barrage of pings and warnings emanating from our phones are almost impossible to ignore, even when the phone is off and turned upside down on the table. "The mere presence of one's own smartphone may occupy limited-capacity cognitive resources," the researchers conclude, "thereby leaving fewer resources available for other tasks and undercutting cognitive performance." Shutting the cell phone off and abandoning it in another room was the only way to restore sanity.

The Technology Learning Curve

The deluge of new technologies unsupported by adequate training-from learning management systems to new apps, videoconferencing software, and multimedia lesson-planning-is undermining competence and professionalism, Murphy argues.

"I have NEVER been this exhausted," exclaimed Sarah Gross, a veteran high school English teacher who did hybrid teaching last fall, according to the New York Times. "This is not sustainable."

Gross isn't alone: In 2021, researchers analyzed over a decade's worth of studies and found that teachers were being pushed to adopt technology in their classrooms without the "technical resources and equipment necessary for its correct didactic use," a particularly insidious problem that culminated in "conflicts between teachers, as well as in their relationships with colleagues or with other people involved in the environment, eventually producing, in the worst case, damaged personal and interpersonal relationships that affect their health."

In a study published earlier this year, researchers found that nearly half of the teachers surveyed spent 20 or more hours per week creating new lessons, adapting materials to online classrooms, and troubleshooting tech issues. Notably, this pattern is expected to continue past the pandemic as schools commit to deeper integration of technology and even offer some form of remote instruction permanently.

A Heavy Toll

This new source of anxiety is not only linked to decreased job satisfaction, motivation, and competency but is also a health and safety concern, "causing physical ailments such as headaches, sleep issues, muscle cramps, back aches and high blood pressure," according to Murphy.

It's not technology itself that's the problem-it's that technology erodes the boundaries that have historically constrained altruistic teachers. "We may feel that if we don't get a task done, our students will suffer or programs will fail," explains John McCarthy, a former teacher and current consultant. "However, if we become mentally exhausted, overtired, or drained of energy, we risk a complete shutdown mentally or physically-and at that point, no tasks will get done."

According to a 2015 survey, 78 percent of teachers feel physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of the day, and while technology isn't the sole source of stress, it is "one of the most significant contributing factors to increasing stress levels," Murphy points out, adding that educators routinely report that "invasion of privacy" is a "significant source of work exhaustion."

Pushing Back-Without Going Back

That's not to say that Ludditical solutions like banning technology should be pursued; technology creates enormous efficiencies and is here to stay, but it must be carefully managed. Murphy asserts that we need to establish and adopt policy that "supports the healthy adoption of technology outside of school hours by both teachers and students."

While the United States is lagging behind other countries, "right to disconnect" legislation has been proposed in New York to protect workers from being penalized if they choose not to respond to emails after work hours. Meanwhile, major companies have begun to acknowledge the problem. Volkswagen banned internal emails from being sent or received through its servers during off-work hours in 2012, following "complaints that staff's work and home lives were becoming blurred." And in 2016, France adopted new labor laws giving employees the right "to not have to take calls or read emails related to work during their time off." The law's stated goal is to "ensure that the employees' non-work hours, vacation time, and personal and family life be respected."

So what should be under consideration for schools?

Model better practices: Consider developing policies or guidelines that encourage school leaders to avoid sending emails after school hours, except in the case of emergencies. What may seem like a simple question or request can have bigger implications as teachers feel the need to regularly check email at night to avoid appearing nonresponsive.

Give "permission to disconnect": Leaders can provide explicit permission giving teachers the right to disconnect from work-related communications outside of normal school hours. The policy should be socialized among all stakeholders in the learning community and honored with no questions asked.

Survey your staff: Conduct work-life balance surveys to gauge staff well-being. Ask questions such as "How often do the demands of your job interfere with your family life?"-good lists of questions can be found in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Quality of Worklife Questionnaire and the Staff Distance Learning and Wellness Survey from Broward County Public Schools.

Keep your cell phone clean: Teachers should consider removing access to work emails from their smartphones, and school and district leaders should encourage it. "You may find it more helpful to only check email on your computer-that way, when the school day ends, you can close your computer and walk away from the pings and the temptation to check your inbox," suggests classroom teacher Lauren Huddleston.

Be transparent about your obligations: Block visible time on your calendar for typically unstructured tasks like writing emails, grading papers, and planning lessons, suggests educational consultant and former teacher Marissa King. Consider clearly demarcating your work hours on your calendar as well, and set up out-of-office messages that state your work hours and indicate when you'll respond to late emails.

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Defending a Teacher's Right to Disconnect

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Remember personal time? For many educators, technology has driven it toward extinction-and it's time to get serious about reclaiming it.

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Teacher-Parent Communication Strategies to Start the Year Off Right

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Teacher-Parent Communication Strategies to Start the Year Off Right

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It's no secret that when schools make a concerted effort to foster healthy, strong relationships with families, students benefit in a number of ways.

Studies suggest that parental involvement can lead to academic gains for students: higher grades and test scores, improved social skills and time on task, better attendance and participation, and decreased behavioral problems in the classroom.

But parent-teacher communication can be challenging, say teachers. In 2006, 50 percent of participants in a survey of more than 1,000 K-12 public school teachers rated parental involvement in their children's education as inadequate; 48 percent reported parental understanding of the curriculum similarly. And a 2016 study revealed that some of the largest barriers to productive parent-teacher communication were trouble getting to the school site, conflicting work schedules, lack of translation services, and consistent requests for donations or fundraising that seem prioritized over all else.

Though parent-teacher communication will always require a mutual effort on both sides, educators shared their best practices-from home visits to in-school parent workshops-for building strong bonds with families, from the first day of school to the last.

Getting Off to a Good Start

Establishing strong relationships and clear lines of communication at the beginning of the year sets a strong foundation for parent-teacher interactions, according to teachers.
© Shutterstock.com/Monkey Business Images
Opening reliable channels of communication: Not all parents communicate the same way. To determine a family's contact preferences, simply ask them directly, says Erin Healey, an English teacher in Rhode Island. Create a beginning-of-the-year Google Form, use an introductory phone call or email, or discuss the topic at back-to-school night. This is also a great time to learn what languages are spoken at home.

A personalized touch: When in-person parent meetings weren't possible due to the pandemic, middle and high school teacher Lauren Huddleston found that embedding short, introductory videos in emails was an effective alternative. The video format allowed Huddleston to virtually "share my personality and warmth with parents" at the start of the year, while also outlining the syllabus and explaining classroom expectations.

Your child, in a million words or less: Eighth-grade English teacher Cathleen Beachboard mails out a "Million Words or Less" survey asking caregivers to tell her everything she should know about their child, with a tongue-in-cheek word limit as the only restriction. Huddleston, meanwhile, distributes a survey to caregivers that is meant to capture their child's attitude toward the subject matter, their motivations, and how they might be feeling about the new school year.

Connecting outside the school walls: To kick off the year, preschool teachers from Educare New Orleans visit the homes of each family. During the visit, parents are asked about their strengths as a family and any goals they have for their child. Educators then help outline what can be done within their classroom to help the child meet and exceed those goals, as well as what families can do at home to help support their child's learning. They have a follow-up visit near the end of the school year.

Establish Back-and-Forth Communication

Two-way communication where parents can listen and receive information, as well as speak and be heard, ensures a healthy exchange of ideas that welcomes parents as partners in their child's education, says Beachboard.

Beyond bad news: Consider sharing regular information about how students are progressing and engaging with lessons at school. This is especially important for families that are newer to the country, as "teacher-home communication may be new and is likely to be reserved for bad news only," explains Louise El Yaafouri, an independent consultant in refugee and immigrant newcomer education.

Get active on social media: Healey recommends creating a classroom Instagram page or Twitter account to post photos and videos of student work, or emailing out a monthly or quarterly blog celebrating student successes and previewing upcoming curricular content for parents. This keeps families in the loop about what their child will be learning next and maintains positive communication with parents, she says.

Real-time tech tools: Platforms like Seesaw or ClassDojo allow kids to share their learning with their parents directly through the app and make real-time updates easier. "If you're in class and you're able to take a video of one of your scholars saying, 'Hi Mom! I'm learning about how to add numbers-10 and 5 makes 15. I'm going to practice tonight when I come home,' and then the [parent] gets to see, that's powerful," says Paul Bannister, a New York-based kindergarten teacher.

Give parents a nudge: Simple text reminders-sometimes called "nudges"-can help parents help their children stay on track. A Columbia University study, for example, found that sending weekly text updates to middle and high school parents about their children's grades, absences, and missed assignments led to an 18 percent increase in student attendance and a 39 percent drop in course failures. Beachboard says she personally utilizes the Remind app to keep families abreast of assignment due dates and bolster back-and-forth communication.

Bring the Parent Into the Classroom

Show off your families' strengths: Give parents a chance to highlight their talents, experiences, and skills to get them more engaged in the classroom, says education consultant and retired teacher Terri Eichholz. Eichholz created a Google Form where families could mention any skills that they might want to share with the class-which led to her finding a parent who was a drone operator. "[He] zoomed with my students (back before Zoom was a thing!), and we built an entire field trip around his expertise," she says.

Provide pathways for entry: At Educare New Orleans, teachers maintain a monthly calendar marked with days on which caregivers are invited to engage with their child inside the classroom. For parents who can't attend, there's a take-home activity that provides a similar experience.

Empower students to explain their best work: At Design 39 Campus in Poway, California, parents attend in-school workshops. During the first half hour, students are in the driver's seat, taking charge and explaining their work to their parents. The second half hour is reserved for parent-teacher communication-including a question-and-answer period-while students attend an elective, gym, or their lunch period.

Making your curriculum transparent: High school history and journalism teacher David Cutler posts two weeks' worth of lessons and assignments online. The practice provides transparency to families about what their children will be learning-and when- while also allowing him to carve out time to meet with students and parents as they prepare for more challenging assignments.

Reaching Every Parent Where They Are

Historically underserved families are often judged before parent-teacher communication even begins, says Angie Shorty-Belisle, school director of Educare New Orleans.

"The biggest mistake is to think, OK, we're at a school where we're servicing [underserved] families; they're going to be difficult parents," explains Shorty-Belisle. "Every parent is their child's first advocate.... No family comes in wanting to be a burden or difficult to the school."
©Nora Fleming
Redefine the perception of participation: Work schedules and transportation can be just as significant of a barrier to parent engagement as language, say teachers. "We often think of parent engagement as PTA, coaching the softball team, or chaperoning the middle school dance," says El Yaafouri, who recommends redefining family participation so that it's more inclusive. "Sometimes, engagement is ensuring that a child has a quiet place to study at home, or making the right calls to get ahold of school supplies, or sharing wisdom that is unique to one's lived experiences."

A more inclusive calendar: One way to show families of diverse learners that they are an important part of the community is by creating an inclusive school calendar at the beginning of the year, says El Yaafouri. Find out what holidays families celebrate-don't make assumptions-and be cognizant of not scheduling school events on days that might conflict, while creating opportunities throughout the year so that all students and families feel represented and valued.

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Teacher-Parent Communication Strategies to Start the Year Off Right

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By prioritizing communication with families at the start of the school year, educators can foster strong parent engagement, break down barriers, and provide support for all students.

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You searched for free ebooks - Educators Technology

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Keep the learning going at home with these Home Learning Choice Boards. Send home via email, on your school website, or print paper copies.

You can send this home via email, secure app, or put in your Goggle Classroom during the pandemic. It MUST be a secure site or app that only families in your class can access.

More Distance Learning goodies! Grab:
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Summer Learning Choice Boards for Preschool, Pre-K, & Kinder (Distance Learnin)

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Keep the learning going at home with these Home Learning Choice Boards. Send home via email, on your school website, or print paper copies. You can send this home via email, secure app, or put in your Goggle Classroom during the pandemic. It MUST be a secure site or app that only families in your cl...

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Everyone loves games.

Albert Einstein himself indicated they are the most elevated form of investigation. He knew games are avenues for something deeper and more meaningful than a childish waste of time. Games promote situated learning, or in other words, learning that occurs in groups of practice during immersive experiences. Oftentimes, playing games are the first method children use to explore higher-order thinking skills associated with creating, evaluating, analyzing, and applying new knowledge.

See also 50 Questions To Help Students Think About What They Think

This article is written in two parts. The first, written by Ryan Schaaf, Assistant Professor of Technology at Notre Dame of Maryland University, introduces gamification in an educational context, its many elements, and some products that emulate gamified practices. The second part, shared by classroom teacher and coach Jack Quinn, provides a firsthand account with perspective from a gamified learning practitioner. Below are our combined insights.

Gamification In An Educational Context

Games have many elements that make them powerful vehicles for human learning. They are commonly structured for players to solve a problem; an essential skill needed for today and tomorrow. Many games promote communication, cooperation, and even competition amongst players. Some of the most immersive games have a rich narrative that spawns creativity and imagination in its players. Finally, depending on how they are designed, games can both teach and test their players. They are incredible packages of teaching, learning, and assessment.

The structural elements of games are also especially suited to serve this current generation of learners. Commonly known as gamification (or gameful design according to Jane McGonigal), this approach of adding game elements such as storytelling, problem-solving, aesthetics, rules, collaboration, competition, reward systems, feedback, and learning through trial and error into non-game situations has already experienced widespread implementation in such fields as marketing, training, and consumerism with rampant success (see http://www.cio.com/article/2900319/gamification/3-enterprise-gamification-success-stories.html) for more details.

In the education realm, gamification is starting to pick up steam. With success stories such as Classcraft, Class Dojo, and Rezzly leading the charge, the potential for gamification to spread to more and more classrooms is a forgone conclusion. There are also pockets of educators in the teaching landscape that are designing their own 'gamefully-designed' learning environments. The next section explores such an environment by sharing Jack's experiences with his own class.

See also 10 Specific Ideas To Gamify Your Classroom
Gamification: From Theory to Practice
I have been involved with gamification for quite some time now. In my 9 years of experience, I've found games are great at resolving several common classroom issues such as: student participation/talk time, student engagement, differentiation, data tracking, and increasing student achievement.

As an ancillary language teacher on Jeju Island in South Korea, gamification helped me increase student talk time by 300%. My 250 students completed over 27,000 'quests,' a.k.a. additional homework assignments they chose to do. My top 10% of participants spent an hour outside of class speaking their target language daily. I was even startled on more than one occasion to arrive early to work and find my students had beaten me there and were eagerly awaiting my arrival so they could begin their daily quests.

As a classroom teacher in the Houston Independent School district serving schools with a 95% free and reduced lunch population, I have taught both 3 rd- grade reading and 5 th- grade science. Each of these is a state-tested subject (that I taught for two years).

On average in my first year of instruction, my students have performed 1.39 times the district norm and 1.82 times the district norm in my second year teaching the subject. Or put another way, traditional methods would take 14 to 18 months to achieve what I can do with games in 10.

I credit much of this success to following the advice of Gabe Zicherman from his Google Tech Talk, Fun is the Future: Mastering Gamification , where he advises game designers to "incentivize whatever you want people to do." (Zicherman, n.d.)

As such I strive to identify the key actions my students need to practice then build games and reward systems around those actions.
12 Examples Of Gamification In The Classroom 1. Giving points for meeting academic objectives
Do students need to be citing details from the text and evidence for conclusions in class discussions? Answers without evidence are now worth 1 point, a correct answer with 1 piece of evidence is worth 2 points, a correct answer + 2 pieces of evidence = 3 points.
2. Giving points for meeting procedural/non-academic objectives
Need to solve a classroom issue such as shortening the time it takes to check homework? All students who have their homework out ready to be checked before being prompted by the teacher now receive 2 points.
3. Creating playful barriers
These sorts of barriers can be academic or behavioral, social or private, creative, or logistical. The point is, one of the primary tenets of gamification is the use of encouragement mechanics through the application of playful barriers-challenges, for example.
4. Creating competition within the classroom
Teacher vs. Class: Students must follow a rule that the teacher sets. Anytime a student follows the rule, the Class gets a point. Anytime a student does not follow a rule, the teacher gets a point. This is particularly great for introducing procedures and behavioral expectations. If the Class wins, use a sustainable reward, such as a 1-minute dance party, extended recess time, or fewer homework problems.
5. Comparing and reflecting on performance in nuanced ways personalized for each student
At the end of some video game levels, the player's performance is broken down into countless details offering enormous data, achievements, and ways to reflect and document their performance and compare with others.

For example, one game might offer statistics of which objectives were met and how, assigned a 'badge' based on that particular performance 'style,' then track every minute detail around that performance you can imagine: total number of jumps, number of enemies alerted, number of different ways a specific problem was solved, etc.
6. Creating a range of unique rewards desirable for a range of unique students
In my class, students get sunglasses to wear until the period is over at 5 points, the privilege to take off their shoes at 10 points, a positive text to their parents at 15, and if the high score is over 15, whoever has it may 'steal' the teacher's chair.
7. Using levels, checkpoints, and other methods of 'progression'
Track points over multiple classes, when students reach an important milestone such as 100 points let them level up, as they progress further give out sustainable milestone rewards, such as eating lunch with the teacher or a free dress pass (if your school wears uniforms).

Competitive students will race to have the highest level in their class and grade which can be leveraged by creating quests that require them to recruit lower-level students in quests that require both to practice target skills.
Other Examples Of Gamification In The Classroom
8. Grading backward- start grading at 0 instead of 100. Every assignment, demonstrated mastery of skill, or desired behavior earns points for them towards 100/letter grade/certificate, or whatever reward you'd like to provide.

9. Creating challenges with more than one way to be solved and emphasize the different approaches.

10. Giving learning badges instead of (or in addition to) points or grades.

11. Letting students set their own goals, then track their own progress in a fun/visual/social/personal way.

12. Helping students assume specific perspectives in learning-as a judge, designer, father, etc. This element of fantasy role-play is a big draw of video games.

13. Incentivizing student 'exploration' of content by offering bonuses, 'easter eggs,' and other benefits of achieving supplementary goals beyond the main lesson objective itself.

14. Create problems or challenges with more than one way to solve

Bonus: Using a scoreboard seating chart

Draw or project a seating chart onto a whiteboard/screen, and then award students points for all activities that you want to incentivize with sustainable rewards/recognitions at different point levels.
Conclusion
Make sure to be creative and respond to student interests. In my class, students don't take practice tests; they battle the evil emperor, Kamico (the maker of popular test prep workbooks used at my school). We don't just test objects for conductivity; we search out the secret object which will turn on the alien spaceship's 'prepared to launch' light.

While students are collecting points, leveling up, and competing against each other, I am collecting data, tracking progress, and tailoring the rules, rewards, and quests to build positive class culture while pushing student achievement. Students become eager to participate in the activities that they need to do to improve, and when students buy-in, they make school a game worth playing.
References & Further Reading McGonigal, J. (2011). Gaming can make a better world. | TED Talk | TED.com [Video file]. Retrieved from: Schaaf, R., & Mohan, N. (2014). Making school a game worth playing: Digital games in the classroom . SAGE Publications. Schell, J. (n.d.) When games invade real life. | TED Talk | TED.com [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/jesse_schell_when_games_invade_real_life Zicherman. (n.d.). Fun is the Future: Mastering Gamification [Video file]. Retrieved from youtube.com 12 Examples Of Gamification In The Classroom

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12 Examples Of Gamification In The Classroom

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Examples of gamification include additive grading, using levels of progress, creating learning badges or trophies to include, and more.

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Gamification is the process of applying game-based elements and techniques in a non-game context. The aim of gamification is to engage learners and motivate them. It helps learners retain maximum information.

Games are everywhere. But remember, under this specific context, they are meant to be used for training and not to confuse or overwhelm learners with aspects such as complex gameplay mechanics or lengthy playtime. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that your game elements follow certain guidelines, and thus, an infographic is shared below that highlights a few do's and don'ts for the successful implementation of gamification within your training modules.

5 Do's and Don'ts of Gamification

4 Advantages of Incorporating Gamification

1. Makes Training Fun and Competitive

Gamification directly incorporates various game elements and therefore, it makes training fun and exciting for the employees. Some of the major elements include badges, levels, points, and leaderboards. When these elements are leveraged properly and effectively, it adds up to the engagement of the training modules and makes training competitive as well, but in a healthy manner.

2. Enhances the Impact of eLearning Assessments

Gamifying eLearning assessments is another crucial activity that shouldn't be ignored. Assessments are supposed to form a clear picture of how much a learner is grasping through the training sessions, and gamifying them can make these assessments interactive and engaging, eventually enhancing their overall quality. Check out the insightful video below to explore a few amazing strategies for eLearning assessments.

3. Boosts Knowledge Retention

An individual usually remembers something more clearly if he/she enjoyed doing that in the past, and as we have already discussed that gamification makes training fun and enjoyable, it eventually boosts knowledge retention for the learners as well. Also, if you know that you would get a reward or acknowledgment of some sort when you are done with your training, your performance is automatically enhanced. This versatility makes gamification one of the most complete instructional design strategies to design training modules for the modern generation.

4. Blends Effectively with Other Immersive Training Methods

Gamification can easily blend with other immersive learning techniques such as scenario-based learning, simulations, and storytelling. You can also gamify traditional classroom training sessions, or provide training directly through games in the form of game-based learning as well. Because of this, gamification can be used in various creative ways to design blended learning modules for corporate training.

Parting Thoughts!

Gamification is one of the most crucial instructional design strategies to design top-quality training modules for the modern workforce. Now, it's just one of the many strategies developers have in their arsenal. Check out this amazing eBook to explore other equally effective instructional design strategies and learn about them in detail.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Gamification is highly essential to be incorporated within your training modules because it caters to the specific interests of the modern workforce. Read on to check out 5 important do's and don'ts of gamification along with its few major advantages.

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Distance learning has faced teachers with a whole new set of challenges. How do you keep kids interested and engaged when they're staring at a screen from their home? Zoom games with students were my solution to this.

Games are one of my favorite things! Anytime or anything that lends itself to a game, I'm in! Games increase interest and engagement, plus they're a great opportunity to practice skills and concepts previously learned in class in a fun way.

No-prep Zoom Games With Students

I began my Zoom journey playing simple Zoom games with students. The first virtual learning games I chose were games I knew they would be familiar with from the classroom. These games required little preparation and nothing but my student's presence and maybe a piece of paper and a pencil.

Simon Says

This is one of the easiest games as it is played exactly like the original! The teacher or a designated student will give the directions. If the participants miss the cue "Simon Says" then they can sit down. Continue playing until one player remains.

Bingo

Bingo has several options. You can email the students a bingo board to print or you can have them create a board by drawing a grid on paper before you play. I had my students write the numbers 1-10 in random order in each square and we played Addition Bingo. My TA and I each pulled a number, they added them, and then marked the space on their board.

Number Out

Number Out is played similarly to 4 Corners. Instead of moving to corners, students will hold up a numbered piece of paper. Have students cut or tear a paper and write the number 1-6 on each one. Each round students will choose one number to hold up. The teacher will roll a die and students holding up the number rolled are out. Continue to play until only one player remains!

Guess Who

When playing Guess Who, the grid of students is like your game board. The teacher will think of one student and could even write their name down off-screen. Students will ask yes/no questions to eliminate classmates until they can guess who the teacher selected.

Animal Pictionary/Charades

The selected student will think of an animal. If playing Charades, they will act the animal out for other students to guess. For Pictionary, share your screen with the whiteboard feature. The chosen students will draw the animal for others to guess.

Hangman

Share your screen using the whiteboard feature and play Hangman just like you would on paper. Draw lines for the number of letters in the word. Students will guess letters they think are in the word. If the letter is not in the word a part of a person is drawn. Students race to guess all of the letters and spell the word before they build a person.

Low Prep Zoom Games With Students

Mystery Bag

To play Mystery Bag, prepare a bag with an object hidden inside. Give clues or allow students to ask questions to try and guess what is inside the bag. Students could each prepare their own mystery bag to play too!

Zoomed In

When playing Zoomed In you begin by looking at images that are magnified or zoomed in very close. Collect and save several images prior to your virtual meeting. Before I start my meeting, I also open the images in Preview. I use Preview because it is easy to zoom in and out using the magnifying glass images. When you are ready to play you will share your screen so everyone can see the image. At first, you only see a small portion of the image.

As students guess incorrectly you slowly zoom out allowing them to see more and more of the image. Continue playing until they guess the image correctly.

Premade Zoom Games With Students

Build a House & Food Builder

I wanted to play Hangman with students. I realized quickly that without the word wall or alphabet this was very confusing and difficult for my kindergarten students. To solve this problem I created 2 games, Build a House and Food Builder. Both of these games will work digitally and also in the classroom by projection or on an interactive whiteboard.

During "Build a House" students earn parts of a house for incorrect letter guesses. They are racing to spell sight words before the whole house is built.

During "Food Builder" students build a hamburger, pizza, taco, or sandwich for incorrect letter guesses. They are racing to spell sight words before the food built.

I Spy

I Spy can be played in a variety of ways. For a no-prep version play using the student's backgrounds. If you want to focus students all on the same thing or target certain skills you can share your screen to display a slide of images. Give clues such as "I spy something red." "I spy something that begins with /m/." "I spy something with 3 syllables." as students guess what you or the designated student spied. These " I Spy Games for Home or School" ar programmed for 3 different games focusing on colors, phonics, and more.

Fast Finds

Movement activities and games are the perfect combo! Fast Finds are guided scavenger hunts. They work both in the classroom and virtually through Zoom or Google Meet. Each set of Fast Finds has a different focus. The sets included are for colors, adjectives, phonemic awareness & phonics, alphabet, and shapes. Share your screen, read the clue, and off they go to find an object that meets the rule. Give students a minute and then as they return have them hold up their find in front of the camera for everyone to see.

Hide & Seek

We love to play Hide & Seek in the classroom using a pocket chart. With the move to distance learning, I was looking for a way to continue this game digitally. PowerPoint to the rescue! Digital Hide & Seek can now be played during Zoom. Open the game in Slideshow View, share your screen, and you're ready to play! The object of the game is to find the hidden image. Students read a letter, word, number, or solve a math problem. The teacher then clicks on that card. The card magically disappears to reveal nothing or a hidden image.

What are your favorite games to play virtually?

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Zoom Games With Students During Distance Learning - Rhody Girl Resources

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Zoom Games With Students During Distance Learning shares a variety of games, many familiar from the classroom, that you can play with students virtually.

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Are you in need of some tips to make the best use of gamification in learning?

Do you urgently require tried & tested cheat codes to level up your gamification strategy?

Well, kind reader! At Growth Engineering, we eat, sleep and breathe gamification. We incorporate it into everything we do and that's why we're the world's top provider of gamified online learning solutions.

On top of all that, we're kind and generous philanthropists and we thought we'd help you out with a barrage of handy tips! With these pointers, you'll be able to use game mechanics to engage your learners all the way to the top of the leaderboard!

What is Gamification in Learning?

Gamification in learning is about taking something that is not a game and applying game mechanics to increase user engagement, happiness and loyalty. This means that gamification takes elements from game-design and the general principles and theories which drive gameplay and applies them to other contexts. It incorporates gaming mechanics such as points, levels, awards, and leaderboards to turn transform dull learning into an exciting affair for your learners!

Gamification for the Modern Learner

Modern learners are what defines the learning generation of today. They have access to an overwhelming amount of information. Compared to the ones before them, they have considerably shorter attention spans. There is a need more than ever for the right learning practices to keep today's learners engaged and attentive.

In fact, online learning stats confirm that implementing gamification strategies for learners can increase engagement by 60%. In turn, this improves their performance and productivity. Definitely a win-win for both learners and instructors!

Tip: Check out our Benefits of Gamification blog for more reasons to use gamification in learning

Ready to appeal to your modern learner? Here are 34 top tips to help you get started!

Gamification in Learning: 34 Top Tips That Work For the Modern Learner

1. Know what your goal is

You know you want gamification, but do you know why you want it? It might be the hot ticket, but will it work for your learners? Don't jump aboard the game train until you're clear about how gamification works and what it can do for online learning.

Read our white paper all about the impact that gamification can have on your ROI.

2. Design your game mechanics to drive positive behavioural changes

The crux of gamification is that it exploits basic human nature to encourage the actions and behaviours that you want. With enough time and imagination, you could create a very entertaining game, but unless it's designed to make your learners behave the way you need them too, it won't be effective enough.

3. Create a buzz around the launch

Leverage the power of anticipation in your gamified LMS roll-out. Use emails and real-world posters to make sure everybody knows what's coming and how excited they should be about it!

4. Welcome with a badge

When your learners first arrive on the platform, you need to set the tone right away!

Welcome your learners with their first badge and seed the collecting-bug at an early stage!

5. Keep it fun

Games are meant to be fun. If your messages don't reflect this, there's a good chance that your learners will forget that they are supposed to be enjoying a fully gamified learning experience. Crank your enthusiasm up to 11, inject some humour wherever you can and don't forget to use the word 'awesome' as often as possible!

6. Keep it simple

Don't let ambition cloud your judgement. However you decide to use your game mechanics, don't overcomplicate them. Link every action to an outcome and ensure that both are obvious to the learner, otherwise, they won't know whether they've succeeded or not and won't be as likely to return.

7. Let learners create avatars

In any game, the player assumes a role - the character they will move throughout the game. On a learning management system, the virtual self that they progress through the training material can't just be a faceless dummy. Make sure your learners can upload an avatar, or profile image of their choice to make the experience as personalised as possible.

8. Make progress obvious

Use progress indicators to show the learners how far along they are in each task. This can be anything from a progress bar to a simple percentage completion indicator. Simply by seeing that they don't have far to go, they'll be more likely to put in a little extra time just to mark the task 'completed'.

9. Make alerts obvious

When your learners earn awards or badges, you need to give them a fanfare worthy of the effort they put in. Alerts let them know in real-time whenever they've achieved something.

10. Use Levels to define a learning journey

The learner has to complete their current level before unlocking extra content at higher levels. In this way, levels are the perfect vehicle for building a training curriculum.

11. Start with easier, shorter levels

Simple introductory concepts can be introduced in the lower levels and more complex learning content is only unlocked once the learner is proficient enough.

12. Make it clear what needs to be done to progress

When your learner accesses their level summary, they should be able to see which tasks they've completed, which ones they have yet to complete and how far they are from their goal.

13. Weight your points accordingly

When you're assigning points, be it to content or actions within the platform, always be mindful that the points are supposed to mean something. If you award 100 points for posting a comment on the social feed and only 10 for completing a piece of compliance eLearning, you will undermine the importance of the training.

14. Give more rewards to users who are less active

It sounds counter-intuitive, but you can secure your learners' buy-in by showering them with rewards at an early stage. This is something to consider when you're planning your level structure. As they progress, they won't receive as many rewards - but that's all part of the game!

15. Use intrinsic rewards to spark behavioural change

Intrinsic rewards include intangible things like the sense of accomplishment or the feeling that progress is being made. These are the most powerful drivers when it comes to changing learner behaviour.

16. Let learners exchange points for prizes

If you can build a reward centre into your learning platform, your learners will have the chance to exchange their hard-earned points for real prizes. This can be anything from a half-day token to an online voucher.

17. Use Extrinsic rewards sparingly

Don't rely on extrinsic rewards to fuel your learners' journey for knowledge. If your learners focus on their rewards, they might lose sight of their development and perform tasks simply to earn enough points.

18. Let the learner become an expert

Prestige is a powerful element when it comes to engaging users on any system. Create a solution that lets you highlight the learners who go above and beyond in their field. Once you know who they are, make sure everyone else does - this gives the expert the recognition they deserve and gives everyone else access to their knowledge.

19. Tie learner goals to larger company goals

Make sure your learners' goals are aligned with those of the larger company. By doing this, you're not just ensuring that the overall mission is driving forward, you're also encouraging the kinds of behaviours that put the company first.

20. Create an area for community

Playing a game just isn't as much fun if there's nobody around to see how well you're doing! A gamified solution isn't nearly as powerful if it doesn't also include a social aspect. Make sure your learning platform has an area where the whole community can get together and share their experiences.

21. Create discussion groups

If you already have a social feed, consider creating individual discussion groups. Here, specialists can go to learn about the topics that mean the most to them.

22. Integrate with social media

Add a viral aspect to your learning platform by integrating with other social media sites. Give your learners the opportunity to share their hard-earned badges outside of the platform (and don't forget to award points for doing this!)

23. Make sure it looks good

Even if you've nailed the gamification aspects of your online learning, it won't mean anything if your platform is ugly. Get your best UI minds together and create something as beautiful as it is fun!

24. Make sure it's on-brand

While you're tending to the UI, ensure that your training reflects your brand. This provides consistency but it also reinforces the overall values behind your company.

25. Cater for every type of gamer

The Bartle Test defines people according to how they approach a game. Gamers are classified into 4 areas depending on how they prefer to play - Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers. Your gamification solution should satisfy everyone.

26. Test!

How are you going to know how effective your game is if you don't play it for yourself!? Test everything before the big launch and once you've done that, test it again just to be sure!

27. Analyse

Once your gamified LMS is up and running, you'll need to carefully analyse how your learners are approaching it. Are they completing all of the content? Is everybody engaging with the system? If not, a good reporting suite will let you identify who's lagging behind.

28. Ask for feedback

Your learners know what they like and what works for them. Give them the opportunity to leave feedback - you might find that this is where some of your most successful ideas will come from!

29. Keep content fresh & regular

You don't want your learners' experience to become stale and boring. Make sure you regularly update your content so that your learners always have something new to discover.

30. You can never have enough badges!

When it comes to badges, there is no upper limit! The human urge to collect is more powerful than you probably realise and will drive your learners to consume content.

31. Group badges in sets

Got a series of Health and Safety eLearning units? Create a set of badges to go along with them. Again, you'll tap into that compulsion to complete the set and ensure that your learners persevere through the whole series.

32. Use limited edition badges

If you want to generate interest and excitement around an important topic, create a special badge that can only be earned within a specific time window. The sense of urgency will spur your learners on and boost engagement even further!

33. Generate envy

As an extra incentive, why not run a competition on your platform? Invite everyone to participate and give the winner a special site banner as a prize. As soon as everyone else sees it, they'll be more inclined to try harder next time!

34. Encourage Competition

A little competition is healthy! It encourages people to try a little harder and it also highlights the sense of community. Use leaderboards on your online learning platform to show who has the most badges or points and let your learners filter it by the department. This lets your learners see who is performing and what they need to do to knock them off of the top spot!

Final Words

Apply these tips to get you started on creating a learning environment that uses gamification to make the experience a little more fun and improve learner engagement. If you're looking for an LMS platform that would really get your gamification into full gear, be sure to check out our multi-awarded Gamification LMS platform, designed to serve the modern learner's wish list.

Everything we do is meticulously designed to engage learners, from your very first login to your one-thousandth, learners are motivated and engaged by game-like features on Growth Engineering LMS, Growth Engineering Learning App and Growth Engineering Authoring Tool.

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Gamification in Learning: 34 Top Tips That Work For the Modern Learner

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Want to implement a gamification solution on your online learning management system? Here are 34 tips from the gamification gurus at Growth Engineering!

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12 of Our Favorite Board Game Hacks for the Classroom

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Choose from templates for many different games. You enter your content in a game format of your choice: Baseball, Build Your Fortune, Matching, Tic-Tac-Toe, Jeopardy, Hangman, LearningLand, Quiz, Game Show, Bingo, TimeOut, and Spin to Win. Students can play from any computer, tablet, or smart phone.

You decide how long the game should be by the number of questions you enter. Depending on the game you choose, you can enter questions that require answers that are multiple choice, true/false, matching, or essay.

Students receive immediate feedback and can play the game as often as they wish.

Get Started

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Choose from templates for many different games. You enter your content in a game format of your choice: Baseball, Build Your Fortune, Matching, Tic-Tac-Toe, Jeopardy, Hangman, LearningLand, Quiz, Game Show, Bingo, TimeOut, and Spin to Win. Students can play from any computer, tablet, or smart phone.

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Make your own board games using these blank template versions of popular games.

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Lindsay Ann Learning English Teacher Blog

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Are you looking for games to play with a classroom community? Games in the classroom are a piece of a giant teaching puzzle in which I am finding a way to teach core skills, terms, concepts to diverse groups of students in a finite amount of time, with a district-required "core" curriculum, with the goal of making sure that all students are learning.

Overall, I'm always asking the question " could it be cool?" because I want to find ways to give students choice and voice in the classroom, to be active rather than passive learners.

Backwards Plan Like a Boss

On a small or large scale, I always begin with the end in mind. What do I want students to know and be able to do? What is my goal for this lesson?

Then, I ask myself what format would be best for achieving that goal.

Games in the classroom are one possible strategy I might use to meet a variety of learning goals.

Sometimes, I use group games to play with a classroom. Group games can be used to promote (or re-establish community and connection between learners). Other times, a quick review of subject-specific language is the focus. Most of the time, I use games in the classroom to build critical thinking skills and allow students to demonstrate understanding of essential English language arts skills.

Why Use Games in the Classroom

"We're not entertainers," some might say.

"Games are a waste of time," some might say.

To this, I respond that we need to be using all means necessary to meet students where they're at. Games and learning (or demonstration of learning) aren't mutually exclusive.

And, as my coworker says, "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

I hope you're ready because this post is chock full of fun games to play with a classroom in the middle school or high school English classroom.

Technology Games to Play With a Classroom

There are an increasing number of online platforms and apps designed to engage students in learning games.

Here are a few of my favorite technology games in the classroom.

Reading Games

Pictionary

Increase the rigor of this game by having students draw symbols, characters, plot, themes, elements, etc. Then, once students in the group guess, they should find and discuss a related quote from the text.

Bring Your Own Book

This game is fun to have students play in literature circles or while reading a whole class novel, even as a fun game to play with independent reading books. Game cards provide categories such as "a ridiculous tabloid headline" or "a line in a random note."

Players grab their books and find a quote that fits with the category. A "judge" decides on the winning quote. To make this more than just a fun game, have the small groups of students then discuss their chosen lines/quotes or make connections between the lines/quotes chosen by all group members.

Currently, the game is not available for purchase, BUT the game site offers a free printable download (scroll down). You can also make your own categories pretty quickly (or have students create the categories).

Oscar Awards

You can play up the theme if you like by creating an invitation, telling students that they're members of the Academy who will be voting on award winners, laying out a red carpet, etc.

Create award categories (or have students submit ideas).

Here are four award categories that work well:

Characterization

Memorable Moments

Meaningful Quotations

Voice & Style

Find 3-4 quotations to compete in each category (or have students submit nominations)

Have students cast votes for the winner in each category. You can have them defend their votes verbally or in writing. This is the most important step.

In the end, tally votes and reveal the winners.

Taboo

Make lists of important words from the reading, along with 4-5 words students cannot say when discussing the keywords (which could be a character, theme, etc.)

The objective of the game is for a player to have his or her group guess what the keyword is without using the "taboo" words or the keyword itself. As an added layer, upon guessing the word, students could briefly discuss the reading in relation to that word.

Manhunt

Tape quotations, terms, questions, text excerpts, etc. around the room on the walls, under desks...wherever you can. Be sure to number these!

Have students (or groups of students) number a blank sheet of paper with the number of items you want them to find. Then, turn off the lights and give teams of students a small flashlight. Students have to hunt for the items you've taped. When they find one, they should write it down on their paper and discuss or answer the question, writing down notes.

If your goal is to have students discuss at length, tell students that they need to find a certain number of statements instead of finding them all. You can also add "bonus" points for especially hard-to-find items or hold a raffle in the end by having each group turn in an answer sheet. Best or most accurate responses can win a small candy prize.

Games to Increase Student Engagement / Discussion

Playing Cards

If you're looking for a quick game to play in the classroom, use playing cards to facilitate literature circle discussions or Socratic seminars. Cards can be used for pretty much any discussion in which you want to ensure active participation.

Give each student a certain number of cards. If you have a small class, one deck of cards will probably work. For larger classes, you may need to use up to three decks, depending on how many times you want a student to speak. For my class of 30 students, I use three decks of cards.

During the discussion, retain a master set of cards and call out criteria: a suite, color, number range, odds/evens, etc. Students holding a card that matches your criteria should "play" or lay down that card and contribute to the group. The goal is for every student to play all of his/her cards.

Post-it / Connect 4

This is a fun classroom game that can be used in a variety of different ways!

For this strategy, project a Connect 4 PowerPoint slide on the board. Or, if you're low tech, draw a 5×5 or 5×7 table on the board.

Then, as you discuss, ask review questions, teach grammar skills, quiz students on concepts and terms, or even during a small group activity, award groups of students with different colored sticky notes.

When a group has the power of the sticky note, they may go to the front board and place the sticky note in an empty square.

The goal is to connect four post-it notes of the same color in a row. If you want to up the ante a bit, you may allow groups to choose between moving another group's sticky note and placing down their own.

Castle Attack

Of all the games in the classroom, this one was my students' favorite last year. Like the Connect 4 strategy, it can be used with any number of different activities and skills. Leverage students' innate desire to compete by giving groups of students the ability to "defeat" other groups' castles.

Begin by having each group draw their best castle on a sheet of paper. Then, begin the activity of your choosing. Be very clear how you will award points to the groups (for a correct answer, for a number of minutes of on-task behavior, when you hear a really good insight, cited evidence, etc.).

If a group "wins" a point, they can either fortify their own castle or attack another castle. The goal of the game is to defeat as many other castles as possible. Three strikes and a castle is defeated. To make this clear, you can award points by giving the group a sticky note.

To fortify, students add a black sticky note to their castle. To attack, they draw an X on the sticky note and attach it (or have you attach it) to another group's castle. Castles that fall under attack, but have sticky note fortification simply remove one sticky note per attack and give it back to you.

Kill the Turtle

Despite its dark name, This is a variation of Castle Attack in which groups are each asked to draw a turtle on the front board with all appendages showing (feet, tail, head, shell).

If a group gets a question correct, they may come to the board and erase one part of another group's turtle. Or, they may draw back one part of their own group's turtle.

If a turtle is completely erased, all is not lost. It can come back from the dead. The turtle that has the most intact parts at the end of the lesson wins honor and glory.

Argumentation / Debate Games to Play With a Classroom

Playing games in the classroom in conjunction with teaching argumentation and speaking skills works wonders to engage students.

Here are some of my favorite games, and be sure to check out this post for even more activities and persuasive topics.

Students compete to create the funniest memes. To make this more academic, have students save 2-3 of the memes that were voted as "funniest" and write a rhetorical analysis of each one.

Next, I've put together a bundle of favorite games to play with a classroom... These fun persuasion games help students practice rhetoric and persuasion skills. These really come in clutch when you're in the middle of a unit on persuasion or want to build in some team building and public speaking. Click on the link to check them out!

In the game of I Dissent, students vote on and argue over hot button issues, perfect for practicing argumentation skills in a fun way!

Another game of absurd arguments that can be used for not only persuasion and debate, but also for creative writing is Superfight. Check it out!

Writing Games to Play with a Classroom

Story Slam

Story Slam is a classroom writing game has plot twists and starter cards to get students started writing creative stories. Alternatively, Storymatic is a similar game that has, in addition to plot cards, "persona" cards that help students to create characters.

You can't go wrong with either game, and if having students write fiction stories these are a helpful addition to your classroom library. Even if you don't have a formalized fiction writing assessment in your class, you can have consistent writing time each week and use the pieces generated to have students practice sentence combining and sentence variation.

Man Bites Dog

If you've ever played the game Man Bites Dog you know how fun headline writing can be. In the classroom, I take this concept and have students practice writing concisely to craft attention-grabbing headlines for different audiences.

As a teacher, call out a specific audience and topic. Then, give students 4-5 minutes to generate the most epic headline possible (individuals or teams). You can turn this into a competition between table groups, have each student generate several headlines and submit the best one, or play around the world with headlines to see which one makes it the furthest. As you play, discuss the impact of diction on an audience.

Pitchstorm

Pitchstorm takes on a real world feel as students work to pitch movie ideas, combining character and plot, to executives who have secret notes about making the pitch idea more exciting. In this game, on the spot thinking meets creativity, writing and speaking skills.

I have my students first write down their script idea before pitching it to the exec who then will interrupt with additional requirements. For example, the writer may be asked to rewrite to include a piranha or an invisible talking penguin that only the main character can see.

Usually, students play this in groups, rotating the role of the executive. I've also played this with the whole class and take on the role of executive myself. This way, everyone writes and I hear the pitches, throw in additional requirements, and see which student or team can adapt the best.

Wing It

Wing It is a game of "extreme storytelling" that is not for the faint of heart. Students are challenged to come up with a way to get out of some off-the-wall situations and given three random "tools" to help them out.

Have students practice speaking and improv skills, creative storytelling skills, or work on grammar and sentence variation. You could even challenge students to use a certain number of vocabulary words in their escape plan, to use show vs. tell, to work on the use of transitions, etc. If having students write vs. riff in an impromptu way, you'll want to build in "rounds" and alternate between individual writing and sharing out/voting on who survives.

Magnetic Poetry

Magnetic poetry is a fun way to have students generate poems about a specific thematic idea, character or chapter in a novel. To modify this activity, have students compose an opening stanza and then switch desks. Then, challenge students to write an original stanza of their own to follow.

Metaphor Dice: I wrote about this game in my previous blog post about poetry fun, but couldn't pass by another opportunity to give it a shout-out.

Created by Taylor Mali, a well-known slam poet, this game will have your students rolling dice to create fun and interesting metaphors. These dice are great for a unit on poetry, creative fiction writing, or memoir/narrative.

Alternatively, you could have students roll the dice to see who can come up with the best metaphor for a character in a novel and then come up with textual support to prove that the metaphor works well. I love this game so much that I'm planning to buy the Erudite Edition to challenge my students' vocabulary a bit.

Review Games

The gist of the classroom game known as "Bazinga" or "Zap" is that you have different cards with directions on them to add / subtract a certain number of points. Some teachers hold these cards in pockets. You can also just shuffle and stack them up. You can get creative and add silly directions instead of points such as "dance the YMCA" or "give the team with the least amount of points a high-five." And, of course, there is the "Bazinga" card which doubles the team's score if picked. Here is a website with a longer description of the game.

Stump the Teacher - At the end of a novel study, have students generate questions that will "stump" the teacher. Then, pit the class against the teacher to see who can answer the question the quickest.

Jenga - I'm sure that you've seen this one before, but it is worth a mention on my list! Number the blocks. Then, have students play, answering a question, discussing a quote, or defining a term that corresponds with the number on the block.

Vocabulary Games

Quicktionary is a fast-paced game in which students have to come up with words that meet three different, randomly-chosen criteria.

Free Rice is a site students enjoy because, as they're answering questions about vocabulary words, they are also donating rice to help end hunger.

Tried and True Classroom Games

Jeopardy

Everyone loves a good Jeopardy game. You can create content categories, pop in your questions, and even throw in a daily double! You can visit Jeopardy labs or learn how to make your own Jeopardy template in Google Slides.

To make this more than a review game, try putting quotations from a novel or article you're reading on the slides and having students practice making inferences, decoding, analyzing syntax and diction, etc.

You can also have the different literary lenses as the categories and put page numbers on the slides. This, then, becomes more of a discussion game as groups re-read a certain page to discuss it through the lens they're given.

Try making "claims" as a category. For each slide in that category, write a different claim a reader could make about the text. Then, groups work to find evidence proving that claim (with a time limit, of course).

Family Feud

I love playing this game to help students practice identifying connotations and analyzing diction. For each round, put a different quote or word to analyze (or copy larger excerpts on a sheet of paper and distribute these to students beforehand with the excerpts labeled for each round) and have students pick out loaded language or brainstorm the most useful connotations for analyzing a word.

Here is the free Family Feud template I use.

Must-Try ELA Games

If you loved this post, pin the image below to share these fun English classroom games with your friends. And, if you're like me, to remind your future self to try them out.

Rules for Teaching with Games in the Classroom

I hope you've found some new games in the classroom to enjoy.

As you use these games to play with a classroom, keep in mind that it's important to involve as many learners as possible. I like to use partnerships and teams to encourage active involvement.

Also, make sure your classroom climate is conducive to healthy competition. We set ground rules in my classroom. No name-calling, shouting, or otherwise rude behavior.

Next, set firm boundaries in terms of time and scoring. Keeping a game moving will help to maximize class time.

Finally, make sure to give students time to reflect on the game and their learning. It helps to set a learning target and make it clear to the students why you're playing the game. What skills does it help them to practice? Is it helping to prepare them for a summative assessment? If learners are clear on the why, they can reflect on the activity and their skills.

P.S. I do not advocate giving extra credit for games in the classroom. My high school students love candy, scratch-n-sniff stickers, cookie coupons for the cafeteria, or even an entry into a classroom raffle jar.

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5 Brilliant Ways to Use Games in the Classroom - English Teacher Blog

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Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!

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Gamification has taken the world of education by storm in recent years. Rapidly evolving technology, as well as the push toward digital, also played a significant role in its rise.

With classrooms filled with tablets, e-books, and digital boards, everything is more interactive, which makes it even harder to keep students' attention. Gamification in the classroom, however, allows teachers to engage students more quickly and get them excited about learning.

Of course, while video games can be helpful in the classroom now and again, they shouldn't be your go-to for gamification. Luckily, it's easy to adjust your classroom gamification to complement your teaching style. Let's take a look at tested techniques to gamify your classroom and keep your students on the edge of their seats.

What Are the Benefits of Gamification?

So gamification helps pique students' interest and keep them engaged during lessons, but are there any other benefits? Students today get bombarded by information and images almost constantly. In order to keep up, teachers need to reassess their techniques to be in line with the times.

Although opponents of gamification say that it removes what makes education educational, students are still learning but in different ways. Traditional education techniques can sometimes be limiting, unstimulating, and extremely average.

Modern techniques, coupled with gamification, offer a nuanced approach that motivates children. Students can take on a persona, earn points, and feel a more profound sense of accomplishment with gamification. However, it's crucial to state that complete gamification may not be a great idea. Blended classrooms where students experience traditional and modern styles together tend to be more successful. Nonetheless, incorporating gamification in your class will give your students some variety and allow you to keep their attention better.

Ways to Introduce Gamification

If you're considering gamifying your class, you may not be sure where to start. Here are a few simple but effective ways to incorporate gamification into your classroom.

1. Set Up a Points System

Much like in video games, earning points motivates people and helps them feel rewarded for their efforts. Depending on your classroom activities, you can offer to give students points for participation, completing tasks on time or anything else you'd like. Your points system should fit your classroom style and help students track their progress. You can even use your points system to supplement your grading. For example, if students earn a certain amount of points, you could drop their lowest grade or boost their final grade. While gamifying grading is an entirely personal choice, know that it can motivate students.

Beyond motivating students to participate, it helps them feel compensated for their efforts. Receiving better grades can sometimes be disheartening. Earning points, on the other hand, allows students to feel like they are becoming masters of their learning. They can see their skills improve, feel motivated, and enjoy class time more than ever before. What's not to love about that?

2. Invent a Storyline With Avatars

Nothing quite gets students in the mood to learn like a great story. Taking the time to think of or invent a storyline for your game will help get students interested. You can choose from the typical stories about pirates, aliens, or zombies to set the stage. No matter what theme you choose, make sure you keep it going throughout the entire game.

Once you've set the stage, allow your students to get in on the fun. Letting them choose their role in the story will spark their creativity and get them to invest more in the game. You can even give them time to design an avatar who represents them. Young and old students alike enjoy taking the time to craft their character in the game world.

While avatars lend themselves well to video games or digital apps, there are low-tech alternatives, as well. From costumes to illustrations, as long as you let your students get creative, their fascination for the story will grow.

3. Hand Out Badges

Points are great for rewarding your student's participation in class, but badges allow you to reward achievements. Incorporating both of these reward systems is vital for maintaining classroom morale. After all, just because some students don't earn points doesn't mean they aren't accomplishing anything. Giving students badges also helps serve as milestones for the class. For instance, badges that indicate the mastery of a specific program can feel like a rite of passage for students. Students will want to collect all of their badges and mark their advancement through the course. You can even offer bonus points or level increases with different badges to add an extra layer of excitement.

Badges also help reward students with unique abilities. Therefore, it's worth it to invest time in creating badges for areas you want students to master. Additionally, you may want to create a few rare badges that will preserve the element of surprise.

4. Encourage Teamwork

Gamification of your classroom need not be divisive. In fact, your classroom morale might be better if you allow students to play in teams. Getting students to play and participate together cultivates a friendly atmosphere and teaches students the value of working together.

In their teams, you may want to allow students to share points, rewards, or even power-ups. Students will want to work harder to help their team and make their team members proud. This is especially true if they can share the riches (or points). Not to mention that the game will become much more energetic with students frantically cheering their teammates on.

5 Gamification Apps for Your Classroom

Gamifying your class and keeping it fresh requires plenty of resources. No worries, because I've scoped out some of the best gamification apps out there.

1. Gimkit

Gimkit is today's revelation and very suited for gamifiying your classroom. This game app lets teachers build quizzes students have to solve. They call themselves a game show for the classroom that requires knowledge, collaboration, and strategy to win. Students answer questions on their device at their own pace. Throughout a Kit, students will get exposure to the questions multiple times to ensure mastery.

Here's the "gamification-factor" about Gimkit: students earn in-game cash by answering questions correctly. But be careful, an incorrect answer will cost them! Students can reinvest their earned digital money by purchasing upgrades and powerups that suit their strengths.

Gimkit is especially a live classroom game, but you can use it for homework assignments which are graded automatically. Gimkit eventually generates a report detailing what your students need help on.

2. Class Dojo

Class Dojo works best with younger students usually in the primary school stage. The setting is a digital dojo where students can keep track of their mastery and skills. This app automatically assigns each student an avatar which is a little monster. Each little monster collects points for anything from participation to helping others in the class. Teachers can use this app from a computer or mobile device making it a flexible platform. One of the greatest things about Class Dojo is that it helps connect teachers, students, and parents. Although the app gives instant feedback about students' performance, it can also send a monthly report to parents. Therefore, it helps close the gap between home and the classroom.

This app even aids teachers in reinforcing good behavior. Its graphics and sound effects react to when students lose points, thereby motivating them to do better. Class Dojo also helps save teachers time. Spending less time on keeping up this gamification aspect of the classroom makes more sustainable.

3. BookWidgets

BookWidgets works well for anyone using Google Classroom or merely a digital whiteboard or any other device. This app offers 40 different templates for teachers to craft interactive lessons. Depending on the subject or aim of the lesson, teachers can use anything from quizzes to arithmetic to bingo cards. The variety of templates allows teachers to make lessons of all kinds more interactive. Furthermore, the different templates can help gamify things like reviews, tests, and more.

All teachers need to do is launch the app and select the "Create Widget" option to begin devising their next interactive lesson. Lesson planning time will decrease as student participation skyrockets with BookWidgets. Just check out this ready-to-use gamified WebQuest about Halloween. Students have to solve a murder and earn their inspector badge at the end. Just click on the image and share the link with your students. That's it!

Incorporating BookWidgets into the classroom is simple. With its Google Chrome plugin, you can get started using this app almost immediately in Google Classroom. You can also use BookWidgets standalone via the BookWidgets website.

4. Classcraft

Classcraft is probably the best game and classroom management solution for high school students. Classcraft engages students to live by your class rules interactively.

Students create their own avatars that have special powers. They play in groups to keep the team spirit alive. If someone ignores a deadline, it may disadvantage the whole group. You could say this game app focuses on teamwork and tries to build better relationships between students.

Students can gain or lose different points by playing by the classroom rules or by breaking them. For example, students who help other students with their homework receive a certain amount of points. When they have enough points, they can use a power like: the "warrior" can eat in class". As I've said before, students can also lose those points when breaking the rules. If they lose all their points they get a "punishment" like: bring a treat for the whole class or hand in an assignment a day early.

As a teacher, you can choose every power and punishment. Classcraft also has a timer and a stopwatch available, as well as a quiz tool where the avatars have to battle a "boss". In order to beat the boss, they have to get the answers right.

5. Kahoot

Kahoot has the power to make students extremely enthusiastic about learning. Similar to a gameshow, Kahoot! uses music, images, and a colorful interface to get students excited about the task at hand. Particularly useful for quizzing vocabulary, multiplication, and simple geography, this app asks students to select the correct answer within a time limit.

Kahoot! even allows teachers to include YouTube videos to add an extra layer of information to each question. Combining this interactive game with multimedia helps make the experience more immersive for students. Moreover, the app has plenty of sound effects that add to the excitement of the gameplay.

Students receive points for every correct answer and also get extra points for answering faster than others. Whether they're playing individually or in teams, students will feel very rewarded when they see their score growing. Racking up more and more points often means that students get invested in the game and want to continue playing. In fact, your students may become addicted to Kahoot!

Ready, Set, Game!

Getting students excited about learning is easier than ever with the help of technology and gamification. By using these techniques and apps, you can make your classroom wonderfully interactive. Of course, always remember to reward students for their efforts to keep them motivated and capture their imagination.

About the author

James Daily is a professional writer, content manager, and blogger with a Master's degree in Leadership and Teacher Education. Specialized in education, psychology and upbringing. Check out his work on this blog. "Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the promise of progress, in every society, in every family" © Kofi Annan

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The best gamification apps and techniques for in your classroom

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Gamification has taken the world of education by storm in recent years. Rapidly evolving technology, as well as the push toward digital, also played a significant role in its rise. With classrooms filled with tablets, e-books, and digital boards, everything is more interactive, which makes it even harder to keep students' attention.

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1. Make pair or groups of 3 or 4.
2. Each player must have six markers to be placed in each starting point. (dice boxes on the very top of the board game)
3. Each player rolls a die.
4. The player will answer a question according to the number of dots on the die.
5. The first player who reaches all the finish boxes will be declared as the winner.

Edit : I am teaching Japanese students that is why there are some Japanese related questions and words. You can edit these parts for your students.

The above lesson is a great teaching resource for: Intermediate (B1)

Quality not yet verified by the community.

This resource does not contain any images, words or ideas that would upset a reasonable person in any culture.

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1. Make pair or groups of 3 or 4. 2. Each player must have six markers to be placed in each starting point. (dice boxes on the very top of the board game) 3. Each player rolls a die. 4. The player will answer a question according to the number of dots on the die.

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ChatGPT is your AI chatbot for everyday use. Chat with the most advanced AI to explore ideas, solve problems, and learn faster.

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Can you sort 8 notable events in our weekly history quiz? Sign up for a weekly email notification.

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Free Choice Boards templates for Google Slides or PowerPoint - SlidesMania

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Editable Digital Choice Boards for Google Drive or PowerPoint. Choice boards are a great way to allow student choice during classroom activities and you can use them for any subject.

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If you're looking for something new to try in the new year, you have come to the right place! We've compiled a list of ten innovating ed tech ideas that you can try RIGHT NOW! Check them out below!

(click on any subheading to jump to that section)

Meta Demo Lab is a website that will take your drawings and automatically animate them. The key is that the drawings need to be completed on white paper. Once you run through the process of creating your animation, you can download the file as an MP4. But, this is where the magic starts. Take your MP4 file and upload it to a video project in Canva. Once the video uploads, remove the background using Canva's Background Remover tool. Replace the background with a new element of photo from Canva, and now your drawing is in an entirely different place. We've used this idea to have our students illustrate story book characters or historical figures and then animate them back into the setting or moment in time. Click here or the image below to visit the Meta Demo Lab website!

Microsoft takes accessibility very seriously, and this new feature in Microsoft Edge is a prime example. This shortcut / hack allows users to turn on Immersive Reader for any Edge web page In the address bar, add "read:" in front of any link. For example, if you're using Microsoft Edge and visit our website using this link:

read: https:// www.themerrillsedu.com

Then, Immersive Reader will be able to read aloud the content of the website to you!

360schools is a unique immersive 360° / VR education service designed for teachers and their students. This website brings hundreds of thousands of incredible 360° panoramas to your students. Educators and students can search for specific locations, share content, and even embed the 360 images into a website or LMS. There are even a few guided tours which will take users from point to point in images. For some amazing results, search "underwater" or "The Alamo!" Click here or on the image above to learn more and sign up for an account today!

Adobe's Animate from Audio is a part of its Animate app. The difference between the two is that Animate from Audio is a free online converter and you won't need to download the Animate app, or have an Adobe account. This can be done right within your web browser! Click here or the image to the right to visit the Animate from Audio website. Your first task is to select a character. Once you've done this, you can choose from a variety of backgrounds (tip: if you choose green, you can remove the background and upload it to Canva to drop your character into a background of your choice). The last option is the size. Once you've configured your project, just hit the record button and follow the steps to save your work. It's that easy!

Canva Docs is a visual-first document creator that allows you to design documents supercharged with videos, images, graphics, charts, and graphs. It lets you bring the same color, movement, and eye-catching visuals you usually reserve for presentations to your documents. So, now your students' word documents don't have to be boring! Another thing to love about Canva Docs is the ability to collaborate quickly and efficiently. Now, your students can brainstorm, write, create, and design their projects without ever having to leave Canva. Learn more about Canva docs by clicking here or the image to the right!

Chances are if you're an Elementary teacher, your kids are obsessed with the game Animal Crossing. So, we wanted to figure out a way to integrate this into the classroom. If you're unfamiliar with the game, it basically works by using a character to walk around an island performing tasks, catching fish & bugs, and then selling them to a store in return for "bells," or money. Then, you can use the bells to purchase items to put into your house. So how does this translate into the classroom? Well, if you're looking for a classroom management idea or if you're learning about map skills, this is for you! Students can use the ABD card to accumulate bells. The catalogue will allow them to purchase items using their bells. The items purchased can go into their house - which they have picked out on the class map. Check out the explanation in our video above, or download each item below!

Each student gets an ABD card. Students can earn "bells" by completing tasks or doing jobs around the classroom. Click here or the image above to download the ABD card!

Students use their bells from the ABD card to purchase items from the catalogue. We recommend sharing this template on your LMS, then your students an copy / past the items to their own homes. Click here or the image above to download the catalogue!

Students use Canva to create their own room (as a blank presentation slide). Then, have them share their slide to you. Next, have them pick out a house from the map. Then, hyperlink their slide to the master copy of the class map. Click here to or the image above to download the map template!

Writing in the 21st Century looks different. Students are still using paper and pencil, but the possibilities no longer stop there. Now students of all ages are able to publish their writing to share with broader audiences. Microsoft Word has used accessibility features like dictation, Immersive Reader and more to help make this happen. But, educators know that sometimes students like to rush the process a bit. Enter "Share Link for Review" mode. When a student is working on a Word document, they can generate a share link which will allow for review. Then, they can share the link with the teacher who will then be able to leave comments or suggest revisions. Check out the video from Mike Tholfsen to the right for more information!

Let's face it...Multiple choice assessments aren't our favorite way of assessing, but there are times where we must use it. Microsoft Forms is a great way to generate a quick assessment, and now you can add images in multiple choice selections. This means you can add a picture to each answer selection, giving clear and concise expectations to your students. Learn how it all works by clicking the image to the right or right here!

There are many possibilities with Minecraft EDU, but some of our favorite activities have been where students have created unique features in their worlds. For example, while learning about local Native American tribes, the students re-created their villages and included explanations for the different landmarks. Another class favorite was when the students created theme park rides and the experience had to include the plot and theme from the story. If you're looking for a history idea, check out the museum template idea featuring information from World War I - where the students included important artifacts and information. Check out examples from all three below!

Students created theme park rides and the experience had to include the plot and theme from the story.

While learning about local Native American tribes, the students re-created their villages and included explanations for the different landmarks.

This is a museum template idea featuring information from World War I - where the students included important artifacts and information.

Osmo Words has been around for a while, but educators are catching on to the fact that you can create your own custom Osmo Words Albums. The process isn't as difficult as you think, and can be done in just several clicks. Here's how:

Go to your myWords dashboard.

1. Click on Create New Album, and you will be automatically taken to the new album page.

2. Click on Add Title (or on Untitled Album) to add your album title.

3. Click on Add Image to upload a picture (or to take one, if you are using your tablet or phone). You can also drag multiple files to upload images in a batch.

4. Hover your cursor over the image you have just added and click the Edit button.

5. Type your chosen word in the Add Word field and select a difficulty. If you want some of the letters to appear as given on the screen, you can put them in parentheses. A(NT) will show as _NT, for example. Add a couple more words; the more the merrier!

6. Return to your album homepage to add as many images and words as you wish.

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10 Innovative Ed Tech Ideas to Try - @TheMerrillsEDU

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@TheMerrillsEDU share 10 Ed Tech ideas that you have to try this coming year! Whether it's animating drawings into characters, collaborating on docs, or assessing - we've got something for you!

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CREATIVE STUDIO

We build visual campaigns with and for movements and the brands that support them. Our campaigns promote critical thinking and build compassion, capturing the attention of tens of millions of people, providing them with pathways for direct action to solve some of humanity's most challenging issues.

EDUCATOR HUB

Our Educator Hub is both a network and a set of resources for tens of thousands of educators, reaching 1 million+ students nationwide! Our learning experiences help students: explore new ideas through art & technology; analyze how those ideas relate to their own lives, and; activate their voices and advocacy for a shared world.

INNOVATION LAB

Our latest experiment at Amplifier Labs is this live spatial gallery showcasing our Mental Health and Wellbeing artwork. Click on any avatar and join this space to tour the work and maybe even have live conversations with people from around the world (who will appear as avatars as well) about this important topic!

Download and Print

Amplifier makes all of our 1000+ artworks available for free non-commercial download so you can print them and put them up in your home, your place of work or school, and around your community!

Shop

Our online store features printed artwork such as limited edition posters, apparel, stickers, postcards & more! E very dollar we raise goes directly to distributing the work to places we believe need this art the most - in the streets, classrooms across the country, and to community organizers working at the frontlines of change.

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A Framework for Anti-Bias Education

The Social Justice Standards are a road map for anti-bias education at every stage of K-12 instruction. Comprised of anchor standards and age-appropriate learning outcomes, the standards provide a common language and organizational structure educators can use to guide curriculum development and make schools more just and equitable.

Divided into four domains-identity, diversity, justice and action (IDJA)-the standards recognize that, in today's diverse classrooms, students need knowledge and skills related to both prejudice-reduction and collective action. Together, these domains represent a continuum of engagement in anti-bias, multicultural and social justice education. The IDJA domains are based on Louise Derman-Sparks' four goals for anti-bias education in early childhood.

Each of the IDJA domains has learning outcomes and school-based scenarios organized by grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

Download the Standards

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The Social Justice Standards are a road map for anti-bias education at every stage of K-12 instruction, providing a common language and organizational structure educators can use to guide curriculum development and make schools more just and equitable.

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Last September, in Louisiana, 9-year-old Ka'Mauri Harrison was taking a test in his bedroom-a reality for many students engaged in online learning during the coronavirus pandemic. His brother walked in, tripping over a BB gun in the background. Ka'Mauri picked it up and carried it toward the computer. His teacher kicked him off the video conference.

For briefly brandishing a BB gun in his own bedroom, Ka'Mauri faced nearly two weeks of suspension and a social worker was sent to his home.

"It is our policy that teachers and administrators may employ reasonable disciplinary and corrective measures," a spokesperson for Jefferson Parish Schools said at the time, "to maintain order."

Ka'Mauri is Black. So is Isaiah Elliott, a Colorado seventh grader who was suspended for holding a toy gun during art class. So is the 15-year-old girl who, in a now infamous case, was incarcerated in Michigan for not doing her homework and thus violating her parole.

The en masse switch to distance learning was unprecedented. But these outsized discipline measures against Black students, sadly, were not. Zoom suspensions followed similar patterns to in-person classroom management tactics that feed Black students into the school-to-prison pipeline.

"It's a pathway that is sadly well-worn and very visible," says Miriam Rollin, the director of the Education Civil Rights Alliance assembled by the National Center for Youth Law.

According to analysis of public data by ProPublica, Black students, nationally, are 3.9 times more likely to face suspension than white students. In some states, like Wisconsin (7.5 times), Minnesota (6.2 times) and Connecticut (6 times), it's even more stark. And according to a 2018 analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Black students were overrepresented in every punishment measure evaluated, regardless of poverty level or school type.

The numbers' severity and longevity underscore a systemic and seismic pushout of Black students, whose disproportionate contact with law enforcement leads to disproportionate rates of dropouts, disengagement and incarceration. Disrupting that cycle of punishment will be necessary to end the school-to-prison pipeline and protect the students most disproportionately harmed by such policies-namely Black, Indigenous and Latinx youth.

But experts in school discipline say there is something more insidious and emblematic behind distance learning discipline measures. It hasn't just been suspensions. In a moment when students needed grace and leniency amidst brand-new challenges, a reliance on compliance emerged again and again. Students had to keep cameras on in their homes. Students got in trouble for missing school days or assignments as they were forced to work or care for siblings. Schools enforced dress codes and codes of conduct most Zoom-bound adults could not follow. All designed, as the Louisiana spokesperson put it, to maintain order.

Experts say these stories underscore the limitations of fixing disproportionate discipline outcomes strictly in terms of removing school police or eliminating the school-to-prison pipeline. The U.S. school system is dependent on control and compliance-and historically this dependence reaffirms and is inextricably bound up with tenets of white supremacy. Whether advocates call for reform measures or for a more systemic abolition of all school practices that resemble the carceral state, it's clear that they agree on one thing: Equity requires understanding and excavating those white supremacist roots.

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Last September, in Louisiana, 9-year-old Ka'Mauri Harrison was taking a test in his bedroom-a reality for many students engaged in online learning during the coronavirus pandemic. His brother walked in, tripping over a BB gun in the background. Ka'Mauri picked it up and carried it toward the computer.

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How To Print Large Posters & Coloring Pages For Cheap - Honestly Modern

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Want to print large posters and coloring pages for cheap? It's really easy to use your local office store printing services to order Blueprints or

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A fun and educational subscription app with dozens of activities within a colorful world that inspire children's creativity & imagination. Start your 7-day free trial!

Crayola Create & Play provides games and activities that inspire children's artistic independence, experimentation, and growth. With a diverse range of developmentally appropriate and creative games with seasonal content added monthly, this app offers endless hours of productive play within the colorful world of Crayola. Crayola Create & Play provides a safe, ad-free, and supportive environment for children to develop self-expression and confidence. The app goes beyond drawing and coloring pages, with parent and teacher-approved content that ignites imagination and supports cognitive development. This app is COPPA and PRIVO certified, GDPR compliant, and has no in-app purchases, ensuring commitment to children's online privacy and safety standards. Get unlimited access with your 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.

NEW GAMES & ACTIVITIES EACH MONTH!
* Create PIXEL ART unicorns, dogs, cats, dinosaurs and more!
* Spark bright ideas with GLOW ART!
* Create dinosaur, rocket ship, mask and other CRAFTABLES!

PLAY GAMES WITH A PURPOSE
* Inspired by STEAM and STEM education techniques, Crayola helps kids through playing games and activities.
* Coding exercises and games help your child grasp complex topics in science and math.

EXCITING KIDS GAMES, ACTIVITIES & MORE TO COME!
* For toddlers, preschool age, pre- kindergarten age, and young children.
* Ever-evolving content updates to keep kids inspired!

CREATE DIGITAL MASTERPIECES
* Use real Crayola tools to color, draw, paint, stamp, sticker, glitter, and more!
* Subscribers unlock UNLIMITED coloring pages and activities!

PRACTICE KINDNESS & CARE FOR PETS
* Hatch, design, color, feed, and interact with pets!

ENCOURAGE CRITICAL THINKING BY PLAYING GAMES IN THE ARCADE
* Kids can solve puzzles made from their own art!
* Play games with pets, and much more!

LEARN NEW CLASSROOM SKILLS
* Try coding, practice spelling, and watch behind-the-scenes videos on how Crayola Crayons are made.

PARENTS AND KIDS AGREE
* Crayola creates fun for the whole family!
* Play with your children to watch them grow and learn

"The best kids app out there! Educational, creative and fun! Well worth an annual pass." Mom of Preschool girl

"We are in love with this app! So many exciting games, excellent graphics, fun coloring pages, and runs smoothly! We love all the updates and seasonal events! It's has helped her learn her colors and letters, and improved her fine motor skills and technology skills. I'm a former teacher and I approve!" - Mom of toddler girl

WHY SUBSCRIBE TO CRAYOLA CREATE AND PLAY?
When you subscribe to Create and Play, you unlock full access to all kids games, activities, features, and content updates! Each activity and game is carefully developed to achieve our mission to help parents and educators raise inspired kids. Content updates remain relevant with your child as they grow, to foster artistic expression and development over time.

Subscription Details
A 7-day free trial is included with subscription. Subscription options include Monthly or Yearly periods. Monthly subscriptions are charged once per month and Yearly subscriptions are charged once per year. Subscriptions are charged at the beginning of the current period and auto-renewed 24 hours before the next period. With a 7-day free trial, your account is charged on the 7th day for the period which will begin on the 8th day.
* Payment will be charged to iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase
* Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period
* Account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period, and identify the cost of the renewal
* Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase

Privacy Policy: https://www.crayola.com/app-privacy
Terms of Service: www.crayola.com/app-terms-of-use
Support: www.crayola.com/support

Version 2.24.1

Trick-or-treat! Crayola Create & Play is getting into the Halloween spirit and celebrating the spookiest time of the year! Find all-new bubbling cauldrons and glowing jack-o-lanterns throughout Crayola's creative world, pumpkin spice things up with limited-time creative activities, and have a ghostly good time at the Halloween Carnival Quest! Come check out the spooktacular Halloween activities in Crayola Create & Play!

HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL QUEST
Get ready for the most fa-boo-lous bash of the season! Trick-or-treat your way through creative challenges like creating spooky masks and dressing up your pet in cute-and-creepy costumes to have a howling good time at the Halloween Carnival! Just beware of the haunted house!"

SKELE-FUN CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
Halloween is almost here! Get ready by crafting a ghoulish hot air balloon or pumpkin! Or how about a spooky bat kite?! Try creating some Halloween pixel art, terrifying tracing templates, spooky stickers, and a new werewolf mask to really give your friends the goosebumps!"

WICKED AWESOME DECORATIONS
Bubbling cauldrons, glowing jack-o-lanterns, and creepy cobwebs have made their way into Crayola's creative world! Explore the haunted landscape to discover them all!"

Can you play all of the creepily creative events and activities before they're gone?! It's time to celebrate Halloween with Crayola Create & Play!

WHYYYYY?!

So when I was three I loved the game all I wanted to do was play crayola only but now that I'm eight I still love it but the way like if you write with a marker crayon paint brush any thing really it like if you let go it over laps and becomes darker and I hate that Hate it so much because if your my age maybe younger it's ANNOYING when you mess up on your drawings. So if you could stop that it would not be annoying at all. Cuz my fingers get tired and I want a rest but I can't or I'll mess up what I already colored is dark. Then i ether deal with it erase it and start over or make the hole thing dark which is annoying to do. So I want it to be like if I took my finger off it would stay the same color. But I love the game sorry if I made a spelling mistake or something I'm not always perfect. But really such a good game I still play it my brother who's four loves it.

Thanks.

Ok But still like it

I got this app because I saw it on the back of a crayon box so I decided to get it on my phone I was playing it and I wanted to unlock one of the crayons so I clicked on it to see if there's a coin or something but it said you need a subscription I don't really like in app purchases and the subscription for a year is really expensive I don't think it's worth it buying the subscription I like the idea of getting to make your own pets and I also like the idea of mixing colors I don't think that there should be an age range limit I like how there are no ads and the game is kid friendly there is a learning aspect which is nice but you can only unlock one of the arcade games without a subscription I found that very annoying I have played other apps like this and they didn't have an app purchases I think will look at them better or whoever made this app could've done better with their design of an app purchases because you don't get a lot of stuff before I played games that you can't even do anything without a subscription overall though I think it's a good game especially for kids who are learning their colors

We're sorry to hear you were disappointed with the Create & Play App's pricing. This app is designed to provide our artists with months and months of new, updated content. Pricing can range from monthly to yearly, based on your preference. In the meantime, we hope you will enjoy playing and wish you the best for colorful days ahead.

Recent update & cost increase

My daughter and I were incredibly gutted when we opened the game yesterday to find out the money already taken out of my account the day previous suddenly only pays for half of the games available- unless I want to be charged an extra $6.99 this month for her to have access to all of the games, like she has for a while now. She is turning 3 in a week and a half and can't comprehend why this is happening. She was in tears all day. Unnecessary stress, and I truly expected more from the company I have supported and adored my entire 30 years of life. I wasn't warned about this, and I'm sure I'm not the only one upset about this. The game is wonderful and I would like to purchase a year subscription when feasible- but the lack of notice and the way you locked every item she's played with and integrated them through free games is impossible to navigate or understand, especially for kids who are young and the main reason you have people paying to play this game. Now I've wasted $4 and have to spend a month watching my child upset, and being disappointed- not to mention families all over who used this app. There is no way I'm the only one experiencing this.

We're sorry to hear that your Create and Play subscription is having some issues! We'd like to get this fixed for you right away, please contact us at support@createandplay.zendesk.com. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Data Linked to You

The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

Information

Compatibility

iPhone

Requires iOS 13.0 or later.

iPad

Requires iPadOS 13.0 or later.

iPod touch

Requires iOS 13.0 or later.

Mac

Requires macOS 11.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.

Languages

English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Turkish

Age Rating

4+, Made for Ages 0-5

Family Sharing

Some in‑app purchases, including subscriptions, may be shareable with your family group when Family Sharing is enabled.

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‎Crayola Create & Play provides games and activities that inspire children's artistic independence, experimentation, and growth. With a diverse range of developmentally appropriate and creative games with seasonal content added monthly, this app offers endless hours of productive play within the colo...

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

I launched ETML in 2010 with the purpose of helping my fellow EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers integrate technology in English language teaching. Fast forward to 2022, ETML became among the top EdTech blogs with over 7000 published blog posts. ETML has been referenced in a wide variety of academic research journals, books, and news outlets including the New York Times, Huffpost.com, Hubspot.com... [continue reading].

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

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This year, artificial intelligence has come up in so many of my conversations with educators. I've traveled to numerous events to speak on this topic, and the energy is palpable. If you've spent time on the blog before, you know that I've shared a handful of AI websites for teachers. Today, I have a few updates for you.

In the list below, I spotlight a few tools I think are worthy of your consideration. They're not all perfect, but I do think they are great examples of what is possible. These connect to the conversations I've had around generative AI and artificial intelligence more broadly, and many are designed with educators in mind.

Note: Check out this free ebook with ChatGPT prompts - thousands of educators have downloaded it already!

Educational Tools and AI Websites for Teachers

Have you tried out any AI tools in your classroom this year? ChatGPT isn't the only AI tool, although it's gotten plenty of attention. AI can provide personalized learning experiences by analyzing individual student needs and interests and adapting content accordingly. These AI tools can automate time-consuming tasks, such as grading, giving teachers more time to engage directly with students.

You might use generative AI to create images to support an upcoming lesson or ask a chatbot questions to gather ideas for a new math lesson. AI-powered educational platforms can even help differentiate instruction - but you'll need to know what your students need and tailor the inputs to get a strong result.

17 AI Websites for Teachers

Adobe Express

If you've explored Adobe Firefly, then you'll want to try out the new Adobe Express. It's a big upgrade from the previous version and has generative AI tools built right in. On the new Adobe Express homepage, you can find the "Text to Image" and "Text Effects" tools right when you log in. I've worked with their team to create some new back-to-school resources, and it's a great way to try out the new Adobe Express.

Pressto Writing Buddy

I've featured Pressto and their AI Writing Assistant in an earlier roundup of AI tools. They just announced the release of a new tool called Writing Buddy. It uses AI to offer tailored guidance to students as they write. The goal is to bolster their writing prowess by furnishing them with evidence-based writing tips and strategies.

Writable

Writable's new AI features are designed to increase teacher agency and save teachers tons of time. Their platform makes it easy to increase the impact of a teacher's feedback by reaching more students faster and in a targeted way when they need support most: while they are writing and reading. I go through everything they have to offer in this new blog post.

TextFX

If you've ever struggled to find the perfect word for a poem, or you want a great example for a "show, not tell" lesson, then you'll want to take a look at TextFX. This AI tool from Google was created in collaboration with Lupe Fiasco and is certainly worth checking out.

Microsoft Bing's Image Creator

A handful of generative AI tools create images, and here's another to try. From Microsoft, this is powered by DALLE-2 and lets you type in a prompt to create images. Here's one I tried: "A puppy reading a book about the solar system in a beach chair with the ocean in the background."

Diffit

Diffit should be on your list to check out if you're looking for leveled resources. Teachers can use this tool to find "just right" resources to share with their students. It's an excellent option for finding materials that support your differentiated instruction goals.

Choice Texts

Want to create a personalized literacy experience for students? Choice Texts is the newest activity type in eSpark's supplemental reading curriculum. With this tool, students help develop their reading passages in real-time with the help of AI. It allows them to create a passage based on their interests with just a few clicks. We talked about this in a recent episode of the Easy EdTech Podcast, too.

Fetchy

This AI website for educators is designed with K-12 educators in mind and includes dozens of tools. It can help you create a newsletter, find a science or math experiment, generate comprehension questions, and more. They have a free 7-day trial for you to explore the tools.

Curipod

As I mentioned at the top of this post, this summer, I've traveled around to lots of spots to host in-person professional development around the topic of AI - and plenty of webinars, too. One tool that I've shared a bunch is Curipod, and it's certainly been well received. This is one of the AI websites for teachers that helps you generate interactive lessons to share with students.

Khanmigo

Have you watched Sal Khan's TED Talk from this year about AI in education? It's a great, short video that provides an overview of the mission behind this new AI tool for teachers. Khanmigo is essentially a one-on-one tutoring tool for students with AI-guided lesson planning and insightful student feedback.

Note: If you're more of a podcast person, I love the interview with Sal Khan on How I Built This with Guy Raz, all about this topic.

Twinkl

This chatbot from Twinkl takes a spin on some of the prompts you may have tried out with ChatGPT. When you open it up, you'll see prompts to press like Morning Activities, Write a Sample Text, and Generate a Story Starter. This is a paid program, but it may be worth investigating if you're looking for support with prompts.

Quizalize

Quizalize is a popular tool that now has a ChatGPT integration. If you scroll a bit down their homepage, you'll see a spot for you to place a topic and have it generate a question. The video on their homepage gives you a sense of how it works and what's possible.

Supermeme

If you want to use memes in your classroom but are unsure where to start, you might want to check out Supermeme. This AI tool for teachers leverages the power of GPT-3 to write "meme-appropriate" captions. This video gives you a sense of how it works, and this podcast episode talks a bit about strategies for using memes in your classroom.

Paperclips

Looking for a quicker way to create flashcards or review materials? Paperclips uses the technology behind ChatGPT to make customizable flashcards - all based on text selections you share. With this tool, you can create flashcards from anywhere and export them to a variety of popular flashcard platforms.

Brain.fm

I started using Brain.fm a few years ago, and it's been such a helpful tool for focusing on tasks. My favorite option is the "30 min deep work," which helps me stay away from social media and text messages when I'm writing a blog post like this one. It uses AI to generate music, and it's certainly a favorite app on my phone.

Kidgeni

For a combination of analog and digital experiences, you might want to try out Kidgeni. You can enter a prompt (similar to what I shared above with Microsoft Bing), and it will create an image. Then it prompts you to print your creation on a T-shirt.

Scraft

Looking to learn a new language? Scraft is an AI language writing tutor for anyone who wants to strengthen their skills in a new language. It provides users with instant feedback, corrections, and explanations of their responses.

Note: Check out this free ebook with ChatGPT prompts - thousands of educators have downloaded it already!

Explore New AI Resources for Educators

When looking at a long list of tools like this, it can be tempting to open up a bunch of browsers and sign up for everything. Instead, I encourage you to try just one or two. Then you might send along this link to a colleague if there is something you think they'd like to try. You might even set a reminder on your calendar for a few weeks from now to see which tools you want to stick with - and a reminder to revisit this list to see if there is something else to try.

It's an exciting (and sometimes scary) time to be in education as new AI websites for teachers come on the scene. To help save you time this school year, I've curated a resource page with information about the latest AI tools that can be used in your classroom. Stay tuned for more roundups like this one, and bookmark my new page full of links that will take you to up-to-date resources on artificial intelligence.

Is there something I missed? Are there other favorite AI websites for teachers or students I should include next time? Reply to my newsletter when it hits your inbox, and share your story. Or send me a note on Instagram or Twitter to tell me all about it.

Find more posts with AI resources:

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17 Exciting AI Websites for Teachers - Class Tech Tips

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Explore a handful of new AI websites for teachers! Discover platforms that simplify grading, enhance learning, and can make your life easier.

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The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.

FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children's education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level. Students to whom the rights have transferred are "eligible students."

Parents or eligible students have the right to inspect and review the student's education records maintained by the school. Schools are not required to provide copies of records unless, for reasons such as great distance, it is impossible for parents or eligible students to review the records. Schools may charge a fee for copies.

Parents or eligible students have the right to request that a school correct records which they believe to be inaccurate or misleading. If the school decides not to amend the record, the parent or eligible student then has the right to a formal hearing. After the hearing, if the school still decides not to amend the record, the parent or eligible student has the right to place a statement with the record setting forth his or her view about the contested information.

Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student's education record. However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):

School officials with legitimate educational interest;

Other schools to which a student is transferring;

Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;

Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;

Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;

Accrediting organizations;

To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;

Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and

State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law.

Schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information such as a student's name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance. However, schools must tell parents and eligible students about directory information and allow parents and eligible students a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose directory information about them. Schools must notify parents and eligible students annually of their rights under FERPA. The actual means of notification (special letter, inclusion in a PTA bulletin, student handbook, or newspaper article) is left to the discretion of each school.

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policy; privacy; academic records; technical assistance; parent rights; student rights; ferpa

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Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

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Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Home Page.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

I launched ETML in 2010 with the purpose of helping my fellow EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers integrate technology in English language teaching. Fast forward to 2022, ETML became among the top EdTech blogs with over 7000 published blog posts. ETML has been referenced in a wide variety of academic research journals, books, and news outlets including the New York Times, Huffpost.com, Hubspot.com... [continue reading].

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

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Please note, this post was last updated in 2018 and I no longer update this website.
Digital footprint, digital shadow, online reputation, digital tattoo - whatever you call it, it's a term that's too important to ignore yet often isn't discussed in homes or classrooms.

Wikipedia describes a digital footprint as:

One's unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions and communications that are manifested on the Internet or on digital devices.

This post looks at how we can teach kids about digital footprints and breaks down the key points. There are lesson and activity ideas. You can also find 10 important things to know about digital footprints summarised in a poster further down.

Promoting Positivity, Not Fear

Traditionally, digital footprint resources tended to focus on the negatives and promoted a culture of fear. This isn't helpful. Our students are generally heavy internet users and scare tactics are unlikely to make them want to disconnect completely. Nor would we want them to.

While we can't be complacent, the message I like to promote is that we should protect and shape our digital footprints, and try to ensure they're positive.

Encouraging students to avoid posting or doing anything online is not the answer.

As the Harley Davidson commercial famously said,

When you write the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen.

When it comes to digital footprints we have some control.

But We're Not Always In Control

Digital footprints are sometimes defined as active and passive. It's important to remember that despite aiming to "hold the pen" and write our own story, this is not always going to be possible.

Images can be altered. Data is stored and accessed without our knowledge. Words can be misquoted. Intentions can be misread. Personal interactions can be shared. Individuals can be tagged without permission. We can't assume we always have control.

So, what is the answer?

Perhaps as Seth Godin once said,

The Weight Of Digital Footprints

Back in 2009 Chris Betcher said:

I can see a day in the not too distant future ... where your 'digital footprint' will carry far more weight than anything you might include in a resume or CV.

Has that day come? Probably. But some people might not realise it.

Reports of colleges or employers relying on Google searches to help make judgements about applicants are nothing new. But maybe where the search used to focus on character judgements, there is now an additional expectation that a portfolio of work will be available?

Surely an archive of online work is going to begin carrying more weight than an outdated qualification or random personal reference?

What Should Be Shared?

One certainty is that young people need guidance navigating the online world, just like the offline world. Because of their age and limited life experience, it can be difficult for students to consider if what they're happy to post online now is something they'll still be happy with in 1/5/10/20 years.

There are certain things you can teach students to definitely avoid sharing online. One acronym I've always liked using is YAPPY ( Your full name, Address, Phone number, Passwords, Y our plans and birthday).

There are many grey areas beyond YAPPY though - sharing opinions, sharing information about others, deciding if content you create should have a public audience... the list goes on. Experience and conversation can be vital.

Feel free to use the above visual on your blog if it would be helpful. Just link back to my site!

Beyond Students: What are Teachers and Parents Doing?

Have you ever cringed seeing a fellow teacher post a questionable photo or loaded opinion on social media? I have. Perhaps underestimating the importance of digital footprints is still a widespread problem.

Another scenario that I still believe is common is teachers not having a digital footprint at all. These issues are worrisome to me when thinking about the need for educators to be role models.

Nowadays, an individual's digital footprint often starts being created before they are even born. Perhaps with a pregnancy announcement on social media followed by all sorts of childhood "firsts" broadcast for an online audience. What are the consequences of this? We can't know for sure, but maybe more education, discussion, and awareness of digital footprints is required within the wider community.

Can our students assist with this task?

How To Teach Children About Digital Footprints

Digital footprints comes under the umbrella of digital citizenship. This used to be called cyber safety or internet safety, but the definition has broadened.

In Teaching Digital Citizenship: 10 Internet Safety Tips for Students, I suggested a four layered approach to covering digital citizenship.

The same approach could be useful for digital footprint education.

1. INTEGRATION: Digital footprint education should be embedded into the curriculum in an ongoing and authentic way (e.g. through a classroom blogging program).

2. STORYTELLING: Students should be presented with "real-life" scenarios to consider, discuss, and learn from.

3. STRATEGIES: Practical strategies should be taught so students build a toolkit of actionable ideas and skills.

4. COMMUNITY: Messages from parents and educators should overlap and there should be ongoing communication.

Read more about this model.

Conversations around digital footprints should be on the agenda from an early age and this is a topic for the whole community. The work of one teacher is not enough.

10 Things Young People Need To Know About Digital Footprints

I've summarised these key points in a poster below which you're welcome to use in your classroom.

1. When you visit websites, search, and interact online, a trail of information is left behind.

2. Elements of your digital footprints can be searched or shared.

3. Digital footprints can be helpful or harmful to reputations both now and in the future.

4. Once online, things can exist forever (even if deleted).

5. You should always think before you post online.

6. Personal information or opinions sent to one person can be shared with a larger audience.

7. Googling yourself can be a good habit to get into (or try a search engine like Pipl).

8. Old or inactive accounts should be disabled or deleted.

9. You should keep certain personal details private and you can control the privacy settings on many of your online accounts.

10. We need to be mindful of the digital footprints of others too (e.g. Ask before tagging others in photos).

Resources For Teaching About Digital Footprints

Videos

Check out this great video by Common Craft. The simple explanation makes it clear to students that everything they do online leaves a trail, and this is something they should be cautious of. It also reminds students what they can do to take control of their digital footprint.

This short video from the eSafety Office could be a good classroom discussion starter for older students.

Digital reputation | What comes up when you Google yourself?

Lesson Plans

Fact Sheets

Conclusion

Young people are naturally wired to take risks. In the pre-internet days it was easier. Sharing of personal details was often confined to letters, diaries, or phones calls, not a global audience. Some risks were less consequential.

We want our students to continue to be curious creators who enjoy connecting with the world in purposeful ways. Let's help guide them to build a positive digital footprint as they do just that. You never know what amazing opportunities could come of it.

You Might Also Enjoy
Teaching Digital Citizenship: 10 Internet Safety Tips for Students Working With Families: 10 Internet Safety Tips for Parents Where to Find Free Images for Students and Teachers 8 Ways Teachers And Schools Can Communicate With Parents

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Teaching Kids About Digital Footprints And Online Reputations

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Updated 2019 with a printable classroom poster sharing 10 tips kids need to know about digital footprints. Find lesson ideas and activities that you can do with your students at the elementary or high school level. This post breaks down what is a digital footprint for children.

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Book Creator has teamed up with Common Sense Education to bring you these fantastic new resources for your classroom.

We are thrilled to announce a new series of Book Creator books written by our friends at Common Sense Education. These books form part of the excellent Digital Citizenship Curriculum on the Common Sense Education website, and they are available to add to your library for free in Book Creator.

New to Book Creator?

Welcome! You can in Book Creator for free and you'll get 1 library and 40 books. If you need some help getting started check out our getting started guide.

Once your account has been created, you can add these books below to your library with one click! Just hit the Remix button and choose which library you want to add it to. Then, when you've invited students to your library, they can simply make a copy of the book and complete the activities.

Let's learn more about these amazing resources.

Pause & Think Online introduces 5-8 year old learners to the Digital Citizens. Students sing along with these friendly characters to help think about being safe, responsible and respectful online.

Your Rings of Responsibility gets 8-10 year old learners thinking about how to take responsibility for their actions online in relation to themselves, their communities and the the world at large. This book contains interactive activities for students to complete.

In Heart's Online Friendships, 9-11 year old learners explore the benefits and risks of making friends online. We follow 'Heart', one of the Digital Citizens, as they face certain scenarios online and then reflect on how we would react in the same situation.

Book Creator & Common Sense Education

This partnership between Common Sense Education and Book Creator brings the excellent Common Sense Digital Citizenship Curriculum to an interactive book in Book Creator. Common Sense Education recently updated their review of Book Creator, giving it 5/5 stars and choosing Book Creator as a Common Sense Selection for Learning for 2021.

We are delighted to be working with Common Sense Education and hope to bring you more books in partnership with them in the future!

"We are excited to share these new books with educators, and we love how students can use the interactive features in Book Creator to learn about how to be a safe and responsible digital citizen", said Kelly Mendoza, Vice President of Education Programs at Common Sense Education.

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Digital Citizenship activity book series from Common Sense Education - Book Creator app

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Book Creator has teamed up with Common Sense Education to bring you these fantastic new Digital Citizenship resources for your classroom.

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Resource for students to share their work

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Resource for students to share their work

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Vivi - Connect, Communicate, Collaborate

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Vivi for Teachers Empowering students to share their voice, creativity, and work anytime from anywhere - wirelessly! Sign Up for FREE * indicates required School Email Address *School Name *First Name Last Name “They love sharing their work and showing their classmates how they got to an answer. They ask me to use Vivi every

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42 Awesome Interactive Bulletin Board Ideas for Your Classroom

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Create an interactive experience with your bulletin boards to encourage students to practice new skills and stay fully involved in their education.

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Enrich your searches with insights from children’s and young adult books, powered by the expertise and resources from TeachingBooks

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Undoubtedly, technology has allowed us to connect, perform, improve, and leverage our resources beyond what was once imaginable, and one of the biggest ways is through time management apps. But with so many apps to choose from, how do you know which ones to use?

The best way to identify an app is to look at your current challenges with time management. Do you get distracted too easily and never complete a task? Or perhaps you end the day without achieving much, wondering where all your time went?

We all have challenges when it comes to being more productive. The best time management apps around vary depending on your needs. That's why we've put together a list of 15 of the best time management apps to help you with the most common challenges.

If you're not taking advantage of some of the hundreds of time management tools , you're missing out.

Let's dive straight into the list.

15 Time Management Apps You Need To Try

1. Rize - Use Your Time Wisely

If you don't know what you did all day or feel that you haven't accomplished much at the end of the day, you will be excited to know about . Rize not only tracks your time but also gives you valuable insights to improve your productivity, build better habits and increase your focus. The highlight is that you don't need to constantly input information, this is automatically done for you.

You can see how many hours you have worked, how much of that time is focus time, how much time you spend context switching, and which websites distract you most, among many other features. Tracking and managing your time efficiently has never been easier.

2. Notion - Keep on Top of All Your Tasks

Think of Notion as a single platform with different productivity apps, helping you keep your notes and work in one place. You can collaborate, share documents and notes, and create a central knowledge base for your team, supporting you in all your project management needs.

You can use Notion to replace your to-do lists, project management, note-taking apps, spreadsheets, etc. It saves you time and money and helps you keep on top of your time management and organization.

3. Forest - Boost Motivation to Complete Tasks

is a unique reinvention of time management apps. This unique and fun app helps you stay focused and incorporates the Pomodoro technique, breaking work into chunks with short intervals. The concept is simple: If you stay focused during this time, your virtual tree will grow. If you lose focus, the tree will die. As the app's name implies, you can grow multiple trees to create a virtual forest!

On top of this particular time management tool being really fun, it reinforces the need to focus on the task. Go ahead and build a wonderful and colorful virtual forest to use as proof to you that you can focus!

Pro tip: Staying focused all the time isn't easy, especially when distractions are everywhere these days! Try the Time Flow System and learn how to sharpen your focus!

4. Spark - Finally Reach Inbox 0

Even with hundreds of communication tools available to us, email use continues to grow. Whether your job is based largely on emails or not, managing your email and staying on top of it is key to productivity. You will be shocked to see how much time can be wasted with email by not having structure or automation to support you in staying on top of your game.

According to a survey by Adobe, people spend at least 3.1 hours checking and reading emails at work. Spark has many features, from removing distractions to only notifying you of important emails to snoozing emails. You can also send an email to your Task Manager to add to your to-do's, reply quickly with templates, as well as get reminded to follow up on emails and schedule to reply to certain emails later.

Finally, reach inbox 0 with Spark.

5. Serene - Focus on Tasks at Hand

One of the biggest time wasters is giving in to distractions, multi-tasking, and not completing tasks because of this. Serene takes productivity to the next level in three easy steps and helps you to get more done in your day.
It helps you to:

1. Plan your day - Define your goals and tasks for the day and when you want to do them.

2. Block Distractions - When starting a task, Serene blocks websites, updates your statuses (ie. unavailable on Slack), and eliminates distractions overall.

3. Focus Enhancers - It helps you to stay focused on the task with timers, music, breaks, etc.

It is an all-in-one time management tool you want in your kit.

6. Fathom.Video - Zoom Is Your Minute Taker

Since COVID-19, the Zoom app has been downloaded 485 million times in 2020. Although Zoom has been a huge contribution to productivity, so much time is wasted capturing notes and important information, never mind losing focus on what is being said.

Fathom is an excellent time management tool for meetings and super easy to use. During your meeting, you can highlight important moments, such as decisions, questions, action items, etc. These are sent to you after your meeting with a transcription of the meeting and highlights. This tool syncs your notes to Hubspot, Salesforce, and other CRM platforms accordingly and automatically.

7. MyLifeOrganized (MLO) - Manage Your To-Do Lists Effectively

Excellent time management techniques entail to-do lists and having a system to manage your tasks. However, even with various apps and methods, they can be overwhelming for people. This is where MyLifeOrganized comes in.

This task management software helps you target what you should be focusing on to reach your objectives. MyLifeOrganized is one of the best time management apps for focused work. It automatically generates to-do lists with priority actions for your immediate attention so that you can track your progress methodically.

8. 1Password - Have All Your Passwords Remembered

How much time do you spend looking for login details or having to reset passwords? 1Password is still a must-have time management app as it allows you to keep all your passwords in one encrypted database - protected by one password.

According to research, more than half of Americans have had to reset five passwords each month on average. This saves you time when you forget your passwords and need to retrieve them and also allows you to use various passwords for different accounts so you don't compromise on security.

9. Alarmy - Joyful Alarm Clock

Waking up early to have time for yourself and set yourself up for the day is the ingredient to mastering your day. Alarmy makes it impossible to sleep in or snooze by giving you a few options of challenges to complete before the alarm turns off.

You can play memory games, do math, take photos, squat, and many more. By the time you have completed the challenge, you are already awake, and your mind is active. There are other great features, such as personalizing your sounds and recording how you feel, to gain insights. Get more out of your day with Alarmy.

10. Focus@Will - Boost Your Attention Span

This amazing app combines neuroscience and music to boost your productivity. According to the developers, it's possible to increase your attention span by up to 400% using Focus@Will, making this one of the best time management apps available, which is why it stays on our list.

Focus@Will is ideal for those who find it difficult to focus while studying, working, or reading. It also helps you control your ADD.

11. Alfred - Interact With Your Computer in a Smart Way

Alfred is a small and simple tool that lets you launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes. This is one of the greatest time management techniques as it removes the need for searching through multiple folders to find what you need. The only downside is that it's only available for macOS.

12. Habitica - Gamify Your Habits

Having the right habits can either save you hours of time or waste hours, and how productive you are, depends on your habits. The challenge is that the initial excitement and motivation to develop new habits wears off quickly, and when there is no consistency in building the new habit, it will never replace the old.

This is where Habitica becomes your partner in success. Track your goals, to-dos, and habits. Stay accountable for achieving your goals with features such as rewards, punishments, and streaks. Finally, have fun getting things done!

13. Quire - Unfold Your Ideas

Quire is another excellent and innovative time management app that boosts your team's productivity. The strength of this app is in its features for collaboration and ease of sharing. Through the various time management techniques this app offers, you can streamline and adjust your workflow based on your team's needs and preferences.

14. Doodle - Scheduling Has Never Been Easier

It can be quite frustrating going back and forth spending more time than needed coordinating a day and time that works for everyone to get together. Doodle comes to the rescue here.

Whether you're planning a meeting or a party, Doodle sends everyone options and times and tracks the time that works best for everyone to schedule. It keeps everyone up to date with all current and upcoming events and also syncs with Zoom, Google Meet, Outlook, Microsoft teams, and Zapier for easier collaboration.

15. Dropbox - Store and Send Large Files Easily

Dropbox stays on the list of the top apps that allow you to transfer content from your computer to other devices and access it anywhere. It is free, and it is easier to use than the others.

With the Dropbox app, you can even access and share important files on the go. It is an easy way to share your files and documents with others for improved productivity.

Final Thoughts

The above list covers what we consider to be the very best time management apps and tools available. And the good news is that many of them are completely free of charge! So, what are you waiting for? Select the ones that will be the most valuable to you, and begin boosting your productivity now!

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15 Best Time Management Apps and Tools (2023 Updated) - LifeHack

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With hundreds of apps and tools to choose from, you may not know where to start. Here're 15 best time management apps for productivity.

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30+ creative ways to use Padlet for teachers and students

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I’m always excited when I’m using Padlet. Is it the interface, the way everything is designed, its purpose or the fact that I’m organizing things smoothly? I don’t know. It just makes me happy.

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Toddlers

Setting aside time for toddlers to play is vital to their development. Through new experiences, toddlers practice motor skills, learn to communicate, discover their emotions, and develop cognitive skills.

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At Teaching Mama, our mission is to make parents and teachers lives easier by providing high-quality educational resources to meet the needs of their little learners.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

I launched ETML in 2010 with the purpose of helping my fellow EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers integrate technology in English language teaching. Fast forward to 2022, ETML became among the top EdTech blogs with over 7000 published blog posts. ETML has been referenced in a wide variety of academic research journals, books, and news outlets including the New York Times, Huffpost.com, Hubspot.com... [continue reading].

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

I launched ETML in 2010 with the purpose of helping my fellow EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers integrate technology in English language teaching. Fast forward to 2022, ETML became among the top EdTech blogs with over 7000 published blog posts. ETML has been referenced in a wide variety of academic research journals, books, and news outlets including the New York Times, Huffpost.com, Hubspot.com... [continue reading].

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

I launched ETML in 2010 with the purpose of helping my fellow EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers integrate technology in English language teaching. Fast forward to 2022, ETML became among the top EdTech blogs with over 7000 published blog posts. ETML has been referenced in a wide variety of academic research journals, books, and news outlets including the New York Times, Huffpost.com, Hubspot.com... [continue reading].

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

I launched ETML in 2010 with the purpose of helping my fellow EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers integrate technology in English language teaching. Fast forward to 2022, ETML became among the top EdTech blogs with over 7000 published blog posts. ETML has been referenced in a wide variety of academic research journals, books, and news outlets including the New York Times, Huffpost.com, Hubspot.com... [continue reading].

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (ETML) is a blog owned and operated by Med Kharbach. Dr. Kharbach holds a PhD in educational studies from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. He was also a K-12 teacher with over 12 years of classroom teaching experience.

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This lesson provides a platform in which students can critically analyze popular television programs. The media has a huge effect on popular culture. Television programs underscore stereotypes of various groups of people. By looking at the media critically, students develop an awareness of the messages that are portrayed through the media.

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At Kids Helpline we want to support you when you're navigating through difficult situations. Check out our resources to help you or a friend today.

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Pomodoro Focus Timer app is based on the Pomodoro Technique incorporating a To-Do List. No need to grab a pen and paper or open your notes when you can do both in just one app.

The app manifests an intelligible and composed experience for its users. We aim to help you work and study with minimal distraction and maximum productivity.

Let's get to the action:
1. On the tasks screen, add the tasks you intend to work on.
2. Pin task if you wish it to be displayed on the Timer page.
3. Start the timer by setting it as per your choice (ideally 25 minutes).
4. Take a 5 minutes break (customizable) when the Pomodoro timer rings.
5. Once done, mark the task as completed.

Siri Shortcuts:
* Ask Siri to start a timer for you and go handsfree.

Customization Alerts:
* Use the Settings tab to customize session and break timings.
* Enable the options you want in particular and disable the ones you can manage without.

Statistics:
* Track your work sessions for a day as well as for a lifetime.

Synchronization:
* All your tasks and settings will be synced in real-time with every iOS, watchOS, iPadOS and macOS (Coming very soon).
* Manage all from your watch - Use your watch as a remote, add a new task, start and stop the timer and many more.

User Interface:
* Blends well with your system display settings (Dark Mode everywhere!)

Created by Indie Developer - Pawanpreet Singh (@_pawanpreet) :)

We're excited to bring you the latest updates to our Pomodoro Focus Timer app. With your valuable feedback and our continuous commitment to improving your experience, we've addressed some critical issues and added a few enhancements. Here's what's new in this release:

Crash Fix:
We've identified and resolved an issue that caused app crashes for iOS 17 users. Thanks to those who reported this - your focus sessions should now be smoother than ever!

Auto Start Break::
Productivity should be seamless. To keep your workflow going, we've introduced an auto-start break feature. Now, after completing a work session, the break timer will start automatically. Take that well-deserved break without any extra clicks!

So clean, so simple, so effective

I've tried a number of pomodoro apps and my biggest pet peeve is throwing in stupid limitations just so users have to pay extra. It's supposed to be an egg timer in principle and operation. A lot of them are clunky and there's always these ads at the bottom that make the whole thing distracting. This is by far the best app I've come across because it has none of those things. Its clean, simple and super effective. It's an egg timer both in principle and operation. I would definitely recommend to a friend.

Great app!

I've tested all the features and everything works with no bugs. I wish statistics is would feature daily, weekly and monthly charts that shows the number of hours I've worked on something. That would make this app even more amazing and help me and others motivated to keep going.

great app

One of the best apps out there for free, since there isn't a need to pay for extra features.

there are some bugs though, like creating tasks can be glitchy sometimes. Restarting the app will fix it temporarily. I can live with it, so I'm giving 5 stars for the sake this app being free

The developer, Pawanpreet Singh, indicated that the app's privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

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‎Pomodoro Focus Timer app is based on the Pomodoro Technique incorporating a To-Do List. No need to grab a pen and paper or open your notes when you can do both in just one app. The app manifests an intelligible and composed experience for its users.

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Hello all! I have been using Google Earth and Google Maps in my classroom for over three years now and it is a game changer!
Not only does Google earth act like a digital globe, students can use Google Maps and Google earth to enter 360° photo spheres to experience locations in all directions. This is awesome to use with any location in social studies (i.e. Colosseum, Pyramids of Giza, Tigris and Euphrates, etc.) but also is wonderful to add another layer to novel studies. You can have your students deep dive into the setting f a book by "traveling" there and experiencing what the characters might have seen!

It is easier to show you how to use it so check out this video!

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Google Earth and Google Maps in the Classroom

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Hello all! I have been using Google Earth and Google Maps in my classroom for over three years now and it is a game changer! Not on...

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CORAL is a multidisciplinary model for the integration of technology with collaborative teaching and learning ( e.g., Ashcraft & Treadwell, 2008, Chamberlin, 2000; Treadwell, 1999; Treadwell, Leach, Kellar, Lewis & Mittan, 1998 ). Over the past decade, technology has moved out of the computer lab, into the classroom and in the Cloud as a basic fundamental tool for fostering student creativity and project-based collaborative learning. The CORAL platform is an effort to rethink the role of the professor in the 21st century classroom pursuing 'project based' collaborative learning in a way that gives students more ownership in the process and mirroring the complexities found in modern complex organizations. In brief, this is an active problem-centered approach to collaborative teaching, research, and learning, fusing the two related approaches (Deal, 2009).

Currently, faculty members from the Departments of Psychology (College of the Sciences and Mathematics) and Management (College of Business and Public Management) at West Chester University of Pennsylvania have implemented the CORAL platform to focus on the management and evaluation of high performance teams. An emphasis is placed on the facilitation of intra-team collaboration and identification of the managerial practices that lead to synergy and enhanced team performance.

The CORAL pedagogy fosters the development of skills in using computer and video-technology as tools to enhance effective collaboration in college courses. The CORAL model cultivates four major objectives:

1. Integrates several different teaching and learning styles, thereby providing a more inclusive learning format.

2. Structured by the professors, but led by the students fostering independent thinking and active learning,

3. Promoting interdependence by having students share the division of labor by formulating roles and tasks that compel students to reach consensus.

4. Fosters the distinction between Collaborative and Cooperative learning as an indispensable preliminary step when designing an operational collaborative learning and workplace environment!

Within this framework students are encouraged to seek outside opinions without fear of being criticized.

Announcements

Thomas Treadwell Ed.D. TEP, CGP
Link to publish

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Collaborative On-Line Research and Learning

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CORAL is a multidisciplinary model for the integration of technology with collaborative teaching and learning ( e.g., Ashcraft & Treadwell, 2008, Chamberlin, 2000; Treadwell, 1999; Treadwell, Leach, Kellar, Lewis & Mittan, 1998 ). Over the past decade, technology has moved out of the computer lab, into the classroom and in the Cloud as a basic fundamental tool for fostering student creativity and project-based collaborative learning.