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The Edu Blogger has very helpful pictures and captions to explain how Google Slides work! She also has several ideas on how to manipulate Google Slides to make fun activities for your students. I learnt that Google Slides has live captions that you can enable. This would be great for students who are deaf, hard of hearing, or ELL learners.

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Slides go creates stunning Google Slides templates. They have plenty of free templates as well as some you pay for. I have used slides go in the past and I love it. It can really liven up a presentation. I plan on using these templates in all my future presentations!

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Free Teacher Google Slides themes and PowerPoint templates

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Download and customize our Teacher Google Slides themes and PowerPoint templates and create educational presentations ✓ Free ✓ Easy to edit ✓ Professional

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PhET simulations creates simulations for Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, and Biology. I have seen them used in my clinical placements and the students love using them. I learnt on the website that you can filter by grade level. I plan on using these frequently in my classroom for many topics!

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By converting our sims to HTML5, we make them seamlessly available across platforms and devices. Whether you have laptops, iPads, chromebooks, or BYOD, your favorite PhET sims are always right at your fingertips.Become part of our mission today, and transform the learning experiences of students everywhere!

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Similarly to PhET simulations, Gizmos provides simulations for students to utilize in class. I prefer the graphics of gizmos more. A few gizmos are free. I would use these for my labs for my biology classes.

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Interactive STEM Simulations & Virtual Labs | Gizmos

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Unlock STEM potential with our 550+ virtual labs and interactive math and science simulations. Discover engaging activities and STEM lessons with Gizmos!

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This website provides a great introductory to Nearpod. I learnt that Nearpod works for students who are even Zoom. That is so helpful for students who may be sick and miss school often. I plan on using Nearpod in my classroom to make sure students are on the program they are supposed to be on

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What is Nearpod and How Does it Work? Best Tips and Tricks

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Nearpod uses media and assessments to make hybrid learning better and easier

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Nearpod is great for presenting in classrooms. I learnt that Nearpod has interactive activities. I also found out Nearpod can do formative assessments and grade them immediately. I would use Nearpod to grade my formative assessments so i can give them quick feedback.

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Nearpod helps educators make any lesson interactive, whether in the classroom or virtual. The concept is simple. A teacher can create interactive presentations that can contain Quizzes, Polls, Videos, Collaborate Boards, and more. You can access thousands of premade K-12 standards-aligned lessons or upload your existing lessons and make them interactive using Nearpod in the classroom. Nearpod makes teaching easier with the interactive tools, resources, and content teachers need, all in one place. You can sign up for a free account today and learn 5 ways to use a free Nearpod account.

The students can access a teacher's Live Participation presentation through a code, and the teacher then moves the class through the lesson and lets students interact with the media as they go. Teachers can also opt for Student-Paced mode, where the student controls the flow of the lesson. This mode is perfect for remote learning, hybrid learning, sub days, homework assignments, or independent work. The app is web-based and works on any device with an internet connection.

10 ways to use Nearpod in the classroom

Below are just ten simple ways you can utilize this multiple-solutions-in-one tool:

1. Simple presentation delivery

At its most simple, you can use Nearpod as a substitute for other presentation tools. Instead of running a Powerpoint or Google Slides, you can utilize Nearpod and make the lesson more interactive. You can even 'drag and drop' your existing Google Slides, PDFs, and PowerPoints into the app for it to instantly create a Nearpod presentation. Then you can select from countless interactive activities and formative assessments. The presentations will be beamed to each student's device in the classroom. You also do not have to rely on students being able to see the board.

2. Personalized provision and differentiation

Following on from the idea of using Nearpod as a simple presentation tool, you could isolate the use of the app to one student or a small group. It could be that you are beaming extra teaching provisions to particular pupils during a starter. This could be the missing link that provides more support for a child with visual impairments. It could provide that extra bit of help for a low attainer in your class. You can also duplicate the lesson and modify to deliver differentiated content to your students. You can edit these lessons with personalized formative assessment activities, collect feedback, and inclusive accessibility.

3. Distributing student resources

Using the app to distribute resources is another simple way of using it in the classroom. You can fill your presentation with images or worksheets and ask the students to use the Students Notes feature to save the presentation to their drive to access the information later when studying for an exam or completing homework.

4. Live formative assessment

The app can become even more useful if you insert one of Nearpod's many formative assessment activities into your presentation. As a teacher, you can create customized Quizzes, Polls, Open-ended Questions, Matching Pairs, Draw It activities, and more. Use these tools to view their responses and check for students' understanding in real-time. The teacher can instantly gain insights into the classes' overall understanding and make adjustments on the fly.

5. Interactive gamification and activities

One simple way to implement Nearpod into your daily instruction is to have students do an interactive activity. Add interest and excitement into everyday learning with Drag & Drop, Draw It, Time to Climb, Matching Pairs, and Collaborate Board. To review a unit use the gamified multiple-choice quiz, Time to Climb. With Collaborate Board, teachers can host classroom discussions with students using an interactive board to share ideas in real-time.

6. Self-assessment

It is common practice in Primary and Secondary schools for students to assess themselves and evaluate their own confidence levels. This is usually achieved through a traffic light system that children are encouraged to draw in their workbooks. Red indicates a poor confidence level, amber indicates a fair understanding and green indicates a very good understanding of any given learning topic.

Nearpod contains the option of inserting a 'Poll'. In this situation, students' opinions are questioned. This makes the 'Polling' tool a perfect feature to use when 'traffic lighting' in the classroom. The information is then saved in the aforementioned reports!

The app also has a feature called ' Draw It' that can be built into your presentations. This beams an interactive whiteboard to the students' devices. The teacher's device will display all of the students' 'drawings' and the teacher can then 'share' individual whiteboards with the entire class. Hitting share will cause the chosen 'drawing' to appear on every device. This enables teachers to share good work and model good progressions.

8. Open-ended tasks

Nearpod in the classroom allows for creative flexibility. The 'Open-Ended Questions' feature allows the teacher to pose a question or set up a scenario for the students to respond to. With this tool, you can facilitate creative writing tasks. As a result, the advantage of using something like Nearpod for this kind of activity is that the 'Open-Ended' answers are then automatically logged in the reports.

9. Setting homework

All of the above examples revolve around the idea of using Nearpod in a Live session, but students can also engage on their own time. You can provide a Student-Paced code and they can access the Nearpod lesson at home, or anywhere with an internet connection.

10. Sharing and using pre-made resources

One way of using Nearpod involves almost no work at all. Once you log on, tap on the ' Nearpod Library ' button on the left side and it will take you to a library of pre-made Nearpod lessons. You can find interactive presentations on almost anything for K-12 made by reliable subject experts. Near down your search by using the filters on the left side, typing into the search for, or browsing around our featured content. You can search by lesson type, standards, subjects, grade levels, and keywords.

Get started using Nearpod

The customizable nature of the app means that it can be applied to any age range and teaching context. It saves you time with real-time formative assessment and session reports and helps build a connected culture in and outside of the classroom.
Sign up for free!

Interested in downloading a PDF version of this resource? Download to access at any time and share with colleagues!

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Nearpod is a student engagement platform that can be used to amazing effect in the classroom. It's as useful as it is simple to use.

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Travelnitch is a website that provides virtual tours of landmarks, museums, National parks, and different biomes. I learnt that not every child has the ability to travel to the places we talk about in class. I would use this website in my classroom when talking about different biomes in my ecology unit. The virtual tour would be helpful show the difference in biomes.

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Not everyone has the time or money to travel. That's why we're bringing your kids the best and most diverse selection of online experiences-museums, zoos, parks, and more. Journey around the world together without ever leaving home (or the classroom)!

virtual tours for kids - At Travelnitch, we create opportunities for shared learning, so parents and children can explore the world together.

We deliver new and exciting experiences to encourage dialogue and provoke curiosity. For that reason, we have three primary goals: - Strengthen the bond between parent and child through a shared love of travel. - Forge a more meaningful connection between kids and the world around them. - Promote creative learning to inspire a lifelong passion for exploration.

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Travel plays such an important role in our lives. It has the ability to change us for the better. It's an experiential education that teaches us how to feel, think, act, and react in positive ways. Travel fosters creativity, builds confidence, and teaches us all to be more tolerant. My own kids benefit from travel every time we hit the open road. No amount of money can buy those life lessons.

Travelnitch is inspiring the next generation of explorers. We believe travel is a wonderful way to ignite the imagination and get kids excited about the world. However, we need your help to make this possible. Please spread the word and support our efforts to raise citizens of the world. Let's go on this adventure together!

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We're bringing your family the best and most diverse selection of virtual tours for kids-museums, zoos, parks, and more.

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This website highlights several resources that use AR to help students engage in the classroom. I learnt that AR helps increase student participation. A resource I would use from this website is COspacesEDU. They have good graphics with several resources for all subjects and grade levels. I would use this resource for AR dissections.

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7 Augmented Reality Tools for the Classroom

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A technology integration specialist shares some ways her district uses augmented reality to boost engagement in learning.

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Book Widgets has several ways to implement a QR code in the classroom. One of the ways I liked is to put a QR code on your door that students must scan when they come into the classroom. This speeds up having to take attendance. I would definitely use this in my high school classroom.

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26 Creative Ways Teachers Can Use QR Codes in Their Classrooms

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Gone are the days when teachers scribbled different blackboard elements to explain complex concepts. Today, teachers and students are much more advanced and empowered regarding the use of technology.

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Qr.io allows you to create custom QR codes. I would use this website to create QR codes to my google classroom, to YouTube videos, etc. I think QR helps speed up transitions because students don't have to find the link or manually type it in.

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Generate fully customized QR Codes, with color & shape, logo and keep track of how many people scan your QR Codes, from where and on what date.

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word art is a website that creates word clouds. I think this is a helpful way to visualize the importance of their vocab. I would use this in my classroom and let students take the time to research any words they were unfamiliar with and ask me if they needed help!

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WordArt.com is an AI-powered word cloud generator that enables you to create amazing and unique word clouds with ease.

Professional quality results can be achieved in no time at all, even for users with no prior knowledge of graphic design.

Word clouds (also known as tag cloud, word collage or wordle) are visual representation of text that give greater rank to words that appear more frequently.

Word clouds are perfect for creating stunning personalized gifts. No sign up required!

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Create Stunning Word Clouds in Seconds | WordArt.com

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WordArt.com is an online word cloud generator that enables you to create amazing and unique word clouds with ease

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https://www.classpoint.io/blog/engaging-word-cloud-activitiesClasspoint.io is a website that allows students to submit a word into the word cloud. This is a great activity for student engagement. I would use this to create icebreakers on the first day of school. This could help alleviate some of the first day jitters because all the words submitted are anonymous.

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Learning with visualization is really impactful for students, especially visual learners, and one effective and easy way to do this is with word clouds. On top of visual information, word cloud activities are a fun way to promote student engagement when you create the word cloud out of student's own words.

What is a word cloud?

Word clouds are a brilliant visual demonstration tool that can showcase brainstorming sessions, students' opinions, or responses by taking a set of data (words) and organizing them in a group and enlarging the popular words. With live interactive word clouds, using a tool such as ClassPoint, you can take students' responses and compile them into a dynamic 'cloud' full of colorful words. Their ideas move around and grow in size, capturing an idea-sharing moment that can hook students' attentions & emotions and ignite verbatim memory retention.

And, it's a fun activity! Students can participate using their own device, see their ideas come to life on their teacher's screen, and watch it dance around along the words of their classmates'.

Benefits of a word cloud

Interactive thinking activity that engages students with the lesson

Very easy & quick when using tools such as ClassPoint

Visually demonstrates concepts which can increase retention & memory, especially the enlarged ideas

Provides teachers with quick information on student understanding, feedback, opinions, etc.

Can help students connect to the material or start thinking of their own ideas

Creates excitement about the topic

Student's have fun!

Using an interactive word cloud is a fun and visually unique way to engage with your students and gather responses to keep your lessons exciting and interactive.

How to create a word cloud

There are a few options out there for creating a word cloud! You can use your own creativity and a design platform such as Canva or PowerPoint and put together your own word cloud ahead of class. Or you can use a tool that will generate a word cloud for you. Some tools will let you copy & paste your own set of data, but it will be static. Therefore, if it's possible, we recommend running word cloud activities using a student response system.

With an interactive tool, such as ClassPoint, you can generate a word cloud during your lesson with real time student responses. The word cloud activities in this blog are designed to be used during class, so we recommend an interactive tool. Check out how to run word cloud activities inside PowerPoint, or continue along our list of 10 types of word cloud activities with question examples to inspire.

10 Ways to Use Word Cloud Activities

There are many ways, parts of a lesson, and types of questions that you can turn into an interactive word cloud activity to get your students to contribute live during your presentation. The following are 10 ways you can use a word cloud to get you inspired, and x different word cloud activity ideas you can use today.

1. Ice Breaker

Word cloud activities are excellent ice breakers! Get to know your students and help them get to know each other by asking easy questions and representing student responses in a compiled cloud. Their answers can remain anonymous, and they can see if other students have similar hobbies or opinions!

Questions examples to break the ice:

What are some of your favorite hobbies?

How do you like to spend your free time?

What country would you visit tomorrow if you could?

2. Introduce new topic

Start a new lesson with a word cloud warm up! Ask your students a low-stakes question or gather what they already know at the start of a new topic to get them instantly involved and to turn their brains on and ready to participate.

Questions to introduce a topic:

What items do you think carry energy?

Look at this picture, what feelings do you think it is trying to convey?

What painting art movements and genres do you already know about?

What words come to mind when you think of the 1920's era?

3. Collect new ideas

Collect student ideas and demonstrate them using a visual cloud to get students from passively listening to actively forming an opinion and connecting concepts!

Pro tip: If you are using ClassPoint, you can choose to show the results as students are submitting their answers, or hide until the question is closed. Leave it open to help inspire students unsure of how to answer, or close it if you are looking for uninfluenced answers or opinions.

Questions to collect new ideas:

What are problems with convenience foods?

What is your opinion on concept?

Summarize in one word what you think about topic.

What is a different way you could write the cliché: "read between the lines"?

4. To conduct a brainstorm session

Use word cloud to facilitate a class brainstorming session! Prompt students with a question, allow them to think by themselves, and then have students share their thoughts and visualize ideas & class trends with a word cloud. Self-producing and analyzing a list of possibilities can help students get creative ideas flowing and help narrow down an area of study before going off on to their own.

Questions to facilitate brainstorming:

What are the main themes/topics from current book?

What words come to your mind when you think of globalization?

What do you picture when you think of deforestation?

What are some human activities that cause harm on biodiversity and the ecosystem?

5. Set up a discussion

Use a word cloud activity to segue into a discussion. Word cloud questions can help get students to think about their opinion, share it anonymously with the class, and realize other thoughts, angles, or points of view from their classmates!

Questions to spark discussion:

Read this passage and write 3 words or short phrases that jump out at you.

What kind of bias did the African American female mathematicians face in 'Hidden Figures'?

In one or two words only, what is a main theme in the book What you are reading?

6. To sum up a topic

Get students to reproduce what they are learning by asking them to summarize a main topic in class. They can submit one summarizing word at the end of a lesson, or recall a previous topic at the start of a new day or during review sessions.

Questions to summarize a topic:

Based on our discussion, what are some of the biggest causes of climate change?

Give a one-word summary of the impact the invention of the printing press had on society.

What is something you learned about in today's lesson on Computer Workstation Components and Functions?

7. Check for understanding

Use word cloud as an understanding check! Quickly get immediate feedback from students as use the display of responses to identify any topics that were missed and need revisiting, as well as identify any students who might be struggling with a major aspect of the topic.

Pro tip: If you are using ClassPoint, you can click on any word inside the word cloud to see which participating student submitted it!

Questions for understanding checks:

What foods (Italian vocab) might someone order for primo piatto?

What did you learn this week in history?

What topic are you still confused about?

8. Reflect on experience (learning)

Ask students to share about their learning experience using word cloud.

Questions to get students to reflect:

How would you describe your field trip experience?

What one word would you use to describe yesterday's guest presentation?

What topic would you like to learn more about?

9. Ease into vulnerable topics with student anonymity

If you want to have an open discussion about divisive, controversial, or vulnerable topics, use word clouds anonymous idea sharing to ease into vulnerable opinion sharing. Seeing similar opinions or new ideas might encourage students to speak out after starting with a low-risk word cloud activity.

Questions warm into vulnerable topics:

How do you feel when you hear someone spreading rumors about someone?

Where do you see discrimination take place?

What are examples of gender-inclusive nouns we can use when talking about jobs?

10. Check in on students SEL

Prioritizing social emotional learning is really important for student mental health, but answering questions or discussing emotional well being in front of other people is really challenging, so using word cloud can be one great solution.

Questions to check on students' SEL:

Chose 2 words that describe how you are feeling today.

What makes you feel stressed?

When do you laugh most at school?

Bonus Word Cloud Activity type #11: Collect Opinions

Use word cloud to gather student opinions! Each student get's to share their opinion and feel heard, and you can get a glimpse of class opinions in a "class opinion cloud."

Inspired by any of these word cloud activities? Share your favorites, new ideas, or word cloud activities you've used in class!

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10 Types Of Word Cloud Activities That Engage Students - ClassPoint Blog | ClassPoint

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Word Cloud activities are brilliant visualization ideas that come to life getting students engaged, thinking, and inspired. Use these 10 types of activities for any subject.