https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1 en-us 2022-09-07 13:58:49 UTC 2022-10-07 17:53:44 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f468-1f3eb.png cadyates https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1/wish/2286580800 <sup>Summary of Function: Education.com is both an amazing content resource and tool that teachers can use to make learning interactive for students in Pre K-8. On Education.com, teachers can find worksheets and online games for a broad array of subjects for students up to 8th grade. On Education.com teachers and students also have access to educational songs and interactive stories. Teachers can also access lesson plans, worksheets, workbooks, exercises, science projects, skills progression, and more to assign to the students each week. With Education.com, teachers are able to assign whole class activities for in-class work and homework directly on the website. The students are able to access and complete their assignments while the teacher is able to track their progress. Teachers have access to pre-made sub plans and student assessments as well.

Review: Overall, Education.com is a great resource and tool for students and teachers alike. I think it is very user-friendly as I have used it a few times to assign educational games to my field students. There is a pretty wide variety of activities on this site, as I've mentioned above which are useful to keep students engaged in their learning. I find that the pre-made lesson plans are incredibly helpful, however its best to use those as a guide to writing a more in depth lesson plan on your own. One major downside to this website is the lack of cultural relevancy. While the games are super fun and engaging for students, all of the characters are animals. I did not see any windows or mirrors, however you can possibly provide windows and mirrors for your students by choosing games that relate to the culture of your classroom, and your students interests. Another major downside to this website is that in order to access all of it's functions, teachers need to have a subscription which costs $15.99/month. However, teachers can access free mini versions of all the games without a subscription. 
On a scale from 1-10, 1 being the worst and 10 being the best, I'd rank this website at about a 7. I would recommend this website because it has some incredible features that make teaching much easier and can help bridge the gap between fun and learning for our students. I would just make sure to keep in mind the limitations that this website is a bit costly and I feel as though there may be a website similar that provides more cultural relevancy.</sup> ]]> 2022-09-07 14:54:38 UTC https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1/wish/2286580800 cadyates https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1/wish/2311802840 Summary of Function: Teacherspayteachers.com is a content recourse for educators. On the teacherspayteachers (TpT) website, teachers have the option to purchase pre-made lesson plans, sub plans, activities, assessments, projects, etc. Teachers also have the option to view these pre-made resources on various formats depending on what they use most in their classroom.

Review: Overall, Teacherpayteacher.com is a great resources for teachers to use to make their lives easier. Teacherpayteacher.com functions and resources are reasonably priced and range from free to $10 and up. Teachers can get the TpT membership for free which includes downloading free resources, buying online resources, 24/7 access to resources, access to digital tools through Easel by TpT, and more! A major limitation of this resource is that the lesson plans/activities seem to be paper and pencil oriented and lack cultural relevance. Overall, I would give this website a 6/10 due to the wide range of functions and pre-made resources. While it would make teacher's lives easier at the bare minimum level as it, it would receive a higher rating if someone made culturally relevant lessons/activities and if TpT made diverse lessons more accessible. ]]> 2022-09-24 20:06:54 UTC https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1/wish/2311802840 cadyates https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1/wish/2321983153 Summary of Function: Book Creator is an educational tool that can be used to integrate a wide array of subjects. The main purpose of book creator is to give students the ability to author and publish their own books. This tool can be used to integrate art into reading, writing, science, social studies, and more! Book Creator can also be used to view student-created, or teacher-created resources. Resources that include pictures, videos, drawings, audio, alongside text that demonstrates the student’s learning and engagement in a fun and creative way. Teachers have the ability to create a classroom code that can be shared with students to assign them books to read or books to create.

Review: Book Creator comes with a lot of benefits. Students can improve literacy skills through the act of creating their own books, and they also have the ability to read books with audio. Students can record themselves reading books out loud. This website makes integration lesson planning much easier, as this is automatically an art and reading integrated program. Book Creator also has a bunch of accessibility features for students with special needs such as speech to text, text to speech, closed captioning, keyboard navigation, open dyslexic font, and alt text. Students can chose from 10 different languages to set their read aloud to, which is a culturally relevant feature and would be beneficial for ELL students.  However, while there are many positives to Book Creator, there are some negatives as well. One issue with Book Creator is that it is not very user friendly. The website is set up in a way that teachers would have to actively dig around to understand how this program works. The teacher view is very confusing, it automatically opens up to your libraries but if you have just signed up you have no books in your library. Navigating to the books to assign is a little difficult, and as of now I am still unsure of how to assign students to create their own books. While it isn't the most user friendly, it can be learned. Another negative is that all of the books that are pre-made on the website are all student or teacher created. This means that they are subject to incorrect information. This is important to keep in mind when assigning students to read the pre-made books. It would be best to check the books out first before assigning them, and doing a bit of research to make sure the information is accurate.

The starter package for Book Creator is free which includes being able to save up to 40 books, ability to create books, access to AppSmash and other educational apps, 100+ accessibility features, reading with highlighting and text to voice, ability to publish books, and access to lesson ideas such as example books and resources.

Rating: Overall, I would rate this tool a 6/10 as I believe that if used correctly, this website can be extremely beneficial for all students, but particularly students with special needs and ELL students because there are so many accessibility features and so many different languages to listen to while reading. This would help students who struggle with reading and writing to really practice their literacy skills in a fun and creative way. I rated it a 6/10 because of the cons I listed above. I think the fact that it isn't the easiest to navigate would make things difficult for teachers and students. I also think that it would be more beneficial to only use this site to have your students create their own books, I wouldn't assign students to read pre-made books from this website because they could be subject to false information. I think this website is an amazing tool to integrate so many different subjects together, to peek the interest of all students. I also love the accessibility feature. I think if used correctly this website could be invaluable to teachers. ]]> 2022-10-01 12:53:19 UTC https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1/wish/2321983153 cadyates https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1/wish/2331329970 Summary of Function: Generation Genius is an educational content resource that provides science and math videos that are fun and engaging for students K-8. Generation Genius offers pre-made lesson plans, activities, quizzes, reading material, exit tickets, and more. Their lesson plans are created with the 5 e's in mind. Teachers can find the grade standards for each state directly on the site, with pre-made lesson plans to match. All of their lessons feature hands-on materials. A research study was conducted where 439 4th grade students across 12 elementary schools used one Generation Genius lesson, and then they filled out a 20-question survey. The results showed that 92% of the 4th graders said the lesson helped them learn, 88% said it made them think science activities are cool, and 4 out of 5 students want to do science activities after watching the video. Generation Genius also has a diverse cast of actors for their videos, many of which are children of elementary age. As a result, Generation Genius can provide windows and mirrors for a broad range of student's races and ethnicities. They also provide science kits with all of the materials to create "at home" (or at school) experiments, however, to get the kits a subscription is required.

Pricing: With Generation Genius, you can sign in and access most of the resources such as videos, lesson plans, quizzes, exit tickets, activities, etc. free for 30 days with no form of payment required. However, after the 30-day free trial teachers can buy a subscription for $175/year which includes 1 teacher and up to 35 students to have full access to Generation Genius both at home and in school. A school can also buy a subscription for $1,795/year which includes all teachers, unlimited devices, and unlimited student links so that everyone can have full access of the site.

Review: Generation Genius is a phenomenal site to help teachers make science and math fun for all students. This is a culturally diverse educational resource and can be used for grades k-8. While the subscriptions can be quite pricy, it's relatively easy to get around the 30-day free trial without purchasing a subscription. I would highly recommend that teachers find a loophole if money is of issue, because all students would benefit from this content. I would rate this website a 9/10 and I will definitely be using it in my future classroom. The only reason it's not a 10/10 is because of the price of subscriptions but as I said, it's easy to avoid paying those expenses while still having access to the website. ]]> 2022-10-07 17:29:47 UTC https://padlet.com/cadyates/b9jl18fhlw0gg1d1/wish/2331329970