Class Cards to Spark Student Conversations

Too often our students go through the school day without speaking in class. Communication and Speaking are elements of the classroom addressed in CCSS. Often as teachers we find it difficult to keep track of student participation and randomizing our student selection for participation. Class Cards is an android and iPhone app that makes tracking student participation easier. Utilize Class Cards to randomly generate a list to call on students, select a student of your choosing to respond, rate the quality of the student response instantly in your hand, view student response scores individually or as an entire class, email yourself student scores, and archive scores to view, print grade sheets, or download the data into an Excel spreadsheet. I love the idea of being able to quickly note the quality of student responses', especially for Socratic Seminars. Also, many students sit passively in a class because it has no "worth" to speak. Class Cards makes it easier for teachers to give purpose to Communicating in the classroom.

Create a Mini-movie by Just Typing!

Google keeps turning out tools for students to practice the Creativity in the CCSS 4Cs. Their newest tool is Google Story Builder. It is as simple as typing in the characters, type in the script, and select music....REALLY! Making a "movie" couldn't be easier. You can add up to 10 characters. Next you type in the script for each character and select music, and then play the film. It is a great tool to also work on literacy because the students will need to read it. You, the teacher, can make brief films to intro a topic or pose a dilemma in history for students to consider. Another possible use would be for students to create a brief historical dialogue.

Reflect your iPad with your Projector

If you have a projector hooked up to you computer or laptop, you can easily use it to mirror your iPad! Have you ever found an app that you want to use in your classroom? Use Reflector to wirelessly mirror your iPad through your MAC or PC. Relector is a cheap $12.99 download that opens your classroom to the app world. If you are like me, you find great apps for content and classroom management that are only on an iOS device. Problem is now solved. If your school is like mine, you may need to have a school administrator or computer tech download the program onto your work computer. Another work around is to download Reflector onto your laptop and connect that to your classroom projector and enjoy!

Comics & History to Set the Hook

Setting the hook is an important part of a unit and lesson. One of the ways teachers may think of doing this is through comics. Comics are a great way to peak students curiosity. Pixton allows teachers to create comics to introduce topics and convey information in an engaging manner. Teachers can sign up for a free trial and pay to extend beyond that. Students can also create their own comics to demonstrate their understanding of concepts, meeting the multimedia component of the Common Core. Pixton is easy to use. Users can select settings, characters, move and position characters, select from a variety of text boxes, and create their own dialogue. Multiple comics can be created together to form a book as well- great for the sections of a unit or chapter. In a few hours one can create multiple comics to use in the classroom!

Commenting on Primary Sources

Getting students to engage with primary sources can be like getting kids to complete their chores. I have found students are more engaged with them using Voicethread. Voicethread is a multimedia tool that I have mentioned here before. In taking with teachers and presenting at various conferences and workshops, I have found a need for the steps and a sample. Below you can find a step by step on how to create a Voicethread. Here are samples on using Voicethread with images and a NARA speech file that was inserted via a converted PPT- these are real products with student responses.

Tagging for Visual Literacy with ThingLink

 
 
      I came across a tweet from Sean Ziebarth (@MrZiebarth) on Twitter about his students using Thinglink. I was curious...What is it? WOW...is is a great tool to annotate an image with uses for the teacher and students. Thinglink is a website that lets you add 'tags to an uploaded image to annotate. You may type in info, link to an image, link to a video, link a Google Document, or hyperlink to an additional website. This is a great presentation tool for teachers and students alike to utilize. Additionally, it meets the criteria for students presenting their findings in a multimedia format for the Common Core.

Here's how to use it:

Collaborating with Google Docs

       Google Docs, housed on Google Drive, have a limitless possibility in the ways teachers can utilize them to meet the 4C's of the Common Core (creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication). Additionally, using Google Docs eliminates the need for costly Microsoft software and formatting issues. How many times has a student told you their computer crashed, they lost their flash drive, student x is absent with the PPT/doc, they forgot to save the file, or the computer will not open the file? Google Drive eliminates all of this! It automatically saves the document, students can share the document and work on it at the SAME time ( I have had a whole class of 37 students working on 1 CST PPT for review at the SAME time), it is stored in the cloud, and eliminates the cannot open file issue with different formats. As long as you are connected to the internet, you can access the file. It is also available as an app on android and ios devices.

       To begin, have students create a Google Drive account. When in Drive, you can create a document (similar to a doc), presentation (similar to a PPT), spreadsheet (similar to excel), form, drawing, or folders. Once students get used to the sharing and privacy settings, Google Documents are transformational and students generally will gravitate to them. They also allow you to see the revision history so you can see exactly when and who was active on the document. Students can create a Doc and you can have them share it with you and/or another student enabled to comment. This can be used as an exercise to write , collaborate for revision, and then have the student revise the Doc for final submission. If you are completing a group project in class or for National History Day, multiple students may edit a document. Teachers may also have students create a folder with their writings/inquiry throughout the year to serve as an electronic portfolio.

     Here are the steps to creating a Google Document and sharing it: