Spice Up a Review Session with Classtools.net

The Holiday season is here, which means that finals and reviews sessions are rapidly approaching. Russel Tarr has put together a versatile site that you can use to spice up a review session. At a recent Digital Age Learning meeting Bill Bell introduced Fakebook, which is a fun way for students to organize and present information they learned in a unit. Bill had students create “Fakebook” pages to demonstrate what they learned during their Progressive unit in US History. Here is a student sample from Bill’s US History class.

Classtools.net has many other great functions as well. Instead of doing a traditional review sheet, you can use Classtools.net to create a QR code scavenger hunt. The site provides you with everything you need to create the QR codes. You simply type out review questions and answers into the site and it generates the QR codes for you to print out and place around the school. Next, organize your class into small teams (2 to 4 in each group works best) and make sure at least one person in each group has a cell phone, iPod, or iPad to scan in the QR codes. Finally, let students loose to find and scan in each QR code. Students will be presented with a question for each QR code they scan, which they answer as a team (click here for a sample graphic organizer that students fill out during the activity). The first team to come back with all questions correctly answered wins! Click here to view a sample scavenger hunt.

Classtools.net also has an arcade game generator. Similar to the QR code generator, you type out questions and answers directly into the generator and it produces a variety of arcade games. You are limited in terms of the types of questions you can ask, however I have found this to be a great anchor activity for the end of the semester. If students are working on summative projects you can direct them to the review games as they finish up projects at different times. In addition, you can have a one or two review days where the entire class competes to earn the highest score. Click here to see some sample arcade games for a high school economics class. My personal favorite is Manic Miner!

The Power of a Screenshot

I recently read a great article, by Monica Burns, on the power of a screenshot in a one to one classroom. You can find the original article here. Burns describes four ways a simple screenshot can transform your classroom.

Accountability - Have students take a screenshot of their work and upload it to a learning management system or shared google drive folder as a formative assessment. This can be a great way to see if student are understanding the material at any given time.

Portfolio - Screenshots can be a great way to document student work and see progress throughout the year. They can upload their screenshots to a google site or shared google drive folder.

Common Core Rigor - Have students take a screenshot of their work and explain their thinking in writing.

Screencasting - Take screenshots of a new web 2.0 application you are using in class to enhance your directions for students.

You can find a short tutorial below covering three different ways you can take a screenshot on a Mac. The tutorial was created using iMovie and the social media site Vine. Enjoy!

Edit a PDF in Preview on a Mac

One of my favorite features on a Mac is using Preview to annotate PDFs and images. Watch the tutorial below to learn how to set Preview as your default PDF and image viewer.

Turn Web Pages into eBooks

One of the best features of Maverick, the new Mac operating system, is the availability of iBooks on your MacBook. Before the Maverick operating system, you could only view iBooks on mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. iBooks has tons of applications in the classroom! You and your students can highlight, type notes and leave bookmarks in an iBook, making it great for close reading activities and studying.

There are two ways you can turn web content into an ePub file, which can then be viewed in iBooks on your Mac. First is dotEPUB, a bookmarklet that turns single web pages into a downloadable ePub file. To install the dotEPUB bookmarklet, head over to dotEPUB and drag the logo to your bookmark toolbar. Make sure to check the box “ask at conversion time” for the Immersive Mode. Immersive Mode removes all the links and images from the article being converted. Finally go to a web page you want to read in iBooks and click the bookmark. The page will be downloaded as an ePub file that you can view in iBooks. You can then save that file to your computer and upload to a website for students to access. It is that simple! View a sample eBook I created. Checkout the tutorials below to learn more.

Click to make larger

Readlist is another tool you can use to turn web content into ePub files. The process is simple:

Step 1: Go to Readlists
Step 2: Paste URLs of web pages into the site
Step 3: Give your readlist a description and title
Step 4: Download your readlist as an ePub file or share via social media

This tool could be great to create course packets that can be downloaded into iBooks. You can even create a list that allows other users to collaborate and add additional content. Here is a readlist I created that covers the benefits of twitter for teachers. Watch the tutorial below to learn more.

What's so great about Google Apps for Education?

As teachers, your plates may already be full so you wonder how can you find the time to fit more technology into your classroom? Google apps may be your answer. Google Apps for Education (GAFE) is a cloud based productivity tool that makes collaboration in your classroom a breeze. We've had great feedback from the Lunch & Learns and have heard great stories of teachers going paperless in their classrooms since embracing Google apps.

We have some great online tutorials in the works for Google apps. We also run across some good tips and tricks every day and we'd like to start sharing them with you. They are specially selected for this blog, so you know they have to be good.

This week's Google highlight is from the Synergyse.com blog: Top 10 Google Apps for your phone

Create an Interactive Presentation with Nearpod

Nearpod looks like a great presentation tool. You can upload your powerpoints and add in interactive features such as open ended questions, quizzes, polls, and even have students annotate an image.  When you are ready to present, the site gives you a room number that students use to login, which means there is no need for students to create accounts!  As the teacher you can see the activity of all students and manage the flow of the presentation.  Nearpod can be accessed by students and teachers on any web browser (PC/Mac) and there is a free mobile app.  Essentially Nearpod allows you to take a powerpoint you already have and make it more interactive for students. You can add in open ended questions, polls, and quizzes to gauge student understanding of the presentation. Checkout the video below for a demo of Nearpod.  Give it a try today and create a free account!

What will the school of the future look like?

BHS Lunch & Learns

Lunch & Learn demo of Flubaroo

BHS staff have an opportunity to learn about the latest edtech tools available to them by attending a “Lunch & Learn” workshop. These workshops, presented by the Digital Learning support team, provide instruction on tools such as Google Docs, Google Forms, Flubaroo, Doctopus and more. Watch for the weekly emails that announce the upcoming Lunch & Learn topic.

In today's Lunch & Learn, Digital Learning Coach, Tim O'Connor demonstrated the use of Google Forms in the classroom as a quick and easy tool to use for formative assessments. Tim also showed the work flow of using Flubaroo along with the Google Form to create a self grading quiz. Below is the Lunch & Learn schedule for the 2013-2014 school year.

Online Learning Management Systems

Online learning management systems are used to give students 24/7 access to the course materials. In addition to more access to the material, they allow teachers to more efficiently share resources with students on a daily basis.  Using an online learning management system teachers can post assignments and supplementary material, create formative assessments that give students immediate feedback, build a wiki, and create discussion forums. The video below is testimony from Barrington High School students on the benefits of online learning management systems.

Collaborating with Google Docs

Google Drive is an incredibly versatile tool for the classroom.  In its basic use, Google Drive can be a place to store all of your files.  You have 30 GB of space in your Google Drive account!  Once your files have been uploaded to Google Drive you have access to these files on any computer, table, or smart phone.  In addition to uploading files you can also create Google docs, presentations, spreadsheets, and drawings.  The most powerful feature of Google Apps is its collaborative nature.  Students and staff can share and collaborate online in realtime.  Below is student testimonial of how Google Docs has helped them in the classroom.

Welcome to the BHS EdTech Roundup

Welcome to the EdTech Roundup - the place where technology and education meet. The digital learning support team will share our knowledge, skill and work process, promoting the effective use of digital tools and resources in the classrooms of BHS

A good place to start is the ISTE Standards. ISTE are the standards and best practices for learning, teaching, and leading in the digital world. There are many benefits to ISTE and they include inspiring, guiding and preparing students for their future. The ISTE website offers a multitude of resources to help teachers and administrators learn about the ISTE standards and how to use them including: Standards for Teachers, Standards for Students, and Standards for Administrators.

We look forward to sharing what we know, learning from you and inspiring each other!