Week 7 - Technology

This week, I was looking for tech tools, that would help the class to be more paperless, and to dig deeper into student understanding. I was researching 2nd grade standards for a lesson idea the other day, and one of the standards was talking about sequencing events on a timeline. I thought to myself, how cool would this be if the students could make their timelines online? The research would and gathering information would be way more organized, and easy to read. So I cam across the website, Dipity. Not only is this a website where you can make your own timeline, but it also has timelines from other people on it, and it sequencing current events, and important things in history. Therefore, students can use this website to make timelines in any grade, not just second, and use this website to look at current events that have been happening around the world.

What is Dipity?

Dipity is a free digital timeline website. Our mission is to organize the web's content by date and time. Users can create, share, embed and collaborate on interactive, visually engaging timelines that integrate video, audio, images, text, links, social media, location and timestamps. 

Who is Dipity for?

Dipity timelines are for anyone who uses the Internet. Newspapers, journalists, celebrities, government organizations, politicians, financial institutions, community managers, museums, universities, teachers, students, non-profits and bloggers all use Dipity to create timelines.

Why use Dipity?

Dipity allows users to create free timelines online. Digital timelines are a great way to increase traffic and user engagement on your website. Dipity is the fastest and easiest way to bring history to life with stunning multimedia timelines.

This will for sure be a technology tool that I will use in my classroom. 

http://www.dipity.com/

Week 6 - Technology

I found this awesome website, that I wish I would have found when I was in high school. The website that I found is called Grockit. Grockit is an online test prep service for students seeking to get their best potential score on the GMAT, SAT, ACT, GRE, and many other tests required for college admissions. Grockit's adaptive, personalized learning program helps students learn quickly and answer more questions correctly. Grockit gives you social, collaborative and personal learning, fueled by adaptive learning algorithms and up-front analysis that identifies and compensates for your learning strengths and weaknesses. Study online any time of day, from anywhere you have Internet access, no boring classrooms and lectures. Grockit is convenient, and predicts you score based on your answers and tracks your performances and improvements, projecting accurate score improvements. Grockit is tutoring for the students. Study plans provide practice tests, personalized insight into your weak subject areas, review of your work, and the right tutor to help you. Grockit has great TV features. Award-winning teachers demonstrating problem solving techniques that can be applied to your study plan. There are hundreds of hours of Grockit TV content.

I know that this is not really a elementary grade level website, but this will help if I ever decide to get a degree in middle school or high school. I can even suggest this to other teachers in my district.




https://grockit.com/

Week 5 - Technology

This week I found a great website titled, EDpuzzle. With EDpuzzle you can discover how to increase students' engagement and accountability with videos. On EDpuzzle you start by trimming a video you want your students to watch, because students usually show more engagement with videos shorter than 7 minutes. At any point in the video, you can insert a question and make your students think and actively participate during the video lesson. You can also take a close look into what your students are doing, check their understanding and identify where they may be struggling. On one screen you can see who has watched the whole video and who answered the questions correctly or incorrectly.

I find that this technology integration piece would work perfectly with a flipped classroom model. That way you can see who watched the videos before class, and know that your students already know the information you are getting ready to cover in the next class. I will definitely be using this in my future classroom!

https://edpuzzle.com/search

Week 4 - Technology

This week I am going to be talking about the wonderful website that is, Newsela. I just recently have gotten introduced to this amazing website, and I am addicted! Newsela is an innovative way to build reading comprehension with nonfiction that is always relevant: daily news. It is easy and amazing! With Newsela, you can read any article with any kind of reading level grades 3-12. As for being the teacher controlling Newsela in a classroom you can even assign different reading to your class, and have it customized to each students reading level. At the end of reading their article, as the teacher you can assign a writing prompt or a quiz to check for student understanding. As the teacher, you can even track student progress, which is very helpful! You could use Newsela for subjects, such as the obvious, language arts, but also you can find articles on science, social studies, and the arts. All while incorporating technology! Newsela can definitely deepen student learning. Not only is the information they will be reading relevant to them, but also they can read it on a level that they will understand.

You can see a live demo of how Newsela works at this link, https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/6242762409578297090

The link to Newsela is, https://newsela.com/

Technology - Week 3

This next piece of technology that I could use in my future classrooms is called ScootPad. ScootPad is a leading academic practice platform. Kids will be motivated to practice and reading with ScootPad, and gain confidence and desire to learn rapidly. ScootPad is easy, fun and FREE! The goal of ScootPad is to help millions of kids around the world master math and reading skills. ScootPad aims to empower parents with insights and tools to track their kids' academic success. ScootPad aims to fundamentally change how kids learn and practice. ScootPad believes that each and every kid needs a customized practice and learning experience that is tailored to each student's needs. Today's "one size fits all" approach is getting in the way of our kids' academic success.

How ScootPad works.

First, the students will have to take a placement test to identify which unit your students fall in within their Learning Paths. This is a great way to gauge where students stand before you begin your instruction.

Second, if you as the teacher has specific assignments you want to push or a due date you would like to set, you can set up these assignments on here for students to work on. Assignments give you as the teacher the full flexibility of what and when students will be practicing.

Third, while students are working on tasks, ScootPad provides Scootorials; which are step-by-step videos to help students understand concepts. This is also where you can, as the teacher, provide additional instruction.

Fourth, adaptive practices are automated, meaning you do not have to select which concepts students work on. Using adaptive algorithms, ScootPad determines each student's proficiency in each concept continuously and generates questions accordingly. Practices are unlimited, so students work at their own pace with little of your management.

Fifth, while students work on practices and assignments, data is being generated. What data you may ask? Data including what areas the students are struggling in, what concepts were covered, how many questions they have answered, and much more. All of this data is analyzed for you and provided to you in a concise and colorful report that you can use to make quick yet informed instructional decisions. These reports are updated in real-time, so as students are finishing tasks, you will see it reflect in the reports immediately after.

Sixth, you realize that some of your students are not where you would like them to be after checking out the reports. You can check out the intervention Dashboard to see where exactly the students are struggling and decide how you want to approach intervention. ScootPad makes the process of intervention simple. Aside from providing you with actionable reports, ScootPad provides extended practice to the student.ScootPad already knows what concepts the student is struggling in and will build a concept improvement assignment that you can assign with a simple click.

Next, there are endless assignments. They can be used to assess your teaching, what standards students are having most difficulty in, or be used to prepare your students for high-stakes testing. With our open content platform, you have the ability to create your own questions in over 50 TEI question formats. Whatever the case, you have the ability to assign an assessment and measure the proficiency level in any concept you want.

Lastly, congratulations, the students achieved mastery in one or more concepts!

https://www.scootpad.com/

Technology - Week 2

At the Keep Learning Alive! Conference January 30th, the presenters in one session briefly mentioned Edmodo, and how wonderful it is for their classrooms. So, this week I decided to see what Edmodo is really about and how I can implement that into my future classroom. 

"Edmodo is a global education network that helps connect all learners with the people and resources needed to reach their full potential" (https://www.edmodo.com/about). On Edmodo you are able to have an online class. The teacher can sign up for this website for free, and it is very beneficial to the classroom. The teacher can then have each one of their students create an account on Edmodo, and add them to their online class. The teacher can send out reminders of assignments, communicate to students and assign class work online. The assessment of the students can be done completely online and completely paperless. Also, the textbooks for the class are available online. The students can even access other classrooms around the world, and see that books and assignments that they are doing. Edmodo also gives the teacher a grade report for the assessments they have completed. Edmodo can be used for virtually any grade level, because the website is very user friendly. You can also use Edmodo for any subject that you choose. the presenters at this conference used it for math, reading and social studies. However, I could also see a science lesson being able to use this website. Edmodo will deepen students learning by allowing them to work at their own pace, and see how others learn around them. 

https://www.edmodo.com/about)

Samsung School - School of the Future

The name of this new technology tool is called "The Samsung School". The Samsung school is a one-to-one learning package that includes an interactive display, wireless printer, and And Samsung Note Tablets for each student. With this Technology tool, the teacher and the students can interact using the display board and their tablets. So at some points during the lesson, the students can write on the tablets and it will be displayed on the Interactive Display board for all to see. This technology piece can be used in any grade level, because you can use this technology in virtually any subject that that teacher chooses, and will makes the content fun, engaging and interactive. This technology tool could be used to strengthen student learning, by using the Samsung School to throw ideas out for the whole class to see, or to collaborate as a class on one big project. The URL for more about this product is listed below.

http://www.k-12techdecisions.com/photo/top_25_technology_products_for_k12_classrooms_in/0

http://www.samsung.com/us/business/by-industry/education-solutions/samsung-school