Global reaching SOS

SOS Top Ten for Promoting Global Citizenship

According to the Center for Global Education, globally competent students have the knowledge and skills to investigate the world, recognize perspectives, communicate ideas, and take action. The idea of global competence articulates the knowledge and skills students need in the 21st century. Please click here for the strategies

Teach the Odyssey?

The New York Times has just shared lesson plan ideas on teaching this epic work.

Maps and the USA

If American history and maps are your thing, you are going to enjoy this blog post by Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers).  Watch the US change and grow through a series of interactive maps.

Free Webinar- AAPB

(Webinar is April 4- see the AAPB site for details)

Did you know that you and your students have access to nearly 50,000 items of digitized primary and secondary resources from America's public radio and television organizations at American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB)? Join WGBH Education and AAPB to learn more about how you can take advantage of historic local and national news and cultural programs, talk shows, documentaries, and raw interviews produced by hundreds of public media organizations across the nation, covering many of America’s most historical and culturally significant events of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Checking the comments

Alice Keeler has shared her shortcuts for managing comments and collaboration in Google apps.  Please see her post here.

10 is the magic number

In the new Google Classroom, only 10 assignments will show at once under each topic.  Please see the post from Alice Keeler here to see how you can find additional work.

More Art resources

TeachersFirst rounds out March with a review of art resources. Murder at the Met looks interesting (grades 5-12).  They also have several virtual field trips.

STEM Lessons

Looking for STEM lessons on the GPS or the science of driving?  Check out Discovery Education. Download these lessons at Navy STEM for the Classroom and use the featured tools to strengthen your students' literacy and STEM skills as you equip them to impact our world.

Planning and Animoto

Animoto is clearly one of those “oldie by goodie” sites for video creation.  It is easy to use and free. Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers) has some planning insight here that will make your students’ work more meaningful.

Music Sites

TeachersFirst has dedicated their Favorite Sites page this week to music related

websites.  Please click here to see all they have to offer. From drum, guitar or

piano lessons online, there is a wide range of ideas for all grade levels.

Where in the world is..

Carmen Sandiego?  OK, she’s not just on Netflix (with a reboot of the  80’s TV show) but she is also on Google Earth.  Interview folks and find the clues and see if you can solve the mystery.  Currently there is only one adventure but it appears they will have more. This would be a great whole group or as stations.

I might never look at Arthur the same way!

(Image from PBS)

PBS is hosting three free one-hour webinars on Social Emotional Learning geared to P-5 educators. Please see this link for information and registration (the dates are 3/28,4/4, 4/11).  PD credit is provided.

Who doesn’t want to save time?

Kasey Bell (Shake Up Learning) has collected ten time-saving ideas from her readers- you will find them in her blog post here.  From Keyboard shortcuts to Google Keep (my personal favorite) and many more.  Don’t try to implement them all at once- just select one or two and make them habits.

More on HyperDocs

HyperDocs can be an engaging way for student-centered learning.  If you are new to the process, this blog post from Matt Miller (from Ditch the Textbook fame) provides a great overview as well as several examples.

Spring Sites

While we had a taste of Spring last week, it will be here soon!  Here’s a list of sites from Discovery Education to get you started!

Composing and Conducting (and more!)

Richard Byrne shared a blog post about the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and their site for students.  From the families of instruments to conducting movements, this site has much to offer for K-8 students.

Jeopardy with Google SlidesGoogle

Please see Richard Byrne’s blog post here to step by step for creating your own Google Slides Jeopardy game- he even includes a template!

Art projects from the NYTimes

Here’s a  link to a variety of art projects from the New York Times.  While they use their own paper as source, I am sure you could modify the plans and use other material.

Folders versus Search

At yesterday’s escape room class, we were talking about using folders

to organize your Google Drive.  While I will admit the first year I was

very diligent about filing (and color coding the folder), once I realized

how I could search in Google Drive, I stopped.  Kasey Bell

(Shake up Learning) recently share this blog post that will

make you a search master!

Math and Storyboardthat

I have to admit math is usually not by “go to” when I think of Storyboardthat.  But after reading Richard Byrne’s blog here, I can see how math could work well.

Find and Replace

Do you use this tool in your Google toolbox?  Need a quick refresher on Find and Replace? Check out Richard Byrne’s blog post here.

Discovery Education as student choice

Holly Bruens  (Wilson Kindergarten) recently shared one of the ways she uses

Discovery Education in her class.  At times when her students have a choice of

activities, some elect to access Discovery Education (this is easy since the DE

logo appears in Clever).  She has shown them how to limit searches to K-2 (just

by using a filter) and then they can find videos on their specific interest!

SOS for STEM

Looking for ideas to integrate SOS material in STEM thinking?  Look no further- here’s a blog post with the top SOS for STEM.

Math and Pi Day resources

With Pi Day just around the corner (3/14), here is a collection of math resources from TeachersFirst.  Please click here to view the material.

Novel twist on the SOS - Snowball Fight

I took this from the DEN online community- thought it was a great idea!  I

can see how you could make it work in other content areas.

Kudos to Emily!

We had so much fun today. I put a spin on the classic Snowball

fight strategy in math today. Students prepared a BINGO card

from the answers to the one-step equations we were working on.

I then balled up all of the problems and threw them in the middle

of the room.  Students had to pick a problem, work it out, find

the answer on their BINGO card and throw it back. They had a blast!

Emily Strickland

6th Grade Math

Greenville

Greenville SC

Using Google Checkboxes and strikeout together

Let’s say you have a spreadsheet and you are keeping track of anything (library books, signed reports cards, permission slips).  In the first column, you have the checkboxes with the student name. Using these directions from Alice Keeler (please click here) you can put a strikeout through the name when you click the box.

Change your Google Classroom STREAM

If you miss the old STREAM in classroom- your voice has been heard.  In a blog post today, Alice Keeler shares the the update that allows you to change the look in stream.  Please see her description here.

Why is Pi important?

Join Discovery Education for a Virtual field trip on Thursday, March 14 to celebrate Pi Day.  Please click here for registration and information.

Reading Treks and Google Lit Trips

You might be familiar with Lit Trips.  Here is the definition from their website:

What is a Google Lit Trip? Lit Trips are downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth. Along the way, placemarks with pop-up windows contain "just in time" resources including relevant media, thought-provoking discussion starters, and links to supplementary information about "real world" references in that portion of the story. Our focus is on creating engaging and relevant literary experiences for students. While I have seen these for a while, TeachersFirst recently shared their Reading Treks.  They look very similar (with a Google Earth file as well as directions) yet the stories appear to be for younger readers.

March for Women

If you are looking for women’s history resources, please check out this link from TeachersFirst.

Computational Resources

Looking for coding ideas for K-12?  TeachersFirst has a large list for you to explore.  Please click here for the link.

Clip charts- something to think about

I recently saw this blog post from Alice Keeler re:clipcharts in the classroom.   Just something to think about it.

PBL

The Buck Institute has been renamed as  PBLWorks.  With a free account, you can access a wide variety of project-based learning activities.  There is a search feature to help you refine the process (by content level and grade level).

The Wearing of the Green

If St. Patrick’s Day is on your classroom agenda, then check the sites on this curated page from TeachersFirst.

How well do you know your mammals?

Smithsonian has rebranded their “guess the mammal site” at eMammal lite.  You can either create an account (so it will keep track of your scores) or play as a guest.  For a complete description, please see Richard Byrne blog post here.

Quizizz Updates

Please see the new updates in Quizizz! There are no links in this post, so access your account to preview the changes.

Got time on their hands?

One of my least favorite things was dealing with students who always seemed to finish early.  Matt Millet (Ditch That Textbook) has shared a recently revised list of 20 thinking activities to engage the students who are done early.  While some were familiar (I’ve seen several classes play FreeRice), others were new (The 5 Clue Challenge got my attention).