What’s fair use?

Often I find students are confused about fair use and copy right.  Just because they see it in Google, they think it is theirs to use.  TeachersFirst has created a list of resources to help your students understand their options.

Media LIteracy

What does it take to be media literate?  Today our students are bombarded by a variety of media resources- how can we help them to evaluate media and be responsible media creators?  TeachersFirst has curated selected sites to help you get started,

New BrainPOP Feature- Pause Points

BrainPOP is rolling out a new feature that includes questions within the video.  Please watch my video above for a preview. Currently, it appears in only their most popular videos and they are working to roll it out to all movies.

Up your Civics game

In this blog post from Edutopia,  by Shawn McCusker and Tom Driscol, you will find suggestions to increase civics instruction across your curriculum.  They suggest classroom activities as well as digital applications. While the article is geared to high school students, I think you could also use some of their suggestions at the middle school level.

Google Drawings yield Avatars

 Melissa Zeitz is a member of my online book study.  (This group was sponsored by TeachersFirst and is a great PD opportunity). She recently shared My Digi Coach: March 2021 (mydigicoachs.blogspot.com).  You can find the step-by-step videos on YouTube here.  I like the step by step (how to make the ears, the eyes, etc) method.  Melissa also shared her implementation ideas in her blog post here.

Let Moby help you in March

Here are the highlights from BrainPOP to help with all your March events.  From Women’s History to Pi Day (my personal favorite) to Spring- check out their resources.

Free PD on Curation and the Triple E framework

These are free evening sessions presented by TeachersFirst.  PD credit is provided. Click here to register.

March 1: 3 Cool Tools for Curation

Learn the basics of curation for digital learning and how to integrate curation into class projects.

March 8: Transform Your Lesson Plans with Triple E and TeachersFirst, Part 1

Use technology with your students while maintaining good instructional practices! Learn to use

the Triple E Framework to select tools from the TeachersFirst database that match your objectives.

Social Emotional Learning

Are you seeking SEL (Social Emotional Learning) resources?  Look no further than the special collection from TeachersFirst.  They have reviewed and curated over 30 sites with a wide variety of grade levels and activities.

Kindness in the classroom

In this blog post from last year, Dr. Ruth Okoye  (the Director of K12 Initiatives at The Source for Learning- the group that sponsors TeachersFirst) shares suggestions to integrate kindness with technology.  From Freerice to the TedX kindness playlist, you will find something for your class.

What will you do when you are 100?

In celebration of the 100th day of school, Holly Bruens' first graders shared their thoughts about their life at 100.  Using AgingBooth, they modified their photos and we used ChatterPix to record their thoughts.

Disability, Inclusion, and Kindness

If you are looking to include disability and inclusion in your classroom, please check out The Nora Project. It includes numerous resources (lesson plans, books, links to YouTube recordings- I like the one What color is today.) This site was recently reviewed by TeachersFirst here.

Random Acts of Kindness

Random Acts of Kindness day is this week (Thursday) but here is a site with a variety of suggestions for all grade levels. TeachersFirst recently reviewed the site here.

Looking for photos?

Last week, during a TeachersFirst online session about Animoto, Stephanie Bass shared this Wakelet as a photo source for students.  When you look at the site, please notice there are two parts- the first for students and the second for students.  I have not tested all these sites in the district for access.

Pennies for Peace

Looking to engage your students globally?  Need a way to help develop empathy

(as well as relating to math, social studies, and literacy?  Pennies for Peace includes

lesson plans and activities for all grade levels and is focused on education in Central Asia. 

It is reviewed here by TeachersFirst.

Everything you want to know about Google Comments

Alice Keeler recently shared a tweet loaded with Google Doc comment suggestions.  Please see her ideas here.

Not your Mother’s Animoto

Click here to play.

I’ve been a big Animoto Fan for yours and will admit I haven't used it lately.  I was

a fan of their slideshows and really never explored their other options.  But they

have made some changes and now with Animoto 3, there are many templates

and options for your students.  You no longer have to renew your educator

account every 6 months and you can still create accounts for students under

13 (using the gmail+ method).  The design options have increased and are

easy to use. That’s the good news.  On the other side, all Animotos (unless

you have a paid account) come with a fairly large watermark, and there

seem to be fewer free resources(both images and music).

While I like the new options (filters, multiple images, templates), I think for
younger learners I would start with the Animoto memories. There are more
photos on the site and fewer choices.

Animoto 3 would be a perfect fit for older learners (grades 4 and up).
My sample here is made with a template and walks you through the process. 
Here is the link. 

Digital Citizenship (grades 1-6) according to Ruff

Ruff Ruffman- Humble Media Genius is a fun way to help your younger students learn digital citizenship.  Please see the TeachersFirst review here. The is a PBS site. (Image from PBS).

Getting started with Genius Hour

 

Today I was listening to the Ohio Google Group Meeting. These are monthly meetings run by Eric Curts and Stephanie Howells and cover Google updates as well as sharing interesting applications. Stephanie shared these Genius Hour ideas. To get access to the slides (linked in the YouTube videos), you need to join the Google Group. Please see this video for directions.

Modification suggestions from BrainPOP

BrainPOP (in their Educator tab) shared strategies for modifications when using their products (i.e., movie, vocabulary, Make-a-movie) for all types of learners.  They include offline, synchronous/asynchronous. Diverse, and ELL learners.  You can access the PDF here.

Could your middle schoolers write their own Shakespeare?

What happens when your middle school students reinterpret Shakespeare and host their own production?  According to the recent post by Matthew James Friday in edutopia, you can help your students get hooked on the Bard. What do you think?

Explore Board (Outside example and more)

While Choice Board might be a familiar term, Explore Board was new to me.  Holly Clark (Infused Classroom) recently shared (both in her newsletter and on her blog here), the difference between the two as well as a few templates (one for the Outsiders). Here is how she explains the difference:A choice board is used to give students choice in how they respond to a prompt or project. It is used for giving students a choice in how they show learning. It's an "outro" activity.An Explore board, on the other hand. is an "intro" activity - meant to help get students the background knowledge they need that will help them understand concepts and ideas better. It can also be used as a resource as they progress in the learning unit.

So why they may look similar, the activities and purposes are slightly different.

All you need to know about Presidents Day

TeachersFirst shared their Presidents Day resources here.  From George to LIncoln to Fords Theatre as well as iCivics- there is something for everyone on this site.

Helping your students get W.I.R.E’d

Want to help your student take ownership (and motivation) for their learning.  Check out the W.I.R.E. acronym to see how you can support your students. Here is the blog post from We Are Teachers.

The Prohibition (and all that Jazz!)

This week‘s newsletter from TeachersFirst is all about Prohibition and Jazz resources. From Ken Burns (and the WCTU) to Benny Goodman!  All ideas are reviewed and include grade-level
suggestions.

Improve engagement with BrainPOP movies

 Strategy: BrainPOP Movie Engagement

Before pressing play for the BrainPOP Movie, click ‘closed captioning’. Closed captioning encourages the class to read together, shows correct spelling, punctuation & sentence structure, and helps strengthen students’ vocabulary skills. Enjoy our playlist of BrainPOP Kernels offering teaching tips and tricks in 90 seconds or less.

Searching for Easter Eggs in Google

 

I know the Valentine candy is already in the story- but the Easter Eggs (or hidden items) in this blog post are not chocolate-covered nor creme-filled. Kasey Bell (ShakeUpLearning) recently shared a tip to help you find spinners, dice, and coin flips right from the Google search bar.  You can view her video here.

Inspiration from young writers

The  New York Times just published their young writers’ essays.  These short essays written by teenagers are a quick read- and I found them very inspiring.  Maybe you could share with your young writers.

Hamlet- the quiz

While looking for resources the other day, I ended up in the special collections section of TeachersFirst where I discovered premade Hamlet quizzes.  From quotes to relationships, these online quizzes might help your students.