Technology Teaching Resources with Brittany Washburn: Typing Olympics - 3rd Grade Keyboarding Bootcamp How do you teach keyboarding skills? While I have kindergarten and first graders use the keyboard and start to learn where the letters are, I do not start officially teaching typing until 2nd grade. At the beginning of 2nd grade I have my students spend 6 weeks (once a week classes) going through the levels of Dance Mat Typing. This gives them a good foundation and they can successfully type paragraphs for class efficiently. The classroom teachers really appreciate it. If you want the template, let me know in the comments and I will come back and add it. 3rd Grade Technology Curriculum Interested in BONUS content? 7 Tips for Breakout Room Success in Middle and High School Whether you use Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, having students in shared small groups can foster a deeper level of connection and communication, but depending on your class, the age of the students, and the content, it can be a scary moment to release control and trust the space. After all, one teacher cannot be everywhere, and if we are, are we really able to focus and offer support? Breakout rooms allow me to connect with students and for them to connect with one another in a way that I believe is only possible in a smaller setting. 7 Tips for Creating and Maintaining Successful Breakout Spaces 1. Short and sweet. 2. 3. To allay any privacy concerns, we only post and record within our learning management system, and videos are not viewable outside our domain. 4. 5. One concern I hear over and over from teachers of younger students is what to provide them as a tool to use when working collaboratively. 6. 7. Breakout rooms take time.
How to Create a Better Breakout Room Experience for Middle and High School Students The pandemic has completely transformed the way we teach and the way students interact. At the beginning of the school year, I imagined breakout rooms being a popular feature among students during remote learning. I was disappointed when I saw students sitting in silence with their screens off, so I focused on building a community of students that would connect and learn from each other, and ensure that with our limited time, each breakout room would be purposeful and meaningful. I’ve found that the success of breakout rooms hinges on a strong action plan. 5 Tips for Better Breakout Rooms 1. Another idea is to have students record their discussion, which holds them accountable for their contributions. 2. The need for social and emotional activities has become more apparent during the pandemic and remote learning. These skills translate into creating a dynamic classroom where students understand their purpose and importance in the classroom. 3. 4.
Technology Teaching Resources with Brittany Washburn: Discover New Ways to Create with Technology When I asked my technology teacher friends to name their favorite creation tools, they had the best ideas! I've complied them into a list with hyperlinks to the tools so that you can give them a try with your classes. *If you see a picture below one of the resources, it links to a blog post about how to use that tool. 1. Google Drawing - choose from a wide variety of shapes to create diagrams and charts 2. 3. 5. 12.
10 Teacher Picks for Best Tech Tools in Pre-K to 12th Grade If there was ever a year for teachers to beg, borrow, and steal good ideas, this is it. All good teachers know this is how we get better, and this is a curated list of tech tools that I have begged and borrowed from others—and I didn’t have to steal any of these as there has never been a year when teachers were more generous. Based on my own teaching of college students as well as the responses of 1,461 virtual learning academy participants—pre-K to 12 teachers and administrators—to survey questions on impactful tools that I conducted from May to December 2020, and over 70 webinars and virtual learning sessions I’ve conducted in that time, these are the top teacher-tested tech tools I have identified. My learning has happened with my own students and through my own mistakes, and I received great ideas from educators across the U.S. and around the world. I will continue to use these tools and recommend their use regardless of student level or how we deliver education moving forward. 10.
The Benefits of Using Screencasts to Give Middle and High School Students Feedback This year, I’ve been teaching all of my math classes both virtually and face-to-face. The boarding school where I teach has brought some students back to campus, but most of our international students were not able to return. This means that I teach each class in person and then again, online, to my international students. To give both groups the same engaging experiences and learning opportunities, I’ve had to learn some new tricks. One tool that has helped immensely is using screencasting for feedback on projects and work. My statistics students are analyzing Campaign Zero’s “Mapping Police Violence” data set and creating websites to share their findings and subsequent policy recommendations. Virtually, my feedback strategies have been more difficult to implement. Using video to provide feedback with my virtual students was so effective that I have started making screencasts for my face-to-face students. 6 Reasons to Use Video for Feedback 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Technology Teaching Resources with Brittany Washburn: 40+ Free Educational Websites For Middle Schoolers! I just compiled this mega list of FREE educational sites for middle schoolers. I broke it up into a few different categories so you can direct your students to whatever their interests may be. Some are more education and some are less educational. Some are more game-like, and some are more knowledge based, and others do a good job of combining the two. Show your students this list, and see where it takes them! These free educational websites are all about reading, writing, literature, history, and news. Here are your random educational games with a little bit of everything... Here is a list of what can seem like the never-ending options of math and science games for middle schoolers: Tech teachers gotta have their list of tech skills and typing games for students--here are a few: Adding on to the tech skills and typing skills, here are a few Social Emotional Learning, Safety, and Digital Citizenship games: For those students who want to really work on their Art, Music, and general Creativity
A Comprehensive Framework For Student Motivation A Comprehensive Gamification Framework For Human Motivation by Terry Heick When researching student motivation and gamification a few years ago, I came across the most comprehensive gamification framework I’ve ever seen. Developed by gamification expert Yu-kai Chou, it was an ambitious effort that distinguished black hat gamification (which is ‘bad’–think Farmville and Candy Crush) from white hat gamification (which is ‘good’–think Minecraft or even an ACT score). (It’s also copyrighted, but they graciously allowed us to use it.) While it is designed not as an educational framework, but rather as a way to demonstrate gamification and its many strands, gamification is about human encouragement and motivation. So what began as a post about gamification became more a matter of student motivation–what motivates students in the classroom and why. 8 Core Drives Of Student Motivation 1) Epic Meaning & Calling Educator takeaways? 2) Development & Accomplishment Educator takeaways?
How to Use Outlines to Support Student Note-Taking in Middle and High School Note-taking is a skill that’s critical to most reading assignments, and sound, thorough notes can help students read for deeper comprehension. The process of encoding that occurs during note-taking forms new pathways in the brain, lodging information more durably in long-term memory. Good notes can go a long way toward preparing students for tests, and they can also help reduce their stress. But note-taking isn’t a skill that comes naturally to many students. Without explicit instruction, they can struggle to determine what’s relevant or most important—then wind up either trying to write down everything or taking notes that are too scant to be helpful. Many teachers give students a head start with note-taking for reading assignments by preparing an outline for them that provides structure and guidance, often by including prompts for key points (headings), relevant details (subheadings), and vocabulary. Tips for Creating a Reading Outline
Play "Mystery Animal" with Google "20 Questions" has been a tried and true game for my family to pass the time on long road trips or rainy afternoons. Over the years my kids have asked and answered many questions about a mystery animal, person, place, food, or such. In addition to being a fun way to pass time, "20 Questions" actually helps build important skills including making good questions, communicating clearly, and critical thinking to narrow down the possibilities. Now Google has provided a newfangled way to play this age-old game with the launch of their "Mystery Animal" activity. Playing "Mystery Animal" You can currently access Google's "Mystery Animal" game in several ways:Go to the website at: and click "Preview it here".Speak to a Google Home unit and say "OK Google, talk to Mystery Animal".Speak to the Google Assistant app on your phone and say "OK Google, talk to Mystery Animal". Classroom Uses
Why Instructional Design Must Focus on Learning Outcomes, Not Learning Activities It’s no secret that kids learn better when teachers provide learning activities that keep them engaged. Teachers work tirelessly to plan engaging lessons that capture and keep the interests of their students, thereby making content more accessible. However, teachers continue to feel the daunting pressure to compete for their students’ attention amidst the ever-evolving and rapidly-hanging mass media, social media, and entertainment industry, as these elements do a stellar job of keeping students highly engaged outside of the classroom. Although it is vitally important for us to know and understand our students' interests and the best conditions under which they learn, there is good news: It’s not necessary that we focus our efforts on competing with the devices and activities our students engage in during their downtime outside of the classroom! Nonetheless, students also want to enjoy learning. Let’s look at tools first. Student growth is a result of the practice, not the product.
A Simple Way to Encourage Students to Read More Broadly Librarians and classroom teachers use various systems of classification to organize collections, from the Dewey Decimal System to interest or reading levels. But what if we were to organize books in a way that deemphasized reading levels and encouraged students to read more broadly? When educators use the term vertical alignment, we are often referring to a progression of skills or content that increases in complexity. With respect to reading, rather than using achievement or assessment benchmarking levels, which is often discouraged in the librarian world, school librarians use designations that most closely align to education groupings and the comfort or reading-experience level of the reader. Labels like PB (picture book), CB (chapter book), MG (middle grade), YA (young adult), or AD (adult) are often placed on spine labels and in library catalogs to make it easier to identify titles that readers will enjoy, but the readers themselves rarely notice them. Mr.
25+ Best Typing Apps for Students in Elementary and Middle/High School More than ever, typing is an essential part of learning. Developing this skill doesn’t have to be boring, though! In fact, there are many great typing apps for students that are engaging, interactive, and educational. We’ve put together this helpful list of some of the best options for elementary, middle, and high school kids! Best Typing Apps for Students in Elementary School Alpha Munchies Inspired by Atari’s classic game, Space Invaders, kids will target little pixel aliens by typing the letters that appear above them. Animal Typing Animal Typing simplifies touch typing for elementary students. Cup Stacking – Keyboarding Kids will practice using the home row quickly as they stack and un-stack the cups by typing the keyboard characters on them. Dance Mat Typing Kids can move through four levels to play, starting by learning the home row keys. Ghost Typing Ghost Typing is an educational game for students of all ages. Keyboarding Zoo KeyMan Keyboard Fun Nitro Type Owl Planes Racing Type-a-Balloon
The 4 Stages Of The Integration Of Technology In Learning 4 Stages Of Edtech Integration From A Student Perspective by Terry Heick For professional development around this idea or others you read about on TeachThought, contact us. Technology can be used in the learning process in a variety of ways. Some are supplementary, serving the original design of the classroom and usually automate some previously by-human task or process–grading multiple choice assessments, searching for a source of information, or sharing messages and other data across large groups. But fully integrated and embedded in the learning process, technology can be transformative–and disruptive. Scaffolding the learning of anything unfamiliar–somehow–is a way of supporting the learner and setting them up for long-term independent success. Should elementary school be stage 1, middle school stage 2, and so on? Should all learners begin a school year at stage 1 and move as far as they can towards stage 4? Can a planned learning experience be evaluated using this framework in mind?