A Short Guide to Taking Screenshots on Your Laptop and Tablet Visual aids can be very helpful when you're introducing a new website, app, or software to students or colleagues. Being able to take and send a screenshot is also helpful when you're trying to explain a problem to your tech support person. Here's a short guide to taking screenshots on your iPad, Android tablet, Windows computer, Mac, or Chromebook. Chromebook: A quick search in the Chrome store will return a bunch of options for taking screenshots on a Chromebook. Of those results there are two options that I have used and recommend. Diigo's Awesome Screenshot tool and TechSmith's Snagit. Macbook and Windows laptops: On a Mac you can use the keyboard combination of "Command+shift+4" to take a screenshot of a portion of your screen. On a Windows computer you can use the Snipping tool to capture all or part of your screen. For years I have used Jing to take screenshots on my Mac and on my Windows laptop. Skitch is another screenshot tool that I have used over the years.
A Beginner's Guide to Using Schoology: The Back-to-School Essentials It's that time of year again—the time for you to begin getting reacquainted with the Schoology platform in preparation for the new school year. But don't stress about that. Even though we've added some new features, getting back into the swing of things will be just like riding a bike, especially if you followed our End of Year Best Practices. For those of you out there who need a little refresher, and for those of you just starting out (Welcome, by the way), we've put together a quick overview of the platform that will be available here on the blog and in our Help Center. If you look up at the top of your screen, you'll see four different "profiles" on the left—Home, Courses, Groups, and Resources—and some icons and your name on the right. And keep in mind that Schoology streamlines navigation. Home Page Your Home Page is where you will start every time you log in to Schoology. There are four main components to your Home Profile: Course Profiles Your courses are your virtual classrooms.
How to Easily Insert Questions and Quizzes into Videos Using EduCanon Have you ever wished you knew how to easily add questions into a video to create lesson content or to help ensure that students are engaging with video content? Well, you can, for free! One of the many great tools I learned about at FlipCon14 in June was EduCanon. I’d been interested in finding a tool that would enable users to easily add questions or quizzes into a video, but just had not been able to make the time to find a good one. EduCanon and EdPuzzle are two apps with this type of functionality that heard about at the excellent flipped teaching and learning conference. Today I took EduCanon for a spin, and recorded a new 3 Minute Teaching With Technology Tutorial to show how easy it is to add questions to a video and create a quiz using this wonderful free tool. Check it out … Go ahead, give EduCanon a try today! Watch the rest of 3 Minute Teaching with Tech Tutorials on this web page, or by opening this YouTube Playlist. So, have you used EduCanon or similar tools? About Kelly Walsh
Creating a WebQuest | It's Easier Than You Think Always wanted to make a WebQuest but not sure where to start? Education World has all the answers and can make the process easy for you. WebQuests are probably the most talked-about and widely used Web-based activities in today's classrooms. What are WebQuests? "I hear and I forget. "A WebQuest," according to Bernie Dodge, the originator of the WebQuest concept, "is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. Education World asked two educators who have created their own WebQuests to share with us the benefits they bring to their classroom. WebQuests, which use the constructivist approach to learning, are a super learning tool, said Kenton Letkeman, creator of a number of excellent WebQuests. "With many research projects," Letkeman told Education World, "students feel that they are sucking up information and regurgitating it onto paper for no other reason than to get a good grade. Looking for WebQuests to check out?
21 Digital Tools To Build Vocabulary - 21 Digital Tools To Build Vocabulary by Kimberly Tyson, Ph.D If you follow this blog, you know that I believe effective vocabulary instruction is just about the most important instructional activity for teachers to get right. For lots of reasons. Vocabulary influences fluency, comprehension, and student achievement. How’s that for starters? In addition, a broad vocabulary is important for effective speaking, listening, reading and writing. I write frequently about the importance of effective vocabulary instruction and my recent infographic – the 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Vocabulary Instruction – has proved very popular having been Pinned over 31,000 times. In today’s 21st century classrooms, digital tools must coexist alongside more traditional tools. Digital tools have advantages. The following digital tools show promise to support word learning, review, and playing with language. 21 Digital Tools to Build Vocabulary Reference Tools 1. 2. Looking for a visual thesaurus? Shahi 3. 4.
Bringing Lessons to Life with Animoto Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Unit It's My Life: Multimodal Autobiography Project Students express themselves verbally, visually, and musically by creating multimodal autobiographies, exchanging ideas with other students and sharing important events in their lives through PowerPoint presentations. Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Unit Students as Creators: Exploring Multimedia Students are introduced to the genre of multimedia presentations through a review and analysis of online presentations. Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson Making Memories: An End-of-Year Digital Scrapbook Students reflect on their school year, creating a digital scrapbook consisting of images and text to present to their school community. Grades 5 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson Animate that Haiku! Following the traditional form of the haiku, students publish their own haikus using Animoto, an online web tool to produce slideshows that blend text and music. Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
25 Tips For Teaching With Apps 25 Tips For Teaching With Apps by Terry Heick We’ve done tips in the past for teaching with tablets. This one is similar, so there is some overlap, but this has more to do with apps specifically. Below are 25 tips for teaching with apps. Let us know in the comments what we missed. 1. If you’re going to use something important, interdependent, and new, you’re going to need some kind of model or framework to contextualize it. “Despite the rhetoric around m-learning virtually guaranteeing contextualised learning, very few of these scenarios rated highly in the scales for authenticity. It is mobility and access that underscores learning through apps, and using this technology without adjusting the design of learning experiences could yield underwhelming results. 2. There are a lot of apps, tools, and platforms out there. They call themselves a “discovery engine,” and that’s exactly how they function. 3. You can’t download everything at once. 4. Technology–like apps–should solve a problem. 5.
100 Free Web Tools for Elementary Teachers Tools of the Trade. Oh the joy of the first week of school. Nothing like going with mom to the store and buying your new clothes, school supplies and Snoopy lunch box. Today, students are probably no different. I can see it now... go with mom and dad to get a new laptop, iPod, digital camera and upgrade to unlimited text messaging on the cell phone along with the latest Snoopy lunch box (or not). Organization & Collaboration Save your bookmarks, collaborate with colleagues, and stay in touch with parents using these web tools. Search Engines & Directories Make use of these search engines and directories that offer the best of the web. Google Google is known for its useful web tools, but did you know that a lot of them have incredible applications for education? Templates & Lesson Plans These simple tools will make your job just a little bit easier. Research & Reference Make use of these tools to give your students the research power they need. Games Reading & Writing Math & Science Arts Activities
Bloom’s Taxonomy Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom’s Taxonomy? | Further Information The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You’re free to share, reproduce, or otherwise use it, as long as you attribute it to the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Background Information In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories. The Original Taxonomy (1956) The Revised Taxonomy (2001) Remember RecognizingRecalling Apply
Top Five Ways to Use Screencasting in the Classroom This article was written by guest author Ron Kotlik for our quarterly education newsletter, the Learning Lounge. If you have an interest in contributing, please fill out this form. Screencasting is one of the most dynamic tools educators can use to transform their classroom in a dramatic fashion without investing a tremendous amount of time learning a new software piece or app. While most teachers are excited to use a “new” technology their frustration grows when there is a significant learning curve involved and little time or support available to learn what is necessary. The tools available to create screencasts are easy to use and can be quickly implemented by both teachers and students. This article will focus on five easy ways educators can use the power of screencasting. 1. “Live screencasting,” creating a live recording during a class activity, is one of the easiest ways for teachers to begin the adventure of using this tool to promote positive change in their classrooms. 2. 3.