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End of the Year Review Game Madness
There are so many options for helping students review content for finals but which ones are the best? I have used several and below are some of my favorites. Flippity – create your own automatically score tallied Jeopardy Game. Forever when setting up a Jeopardy game the students will bicker back and forth about the score. Take the frustration out by using Flippity which actually uses a Google Spreadsheet that is published. The creators of the Jeopardy Game aka Quiz Show also have flashcards which are great for review. Check them out you will not be disappointed. Socrative & Kahoot! – Competition is helpful when trying to review with students…
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Live From Olympia
Project Inspiration: Students are fascinated with Ancient Greece and I thought it would be interesting for students to take their inquiry questions and interest video-making and combine it into a collaborative project. This project could be for grades 6 and up depending on the curriculum. Essential Question: What if we lived in Ancient Greece? What is the importance of Ancient Greece to us today? What can we learn about ourselves from the Ancient Greeks? The Situation: A film crew has been transported back in time to report on Ancient Greece. It is your job to do research on an aspect of Ancient Greek life for the film crew. You are also…
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WeVideo & GreenScreen
With the shutting down of Jaycut quite a few years ago I was crestfallen to be able to edit videos with greenscreen (chromakey) online. On the chromebooks this is challenging. I did bite the bullet and purchase a pro-account because chromakey was extremely important to me. However, if it is not the free version really works really well. If you are a fan of Animoto it is a more robust version. Students would sometimes get frustrated by the limits of Animoto but were not yet ready for a full-fledged video editor so there are two different modes – timeline and storyboard (easier). You can easily toggle between both of them.…
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Google Classroom: Share to the Classroom
I was very excited about Google Classroom when it first came out and was one of the few that got access pretty early on. My Tech coordinator was intrigued as was I. I started to play with it and found I could not do everything I wanted to do: More than One Teacher Online Rubrics (Goobric) Comment on Documents when first created Add students outside my domain I am happy to say that these issues have been fixed. It is not the robust LMS of something like Schoology but it really gets the job done very relative ease. Co-teachers can now both be in the class (as educators/admins) within Google…
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Slides Carnival
Google Slides is a wonderful tool to use with students for presentations. However the selection of created templates is rather limited. You can of course go to the plethora of templates @ Google Templates however they tend to be more of the same. Slides Carnival has created professional looking templates that are very easy to use. A few clicks are you are on your way to a professional looking presentation with all the unique slides many have expected from Microsoft Powerpoint. In all my research the presentations remain totally free.
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Google Classroom & LLC
Google Classroom has been written about quite a bit in the past few months but I have a take on it from a Librarian perspective. I really like the ease of the site and the integration with Google Drive. It is much easier for my staff to understand the functionality of things like Doctopus and gClassfolders if they do not have to use them. For the most part GC does everything they need it to do. I quite like the ease of adding items to GC. There are many options from a uploaded (from computer) to a youtube video and from your drive of course. GC also created a folder…
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Edmodo vs. Schoology
Updated: 7/23/18 Learning Management Systems are a big part of the Flipped Classroom movement. However, you do not have to use a flipped classroom to utilize these tools. Some are free and others are paid such as Blackboard. Meeting and interacting with students online is important. Facebook is bad word in education and therefore has not been utilized as a way to interact with students and teachers. I have tried many different ways to utilize interactive sites. Websites, Blackboard, Moodle, and the list goes on. Two of the most popular from my experience are Edmodo and Schoology. Both are great but it depends on what you will use them for. Therefore…
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PBL & Librarians
I have had quite a few teachers collaborating with me this summer. It is the first time I have been 4 years in the same place and it is pretty exciting. I have a good idea of who I will be connecting with and what my year will look like. Of course the projects are always changing but I am feeling great. Librarianship in schools and really anywhere is all about collaboration and innovation. If you are not changing you are sure to loose your position and (gasp) perhaps the library itself. We all have seen the results of libraries that have lost their librarians. It is true sadness. Project-Based…
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EasyBib & Google Addons
EasyBib is a great app and it has recently been included in Google Docs Addons. Addons are a recent addition to Google Docs and a great one. I can only assume that more addons will be added in the future. Students can easily add their citations in their papers with the add on. The addon allows students to stay in the same window. You are able to achieve a lot with the free version. The paid version gives you more options including taking notes. Though I will review Evernote very soon and I am starting to prefer this to noodletools and other notetaking sites. Citation is the bread and…
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Google Forms @ Lib
Very quickly during my first year at the middle school level I discovered the need to automate the pass system. In the past study hall teachers gave permission for a few students to come during each period. This was problematic because I was transitioning the library into a learning commons model. I wanted and still want to create self-directed learners and all students would need access to the library by their own choice. Putting the power into the hands of the students continues to be important to me. Although students do forget to sign up for the library there are still ways for them to gain access. They can get…
