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It is beginning to look like CREATE-MAS!!
I love the holidays and I wanted to give a gift to everyone! Welcome to the 14 Days of Create-Mas!! I love educational technology and literacy so I decided to combine them both. It is that time of year again where I take some time to share some of my favorite tools, resources, and creative ways to use technology and literacy. With each reveal of a new website/resource/idea. This concept was first introduced to me in 2019 by Ryan and Brian from the Check this Out Podcast. Quite a few different educators are continuing this tradition and creating their own versions such as the 12 Days of Chrome-mas, 12 Days…
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Got Google Slides Game?
I am a Google Slides fangirl. I use it for everything when I am teaching from created hyperdocs (more about them later), posters, stickers, and so much more. Slides is more than it appears to be.
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Digital Escape Rooms
Digital escape rooms bring the excitement of hunting for clues and the joy of solving puzzles right to your student’s devices.
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Upgrading the Booktalk
Booktalking is a standard librarian activity and there are so many different ways to do it and I have done quite a few of them. At the Middle School/High School Level this is one of the ways we can continue to inspire students to read for enjoyment. I have tried the book cafe, musical books, book-tastings, book dating, lecture style book talk, book trailer stations, #booksnaps, and Peardeck Booktalks. I will talk about all of them and the benefits and drawbacks for each one. I love books and sharing them with students is the best but even better is when they share with me 🙂 Book Tastings/Dating Let’s start with…
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Gamification in the Library
There are so many ways to gamifiy your library and some of my favorite ways to do this include several relatively new tools. I like to use scavenger hunts, QR codes, augmented reality, and classroom management tools to engage my students. “The gamification of learning is an educational approach to motivate students to learn by using video game design and game elements in learning environments. The goal is to maximize enjoyment and engagement through capturing the interest of learners and inspiring them to continue learning. Gamification, broadly defined, is the process of defining the elements which comprise games that make those games fun and motivate players to continue playing, and…
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CROB: Choose Your Own Booktalk
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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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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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Marketing & CCLS
Although the Common Core is here to stay at least for now it is more important that every for librarians to continue to market themselves. We have Common Core and inquiry-based learning written across out foreheads. AASL’s Standards for the 21st Century Learner was in effect long before Common Core was a glimmer in the distance. I have found it effective to use the students who have ownership of the library. I have created videos about how the students use the library for the school board. I also attend as many professional developments with the teachers that I am able so I can talk in their language. In New York…
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HTML & CSS CodeAcademy
Students are always asking me how to code HTML and CSS. In the past there are very few places to send them to go step by step in understanding how it all works. Thankfully this has changed with the recent update to CodeAcademy. CodeAcademy is an interactive site designed to help people understand and create HTML, CSS, and much much more (including Coding Java). I am so excited to share this site with my students. Thanks Technology for Teachers for pointing out the update in the site. I can see myself using this site to brush up on some basics and beyond. The lessons in basic HTML really break down…
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Meograph: Timeline Creator
Timelines are a staple in social studies and ela. They help students keep track of dates and facts. I have been searching for a good online-timeline creator for a while. I have tried Dipity which is good but I find that it is very slow to load and is limited to the number you can create and information mediums. So I searched and searched for an alternative and lo and behold I found Meograph. Not only is it free (YAY!) it can embed videos, text, audio, and uses Google Maps. I was in heaven. I did this with a class and it went smoothly. Well almost smoothly (internet went down…
