April is right around the corner and will be bringing us National Poetry Month. More about that next time, but, a friend shared this article with me about a new anthology of Native poetry, with U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Check it out. I'm sure that with Amanda Gorman and poetry at the Super Bowl, we will have a lot to share in the upcoming weeks. Equity and Accessibility I tend to write about various tools for accessibility a lot as that was the biggest change for me when I flipped from private schools to public schools. I had never had kids with disabilities of any kind in my many years in private schools, either it wasn't a "good fit" or the kids had private tutors, so it did not impact my teaching. Then in the fall of 2013 I started working in a public school. I ended up taking a crash course- 36 credits in 16 months and an Ed.S later- now, I get it. This didn't even touch on equity issues relating to gender, race, digital access, etc... just physical and cognitive issues. I was thrilled to see the article and listen to the podcast that Katie Novak and Mirko Chardin did with Jennifer Gonzalez recently, called If Equity is a Priority, UDL is a Must Check out the article and podcast here: www.cultofpedagogy.com/udl-equity/ Katie and Mirko talk with Jennifer starting ~ 5 min in. More Accessibility Stuff
CAST presented a webinar today called : What It’s All About: Teaching, Learning and Assessment These frameworks are a work in progress. This is the slidedeck (ppt). The recording will post in the coming weeks. Torrey Trust et al, recently shared this really nice hyperdoc/choice board on the Foundations of the U.S. Political System. Please remember to make your own copy/ do not request edit access, and please credit the authors. Tall Tweets I highlighted Eric Curt's tutorial for Tall Tweets, back in 2018. Lately I have been seeing more and more folks using both Tall Tweets and the new version Studio Creator to quickly and easily create gifs and videos. Teachers have been assigning or offering this as an option... show mitosis as a gif, show the water cycle as a gif, etc. So, I added the new version, Creator Studio, the slides add-on, to our allowed marketplace add-ons. It has mixed reviews, so if you try it and want to share either your positive or negative experiences, let us know. It's an add-on, so go to slides, add-ons-get add-ons to find it. It looks like most of the features you may want to use may not be free. Ideas to Share
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Enable Live Captions This is a quick and easy accessibility feature, built right into chrome. Takes less than a minute to turn it on. These captions are not stored on the cloud, etc... just appear on your device for any audio or video. You can turn it off when not needed; you can even use it offline on audio or video you have saved. Read a bit more about it here. Tab in the Corner This is a handy little feature to know about. It's new and it is super easy to use. Like Alice, I often have multiple tabs open and at least 3 windows. This lets me quickly and easily navigate between them Flipgrid for Google? This is a new tool from Google to create short videos to share with others, and to have them respond. Richard Byrne does a nice job showing you the main features of the tool in the video below. We have applied to roll this out at HPS but it isn't available on your accounts as of this moment. However, I do have it on my personal gmail account. Not sure why they are asking us to jump through hoops on this one. It's not an IT holdup, it's a Google thing. You can read more about it here. Richard also compares this new tool, Threadit to Loom for recording right in your inbox in this video, which I also found interesting. Slides Toolbox I thought I had enabled this one in the Marketplace a while back, but realized that I was accessing via my personal account. It's available now. It allows you to reshuffle all your slides, to combine slide decks, to add a whole bunch of images at once, download all your slides at once, etc. Another handy tool. Quilgo Adding timed assessments to Google Forms (formerly called Timify Me). This is a freemium product- an add on from Google Marketplace. You get the first 100 tests for free. Each student gets their own test, so the numbers add up quickly. I agree that this is not the time to add more pressure to either students or teachers, however, this may be useful for students who will need to prep for timed testing. Another accessibility feature- the Lexend font. I didn't know that this is readily available to all of our students via the simplify page in Read & Write for Google Chrome. Try it out with your students. Does it help? I know that some kids like the Dyslexie font, others like the BeeLine reader chrome extension. Some need to use a color filters. Add this one to the mix and let students use what works best for them.
Just for fun...
FREE PD
I was actually going to write about a couple of the really good sessions of the Untamed Learning Conference I attended on Saturday and am happy to say- now you can attend any of them- and I can catch the ones I couldn't attend. My favorites, so far - Digital Tools for STEM with Eric Cross and Mari Venturino, and the Student Engagement for Primary Learners (TK-2) with Jennifer Dean and Ben Cogswell. I only got to one of Jennifer and Ben's and plan to catch the other 3. Note: Click on the image or the link below it to register for free access... scroll all the way down to the bottom of their page til you see "Are You Ready?" "Get your free ticket". It's way further down the page than you would expect. What I liked about the sessions I attended... these are educators, who are in the classrooms, either directly teaching or directly supporting teachers. The ideas they present are not theoretical, nor do they generally require paid apps, fancy equipment, etc. You can actually do these with your students.
We've opened up our live, virtual conference - Untamed Learning for FREE to all educators! We want this to be a day of learning that supports educators where they are now and in preparation of moving into the Next Normal. So, at Untamed Learning you'll get:
Google Updates
Trying to keep up with Google updates has always been kind of like herding cats, but this last month or so... pretty close to impossible. I depend on the Google Edu pages and try to catch the folks from Fried.Tech every week. Below is today's slide deck- just click on the image and the recording on Youtube.
What really stood out today: 1. Originality reports. This is rolling out for the next school year, and the free version only gets 5 reports, but paid is unlimited (I think). The part that I liked- it is not just for teachers to say "gotcha!" If the teacher has enabled it, the students can check their work before turning it in. It is meant to be a learning experience, not just a way to catch cheaters. The other part that will be rolling out is a way to check student/student work. Not really sure how this will work- but essentially is meant to prevent kids from last year's class just passing along their papers to a new class. But- no work is shared outside of your district... unlike turnitin, etc. This will use your data, in your accounts to check. 2. Rubrics There was a lot of good info shared, and they did a demo of how to create a rubric, but the cool piece, you and your department can create a shell class- no students- and work together to create rubrics, which you can then access and attach to your assignments/edit as needed.
Micro:bit PD
I attended this virtual training last week and thought it was one of the best Micro:bit trainings I have seen so far. Excellent ideas, great pacing. Whether you are new to Micro:bit or if you have some experience-check out the slides and the great opportunities from Project Invent. This is theslide deck, therecording, and a link to thepadlet with all the referenced links.
Ideas to Share
BreakoutEdu
I love this quick little puzzle you can play with your students. It a perfect 5 minute do now or as something for students to work on while waiting for the Zoom or Meet to begin. If you want to do the digital version, it's quick and easy to assign (HES- we have a subscription) or try the kit version- way more setup and probably not something we can do right now... Adam says they will be putting one of these out every week.
UnboundEd
Having conversations in your school about race and equity? This bias toolkit may help. Or check out the resources on the Wakelet below, shared recently by Terri Eicholz.
You can download the free bias toolkit from Unbounded.org. Click the image below to find out more.
Jamboard Version History
Alice Keeler, as well as Richard Byrne and others wrote about the new version history for Google Jamboard. This is rolling out over the next couple weeks. One thing that is different about jamboard version history, compared to docs, is that it will not show you who did what- only who was on the document, as well as allowing you to restore to a previous version.
Wordtune
Richard Byrne recently wrote about this chrome extension, one that I have not tried. It is called Wordtune and can help students revise their writing. Check out his post and the video below.
LightSpace is an app which came out a couple years ago, but that I had never heard of until I read this blog post from @MerrillsEDU. Check it out.
Here's the short version: " LightSpace is an AR (augmented reality) iOS app that allows you to turn your surroundings into a canvas. Using LightSpace’s tools, you can record a video and add things like drawings, shapes and various effects right into the shot. The best part is if you walk away from your drawing, LightSpace maps the room. So, if you walk back towards your drawing, it will reappear! This is a great way to capture engagement and build interACTIVE activities."
Looks like I seem to revisit these resources every couple of years. I have included 4 wakelets at the end of this post which contain a wealth of resources to check out for this month... or anytime.
I wrote about this in March of 2019, as well as 2017 and included long lists of resources. You can check out the 2017 post out here, and the 2019 post here. You can look back at the post on Women and Girls in Science here. This year we are celebrating the first female Vice President in the United States. It still both amazes and depresses me to have made both so much progress in my lifetime, and such slow incremental progress.
Always a great place to start, you can find an incredible assortment of lessons, videos, images and information at
https://womenshistorymonth.gov/. This site pulls in resources from the LOC, from The Smithsonian, from The National Art Gallery and more.
Microsoft has put together a really cool immersive gallery for Women's History Month. You can check it out here. You can check it out here. You can also sign up for this experience with your class. The signup info ishere. You're looking for "Microsoft's Legacy Project Virtual Museum "Women's History Month Experience” Workshop". They have 1 hour or 2 hour, happening daily all month.
Nearpod has a nice selection of lessons to choose from. Click here to check them out.
Facing History has 9 great ideas to explore for Women's History Month. Click here.
Women in Science
Breakthrough films and SciFri have an amazing collection of short videos featuring women in science. Check out the site or the YouTube Channel
Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr offer more ways to learn about famous women in history. Check out their ideas for educators here or here.
Learning for Justice reminds us to go beyond the famous firsts and to recommit to teaching about persistent women. Check out their resources here.
PBS has some great short videos to teach about women in history. Check out their resources here.
Looking for books for younger readers? You can usethis collection on Epic or create your own to share with your students.
You can download and print the entire timeline of Women in STEM from
Science with Sophie. Check it out here.
A 29 video playlist of Read-alouds for Women's History Month. If the video only shows one and stops, here's the link to the whole playlist. I did add various versions of some books, so pick and choose if you'd like. I may add more as I have time. Feel free to suggest links in the comments.
Here's a Women's History Month Spotify list from Emily's List. Enjoy.
I did not create these Wakelet collections. Thanks to rfluegel, RoseLuna706 and AllieTheLibrarian for publicly sharing their collections. The last one is gigantic- from the Westborough Public Libraries. Note that most of these books are available via C/W Mars libraries.
Today is the day to celebrate reading! I never thought it would be anything controversial, but some really wonderful things have come out of the ongoing Seuss controversy. Many teachers and librarians are working hard to diversify their collections. Working to recognize the limitations of our collections, of the selections we choose for our classes is important. There are now some excellent resources to help teachers do this.
NEA has created a site to help you find more resources, whether you are in person or doing this virtually.
Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) has created several tools to help include diverse voices in your collections. You can read more about that here.
Reading Rockets has a nice list of links to check to help you diversify your collection, partnering with NEA and with Colorín Colorado
Check it out here.
Colorful Pages offers a different approach, with a unit plan and a series of books to read all week. Check out their info here.
Take some time to explore books read by the authors.
Ideas to Share
Scratch has a new place to play with new features called Scratch Lab. I was reading about this in an article on medium. There are a couple of cool new blocks to play with- Animated Text blocks and this interactive Face Block. Click on the video link below to go try it out yourself...
or go to https://lab.scratch.mit.edu/face/ or https://lab.scratch.mit.edu/text/
Edcamp Cardigan resources
I didn't get to go to this virtual edcamp over the weekend- but Erin did! I'm sure she will have more to share, but here's a collection of 51 items created by Bruce Reicher @breicher from this day long conference. If you are looking for ideas to diversify your collection- check out the resources below. As always, librarians are the gods and goddesses of organizing information!
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AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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