Mary Wade

March 18, 2014December 4, 2015

3 Tech-Savvy Powerpoint Alternatives

We’ve all snored through text or slide-heavy Powerpoints before. The next time you have to create a presentation, consider some of these more engaging alternatives!

These 3 resources each explore the what (how the resource works), the when (uses in the classroom), and the how (how they can replace Powerpoint)!

Thinglink

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What

Take any image and turn it into an interactive dream as you link in videos, pictures, articles, and comments! They work particularly well if you have a classroom blog or other website your students can access. The Thinglink above contains more links with details on introducing you to this fantastic resource.

When

Introduce yourself to your students in a fun new way!
Instead of assigning your 30+ students to all make Powerpoint reports (taking endless hours afterwards presenting in class), assign them to make Thinglinks, publishing them to a class account or on the class blog!
Rather than taking class time to go through a Powerpoint, give them a homework assignment to explore a new Thinglink that gets them thinking! You can just put up an image with questions for them to start wondering and thinking (see example below), or include multimedia to really familiarize them with the subject before doing further study in class!

How

Say you want to present to your students information on documents and systems that helped influence the United States Constitution: the Magna Carta, the Iroquois Confederacy, the Mayflower Compact, and the Articles of Confederation. With a powerpoint, this would be a very linear discussion, covering each topic consecutively, perhaps with videos sprinkled throughout. With a Thinglink, however, you can link all the videos, media, and thinking questions into one image, and then publish it to a classroom blog or another platform your students can access. Students can then explore all the links in a manner that best suits their learning–re-watching videos that were confusing for them, or reading articles at their pace that give them even more information! Check out an example of how we put this together below.

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Prezi

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What

A Prezi is a zoomable presentation that engages viewers as it flows from idea to idea in unexpected, animated ways. The video above chronicles the development and benefits of using Prezi as it goes through an actual Prezi!

When

You can embed a Prezi into your classroom website any time you want your students to be able to explore a concept at their convenience.
Great when you want to help your students really “be there” with regards to your big idea in presenting. The Prezi below does a beautiful job of this!

Especially amazing when you want to teach about anything connected to timelines. Check out the Prezi below for an example of what we mean!

How

A Prezi can be used exactly as you currently use Powerpoints–in fact, it even has a feature for you to upload existing Powerpoint slides into a Prezi template! Only, then, you get to play with the 3D templates and zoomable features to help bring it to life!

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Skype Virtual Field Trips

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What

The definition of what makes a Skype virtual field trip is confined only by your own imagination! Watch this video on Skype’s education page for a wonderful introduction! Connecting through Skype, you can interview activists, have docents show your students around museums, or even take students on virtual road trips (see that field trip described in more detail here, along with 4 other amazing examples)! An article from Scholastic explains how it provides “customized curriculum” and “global connections.” You can either pick existing lessons from Skype’s page on classroom use that you can schedule right away, or connect with other teachers around the world with similar project goals using your Skype account and profile!

When

Meet classes with whom your class is quadblogging
Give students an opportunity for authentic learning experiences when budgets for actual field trips are tight!
Explore other cultures as you connect with people and places outside your own country!

How

Forget making a Powerpoint with the who, what, when, where, and why of wolves in North America: Schedule a Skype interview with an actual wolf expert for students to interview and learn from after they have prepared some questions! Not only does this dynamically bring learning “off the page,” but it hones students’ communication skills as well!

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Photo Credits: Photographer (featured image)

Sources: Ways to Use Thinglink in the Classroom

March 15, 2014May 16, 2016

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation: 17 Practical Application Ideas

As teachers, we have heard the dialogue on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, and the importance of instilling authentic passion for learning. But in a day of real-life frustrations and desperation for student cooperation, where is the realistic balance as we apply this important classroom management principle?

Continue reading “Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation: 17 Practical Application Ideas”

March 15, 2014January 24, 2018

Common Core Standards: Parent & Teacher Resources

With its recent implementation in 45 states, the Common Core has garnered praise and criticism alike. This article offers a few resources to help dispel some of those worries for both parents and teachers.

Resources for Parents

In our experience, worries from parents about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are often due to misinformation from the media. For example, when my own students’ parents would come to me with CCSS concerns, they were consistently shocked when I told them that the CCSS currently only covers math and English Language Arts. This is because many articles had led them to believe that the CCSS were requiring sex education (for Kindergarten, no less!) or sweeping Social Studies alterations. If you, too, have concerned parents at your school, here are some resources to which you can direct them to help clear things up! (Update: Be sure to also check out our newest article, “My Common Core Story, & Why You Should Share Yours, Too“).

→ “CONVERSATION: A THREE-MINUTE VIDEO ON COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS“

→ MYTHS & FACT SHEET ABOUT THE CCSS

→ ARTICLE: “Parents’ Guide to Student Success”

→ FACT VS. FICTION BY STATE:

Of the states that are using the Common Core Standards, about half adopted them verbatim; most of the rest adopted them with modifications. Click on the infographic below for a clickable map of state fact sheets.

Resources for Teachers

The concerns for teachers tend to be more related to implementation. Experienced teachers are familiar with the constant ebb and flow of new programs and curricula, and the expectation to repeatedly scratch old material and start over. While it can certainly be frustrating to tackle yet another new curriculum, there’s great news when it comes to the CCSS: for the first time, teachers across the country are in the same boat! As such, we can now share resources with one another in heretofore unheard-of quantity and quality. We believe that this is one of many ways in which the CCSS will increase the quality of national teaching practices. Check out some of these resources below that are designed for this purpose!

LEARNZILLION:

Teacher Boaz Munro described his experiences as a new teacher in this article, sharing his realization that “All of the lessons I planned started with…a modeling of the skill I was trying to teach—and yet I was not watching enough people model the skills I was trying to learn.” LearnZillion is a resource that allows you to watch how experienced teachers model and explain CCSS-aligned concepts. Some features include marking your favorite videos to help you keep track, and a sharing code so that you can easily assign students to watch the videos!

KHAN ACADEMY:

Khan Academy is similar to LearnZillion in that you can set up a class account to invite students, as well as lesson videos in both English Language Arts & Math! However, it also includes a setup that allows students to practice the skills after watching the videos within the lesson set, complete with hints that model the skills again! This in turn allows you to monitor student progress! This resource is filled with visual data!

BETTERLESSON:

BetterLesson is unique in that you actually choose lessons from real master teachers. These are lessons designed more for you as the teacher than for students, and can be very informative as you work to develop lesson plans in math and language arts.

Related Reading:

10 Tips for 21st Century Teachers

Photo Credit: InThePotter’sHands (featured image)

March 13, 2014July 23, 2015

5 Teaching Tips You Didn’t Learn in College

You braced yourself for difficult student behavior, long hours beyond contract time, and mounds of grading, but your professors didn’t prepare you for everything! Check out some tips that may help ease your first year teaching expectations and planning.

#1 Create a Copies System

This may seem like an random, less significant tip, but it can be a life-saver when it comes to keeping your never-ending supply of copies from mounting into menacing, unorganized stacks that hijack your desk and sanity! We have found it to be one of the greatest keys to your organization. One of the members of our Honors Grad U family used the following system, but you’ll want to play around with your options to find what will be most effective for your needs!

Find some space to keep 10 hanging files: an open crate of hanging files, or maybe part of a filing cabinet drawer.
Label the files Monday-Friday twice so you have 2 weeks of files ready.
Stick your files in place. Any time you make new copies, check your planner and slide them into the day you’ll need them!
At the end of each week, move the 2nd week bunch of files to the front of your crate or drawer!

#2 Planner: Old School or Digital?

It’s possible that your professors did in fact cover this one with you, but given the 21st century technology integration fervor, it’s likely that they strongly advocated for all-digital planners–after all, free apps and programs like Planboard are available for such purposes! However, having tried both digital and paper approaches, we’ve found that digital may not necessarily be the best tool for everyone, even if you absolutely love all things technology. Your planner will be critical in your time organization, so be sure to consider several factors to decide what will be more beneficial for you:

Collaboration: Evaluate how your school or team collaborates with one another. Do you share every detail of your schedules, or is it more general? If the need is more on the side of specifics, you may find that going digital may be more time-effective, especially if everyone else on your team is using the same program! For this reason, it may even be a requirement at your school to use a specific type of digital planner, so be sure to find out!
Schedule Flexibility: Does your principal have a habit of announcing assemblies at the last possible moment? Are constant interruptions to the regular weekly schedule more the norm than a regular weekly schedule? If that’s the case, you may want to consider the wonder of the seconds it takes to pencil in a few arrows to shift around your schedule, rather than minutes (or more) as you try to determine your platform’s ability to edit the template. Paper planners continue to perform reliably when it comes to quick edits!
Internet/Printer Logistics: If you’re more inclined toward the digital route, be sure to consider a couple logistics. Do you plan to keep your planner handy on a tablet or laptop? If so, make sure there are offline options, such as downloading a program to your desktop or an app that will keep things available even when the internet is not! You don’t want your internet dependence to leave you high and dry when it comes to your daily plans if there’s an emergency! If your plan is rather to just print your plans each week, that may be a good solution to these kinds of tech logistics. However, be sure to consider whether you want to rely on printing plans all year long, when you can buy a paper planner that already has all the pages in one place!
Neatness: This is probably a no-brainer, but be sure to examine your own handwriting neatness! It can be frustrating for you to be unable to decipher critical plans in the moment you need them–not to mention for a sub! Typed plans can be a dream if this is an issue for you.

#3 Coworker Socializing

In the overwhelming workload of your first few months, you may be tempted to spend your lunchtimes barricaded in your room to catch some extra grading minutes. We don’t dispute that this may be essential at times. However, we highly recommend taking a break to socialize with your colleagues whenever possible. The reasons for this are varied:

You’ll form relationships that go beyond just professional acquaintance. Not only is this a bonus for the sake of making friends, but for enhancing collaboration experiences as everyone becomes more comfortable around one another.
You will feel mentally refreshed to finish your day when you give your mind a rest from teacher-mode!
You will be able to build solidarity with other teachers as you share experiences with one another–it can be incredibly comforting to realize that experienced teachers are facing your same struggles, along with some of their insights to solutions!

#4 Classroom Planning: Recognize What’s Fluid and Solid!

As you plan your classroom design, policies, management, and more, you may get caught in the overwhelming and stressful trap of thinking you need a plan for everything by day 1! While there are some areas that do need to be addressed by then, many others are what we consider to be “fluid,” meaning they will adapt as you go. Here are some examples of what we mean to help you distinguish between the two as you prepare your classroom:

Solid
- Disclosure document: This includes policies on homework, grading, and other items that would be stressful for students and parents if they get changed too much. Click here for a sample disclosure document. Work with your team to develop this!
- First two weeks of plans
Fluid
- Classroom incentives: Don’t feel like it all has to be set in stone from the beginning for students to be motivated! In fact, an element of mystery may enhance their interest!
- Floorplan: especially if you’re an elementary level teacher, you’ll be moving things around all the time anyway! You’ll get a better feel for how you want to move through the space as the year progresses.
- Your daily schedule: Obviously, if you teach at the secondary level, this is already determined for you. For elementary levels, however, you may feel strained as you try to make time for everything. However, as you create and try out a basic schedule, you will discover necessary adaptations throughout the year–some things will require more or less time than you planned for! So don’t worry if there’s not a neat time slot for absolutely everything at first!

#5 Cut Yourself Some Slack!

We don’t mean this in the general, pat-yourself-on-the-back-for-working-hard way. Rather, we mean that your professors probably didn’t warn you that as you prepare for and begin your first year teaching, you will likely (ok, definitely) check out Pinterest for inspiration from time to time. And, just like in the classic, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” if you explore Pinterest for teaching ideas, chances are you’ll find more inspiration than you can handle. You’ll find teachers who craft perfect, personalized student holiday gifts (from Christmas to Columbus Day!); you’ll find teachers who structure every lesson into engaging, hands-on, inquiry based instruction; you’ll find teachers who have built international networks with classrooms around the globe for regular Skype and blogging interactions; you’ll find teachers who have mastered the art of grant-writing so thoroughly that not only is their classroom a floor-to-ceiling library of highest quality literature, but every student is equipped with an i-Pad. Chances are that when you see all this spectacular inspiration, you will get discouraged. This brings us back to emphasize the initial tip #5: cut yourself some slack! You may fall absolutely in love with these experienced teachers’ Polar Express parties, or their inspiring bulletin boards, but the thing to remember through it all is that they are experienced teachers. You have enough to do during your first year of teaching without adding on stress of what else you could be doing, because there’s always going to be something more you could be doing! By all means, keep track of those Pins for future reference, but always keep in mind some perspective in your teaching pursuits!

Featured Image: University of the Fraser Valley

March 11, 2014May 17, 2017

Chemical vs. Physical Changes: Let’s Get it Straight!

Breathing, cooking, exercising, and more: we are surrounded by changes every day! But how do we keep straight which are physical and which are chemical?

Physical Changes

Physical changes involve chemicals getting rearranged in a new way, but without getting destroyed or irreversibly combined. The molecular structure of the original substance(s) is the the same after the change, which means it is still the same substance. A common example is of water freezing; the liquid water becomes a solid, but it is still water. Ripping paper is another example because while it may be in pieces, it’s still paper. Signs of a physical change include:

Expected color change
Change in size or shape
Change in state of matter
Reversible
No new substance formed!

Chemical Changes

Chemical changes, or reactions, involve chemicals getting rearranged in irreversible ways. We bring in the term “reaction” when dealing with chemical changes because the chemicals involved actually react with one another to form a new substance (that’s why we call the parts in a chemical reaction the reactants). The ways chemicals can react are many: two substances can combine to create a totally new one (Direct Combination), a substance can permanently break apart, separating into different substances (Decomposition), or maybe a substance combusts as it reacts to oxygen (Combustion) (see more types of reactions here). Whatever the reaction, it’s important to recognize that one or more new substances are formed! Burning wood is a common example of a chemical reaction because as the wood reacts with oxygen after it has been ignited, it creates smoke and ashes. Signs of a chemical reaction include:

Unexpected color change
Change in temperature as energy is released or absorbed
Gas created
Irreversible
New substance formed!

Confusing Cases

In many cases, it may seem a simple task to distinguish between the two, but it gets more complex when we’re dealing with changes that seem irreversible when they’re not. For example, we may look at a glass of Kool-Aid and think to ourselves, “I made Kool-Aid. It was water and a packet, but now it’s dissolved together to make new drink, so it’s a new substance.” However, if you think back to the list of signs of a physical change, you’ll realize that not only was there an expected color change (the water didn’t turn purple when you added red Kool-Aid!), but that it is reversible–the water could evaporate in the form of gas, leaving red Kool-Aid residue behind! The water is still water, and the Kool-Aid is still Kool-Aid, and since no new substances were formed, it is a physical change!

Another example of confusion is in cooking eggs–after all, isn’t it still an egg before and after tossing it in pan? However, on a molecular level, the egg has changed completely as the proteins have bonded in new ways, making it a new substance. Additionally, because of the change, it is not possible for the egg to ever become raw again, and since a new substance was formed, it is a chemical change!

For some practice using the different lists of signs for each type of change, and to view several other examples in action, check out this Prezi below!

Photo credit: Faris Algosaibi

Other Sources:

March 7, 2014December 7, 2015

Practical Student Blogging

If you’re like most teachers, you have 47 other tabs open besides this one: your grade-book, email, lesson plan resources, and a couple articles on stress management. So how can you implement student blogging without tipping the scale?

Blogging Benefits

The countless benefits of student blogging are likely what led you to this article today! Some that we at the Honors Grad U family have witnessed through experience include:

Authentic audience: Parents, teachers, peers, and even fellow students across the globe can view, comment, and contribute to the learning!
Developing practical tech skills: Besides the obvious benefit of typing practice, blogging is a perfect tool for introducing and practicing skills from copying and pasting to simple HTML editing to maintaining various digital accounts.
Multimedia Literacy: Growing up, we all made dioramas from shoe boxes, wrote 5-paragraph essays, and crafted posters. However, 21st century students can and need to also become fluent in an ever-expanding pool of digital resources. Blogging gives them practice in creating and sharing pictures, Youtube videos, Educreations, Thinglinks, Infographics, Prezi’s, and much more!
Engaging Assignments/Projects Through Student Choice & Variety: It can be difficult to keep the passion burning when you introduce a persuasive writing unit. However, when you also introduce the idea of also including persuasive imagery, as well as actually sharing their work with their intended audience, suddenly things get much more intriguing and personal for each student!
Simpler Teacher/Student Collaboration: You’ve experienced the dredge of writing comments on dozens to hundreds of assignments–and that’s only after deciphering questionable handwriting! Once students have posted various artifacts to their blogs, you can easily type feedback–and depending on your platform, that can even be made private!
Easily Accessible Digital Learning Portfolio: Say goodbye to clunky binders with half-ripped-out pages from September by the time you get to March! If you just consider the use of a few tags, you can already imagine how much easier it would be to navigate the archives of a digital portfolio.

Simple Steps for Success

Pick a Platform: Spend time exploring your options, privacy needs, and budget. Most platforms are free on a basic level, but if you want more storage, you’ll want to consider budgeting for your account. You can even try talking to your administration for some budgetary help, especially if they want to purchase a group package for your school! Kidblog, WordPress, and Edublogs are all common options that allow you to add users with you as the administrator and moderator!
Permission: Make sure you discuss your school’s privacy policies with your administration before you get started, especially if you’re the first teacher at your school to start student blogging! You may just need to make a permission slip from parents for each student, or you may find that media permission slips have already been submitted to the school!
Carve out class blogging time: This is probably the hardest step of all! However, if you are an elementary school teacher, just a weekly 30-45 minute time slot should be enough to get them started! For secondary levels, you may be able to do more at-home blogging assignments, but you’ll still want to establish at least a little class time for modeling how to use the resources (see below).
Internet Safety & Respect: Before students enter their blogs for the first time, make sure they are all familiar with basic safety rules, including sharing their personal information (this website is full of teaching ideas). Also, practice proper etiquette in commenting on paper (see lesson ideas here), before launching into the real deal! Creating and signing a class blogging contract for future reference is always a plus, too!
Establish clear expectations: Decide what’s most important to you for their blogs. If you expect capitalized titles, tags for every post, and a reflection, make sure it’s clear from the beginning. Let students know you won’t publish any posts missing basic expectations (but make sure they are reasonable for your students’ level as well)!
Choose a few resources: While you’ll definitely want to introduce them one at a time (see below), spend some time beforehand identifying and familiarizing yourself with the main resources you want to teach your students to use. We recommend choosing one resource for each subject you want your students to be able to exhibit.
1. Math: Educreations is fantastic resource that allows students to explain their thinking as they draw while also recording their voice!
2. Reading: You can use Audioboo to have students record their reading skills throughout the year! Particularly for younger students, it would be powerful for them to literally listen to their progress from September to May. For a free option (Audioboo maxes out after 3 minutes), you could also use Youtube, even covering up the camera so it just records their voices.
3. Writing: Obviously, the simple text of a blog post is a great way to share student writing throughout the year. However, you can easily liven things up by introducing a word cloud maker like Wordle. Not only would it add some beauty to their published piece, but it can also help students visualize their most common word usage in essays!
4. Art: Older students will likely already be familiar with Photobooth to simply take pictures of their art pieces, but you may need to spend time teaching younger students how to take and upload photos to their blogs.
5. Science/Social Studies: Thinglink allows students to collect several online articles, videos, and photos into one beautiful interactive presentation!
Introduce one at a time: Even if it takes several months, it is worth teaching and practicing just one resource at a time! Before moving to the next resource, thoroughly familiarize them by allowing them to explore several examples, create a few of their own on their blogs, and collaborate with one another’s work through commenting. We’ve also found it effective to print and display a board of step-by-step guides for each resource for students to reference in the future.
MODEL, MODEL, MODEL!! Every chance you get, model how you would like them to use each resource. Using your own blog account, create multiple examples of each resource for them to reference. Remember to also model quality comments on their own blogs throughout the year!
Make sure it’s accessible to parents: One of the most rewarding aspects of student blogging is to watch parents connect authentically with their child’s work! Make sure links to student blogs are available on your classroom blog, and/or email reminders to parents after students have finished blogging projects!

Additional Ideas

Once you get into a groove with blogging, here are a few other ideas to consider to keep things exciting for your class:

Student Blogging Challenges: Websites like this one offer wonderful challenges for students to tackle in their blogs! You can always get creative and craft a few of your own! For high schoolers, this can even be in the form of working on scholarships, such as our very own Honors Grad U Scholarship, as students share their progress on their blogs!
Quadblogging: This is one of the best ways to connect globally with classrooms just like yours! Four classrooms form a quad, with each class taking turns being the highlight classroom, while the other three visit their blogs and leave comments! One member of our Honors Grad U family has experienced connecting with classes from the U.K. & China!
Consider social media: Another way to break down your four classroom walls is social media, including Twitter (Click here for our post on Twitter for teachers)! Educational hashtags can allow your students to quickly find feedback from around the world. For example, #comments4kids is specifically intended to post links to student work for others to leave comments!
Badges: www.classbadges.com is a fun way to motivate students to work to visually earn various achievements! You could also use them in conjunction with your student blogging challenges!

Hopefully, these steps allow you to tackle student blogging in a manageable, practical way! Leave a comment if you have any questions or additional ideas as you get started!

photo credits: DeathToTheStockPhoto (featured image)