Blog | Author: Mrs. K

Jul 15

July 15, 2014

I Made Some Free Star Wars Inspired Digital Citizenship Posters

Free Star Wars inspired Digital Citizenship postersAs I mentioned in my previous post, I’m looking forward to going back into the classroom this upcoming school year to teach middle school Digital Learning and Digital Video Production. This past week I went in and checked out my classroom. The lab is a total blank canvas just itching for me to decorate! In the Digital Learning lab we’ll be focused on digital citizenship, basic troubleshooting, navigating resources effectively, and evaluating credible sources online. I felt like the room needed artwork that would refer to these topics, but of course with some geeky flair. So I started creating some of my own posters, mashing up my favorite Star Wars quotes with digital literacy concepts. I’m quite pleased with the results and thought other teachers out there would appreciate them, too! (more…)

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May 28

May 28, 2014

A New EdTech Adventure

Greetings! I’ve been MIA since my last post in February, but for good reason: I just returned from maternity leave! My daughter was born on February 20, and I returned to work yesterday after a glorious three month leave with her. Sorry it has been so quiet around here, but I’m sure you understand…

Though I was on leave, I still lurked on the #edtech and #edchat Twitter hashtags and pinned a bunch of things to save and address upon my return. And now that I’ve returned, a new edtech adventure is on the horizon for me; I will be teaching Digital Learning as well as Digital Video Production next school year at one of our middle schools. Though the instructional technology coaching position is going away, I am excited about the new challenges and getting to put a lot of the resources and ideas I’ve curated over the past four years to use in a classroom with students. (more…)

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Feb 04

February 4, 2014

Creative Commons Search: Find Content You Can Share, Use and Remix

Image from CreativeCommons.org

When students need multimedia like images to use in their projects, I cringe at how quickly (and without a second thought) they do a Google Image search and pop the first thing they find right into their project and move on. While teaching students (and adults!) the importance of respecting copyright and attribution isn’t a new thing, it certainly has become more of a challenge in a world where we’re inundated with multimedia being shared all over the internet all the time, and the internet is such an integral part of our everyday routines.

Here’s where Creative Commons comes in. Authors can choose to publish their work under a Creative Commons license to adjust copyright stipulations, which may allow the work to be shared, used, or remixed by others. From the Creative Commons website: (more…)

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Jan 23

January 23, 2014

Quickly Accessing Resources in a BYOD Classroom

Our district is using a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) model, and just last week I worked with all five second grade classrooms at one of our buildings as they brought in their devices for the first time, which was an exciting and fairly large scale project! Their goal was to use some of the databases we provide to our students to do some research.

The first day of bringing in devices can be a little bumpy and seem a little time consuming, but that’s usually just because it’s the first time students have connected to the district’s wireless network and they may need help (especially in the primary grades) with this step. The good news is that going forward, their device will remember and auto-connect to the school’s wireless the next time they bring it to class, so this is usually only a bump on day one that you don’t have to take time to address every time. (more…)

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Dec 17

December 17, 2013

Drop Everything and go check out Blendspace

I mean it. Drop whatever you’re doing and go check out Blendspace.com right now.  (Formerly known as EdCanvas, so don’t be confused if you see EdCanvas branding in the videos!)

Blendspace is a free web tool for teachers to collect resources in one place to form a bundled, interactive lesson for students or colleagues. When you create a Blendspace lesson, you can pull in videos from YouTube, websites, pictures, EduCreations lessons (check out my previous post about EduCreations for more info on that!) Flickr images, or links and images from Google. You can import from Gooru, OpenEd, Dropbox, or Google Drive. AND you can always upload your own files, like PowerPoints or resources housed on your own computer. Pretty much any resource you can imagine or that you would pull together to share can be embedded into a Blendspace lesson. But that’s not all! (Note: video above is a quick overview!) (more…)

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Dec 12

December 12, 2013

LearnZillion Can Help Keep Students on Track Over Winter Break

LearnZillion.com

You all know how much I love LearnZillion. Its (free!) database of Common Core aligned video lessons for ELA and Math grades 2-12 are outstanding, especially when teachers take advantage of LearnZillion’s features to assign and monitor student progress through targeted lessons that support differentiation.

I got an email from LearnZillion this week with some tips and tricks on how its service can help keep kids on track during the holiday break, and the ideas are too good not to share again, especially with the upcoming break almost upon us.

First, if you’re not already using the Assign function in LearnZillion to assign video lessons to your students, I highly recommend doing so! It only takes a few minutes to add your classes/students. Then you can assign targeted video lessons to specific students based on their individual needs, whether they need reinforcement or a challenge on a particular concept. If you want to see how quickly you can add students (really!), check out my LearnZillion Video Tour starting around the 2:13 mark. Then watch this quick tutorial on assigning lessons from LearnZillion.

Prevent Winter Break Brain Drain! 
Tips and tricks from LearnZillion

ELA: Assign one fiction and one non-fiction reading set for winter break, or create a list of possible reading lesson sets with a minimum of one from each genre so students can choose. Always give students the option to do more if they want!

Math: Let students preview what’s coming in the new year by assigning lesson sets for standards you’ll be teaching in January. If a student needs targeted help, assign him or her a lesson or lesson set from the standard they’re working toward.

While students may be sliding down snow-covered hills over winter break, at least you’ll be confident knowing they won’t also be sliding in reading and math, thanks to these tips straight from LearnZillion.com.

Looking for more ideas on how to use this tool effectively? I love the LearnZillion Blog, where the Dream Team posts tips and tricks like these all the time. For example, the most recent post, Three Tips for Approaching Close Reading, is excellent!

Happy holidays! See you in 2014.

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