Teach Your Children Well

Disaster has struck in Houston and you can be sure your students are talking about it. How can we harness those conversations into powerful teachable moments in which we not only consider the charitable acts of giving but also, how we can learn from our current state of events? Luckily, the American Association of School Librarians is always on the prowl for useful new apps and has discovered one entitled Disaster Detective. How timely. 

Disaster Detective is a free app developed by the Smithsonian Institution that teaches kids how to prepare for disasters. Analyzing data using tools such as Doppler radar, anemometers, barometers, and seismometers, students learn how to consider past and current data to make predictions. The app was created with middle schoolers in mind but can actually be used with any age. What better time than the present to work this into your learning? For another great resource on hurricanes, click the image below to view a movie and lessons via BrainPop:

Google Gold Mine

Today's Tech Tip is a gold mine. It's also new. It's called Google's Applied Digital Skills. Sounds boring but it is not! It is an entire curriculum that you can use with upper elementary students through high school to teach kids how to be successful online. It helps groom them to be successful in representing themselves "professionally". The activities are awesome in that they are relevant to the projects that you are currently doing with your students. Here are just a few examples:

• Interactivity in Learning: Students are taught how to create an interactive If/Then presentation in Google Slides. Very similar to Choose Your Own Adventure. How fun would this be to show what they know?
• Test for Credibility: Students choose a topic to research (or you give them choices) and using that topic, they are walked through the process of evaluating credible sources. Then, they are given the opportunity to learn a little coding to show how websites (credible or not) are created to look appealing. 
• Create an Editing Tool with Programming: Students are taught how to program their own tool to identify overused words in their Google docs. We all remember the overuse of the word "sardonic" in a trilogy that she not be named here:) Help students avoid that same over usage by creating their own editing tool while developing computer skills at the same time!
• Math and Movies Can Go Together: Students are taught how to predict the next box office hit analyzing data and then presenting that data in ways that are amazingly creative while developing new technology skills.

I've only listed four of many amazingly relevant, fun and engaging activities that speak to so many of your lessons. Consider how you can integrate these valuable projects into your teaching! I know I will be tackling some of these in my classes! Click here to see the full curriculum.

See It with SeeSaw

Welcome back to a new school year! I assisted a teacher yesterday with this tool that I have been using with my 5th graders since last year and thought I would share with the rest of you. The tool is called SeeSaw and it is a great online collaboration tool as well as a fantastic way to show off what the students are doing in your classroom. As you can see from the screenshot below, students can post their work (images, video, text) and others can comment on it. There is also a journal feature, a blog feature, and announcement feature. When I post a message to my students in SeeSaw (I can select if I want the message to go to one student, a few students or the entire class) and I can invite parents to be able to view their work as well. I also love the easy set up to create a class in SeeSaw as well as the ability to email the students with instructions to follow to join our SeeSaw class. SeeSaw makes it quick and easy for teachers, students, and parents to join.