As the new school year begins for many, I thought it might be helpful to share a thread of my favorite online resources for #teachers that are not Google Workspace tools. I don't work for any of these BTW.
I really like to see what my students are thinking, so I am excited to dig into the visible thinking routine protocols from Project Zero. @ProjectZeroHGSEpz.harvard.edu/thinking-routi…
The folks at Hyperdocs.co have done a brilliant job creating both a frameowrk for digital learning and a place where teachers can share resources. Check out their Teachers Give Teachers portal. hyperdocs.co@TsGiveTs
I know there are lots of online quiz tools, and we all have our favorites, but if you haven't tried Quizizz yet it is worth your time to search a topic and see what is there. quizizz.com@quizizz
I also love @Socrative for one really great feature. My students can submit a quick short answer and I can send all those submissions back out to them to vote on. We pick our own mentor texts that way. socrative.com I blogged about it here: litandtech.com/2014/08/how-i-…
All of our students need to work on their listening skills, so I love the way Listenwise creates lessons from public radio content. There is so much to choose from. listenwise.com@listenwiselearn
My students did some of their best work this past year when creating in teams and submitting their discussions via @MicrosoftFlip. I wish I had done partner projects with this sooner. info.flip.com
This year I'll app smash Flip with @AdobeExpress because students can collaborate there too, and iterate on their designs with the new multipage feature. express.adobe.com
If you need ideas about what you can do with students in @AdobeExpress take a look at the Adobe Education Exchange. Lesson plans ready to go, some of them are probably an upgrade to something you already do. edex.adobe.com
When I create a great image for my classroom and want to print it larger, I can pay to have it printed by a service, or go to Rasterbater. I upload my image and it creates a multipage PDF ready to print and tape together. They turn out pretty well too. rasterbator.net
There are many sites with slide templates, but I always start at @SlidesManiaSM and I almost always find what I need there. slidesmania.com
Image sites can be tricky in the classroom, so I trust @PhotosforClass to give my students images that are safe to use. And, when they download the pic to use in a project, it adds the attribution at the bottom automatically. photosforclass.com
Add more art to your instruction with Google Arts and Culture @googlearts. They also have imagery related to over 600 historical events and nearly 9K historical figures. artsandculture.google.com
At the end of the period, if we have a few extra minutes, my students like to play Quick Draw and see if the AI can identify their drawing. It's fun because it talks to them about their drawing. quickdraw.withgoogle.com
To make sure I am creating the best possible instruction for my students it helps to reference the UDL guidelines. These are also handy for citing anytime I have to explain the rationale for my lesson design. udlguidelines.cast.org
I'm not a fan of PDFs, but when I do need to work wih them I like remembering that PDF candy exists. They have tools to edit, split, merge, convert and more. pdfcandy.com
I'll probably end up adding to this list, and I encourage you to add your favorites and why you like them too. I write about my best ideas for teaching at litandtech.com and I archive my classroom charts at classroomcharts.blogspot.com
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Anyone who has children or works with students, knows that something they really need is stability-consistency-routine. When I look at what might happen this fall, I see online learning as the only option that can reliably provide consistency for my child. 1/10
I acknowledge that I have tremendous privilege to be able to make that choice. We have fast(ish) internet and my kid is old enough to stay home alone if I need to work on campus. And our district is offering the online option. 2/10
I know that many parents of younger children rely on schools for childcare and that it is, “critical for the economy.” (Why is that again? And if schools are so critical why aren’t we funding them adequately or equitably?) 3/10
For the people advocating we open schools five days a week ‘as normal’ please immediately host a gathering in your home for 36 children for six hours. What? That’s too long? Okay that’s make this easier, three hours. Put on a movie give them some snacks...
...and let them hang out because after all, kids need to socialize. What? You just don’t feel safe doing that.
Oh, you’re worried about the social distancing? Your house is too small to adequately space out 36 kids at once? I bet it’s more square footage than most classrooms.
Really though, those 36 kids only stay at your house for an hour. Then they need to go to the neighbors...